Arts & Entertainment
Courtesy of Beggars Banquet
Peter Murphy recently released a new LP titled “Holy Smoke" on the Beggars Banquet
label.
Gloomy album echoes sounds
of artist’s former Bauhaus
R^a/yie^
“Holy Smoke”
Peter Murphy
Beggars Banquet
Every once in a while, this ugly
world will send you scurrying to
your stereo for a little escapism,
something even darker than your
immediate surroundings. When this
destructive need becomes unbear
able, thank God for artists like Peter
Murphy. Since parting ways with
goth-rock forerunner Bauhaus, the
prince of darkness has recorded
one compelling album after an
other.
His last release, 1990’s “Deep,”
was, well, deep. Part dance-pop,
part Iggy Pop, “Deep” provided a
dreamy narrative on the varying
joys and sorrows of love, and how
it “cuts you up.” Yet, however dicary
or self-defeating his thoughts tend
to be, Murphy’s sensuous baritone
always brings a kind of urgency to
it all.
With his latest release, “Holy
Smoke,” Murphy has crafted more
thoughtful tunes in the spirit of his
earliest influences — David Bowie,
Pere Ubu and Iggy Pop.
The nine tracks that make up
the new LPare closer thematically
to 1988’s “Love Hysteria” than to
“Deep.” “Smoke” is gloomier, but
equally absorbing. The progression
seems like a natural one for the
singer/songwriter.
Using sparse instrumentation
from Murphy’s band, the Hundred
Men, and multi-tracking the vo
cals for added weight, “Smoke” is
bare-bones pop. Eddie Branch’s
gentle bass tniimps and a soft syn
thesizer wash often arc the only
discernible sounds aside from
Murphy’s voice.
Lyrically, his aspirations arc less
grand, loo. “Health is all I’m ask
ing for,” he announces on the open
ing cut, “Keep Me From Harm.”
Of course, by album’s end he has
asked for much more.
He even pokes fun at his own
place as a post-punk crooner on
nKill the Hate,” intentionally crack
ing his voice to give the song the
proper absurdity.
Love and obsession are major
players throughout “Smoke.” For
Murphy, the artist, love is a catch
22: It both inspires him and drives
him to distraction, leaving him a
bit helpless. “Ah can’t write now/
wanna phone you” he laments on
“You’re So Close,” a tunc reminis
cent of Bauhaus’s “Swing the
Heartache” LP.
Murphy always has had a pen
chant for double-entendres, turn
ing phrases that are as provocative
as they arc poetic. Forget the head
lines, for him, sex is INHERENTLY
dangerous.
He first voiced this idea on
“Deep’s” “Deep Ocean,” and it’s
echoed here on “The Sweetest
Drop”: “Let’s scream out like the
sca/Pull me warm and slender,”
Murphy wails to guitarist Peter
Bonas’s wah-wah feeds.
One drawback to “Holy Smoke”
is that about half of the tracks are
merely settings for Murphy’s voice,
See MURPHY on 10
Goodman bats 1.000
in realistic portrayal
of famed ball player
“The Babe”
By Gerry Beltz
Staff Reporter
Youdon’tnccd tobcabascball fan
to enjoy “The Babe” (Plaza 4, Edge
wood 3).
Although Babe Ruth is legendary
for his record-breaking home runs, in
“The Babe” we sec that his hardest
victories and defeats were with him
self.
John Goodman (“Always,” “Bar
ton Fink”) portrays George Herman
“Babe” Ruth, a man driven by the
cheer of the crowd, a life of wine,
women and song, and the desire to
keep everyone in the world happy —
no matter what.
Not only is the audience taken
through the Babe’s infamous base
ball career, it also is drawn into his
emotional highs and lows, emotions
he experienced before and during that
career. From the emotion-scarring day
in 1902 when his father abandoned
him at a Catholic reform school to his
final game with the Atlanta Braves in
1935, the audience is with him every
step of the way.
Trini Alvarado (“Mrs. Soffcl”) plays
Ruth’s first wife Helen, a woman
whose shy and withdrawn personality
is completely opposite that of Babe’s.
Helen is drawn to Babe by his child
like innocence and playfulness. Al
varado is stunning to watch in this
picture, showing every subtlety of
frustration and anger that her charac
ter suffers during her turbulent mar
riage to Babe Ruth.
Ruth’s second wife Claire is played
by Kelly McGillis (“Witness,” “Top
Gun”), but her character is never fully
developed. McGillis docs well with
what her character docs have, por
traying the woman who wants only
the best for “her Baby Ruth.”
The movie, however, belongs to
Goodman. In him, every facclof Babe
Ruth comes alive on the screen. He’s
a man scarred by the 17 years spent in
a reform school, events that followed
and shaped him for the rest of his life.
