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Arts & Entertainment
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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. ,
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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
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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.
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