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daily nebraskan
Wednesday, february 11, 1981
Capote plays self in Music for Chameleons '
By Pat Higgins
Music for Chameleons is a fascinating
collection of non-fiction short stories that
is perhaps the finest work Truman Capote
lias done since li is highly regarded ; Cold
Blood was released in 1966.
Capote, despite a tendency toward self
parody in his talk show appearances and
movie cameos, must he taken quite serious
ly as a quality artist dating back to his first
novel Other Voices, Other Rooms, which
was a bestseller in 1948. Since then he has
written plays, film scripts, essays and a lot
of factual reporting chiefly for the New
Yorker.
m review
In Cold Blood was a watershed event for
the New Journalism in vogue some years
back. Capote's technique was considered
quite daring: He used all the stylistic de
vices of a novelist to describe an actual
event. In Cold Blood was successful both
commercially and artistically and helped
Capote's career immensely.
In the preface to Music for Chameleons
Capote has some rather caustic comments
about Norman Mailer, who said a non-fiction
novel was a "failure of imagination."
But shortly after Cold Blood, Mailer
began his own journalistic career as shown
by The Armies of the Might and The
.'xecufioner's Song. Capote says he is in
i crested in journalism asa literary art form
because it has never been used by novel
ists who considered journalism somewhat
beneath t heir dignity.
In Music for Chameleons Capote uses an
interesting style because he includes him
self as a key character in each story. And it
comes off quite well. Capote's writing style
is spare and unadorned at times. It is remi
niscent of Hemingway in its economy of
language and straight-forwardness.
There is wildy divergent subject matter
in the short pieces included here. The long
est is entitled "Handearvc Coffins: A Non
fiction account of an American Crime."
Capote has long had a fascination-with the
criminal mind and "Handcarved Coffins"
reads somewhat like Raymond Chandler's
terse detective fiction. In this story Capote
becomes interested in a series of murders
that takes place over a long interval of
time. Capote meets and interviews the
suspects, the investigators and even some
of the eventual victims. Capote becomes
quite involved with all the characters, but
the conclusion is somewhat enigmatic and
frustrating. Also in the criminal vein.
Capote does an interview with convict
Bobby Beauosil who Capote claims is the
real mystery figure behind the Charles
Manson cult. Capote then presents a here
tofore unheard theory concerning the
sinister Beauosil and the Manson family.
From the lowlife of Beauosil, Capote
reaches for the sublime in a description of
his friendship with Marilyn Monroe in a
piece called "Beautiful Child." Capote has
more interesting comments to make about
Monroe in a few pages than Mailer has been
able to manage in several books. A particu
lar highlight of "Beautiful Child" is some
rather ribald comments exchanged between
the two characters.
"Derring Do" reads like a Keystone
Cops caper as Capote is fleeing the Califor
nia Highway Patrol with the assistance of
Pearl Bailey who disguises Capote as a
chorus boy. It is just as absurd as it sounds.
The conclusion of Music for Chamel
eons is a revealing self-interview in which
Capote concludes. "I'm an alcoholic. I'm a
drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a
genius.
3)
Truman Capote
entertainment notes
A $38,500 action grant has been award
ed to the Nebraska Educational Television
Network to finance a new statewide
volunteer program associated with "The
Grand Generation," a Nebraska MTV week
ly series.
"The Grand Generation" volunteer pro
gram will operate in 1 1 areas of Nebraska,
offering a variety of opportunities for local
volunteer involvement. Participants in the
program will work with older Nebraskans
and others on fixed incomes to provide
consumer information and reports to "The
Grand Generation" television series con
cerning local issues.
"The purpose of this demonstration
project is to link community volunteers
and television in an effort to educate and
inform thousands of viewers," said Valerie
Marino, volunteer program director.
"We are attempting two-day television
liAr Irl'ic nf nut fr Tlta CvrA CZanar.
nviv. ivjvuo v uui vi i i vji uiiu vjvi ivi
ation" weekly television oroeram and feed
back
is go out on me urana oener-
weekly television program and feed
becomes available immediately
through the volunteer program. We can re
port on an issue and refer visitors to local
and state agencies to actually receive assist
ance," she said.
The television series is produced cooper
atively by the Nebraska Commission on
Aging and the Nebraska ETV Network.
Created in 1973, "The Grand Generation"
is one of the few public television series in
the nation to focus on the needs of the
elderly on a statewide basis.
