fTV) Small
Worlds
Around
V t w lie
V P Waikini
(Register & Tribune Syndicate, 1961)
The Gull Had Passed
. 'The Word'-But How?
Three miles away from the
i nearest seashore, in a wide
' open field, we deposited half
, a hundred large fresh water
snails, taking particular care
to drop the mollusks when
there were no seagulls visible
In the sky, knowing that from
time to time one or more of
the birds flew over the area.
We didn't have long to wait.
From high in the sky a cruis
ing gull located the snails and
sailed down to investigate.
The bird picked up the
mollusk in its beak, shook it
violently and flug it to the
ground. The shell broke. The
bird quickly grabbed the soft
body and swallowed it. Hav
ing tasted the feast and find
ing it good, the gull ate three
more snails. It wiped its bill
on the ground, gave a little
jump forward and took to the
air.
Scanned the Sky
With binoculars we scanned
the sky in the direction the
lone gull had taken when it
flew. We had not long to wait.
An even dozen seagulls sud
denly came in sight. They
slanted down and came to
rest on the field within a few
feet of the snails. These birds
took no time to survey the
situation, but began breaking
up the snail shells, and gob
bling up the soft bodies.
The feast was short-lived.
Within a few minutes all the
snails had been eaten. Then at
some silent signal they leaped
into the air and disappeared in
the direction of the beach.
we wanea ana waicnea,
wondering if there woud be
another delegation arriving
only to find the table empty,
the food gone and the guests
departed. We waited over an
hour, but no gulls showed.
Evidently those out there on
the beach must have known
the table was empty, but we
wondered, for we knew there
were hundreds of the birds
and they would all be hungry,
but none came. Evidently the
word had been passed.
Learned What?
We attempted to analyze
what we had learned, wonder
ing at the same time if we
had really learned anything,
or were we just spectators to
a regular occurrence?
Was the arrival of a dozen
gulls only an accident? Why
not half a hundred? We were
not even sure that the gull
mean
Pe
k . ' -Jjj - tj ' r '
Members of the Union Pacific freight team
have a tradition to live up to that of provid
ing unsurpassed performance. It is reflected
in our desire to please ... to handle every
shipment "just so". . . to make deliveries when
and as promised.
Got anything going our way? We'll do the
right thing by it.
L. J. Ziesmer, Gen. Traf. Agt.
1307 W. Main, Medford SP 3-538E
UNION PACIFICa
MASTERPIECE "A Harbor at Sunset",
painted by Claude Lorrain in 1639, a mas
terpiece included in the exhibition of
French art, entitled "The Splendid Cen
tury." Claude for the first time among land
that discovered the snails had
returned with the even dozen.
Probably he had not.
Intrigued with what we had
discovered, we repeated the
experiment a few days later.
The result was identical, this
time we were careful to study
the gull that discovered the
snails - he did not come back
with the flock. Obviuosly he
had had his fill, and he shared
the information with his
friends who were glad to
come and feast at the table.
Perhaps it's stupid of us
to wonder, but just how did
the original gull, the one that
first discovered the snails tell
his friends about it, and at the
same time give them the exact
direction and location? It must
be a silent but well under
stood language - that of the
wild and the free.
Salem Chordsmen
Barbershop Champs
Forest Grove -(LTD- A Salem
group, The Capital Chords
men, won the All-Northwest
Barber Shop Quartet singing
contest here Saturday night.
The contest was the high
light of the city's annual Gay
Nineties Celebration.
The Chordsmen won in the
finals over the Four-Do-Matics
of Seattle. The original field
was 19 quartets.
The Salem group, was com
posed of Dick Roth, Al Smith,
Dick McClintic and Lloyd
Griffiths. i
Union Pacific
' ''
also means
Unsurpassed
rfx r m a
n
MEDFORD
scape painters, took his palette into the
great outdoors. He was also first to paint
the sun, head-on. The work is on loan from
the Louvre museum in Paris.
OF SMITH & MEN
Bv Jac k Smith
(cl 1960 Times-Mirror Syndicate
Now that the average per
son allegedly has a swimming
pool, a psychiatrist, a girl's
school and a gardener, the
automobile is supposed to
have lost its status as a status
symbol.
That's not so. We have a
new car at last and we feel
that it has given us some sta
tus. The trouble is, we don't
know what status.
We finally bought a large
white compact with red in
sides. Our youngest son
wanted us to buy a smaller
compact on the grounds that
it was more compact, and it
could be had with red insides,
if necessary.
Our oldest son thought we
ought to buy an Imperial. He
said I had worked very hard
for many years and deserved
something superior. My wife
wanted us to keep the 1951
yellow Ford convertible as a
symbol of our modest circum
stances and general frugality.
