ArtsSentertainment
Nebraskan
Wednesday, October 27,1993
‘Love’ hits airwaves, features UNL students
. ..' .1" '■ 1 11
ByAnneSteyer „
Senior Reporter »_
Lamontc Pfafif is looking for love
in Lincoln—specifically on the UNL
vuuipua.
PfafT, 25, produces “Love on Cam
pus,” a new public access show that
deals with issues in relationships at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The show airs Wednesdays at 10
p.m. on Cablevision Channel 14 and
is broadcast in association with Ne
braska Public Access Television. PfafT
said he was planning on airing new
episodes every other week.
PfafT, an unclassified graduate stu
dent from Omaha, said he hoped “Love
on Campus” would help get him into
film school at the University of South
ern California.
For that reason, he does a great
deal of the work himself, he said. He
runs the camera and does the editing,
although he has recruited a small crew
to work with him.
Pfaff said he planned to produce
eight shows to run through Jan. 31.
In terms of interviewees, Pfaff said
he looked for people who seemed to
be outgoing and willing to talk.
“We walk up and say 'Hey would
you like to be on TV?’,” Pfaff said.
Each show will have a different
theme, but they will all be related to
love, he said. Each epsisode features
students attempting to explain their
attitudes on love, men and women.
The topic of the first show was
“What is love?”
Upcoming shows, he said, will
concentrate on how students in the
residence halls and the Greek com
munity view relationships.
Staci McKee/DM
Lamonte Pfaff produces the show,“Love on Campus,” which airs on public access television, channel 14. The show is on
every other Wednesday at 10 D.m.
But that doesn’t mean “Love on
Campus” can’t branch out to cover
controversial campus issues, Pfaff
said.
He said he hoped to incorporate the
issues of the Barney love/hatc rela
tionship and the pink triangle stickers
into future shows.
The commentary, he said, “is real
impromptu, real spontaneous.”
Students who are interviewed arc
told to use fake names, both to protect
themselves and to add to the fun.
He said he approached many stu
dents and found the bulk for his first
program bv Broyhill Fountain.
A lot of people turn down the op
portunity to appear on camera, he
said, while others who agree some
times clam up when the red light goes
on. "
Others, PfafTsaid, get excited when
they hear the subject matter, and arc
more than willing to talk.
6Strange Angels’ reveals Midwestern reality, depth
“Strange Angels”
Jonis Agee
Ticknor and Fields
People on the East and West coasts
have a stereotypical image of Mid
westerners — to them, we are all just
simple farmers.
Nebraska author Jonis Agee has
written several books in Midwestern
settings — in an effort to shatter the
misconceptions of the Midwest.
Her first novel, “Sweet Eyes,” deals
with small-town life in Iowa and was
named “Notable Book of the Year” by
the New York Times.
“Strange Angels,” Agee’s second
book, shows the complexities of Ne
braska life at the rural level.
Set in the Sandhills, the novel at
tempts to show others that Nebras
kans live a life reflective of the world
outside the Midwest. She shows that
Nebraska is really much more than
just cornfields and Interstate 80.
Agee chose the Sandhills as her
bookYs setting because the area was
always an amazing, secret place to her
when she was growing up just outside
ot Omaha.
“My father and brothers went to
the Sandhills to hunt when I was a
child,” Agee said in a phone inter
view.
“The Sandhills have always exist
ed in my imagination and recently in
reality,” she said.
Agee spent two years doing re
search in the Sandhills, travelingback
and forth from her home in St. Paul,
Minn. She talked to residents and
even bought a stretch of land south of
Valentine, very near the fictional set
ting of her novel.
The book deals with three siblingsi
each with mixed feelings toward the
others. They are forced to work to
gether when their father dies and
leaves his ranch to them.
Arthur, the eldest, is a money
hungry businessman who tries to ex
pand the ranch and increase his in
vestments at any cost.
“Arthur tries to slip into the stereo
type of the bad man,” Agee said. “But
he is capable of moments of goodness
and feelings.”
Cody, his half-brother, is a quiet
man who knows the basics of ranch
life. His silence stems from a child
hood raised by a single mother.
This segment details his need for
silence:
“... His mother had taught him how
words fail, how language was a lie. He
was plenty happy for silence when he
ran from their house, sometimes flat
tening his hands over his ears to stop
even the crowding of frogs, crickets,
grasshoppers, wind, and birds that
threatened him.”
Their half-sister Kya is wild and
rebellious, with an inner toughness
that makes even her brothers a little
afraid of her.
Cody says “she was like keeping a
pet rattler. Sooner or later you were
going to get bit, so you couldn’t very
well blame the snake.”
The three are each tested as human
oeings, Agee saia.
“They have to go beyond their
histories and the roles that arc set for
them."
Agee said the characters’ dead fa
ther, Heywood, is based on her own
father.
Like Heywood, her father gave his
children roles, which he expected them
to, fill.
“I was the smart one. I went to a
different school growing up. One of
my sisters was the athletic one. We all
had assigned roles," she said.
Writing about Heywood and his
three children helped Agee to
demystify her image of her father, she
said.
Agee moves beyond personal is
sues in the novel, as well. She deals
with the stories of several Native
American Lakotas.
“I’ve always been interested in
Native life and religion,” she said.
Agee received assistance from a
friend who is a teacher on the Rose
bud Reservation.
In the book, Joseph, a Native Amer
ican friend of Cody and Kya, attempts
to come to grips with his heritage and
religion.
He is a very wise but cynical man.
Here he tells Cody how the image of
the Native American changed during
his lifetime.
‘“Growing up, I was ‘Tonto.’ In
the army, ‘Nam, I was ‘Tonto.’ I get
home, we’re suddenly ‘the people,’
hippies trying to move on the res,
buying beads, running around in moc
casins and loincloths. Ifithadn’tbeen
so pathetic, it would’ve been funny.’”
Joseph and Kya have a very per
sonal relationship—and in the end—
he helps her come to grips with her
self.
Agee gives a very realistic picture
of life in the Sandhills, with a good
mixture of tragedy and humor.
Not many authors have the ability
to graphically describe the castration
of a bull. She does. Ranch life is more
than just the romantic stereotype of
the cowboy, as she shows in her de
scription of a cattle “operation."
“When the door on the top dropped
open, exposing the genitals, Cody
pulled the sacs toward him and cut
them off with one deft stroke. With
out looking, he tossed them in the
cardboard box behind him on the
ground, where the flies quickly cov
ered them. ‘That’ll put your mind on
grass, not ass.’”
Well-written and balanced, the
book has something for every type of
reader. Filled with action, brimming
with romance and topped off with
realism and drama, the novel is a very
powerful work that should be read,
V £
especially by Nebraskans.
Agee deals with the potential for
kind, generous and courageous acts
that ties within all of us. Coming out
at odd moments, this is what makes us
“Strange Angels.”
Courtesy Ticknor & Fields
Agee will visit Nebraska Book
store, 1300 Q St., Saturday. She will
answer questions and sign autographs
from 1 to 2 p.m. P
—Joel Strauch