Benny Hill dominates limelight in nominal comedy
By Pat Clark
The best thing about The Benny Hill Show is that it is
well named. Benny Hill dominates this show much more
than. say. Mary Tyler Moore dominated The Mary Tyler
Moore Show. If the show fills a 30-minute time slot,
Benny Hill will be on screen for the entire 30 minutes.
It doesn't seem to matter much what Benny Hill does
while he's on the screen ; he is satisfied as long as he is the
star.
The show is nominally a comedy, and occasionally it
is comical in fact. The show works well when Benny Hill
is confined to the dictates of a script ; with dialogue, other
characters and the accompanying interaction. The show
also can be good when the humor rests on political jokes
or on satirical characterizations.
More often, though, the show is simply a forum for
Benny Hill to act like Benny Hill. The scripts give him
ample room to ad-lib and improvise, and when he does so,
the show rapidly disintegrates into a review of all of the
sexual (and often sexist ) jokes that got big chuckles in the
locker room in junior high school.
Suggestive little song
One gets the impression that many of the routines and
skits on the show are designed for the sole purpose of
allowing Benny Hill to fondle gorgeous women. Benny
Hill dresses like a Spanish flamenco dancer, "sings a some
what suggestive little song and women come onto the
stage and swoon over htm.
Scene change: Benny Hill dresses like an American
cowboy, sings a somewhat suggestive song (not even a
song really, more like limericks set to music) and women
come onto the stage and swoon over him.
Scene change: Benny Hill comes out on stage dressed
as a guard at Buckingham Palace, sings a little song and so
on and so on until they roll the closing credits. One starts
to believe that this middle-age, chubby Englishman has
turned the show into his own version of Fantasy Island,
and he is his own Mr. Rourke.
If Benny Hill is his own Mr. Rourke, he needs a Tattoo.
He has one. There is a short, elderly man on the show
(whose name I don't think has ever been revealed) who
makes his living by allowing Benny Hill to thrash him
abut the head and shoulders with his hands, with rolled up
newspapers, with boards and wooden chairs or with
anything else that happens to be on the set.
Share the spotlight
His reward for withstanding this kind of abuse is an
occasional chance to share the spotlight with Benny
Hill for a brief moment. In these instances, he usually
takes the role of a shorter, older version of Benny Hill
without the singing. Kind of a guest lecher.
And he is given plenty of cause to act the lecher, be
cause all of the women are gorgeous. That is all they are,
though. In most of the routines, the women don't even
have any lines. (In many of the routines, nobody has any
lines except Benny Hill.) If a particular routine absolutely
demands the presence of a woman who is not beautiful,
Benny Hill will simply change clothes and take the role
himself.
It would be simple, and accurate, to dismiss this kind
of casting and this show in general as sexist. Sexist it
surely is, but sexist is not all that it is, I don't think. It
seems more the product of a person who lives in constant
fear of being upstaged. It is as though if somebody else
on the show was discovered to have any talent, the au
dience would soon realize how little talent Benny Hill has.
Note inspires misty memories
This is an open letter of sorts to scattered miscellan
eous friends, and to Catic on her 25th birthday.
I can still remember staring self-consciously at my
shoes as your blue paisley mini-dress crept magically up
your legs. What was it. '72? 473? You were leaning over
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mouth and telling me through pouted lips that you felt
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someining mg coming, inc neo-rwi wnom you would
toss your virginity to later that night was gunning the
engine of his chocolate Cougar in the driveway, the party
in the other room ebbing and flowing with the conversa-ion.
What was that old song? I can never remember any of
the lyrics, just the background vocals. It was going
through my head again the last time I saw you. Little
Anthony and the Imperials. It was good to see you again.
When I think about seeing you now, it is mostly shaded
in grey tones. Must have been the weather Y,,,,
standing on the bluff with your hands in your pockets
"iajaM! watching them dredge the river below. There was a Hat
AaCiliMCll I grey mist in the air and 'ou were very quiet: that goofy
w Peter Pan hat was pushed over your ears for warmth. You
ioiu me me nat was functional. I smiled.
Your breath, condensed in the cold, came out in long
slow trains. I remember the reality of your cracked hps in
the cold. Not a hint of make-up you used to wear, just the
fine lines of your face, strong, your eyes clearer than I
ever remember them. An earthly mandala of ocean and
sky swirling around deep pupils.
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