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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 1989)
. Arts & Entertainment • . •.? Campus hides undiscovered worlds Boredom in the eyes of the beholder By Bryan Peterson Of ml 1 & * ^ I f Editor's Note: This is the third in a week-bag series on senses. Each day, mentors of the Arts and Entertainment Staff will take their readers bn a trip of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell Ask any mermaid you happen to see... '7 see London, / see France. I see some one’s underpants,” •childhood rhyme 1 am tired of hearing about what a boring campus we have. “There’s nothing going on, there's nothing to do" and similar phrases ring in my ears. If there is a problem with boredom at UNL, it is not' with the campus itself but with boring, unseeing students. There are entire undiscovered worlds and unsolved mysteries on campus that most of us are too busy to see. Sometimes a person iust needs to slow down and look about. And up and down, and all around. Amazing people and events surround us. Straggles for existence go on before our unseeing eyes. Ants launch enormous cru sades under our feet as mile-long chains of birds migrate south over our heads. And all we do it plod back and forth between classes. But if we just paid a tittle more attention to the world around us, just opened our eyes a little voider, we would see all manners of wondrous and mysterious things. . For example, there are hundreds of un used parking sehftsfct the patting lot under Broyhill Fountain. No one has seen the • * • ■ * . entrance for yews because we are ail too busy looking for more “convenient" park (ring. Also, most t)NL students are unaware of to* scK^Ued “ hidden” floor in Love Li brary. It is really sort of a half-floor, stuck in between two other floors in an unlit c<™r Indeed, the entire campus is filled with interesting or curious sites. Everyone has seen fisc portion of a lunar rocket in front of Morrill Hall, but how many have seen the “Glecial Boulder Showing Petmglyphs” nearby? . The boulder is supposetUo show ancient human fool mid turkey track petroglyphs. I don’t see much but a creviced rock taking up potential parking sr xe. Night is a great time to roam and observe -■* everythkig is given a new perspective in die dark. After sunset, rabbits and squirrels outnumber students on campus. I did not think much of this until I saw a university employee feeding furry carcasses to the jollier goldfish,in theVinter discovt i all night. I crning the valic w ; and a shuffling of feetToursaw no one. There are other mysteries of the seen and • unseen on campus. Does anyone ever enter the little door on Mueller Tower? Why does the main entrance to Memorial Stadium look like a cathedral ceiling? Lately I have been seeing the phrase . ‘‘Trust Jesus” spray-painted around cam pus. At one location, someone crossed out the name “Jesus” and mistakenly added “Satin.” But why is the phrase always in bluc'graffiti? Answers to questions also>can be found, if one’s eyes are kept open. How marly people walk past Memorial Stadium with out rooking up at the engraved quotes? “Not the victory but the action; not the goal but the game: in the deed the glory,” * reads one. This may explain why there me thousands of athletes but less than forty philosophy majors at UNL I am quite surprised no one has noticed that the city and East campuses are drifting together, gaining a few meters every semes ter. Soon they will merge into UNMC: the University of Nebraska Mega-Campus. The proof? Just observe the eastward drift of city campus with new parking lots and softball fields and the usurpation of Whittier Junior High. Or view the westward drift of East campus through unmarked greenhouses and agricultural research sta Another location of interest is the scalp time garden outside Sheldon Memorial Ait Gallery, the perfect place to take a visual excursion to distant, ephemeral lands of the imagination or to simply sit and stare at passersby. How many such observers have noticed the overtly sexual implications of most of the displays? And as for unseen marvels, I wonder if anyone has seen beyond the ticket office in 1 the Lied Center, or if a cavernous maw has settled back unnoticed in a contemptuous smugness? frnave been around all these things nearly four years but only recently obticed them. With even move attention, there is no limit to the tilings I might sec here on campus. As students, we get locked into routines and patterns which blind us to the vibrnnee and wonder of our campus. Yet we cannot blame the campus itself for being boring. Our failure to find excitement on this campus is our own failure to see what goes on around us. , ~ __ i. - t' . — - - - --- --- -. MNw MM of H.EJ1 performing altlMeonowt Hast apttng In OmalM. R.E.M., Stipe in ‘full form’ ny Room KicurdMNa Staff Reporter Rf.M. brought 3,500 fens to their feet Tuesday night at Pershing Audi torium as the band opened its fourth Lincoln appearance to “Stand” from its latest album “Green.” Michael Stipe sported a baseball cap, sunglasses, suit, and an attitude. The audience welcomed his en trance after die 30-minute opener by NRBQ(New Rhythm B lues Quartet). It didn’t take king for people to begin to dance in the aisles and in the back of the auditorium. They loved the music and they should have - the sound was good ' and the audience was fairly well behaved. Stipe’s voice was in full form as he bellowed out four songs before a break. Stipe also offered the audience something usual but always special, an acapelta. That wasn’t all. Apparently a* feature for the "Green” tour (since the effects were • used at the Omaha concert last Spring), short movie clips were shown on a giant screen hanging as a backdrop. They rock V rolled the audience for two hours and gave them a wide variety of their music, "Murmur” to "Green.” R.E.M. should practice what it preaches By Mick Dyer Suff Reporter - • •%—t The band R.E.M. was disap pointed to play in Lincoln again. Some longtime R.E.M. fans were disappointed by the band’s perform ance Tuesday night at Pershing Mun Auditorium. It >ils down to an attitude-. The photo in today’s paper is from the Spring 1989 show in Omaha. The Daily Nebraskan ran this photo be cause the band didn’t want any photo graphs taken this year. That’s fine. It is R.E<M.’s artistic freedom to choose who takes and who doesn’t take the band’s photo. The band we in town tor two days, but refused to speak to the local media. ' ^That’s fine too. It is RiLM.’s pre rogative to speak or not to speak to whomever it wants. Besides, being aloof creates an air of mystery - .out the band making the R.&M. ex peri _ ence went that much more attractive. It’s an attention-getting technique the band has used and abused more and more over the years. f But the band’s indifference to ward its audience has also alienated a segment of listeners - espe fan* that followed the band before the album’’Gruen” cameoul Something just seemed fishy about the band’s constant blanket referen&s to political issues during the concert And R.E.M- covered all the' bases - the Exxon oil spill, the democracy demonstrations in China and the rote of the armed forces. It just seems kind of ironic that after the group recently began speak ing out on political, social and envi ronmental issues, they would clam up so much. You would think they would have more to say, especially to college students. And after watching the words “talk” and .“listen” fash on the screen behind the bland during ‘'Pop Song ‘89" the band’s detachment’ from the audience seems down right hypocritical. It just seems insincere Do they really mean what, they say about get ting involved with action groups? Maybe the band believes the mu sic sliould stand for itself. Maybe the band doesn’t really care enough about the issues they advocate u> take the time to speak to the media about thorn. Who knows? It’s jaet frightenmg to think that many young people believe listenfof toiR£.M. constitutes being point cahv active. R.E.M. has lost me because of their attitude. And if the low number of people at the concert (3^60 in aa auditorium that holds about ?j000) indicates anything, it’s that the band’s popularity Wish others altfii waning. * t