She pointed out that the pay
ments would be smaller. She
also said that it was an airy
car, since the top had been
stuck for a year and 14
months, and air is good for
children. Besides, she said
she had lost an opal earring
in it somewhere.
We sold it finally to
MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD,
w , v fV
young man who works at the
toD shnn and hns fnnr nliilHrnn
and agreed to sell us the ear
ring if it turns up.
were getting this Lanc
er," I explained to him, "so
we have to move the Ford.
You're getting a good deal."
"Well, vnn lrnnu, Vie. colrl
"its only for a second car. I
nave a Corvair for a regular
car."
I have always figured that
when you sell your old car to
somebody you are gaining sta
tus. It means they can't afford
as good a car as you're getting
and have to buy your old car.
But if they already have a
car and are buying your old
car as their old car, it changes
everything. It looks as if they
can not only afford their ree-
ular car but can also buy your
old car for a second car but
you can't afford a regular car
without selling your old regu
lar car.
to maKe matters worse
Gribble turned up with a new
Oldsmobile. Every time I
make a move he turns up with
a new Oldsmobile, and always
with a radio and heater.
I think he was afraid I
wouldn't notice it. He phoned
the other morning and asked
if I would mind moving our
new car because it was in the
way when he tried to drive in
his garage.
I have this new Olds,
you
it's
know," he said, "and
longer."
I don't know If he meant
his new car was longer than
my new car or longer than his
old car, or longer than our old
car, with the earring.
I ve decided to compromise
and not drive our new car.
I'll let my wife drive it and
sit in the back. This way it
will look as if it's not our reg
ular car but only our second,
or female, car. Everybody
will assume our other car is
getting a grease job.
Whenever anybody asks me
about the new car I won't
have to defend it or argue
about the horsepower or the
transmission. I can just say,
"Oh, that's the wife's."
If they want to know where
my own personal car is I'll
tell them about my peripheral
vision. It's been dimming on
me. The doctor says I m lucky
at my age that I'm only los
ing my peripheral vision. He
says many men lose their dec
ibels. He says that instead of get
ting a new car for a status
symbol I ought to get a mon
ocle. I wonder how Gribble
would like that?
Last Lecture
Series Planned
Ashland - Dr. Richard
Byrns, associate professor of
English, Southern Oregon col
lege, will be the first speaker
in the SOC Last Lecture series
to begin Wednesday, March 1,
at 7:30 p.m., at Britt hall.
Room 116.
The series, sponsored by the
SOC Canterbury club under
the direction of the Rev.
Duane S. Alvord of Trinity
Episcopal church, will con
tinue weekly until Easter.
Each Wednesday lecture
will be by a SOC faculty mem
ber to be followed by a gen
eral discussion and coffee
hour.
Other speakers include Dr.
Arthur Taylor. Dr. Elliott
MacCracken. Dr. Arthur
Kreisman, Wayne Hood, and
Dr. Elvin Fellers. Each will
emphasize what he feels to be
most important in his life. It
was explained that the lec
tures may or may not be
focused on the speakers' edu
cational field or toward Chris
tianity. Interested students, faculty
members and residents are In
vited to attend.
ORE.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS
The Splendid Century:
Paints Sun, Moods of
By RICHARD HIRSCH
Director
Allenlown Art Museum
Court art and royal acade
mies have come to suggest
pompous boredom to the peo
ple of our time. Even those of
us with the most conservative
tastes have been brought,
somehow, to believe that art
can only flourish in total
anarchy.
For a century or so our
artists have demanded their
"freedom", insisting that un
less they were encouraged in
absolute irresponsibility their
creativeness would wither and
die. Whether we like or dis
approve of the artists who
scream these slogans it is sur
prising to note that these
claims arc, now, generally
and universally, accepted. We
have been successfully brain
washed. An exhibition which refutes
the art - for - anarchy's sake
philosophy is currently star
tling a significant segment of
our museum public. The reve
lation has been provided by
the collection of French 17th
century art entitled "The
Splendid Century."
It has been visited by huge
crowds at Washington's Na
tional Gallery and at the
Toledo Museum of Art. New
Yorkers and tourists will see
it early March at the Metro
politan. Not Reach Audience
One must regret that "The
Splendid Century" will not
reach an even greater audi
ence, coast to coast. One con
solation is that our art periodi
cals have taken considerable
note of the event and have
thus broadened its public.
The Splendid Century of
France lasted 115 years, clos
ing only with the death of
Louis XIV. He it was, the Sun
King, who gave the century
its grandeur, encouraged its
arts as no one had before
him, set its goals and, by his
wisdom and his follies, made
it unique in the history of
Western man.
In that century French be
came the great international
language, when only Latin
had served the purpose be
fore. French writing and
French thought set new
standards of clarity, eloquence
and reason within and with
out the borders which Louis
XIV expanded and stabilized.
