Wednesday, April 30, 1986
Daily Nebraskan
Page 9
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Mime Mark Gabriel entertains children at "Pastimes and Playthings."
Children can play with old toys
at Pastimes and Playthings'
By Chris McCubbin
Staff Reporter
Lincoln children have a chance
to play like their great-great-grandparents
did this week.
The Nebraska State Historical
Society's annual festival of old toys
and games for children, "Pastimes
and Playthings," will be on the
grounds of the Kennard and Fergu
son houses, 16th and H streets, from
now until Sunday.
This year's special emphasis is
May Day. Visitors can view a 1915
style children's May Day party in the
Ferguson House dining room.
Live entertainers will perform.
Antique toys and games are availa
ble for the children. The games
include stilt walking, hoop trun
dling, battledore and shuttlecock,
an early form of badminton. A May
Pole also has been set up for
dancing.
Optical toys like zoetropes and
phenakistoscopes, wooden whip toys
and cup-and-balls are available for
less strenuous fun.
The authentic reproductions of
Victorian toys were produced by the
Historical Society art department.
The event's special emphasis was
made possible by underwriting from
the J unior League of Lincoln.
Mary Haley, curator of the Kenn
ard and Ferguson houses, said "Pas
times and Playthings'' is expected
to draw about 2,000 children this
year.
Haley said the Kennard House is
a Victorian-style home and the old
est home in Lincoln. The Ferguson
house is a 23-room mansion built in
1915. The houses are closed to regu
lar tours during "Pastimes and Play
things," she said.
During the week, the event is
reserved for large groups, mostly
from local schools. The general pub
lic will be admitted Saturday and
Sunday. Hours are 9 a.m. to noon
and 1 to 4:30 p.m. through Saturday
and 1:30 to 5 p.m. Sunday;
Juggler Tom Gel latly will perform
in the mornings through Friday and
Thursday afternoon. Mime Mark
Gabriel will perform this afternoon
and Friday afternoon. Clown Clau
delle Gerlich will entertain all day
Saturday, and the UNL International
Folk Dancers will perform at 2 p.m.
Sunday.
For more information or to book
group reservations, call Mary Haley
at 471-4764.
Society is a sucker for fads;
'New' doesn't mean 'improved'
Americans are suckers for anything
different. "New and improved" seem to
be the catch words for our society.
Every girl and woman is eager to buy
the latest fashion. I shouldn't exclude
men, either, I guess. Anymore, with this
Prince and Boy George thing going
around, even grown men are painting
their fngernails, wearing earrings and
fighting each other in clothing stores
for that piece that looks oh-so-perfect.
Every year something new is coming
out, something different.
A) l
Bill
Allen
I can remember when getting a hair
cut meant you were going to have your
hair shortened. Now it can mean permed,
styled, frizzed, teased, shagged or a
hundred other words. My girlfriend
recently had hers cut so that it has to
be sculpted, as in sculptures. I really
don't have the poetic insights to know
what all this means socially. All I know
for sure is that it means a woman will
now take two hours to get ready when it
used to take only an hour and a half.
I'm sure any guy who has ever had
the misfortune of being on time for a
date can relate to this. You sit on the
couch watching the evening news while
she sings in the bathroom. And being
the sensitive and understanding per
son I am, I naturally worry about her. In
Ny kind, sympathetic way, I ask why
't s taking her so long.
"What the hell is taking you so
long?" I yell over the sound of Nicara
guan fighting on TV. "Here I am about
to spend money on you, open doors for
you and maybe even smile at the stupid
stories of your childhood, and you
spend half the date covering your face
with make-up. C'mon, I've seen zits
before."
If it's a first date, this is usually
enough to get her out of the bathroom
pretty quick, albeit a little smudged.
That line doesn't work if you've been
going out with her awhile. It makes her
slower.
Then, when she finally does come
out, what is the first thing she says?
"Sorry it took me so long."
Yeah, right.
Of course, you don't hear all this
because you're still in shock trying to
figure out exactly how much of what is
standing in front of you is your date and
how much is an Amazon parrot.
"Do you like it?" she inevitably asks.
"It's new. I bought it just for you."
Fantastic, I think to myself with
heavy sarcasm. I wanted a quiet dinner
and maybe a movie, and now I have to
spend the evening fighting off moths
and other creatures attracted to bright
lights.
"It's certainly colorful," is all I say
out loud.
It's everywhere. It's a sickness.
There's a new cigarette out by a clo
thing designer. It's called Ritz. Camels
did the job on John Wayne and Yul
Brenner. Do people even have to find
new, different ways to slowly kill them
selves? I buck the trend. There's nothing
new about me, or different. I'm just a
regular guy. I wear jeans and buy shirts
designed by people who make shirts,
not by artists. I drink beer that has
been brewed by the same people for a
hundred years, not spritzers and wine
coolers. I still get mad every time I see
the words "Classic" on a can of Coke.
