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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1976)
friday, febmary 13. 1976 dsilv rsj-hrssksn page 11 f licfs, cpnf usion one big c ra n i a I co n certo put 6f I fMj hood J Ephripn goSUggu Soots Rv Rill Roberts Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women, by Nora Ephron Alfred A. Knopf, New York, $7.95 Nora Ephron can get away with collecting in a book these 25 articles she wrote during the early 1970s for' Esquire, New York and Rolling Stone magazines. But only because she's such a good writer. Ephron is a feminist, but she uses the movement as a vehicle for her excursions Into contemporary history. Once she gets where site's going, her wit and good sense make her the best occasionafwrijer we have. Ephron takes the occasion of the first and last game of Bemice Gera, the first lady umpire, and turns It into a moving tale of courage and failure. The career of this social pioneer was ended when she changed her mind on a call at second base. Admits to "rape fantasy" "Bernice Gera turned out to be only human," Ephron writes, "which is a luxury pioneers are noi allowed.". In an article titled "Fantasies," Ephron answers the question: "Is there sex after liberation?" She admits to having a recurring rape fantasy, admits'it is unhealthy, but says it's the only one she has. "I'm not at all sure I wouldn't rather have an un healthy sex fantasy than no sex fantasy at all," she writes. When a writer like Ephron takes on subjects like fem inine hygiene deodorants or prom queens, it is simply no contest. She overpowers the retrograde ideas behind such phenomena just by mentioning them. Ephron proves she is a capable reporter In "Women in Israel: The Myth of liberation." She proves she can move beyond documentation and into political analysis in her articles on the National Women's Political Caucus, written during the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Empathy for women She combines her reporting skills with her empathy for women in her articles on Washington D.C. women. "Wash- Bach performance is featured Sunday "The greatest collection of organ music ever whiten" ia George Ritchie's description of Part III of Johann Sebastian Bach's Clavierubung, which he will perform Sunday, Feb. 15 at First Plymouth Congregational Church, 20th and D streets. Ritchie, UNL associate professor of organ and theory, will play the major pieces of this work during a free public recital at 4 p.m. The Clavierubung is a four-part collection of music for various keyboard instruments. Only Part III is specifically for organ. ' According to Ritchie, Part 111 includes 10 large and 1 1 small-scale works between its opening pre lude and closing fugue. He will play only the large scale pieces. The music is based on the German Lutheran Hymns for Die Kyrlo and Gloria and on the six hymns of Luther's Catechism. "The organ at First Plymouth is a very Germanic typa of Instrument and so it is very well suited for tliis music,"- Ritchie said. "Also, the ch-rch has par ticykr reverberation characteristics that make it an Ideal place for this concert." , By Bill Roberts A frequent complaint of those of us in constant con fusion is that we do not know exactly which state of mental disarray we are in. Surely there are differences be tween not knowing where you are, not knowing what you are talking about, and not knowing what to think, Recently, I came across a term that m'ay help us out. It came from the pen of a psychologist, not a poet, but still it "gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." Leon Festinger invented the term in 1957 and called it "cognitive dissonance".. The first word comes from cognition, which refers to -thought in the deepest sense, like thought about philoso phy, politics or plumbing. Dissonance means lack of har mony or agreement; discord. Put them together and you have Festinger's term for your particular state of confusion when you hold two opposing ideas at once. A common example concerns cigarette smoking. Joe's tune a clunker . Suppose Joe wants to decide whether to continue or 1 quit smoking. He likes the taste of cigarettes and the way smoking makes him feel. But he realizes that if he continues to smoke, his lungs will clog with nicotine and hell drop dead. Joe is experiencing cognitive dissonance. Anyway, that's the definition. But what cognitive dis sonance really means is that the mind is like a symphony. When your mind is processing some cognitions that are truly consonant, it's like an orchestra performing a work of Beethoven. The aesthetic values of those sflee ting in stants of clear thought far outweigh any practical results. But when you mind is trying to muddle through dis sonant cognitions, it's as if the trumpet and violin sections traded instruments in the locker room and the guy who plays the kettle drums showed up drunk. Most of us probably fall into the second category, and it's probably a good thing our. collective ' cognitive dis sonance is not audible. But imagine-if our cognitions were audible and fairly consonant, what would life be "like?. ' : ' . . ' Each of us would walk around with an aura of back ground music surrounding him. Like well-chosen cologne, it would give you a quick insight into the personality of the stranger beside you. No more Muzak in the elevators. Strike up the band v,. Joe the smoker; his conflicting melodies syncopated with his wheezing breath, might walk past the presi dent of the local heart and lung association. His cognitive dissonance immediately apparent, Joe would discard his