Ill
Poster Kids
play Duffy’s
Sunday night
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Reporter
Poster Children are four musicians follow
ing through with their creative ambitions.
“We want to show others that they, too, can
follow their own desires rather than those that
have been packaged for their consumption,”
members said.
Sunday, those desires will lead the band to
Duffy’s Tavern, 1412 O St. Pop Defect and
Sideshow will also appear.
Poster Children members are Rick, guitar,
Jim, guitar, Johnny, drums; and Rose, bass
guitar.
Jon Taylor, member of local band Mercy
Rule, said he met members of Poster Children
when the band was touring several years ago.
Taylor and his wife have kept in touch with
members, he said, and traveled to see the band
perform.
Taylor described the group as a rhythm
based band that is not reflective of today’s
music scene.
“They’re not grungy at all,” he said. “They
don’t have the now sound. They don’t have all
the sounds everyone is digging.”
But people do like the band’s original sound,
Taylor said, and the band’s popularity is grow
ing.
“They’re about as big as they can be without
having a video on MTV,” he said.
1 Poster Children’s success has not gone un
noticed by record companies. The band recent
ly was signed with Sire Records, a division of
Time-Warner Communications.
The Champaign, 111., band’s latest release,
“Tool of the Man,” is a sarcastic response to
fans accusing them of selling out.
“We realized we hadn't become a ’tool’
upon signing to S ire,” members said. “After all,
we weren’t any different the next day—we still
had the same songs, wrote the same way and
had the same ideas.”
The band’s previous releases are “Flower
Power” and “Daisy Chain Reaction.”
Taylor said he considers himself a big fan of
Poster Children.
“They’re about one of the best bands in the
country,” he said.
Jute Mikotajcik/DN
Back Cook, right, prepares lunch for Jon and Laurie Camp at the Haymaricet General Store. Camp said he and
his wife eat at the store regularly. Matt Wichles Is pictured at far left.
Nostalgic nook
Old-style variety store offers something for everyone
Pi Hmmm
By Paula Lavigne
SUi! Rtporttr __
In the days of soda fountains and cigar
store Indians, the general store thrived.
Today, Lincoln has its own — The
Haymarket General Store — which com
bines the atmosphere of the past with the
convenience of today.
Like the old stores, the basic necessities
are there, everything from bottled pop to
crayons to toothpaste. Modem touches in
clude a full deli and lottery tickets.
Co-owner Crystal McKenzie said conve
nience, rather than selection, may be the
store's strongest selling point.
“It’s basically the same as a grocery
store, aside from the deli and convenience of
it being down here," McKenzie said.
McKenzie said she had not targeted The
Haymarket as a location.
rT iust kind of ran into it," she said. “It
wasn’t something I was searching out. The
rent’s cheaper, and it’s a nicer area.”
The difference between the modern-day
convenience store and the Haymarket Gen
eral Store lies in the general store’s nostalgic
appearance and atmosphere.
The store’s interior, with hardwood floors,
draperies and numerous plants, adds to its
aesthetics, McKenzie said. The charm is
enhanced by the country music that filters
through the stmt, she said.
The back of the store resembles a cafe,
with small tables and chairs where custom
ers can sit down and eat
“I like it a lot ,” McKenzie said. “It makes
you feel more comfortable, with the plants
and everything. It's not so much a restaurant
type (place), it’s kind of a casual place you
can go.”
McKenzie said most of the people who
come in are from local businesses in the
Haymarket and that she has a good number
of regulars. She even addresses some cus
tomers by name, she said.
“The good share of the clientele down
here is the people who work in the area.
People who are just shopping in the
Haymarket stop by occasionally.
Vs kind of nice to have the variety of the
convenience store and the deli,” she said. “I
also like the different types of people.”
Dangerously excellent 6Chez Nous could ruin Hollywood
The Last Days of Chez Nous
This is a film about families, and
how they fall apart.
But it’s neither depressing nor end
lessly serious.
This particular family could al
most be described as happy. They’re
Australians with a French father—an
eccentric and fun-loving group.
They play together, but they don’t
stay together, which makes their in
evitable breakup all the more poi
gnant.
The characters are engaging, and
there’snot a villain in the piece, though
plenty of villainy.
There’s no room for villains here
— these characters are as real as real
people, maybe more real. And that
makes ‘The Last Days of Chez Nous”
a work of high art.
The actors make it look easy —
they are in turn charming and disturb
ing, light and dense.
They build a network of feeling
and memory that bears the deep im
print of family, of long connections
between people.
And at the same time they begin
undermining our standards: after this,
how are we to go back to Arnold
Schwarzenegger and the ham-fisted
crowd we’ve grown so used to?
The answer is that we can’t really.
and a few more films of this caliber
could ruin Hollywood forever—they
might have to start producing the gen
uine article after all these years.
But acting is only an element in the
alchemy of art The powerful direct
ing and writing show through here as
well.
Gillian Armstrong directs a reso
nant film with a strong hand and clear
vision.
Lisa Harrow and Bruno Ganz, who
many will remember from “Wings of
Desire,” are more than stars, they are
craftpersons of the highest order.
The story they tell together is rich
and deep and wholly human—it’s a
tale of how to forgive without forget
ting, a kind of instruction manual of
grief.
One senses that, years from now,
when we are all older and much more
weary from betrayals of our own, we
will find it a good film to have seen.
“The Last Days of Chez Nous”
opens today at the Mary Riepma Ross
Film Theater.
—Mark Baldridge
M I — •
Virgin-seeking vampire
lesbians come to town Friday
By Anne Steyer
Senior Reporter
“Guaranteed to keep the bad taste
on the stage and out of your mouth.”
With a tag line like that, “Vampire
Lesbians of Sodom,” should have a
sold-out weekend.
The play returns to the Lincoln
Ensemble Theatre stage, 701 P St.,
Friday and Saturday for two midnight
performances.
Paul Pearson, LET vice president,
said “Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,”
was staged at the LET facility last
summer and sold out four out of five
performances.
The midnight performances fit the
theme of the show as well as the type
of audience, he mid, because it's the
type of show that develops a cult
following.
Directed by UNL student Channing
Roos, the show also reunites most of
the summer cast, Pearson said. Roos
selected the cast from all aspects of
the Lincoln theater community.
“Vampire Lesbians of Sodom,”
was written by Charles Busch and is
the longest running off-Broadway non
musical around, Pearson said.
He said the play’s success was no
surprise.
“It’s kind of a spoof ofold vampire
movies and Hollywood, with a bit of
a jab at contemporary conventions,”
he said.
“Some of it is very funny and very
campy,” he said.
Busch created some “gender
bender” roles when he wrote the play,
Pearson said, and this weekend’s pro
duction keeps that tradition.
“It’s really kind of silly stuff,*’ he
said. “It’s nicely naughty — which
you can’t help but have when you
have people in drag.”
The story begins in old Sodom,
travels through Hollywood in the
1920s and ends in present-day Las
Vegas.
Pearson said the stoiy really had
nothing to do with lesbians. Instead
the story has two vampires chasing
young virgins in order to survive.
“Which becomes more difficult as
we get more contemporary,” he said,
chuckling.
Busches material taps into the youth
market very well, Pearson said, but
should appeal to a variety of people.
“The title is the most shocking
thing about it,” he said.
Tickets are $9, $8 for students.
Reservations cm be made at the LET
box office.