Academies were establish
ed, to purify the language
from medieval obscurity, to
find rules for the arts, to en
courage the sciences.
Dominated The Arts
Le Brun, the King's painter,
dominated the arts, dictated a
new style. He organized the
craftsmen of France into royal
manufactories, armies, regi
ments, battalions, whose pro
duction, under his influence,
was collossal, from tapestries
to doorknobs and from book
titles to palace ceilings. Le
Brun's creativeness was stag
gering; his gift of organiza
tion was practically infallible.
Louis XIV remembered the
terrors of his youth when his
widowed mother, Marie de
Medicis, had had to smuggle
him out of Paris because the
nobles of the renlm were wag
ing a civil war. He never gave
them such a chance again.
He bound them with gilded
chains to the court where
rumor and whispers made
major intrigue and conspiracy
virtually impossible.
As a result, the Splendid
Century Is that of the com
moner, whom Louis XIV un
derstood, admired, encour
aged. His prime minister, Col
bert, doing the work of ten
ministers, was the son of a
cloth merchant and his closest
friend.
Loved Common Seme
The King loved the common
sense of his commoners and
they thrived upon his ap
proval. The Splendid Century
upon which he left his regal
stamp made us heirs to the
great plays of Molicre, Racine
and Corneille, to the philoso
phy of that honorary Missouri
an, Descartes, who encour
aged belief only if its grounds
could be proved, and to the
mathematics and religious
fervor of Pascal.
In the arts the Splendid
Century, paradoxic ally,
sought the rules of reason to
govern in all things and yet
encouraged the greatest di
versities of personal genius.
We despise the Academy be
cause we think of it as im
posing rules. We forget that,
at least in the Splendid Cen
tury, the Academy was an
exciting enterprise devoted to
research.
Strongest Influence
It's first function was to
seek out the philosophic basic
for such rules as it might, la
ter, seek to define and, even
tually, to impose. We forget
this, remembering only the
abuses of Its later dictator
ship. In the splendid century
it was not yet dictating. It
was searching.
.Poussin, though living In
R,.me, had had the strongest
influence in creating this
trend. His persistent assump
tion was that a painting-and
every detail in it-should be
justified by reason before
brush touched canvas. His per
sonal success in this philo
sophic approach made Paris
and the young Academy for
get the lush color of Rubens
and much of the baroque
fantasy of his riotous inven
tions. The "Rubenists" lost fa
vor. Even while many of
them painted like Rubens,
they talked like Poussin.
Someone who talked hardly
at all and wrote even less (be
cause he never quite mastered
the art of spelling his own
name) is another Frenchman
who also worked in Rome.
Claude Gellee, called the Lor
rain because of his birthplace,
or simply Claude, painted the
sun. Before him no one had
much courage nor such spe
cific talent to carry it out.
Only Turner and Van Gogh
Would have it again.
But Claude Lorrain was no
wild romantic, sunstruck and
emotional. He was a man of
his splendidly reasonable cen
tury. He started out as a pas
try cook, and was fortunate,
after traveling to Rome from
his war - impoverished prov
ince, to work for a painter
whose best fame is that he
taught the youngster how to
use a brush.
Some other things no one
NEW C
cfttlr l f " Bedroom "f fi
MEASURE jg
'X-'C-'V- Carp
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could teach Claude Lorrain.
First of all the great land
scape painters, Claude took
his palette out into the open
air. This he did in a world
where painting had always
been a studio activity.
Claude mixed his paints out
of doors and then ran back io
his canvas and painted the
sun, painted light and shadow,
light on the water and light
in the trees, as no one had
ever painted before him. He
created fanciful palaces and
dreamed-of seaports.
In the manner of his time
he illustrated the myths of
antiquity, tiny figures lost in
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27,
Lorrain
Mature
surrounding nature. In this
way did Claude justify his
deep dedication to catching
the moods of nature. He be
came wealthy, though never
losing the humility of his be
ginning. With Poussin, the Norman
peasant, and Le Brun, the
commoner, Claude of Lorrain
along with the sculptors, the
architects and the inspired
gardeners, left his unique seal
on-the French 17th century.
It was a century of vigorous,
serious and prodigiously la
borious personalities the most
splendid of which was the
Sun King himself.
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I . i.' f f9
1981
It was the age not of en
lightenment but of reason,
searching out the "why" of
all things, certain that all
things, including man and his
works, were or should be gov
erned by reason.
Poussin, the most reason
able of painters, wrote, how
ever, that "the purpose of
painting is delight." And
Claude Lorrain, the classicist,
standing in the fields of Rome,
painted, ecstatically, the sun.
(Copyright 1961,
General Features Corp.)
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