cigarettes and his "I-want-to-smoke" strairi and fall into harmony with the president's tune. They might strike up a duet, joine'd occasionally by warbling passersby. . .. Alas, life is not thus. We find such cognitive resonance ',: in our operas and musical revues, but nowhere else. But I maintain Festinger's term can have good, prac tical results, as does every improvement in our language. The concept can spare us some vulgarity. The next ". time you reprimand someone for his confusion, look him in the eye, shake his elbow, and say sternly, "Here now ! Get your song together!" A GlftfflinilS v ington is a city of men and the women they married when they were young," she writes, repeating an adage. Rose Mary Woods, Martha Mitchell and Barbara Howar, author of Laughing All the Way, are victims cf the t city's high-powered politics and machismo, she writes. , Another type of woman is Julie Nixon Eisenhower, whom she calls a "chocolate-covered spider." During Watergate, Julie was the "essence of daughter, a better. daughter than any of us will ever be; it is almost as if she is the only woman in America over the age of twenty who still thinks her father is exactly.what she thought he was when she was six." Reading Crazy Salad resurrects characters from a near but almost dead past. Remember Mrs. Pat Loud? Or Bobby Riggs? Even the feminist movement is no longer what it was when some of the articles were written. But the book doesn't seem like a rehash. Ephron's in telligence and terrific writing make her articles as fresh as today's newspaper and worth preserving on a book shelf. Qfts8c Film grimly forecasts Allende's fall By Diane Wanek Benefit screenings of Miguel Llttin's highly acclaimed film, 77 Promised Land, will be today at the Sheldon Film. Theatre at 3, 7 and 9 p.m. The film's proceeds will go to the Emergency Committee for the Defense of Latin American Filmmakers. The Promised Land is based on historical events during the 1930s when the world-wide depression created social and economic upheaval throughout Chile and eventually led to the establishment qf the first, although short-lived, socialist republic in the Americas. Told as an epic ballad incorporating processions, songs, music, spectacle, myth, legend and symbolism, The Promised Land follows a group of peasants and workers as they travel throughout the countryside, looking for food, work and a piace to iive. Under the leadership of Jose Duran, they settle on some unused government land, build their own communi ty which they name Palmilla and develop it into a flourishing agricultural cooperative. ' ' ' Soon Chile is "declared a socialist republic, and the peasant's try to spread the revolution Into the nearby town of Huique, only to be routed by the military when the socialist regime falls and the old order is reinstated. The military then arrives at Palmilla With orders for the residents to vacate the illegally occupied land. But the people of Palmilla decide to defend their new homes to , the death. They are massacred by the army. The final images of the film are an imaginative projec tion of the future, when the peasants and workers of Chile will finally control their destiny. , , . Although Tlie Promised Land was completed months before the military coup of Sept. 11, 1973, the film's con temporary historical parallels are strikingly apparent. Ironically, many of the peasants who appear in the film were killed during the recent events in Chile which saw the overthrow of the socialist Salvador Allende government. Miguel Littin, the film's director, now is in exile. Carmsn Bueno, an actress featured in A La Sombra del Sol and The Promised Land, and Jorge Muller, camera man, are jailed in'Tres Alamos concentration camp out side Santiago, Chile. The Emergency Committee to Defend Latin American Filmmakers U working to free these and other Latin American filmmakers. Tomlin exhibition io open at Sheldon By Charlie Kris An exhibition by Bradley Walker Tomlin will open at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery Sunday, Feb. 15 and run until March 14. The display includes 83 paintings that cover Tomlin's career from 1920 to 1952. ' . Tomlin's work usually is described as "abstract expressionism" though his use of colors and a subtle hand , often cause disagreement about his definite style. Bom August 19, 1899, in Syracuse, N.Y., Tomlin . began his work as a child. He drew constantly but did not decide to become a painter until high school. At 15, ho won his first art scholarship to study model ing in Hugo Gari Wagner's studio. ' When Tomlin was 18, he entered the John Crouso' College of Fine Arts and majored in painting. His career as a professional painter began when he was graduated in 1921. Tomlin's sophisticated style was nurtured by favorable reviews and one-man shows in New York City, Paris, and Woodstock, N.Y. In the late 1930s, he changed his "reserved, elegant" stylo which characterized his portraits to try work in the srreal and cubic modes. This evolved into his latest abstract form that appeared in his last works from 1946 to 1953. , In 1951, Tomlin suffered a heart attack which forced him to stop painting for several months. He completed more than 14 paintings before suffering s fatal heart attack May 11,1953. ' The exhibit is financed by grants from the National. Endowment, for the Arts, Harry Winston, Inc., The Friends of IJofstra's Emily Lowe Gallery, The Jos and Emily Lowe Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts. The paintings are on loan from public and private galleries and collectors throughout tho nation.