It's not that I don't keep up with
what's going on. I just refuse to like
something only because it's new.
I listen to music I like to listen to.
That probably sounds a bit redundant
and simplistic, but not if you think
about it. I was talking to some guy the
other day and asked him what that loud
noise was on his music box. He told me
it was none of my $&! business. Later,
I visited him in the hospital to con
tinue our conversation.
"It's new, man, it's different," he
said through a shaggy-dog haircut and
several stitches.
"Is that necessarily good?" I asked,
tightening the bandages on his sus
pended arms and legs until he could
barely breath.
"Mummphummrut," he said. .
I loosened the bandages a bit.
"Yeah, it's good. It's different, ain't
it?"
"You really like to listen to it?" I
asked.
"Like to listen to it? Are you crazy?
Who could listen to that noise?" he
said. "I only like the political ramifica
tions and social statements, and the
sense of freedom and. . ."
I cut him off by slipping a Jimmy
Buffett cassette into his box and walk
ing out, knowing full well he couldn't
get up to turn it off.
Allen is a senior English major and the
Daily Nebraskan arts and entertainment
editor.
Local talent photos
show variations
By Charles Lieurance
Senior Reporter
The Sheldon Art Gallery's exhibit of
four local photographers exemplifies
the versatility of this area's artists and
the variations possible within a limited
photographic developing medium.
The four photographers in the "New
Local Talent Invitational" Roger
Bruhn, Carol Dobrovolny, Kevin Head
lee and Kent Klima all have radi
cally different approaches to their art
and to the silver printing technique
that all of them use. This technique
involves printing photos on paper made
sensitive with silver salt.
Art Review
The exhibit, which runs until June 1,
is the first showing of these photo
graphers' works in a major gallery.
Headlee's work, by far the most
experimental and irreverent of the
batch, is full f wit and energy. His
photographs are sometimes no more
than clever one-liners. But they can,
when Headlee is at the height of his
technical prowess, become surreal,
hallucinogenic plays on composition.
One work, reminiscent of Magritte's
paintings in some respects, toys with
positive and negative space by putting
a white paper mask in one side of the
picture and a face submerged in shadow
on the other. The mask is without eyes,
and the shadow-face features two
haunting recessed orbs. This alluring
and complex work creates an illusion
of depth even though both "faces" are
set firmly against decaying Victorian
floral wallpaper. The eyes seem to stare
from some impossible abyss, and the
mask seems to float on an equally
impossible surface.
Even Headlee's more flippant work
is engaging. His "Oh, Shit" commits to
emulsion the phrase, "Oh, Shit, Not
Another Tree Picture," over a trite, bor
ing, overly artsy Ansel Adams-esque
tree.
Klima's work is more conventional
and staid in comparison to Headlee's
photographic art-play. Klima is obsessed
by architecture, especially bridges. The
endless rows of crossed girders and
trestles in their perfect geometric con
figurations are Klima's artistic play
ground. His photographs of bridges in
Blair, South Omaha, Eades and St.
Louis are concerned with lines that
shrink into the horizon, encountering
false horizons like walls and shores.
Sharp lines abridge open space, water,
sky, etc. in a manner that emphasizes
the inorganic nature of the straight
line.
Probably the most striking thing
about Klima's work is the foggy melan
choly that seems to surround the var
ious pieces, a wintry bleakness that
creates mood and gives the works a
quite singular voice.
Dobrovolny's works are relatively
simplistic compositions that tend to
ward repetition. Her scene of various
couples seem posed and quite un
remarkable. Were it not for the medium
and her careful use of black and white
film, these would seem inappropriate
for gallery pieces. Perhaps with more
interesting poses and faces, these works
would be more satisfying.
Braun's nudes are perhaps the most
accomplished pieces in the exhibit,
relying on complex compositional
relationships between architecture
(baroque, Mediterranean and Gothic
asceticism) and the simple contours of
the human form. Braun places the
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Sterba and Wolf
Identification wrong
A photograph of Louisiana Lou of the
Bayou (Daily Nebraskan, April 24) was
incorrectly identified as a photograph
of John Wolf and Chris Sterba of the
Omaha band Cellophane Ceiling.
The following portion of the Cello
phane Ceiling article was also omitted:
A Cellophane Ceiling EP is available
in local record stores. It features the
band's old line-up, which included a
full-time synthesizer player and a
woman vocalist. The EP is good, but the
band's new, stripped-down style is
infinitely superior.
Fortunately, C.C. just finished laying
down 1 1 tracks for an LP. The album,
tentatively titled "The Beauty Of It
All," should be out in June.