Wherever Ruth goes, it is some
thing or someone vs. the image and
ego of Babe Ruth, whether it be a
manager of a baseball team or Ruth’s
own common sense.
Goodman handles everything
wonderfully. We sec his happiness
when he hits his first home run at the
reform school and the joy he feels
being around the children who love
him. To Babe Ruth, the world is “one
giant playground,” and he tries to go
through it as quickly as possible.
We also sec the bad side of Babe
Ruth, from his attacking a taunting
fan during a slump, to his weeping
relapse into childhood traumas.
Another trail of Babe’s — his de
termination and dedication to the game
of baseball — is brought out well by
Goodman in this picture. His infa
mous pointing to where he would
knock the ball out of the park (a high
point in “Major League,” another great
baseball-oriented flick), is an excep
tionally heart-warming portion of “The
Babe.”
Directed by Arthur Hiller (“Teach
ers,’’“The Lonely Guy”), “The Babe”
also captures >hc era magnificently
with music (by Elmer Bernstein),
costumes and sellings appropriate to
the period.
Rated PG for a smidgen of foul
language. We’re talking good stuff
here. Check it out.
American impressionists
capture Sheldon spotlight
M.
From Staff Reports
“Capturing the Light: American
Impressionism” will open today at
the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.
The exhibition features 46 works
by such American Impressionist paint
ers as Robert Henri, who was instru
mental in creating a distinctively
American approach to Impression
ism, and Ernest Lawson of the Ash
can School.
Also included in the exhibit arc
works by Robert Gilder of Nebraska
and Birger Sand/cn of Kansas.
Originally a French phenomenon
pioneered by Monet, Degas and Renoir,
J Impressionism was an attempt, among
other things, to capture the qualities
and play of light; hence the exhibit’s
title.
The paintings to be shown arc taken
from private collections and the Shel
don’s own permanent collection of
American art. The exhibition has just
returned from a recent mini-tour. The
show was presented at the Flint Art
Institute in Michigan and in Vero
Beach, Florida.
“Capturing the Light” is accom
panied by a fully illustrated catalogue,
which is available at the gallery’s gift
shop. Free tours of the exhibit will be
offered and a number of lectures will
also be presented.
Finding palatable wine a trial, error process
By Chris Burchard
Staff Reporter
A few months ago, I wrote an article about
what to do when a restaurant server brings a
bottle of wine to your table. Within a week or
so after the article, I was bombarded by people
saying things like, “Great, Chris, you told us
how to order wine, but you forgot to tell us
which kind to get in the first place.” So in
answer to to all the questions, I give you what
I call my “Wine Quickie,” a short lesson in
wine and what to order at a restaurant.
V' '
Wine has been around for more than 3,000
years, and I hear it keeps gelling better all the
time. If you avoid wine, you’re denying your
self one of the three great pleasures of life:
good food, good wine and another thing.
First, we need to quickly discuss grapes.
There are thousands of different varieties of the
grape, but only about 50 are suitable for mak
ing fine wines. The two scoops of raisins in
your breakfast cereal are not, I can assure you,
of the fine-wine kind.
The name of the grape used in making a
wine often lends itself to the wine’s name. If
you can handle my phonetics. I’ll give you an
example: Chardonnay (shard-o-nay) wine is
made from the Chardonnay grape. See, learn
ing about wine isn’t brain surgery.
With that over, we’ll start with three basic
categories of wine: while, red and blush.
Blush wines, also called pink or ros6 wines,
are probably the most popular wines in Amer
ica now. Thai’s because they’re sweet, fruity
and easy to drink. If you don’t like wine, or
worse, don’t think you will and have never
tried it, start with a blush.
White Zinfandcl is the current king of the
blush world. At the restaurant where I wait
tables, I get more orders for this wine than any
other. First of all, White Zinfandcl is not a
while wine. It’s pink. It comes from a red grape
(the Zinfandel) that’s been partially skinned.
The wine itself is, if it’s a good one, refreshing,
sweet and very fruity (as in berries). If you want
something akin to a wine cooler, this is it sans
the fizz.
There are other blush wines, but White
Zinfandcls are a good kind to start with, be
cause they re generally ol a higher quality.
Another thing: White Zinfandel lately has
been immortalized by being sold in a box.
You’ve seen these things at the liquor store —
achccsy cardboard container with a spout. Stay
away from these and remember, wine in a box
isn’t wine, it’s Kool Aid with an attitude.
After playing around with the blush wines
for a bit, you’ll probably be ready for the
whites.
White wines range in flavor from sicken
ing I y sweet to very dry (the opposite of sweet).
You’ll most likely want to start out with the
sweeter ones and work your way up. It usually
takes a while to gel accustomed to dry wines—
See WINE on 10