Arts ©Entertainment
Thursday, August 24, 1995 Page 15
JeffHaller/DN
c Neil Munson, a retired UNL professor, has work on display through Sunday at Gallery 9. The gallery is open Wednesday through
Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. | _ r>r , o of L {
By Matthew Waite
Senior Editor
If art had a fast lane, Neil Munson wouldn’t
know where it was.
The retired UNL education professor doesn’t
rush — he isn’t in the studio day and night. In
fact, he turns only about three pieces a year.
Munson builds his woodcraft pieces for
show, but from his words he almost sounds
uncomfortable with them on display.
Had it not been for another artist resigning
from Gallery 9, 124 S. Ninth St., before their
showing, Munson’s woodcraft would not be on
display now.
“It was a fluke,” Munson said with a laugh.
“I’m actually a non-displaying member (of the
gallery).”
Retired professor’s work
on display at Gallery 9
Sitting across the large display room,
Marilyn Bower, of Seward, looked up after
Munson’s comment.
“He’s actually being modest,” she said.
“His work is so unique ... and he has done so
much work for the gallery.”
The work is a combination of beauty and
function, logic and art. His woodcraft ranges
from ornate wooden chairs to plates with a
pattern of dancers to cut-away pieces of sculpted
wood intertwined.
The pieces displayed in the front room of
Gallery 9 all were made on the UNL campus
and span from his first work started in 1977.
Munson started teaching at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1947 as an industrial
education instructor and retired in 1988.
His main area of instruction was wood, and
with many of the classes, he gave his students
a project that let them spread their creative
wings.
“It was the fact that I was involved in
students working that it got my appetite whet
for doing my own,” Munson said.
In 1977,30 years after his start in teaching,
he turned his first piece and showed it with the
Nebraska Crafts Council.
He worked on weekends and over brown
bag lunches, where he would sit and sketch
ideas. It was on Saturdays that he would get
into the lab to work on the piece.
And now that he has retired, one would
think he would be working more. Not so, he
said.
“I can’t be classified as a very productive
(artist),” he said. “I don’t think I have given up
turning. I’m just happy doing other things.”
Colonial room serves
it up bland, plentiful
By Mark Baldridge
Restaurant Critic
The Colonial Dining Room in
the Nebraska Union offers food in
a Midwestern tradition: bland, and
plenty of it. The food is unremark
able; the menu is limited.
Nevertheless, the Colonial
room, open Monday through Fri
day, 11:30 am to 1:30 p.m„ has
something to offer to the student
on the run — time.
While the food lines in the union
stretched all the way out to the
fountain — or almost—and hun
gry would-be diners peered over
the shoulders of their fellows at
indistinct menus already memo
rized by routine, I sat down to an
empty table in an almost empty
room.
For 20 minutes, I ate in total
silence only to be joined, fi
nally, by another lone diner.
We shared a room that might
have seated 70 people, at tables
with actual cloths.
Just a few yards away, a mass of
students surged toward tables where
they would hunker, almost touch
ing. Stretch out for a moment and
you brush your neighbor’s hair—
or worse.
I and my tone dining mate went
back for seconds in the time it took
one of the poor hapless kids in the
hall to get from the back of the line
— he hopes it leads to Amigos—
to get close enough to hear “D’you
want Mexi-fires with that?”
I had the full deal: Buffet with
coffee.
The salad bar was passable, and
in fact the best thing about the
Colonial room.
The cherry tomatoes, at least,
were still firm—which is always
See COLONIAL on 16
Crib undergoes transformation
By Gerry Beltz
Senior Reporter
Last Thursday, there was comedy.
Tonight, video karaoke and disco
lights.
Thursday-night programs in the
Crib (south side of the Nebraska
Union) have begun for the fall semes
ter.
Rich Caruso, coordinator of Cam
pus Programs, said last week’s Com
edy Night, headlined by Elliott
Threatt, was a major success.
“We packed it out,” Caruso said.
“Every seat in the Crib was filled.”
This type of programming actu
ally has been in the planning for the
last couple of years, Caruso said, and
was brought up by concerned stu
dents.
“They looked at the social culture
of university students,” Caruso said,
“and noticed that a lot of the students
were going out drinking.
“I don’t think that drinking is nec
essarily bad, but we wanted to present
an alternative for, number one, those
students who don’t drink, and num
“We are trying to do
something to change the
character of the Crib. ”
DARYL SWANSON
Union director
ber two, just for another alternative
altogether.”
Caruso said the Thursday-night
programs were free to students, some
thing he hopes will generate interest.
The close proximity to students is
another factor, Caruso said.
“It’s right here on campus,” Caruso
said. “Students can just come right
down here from the residence halls.”
One regular piece of programming
will be a double feature of“Friends*
and “Seinfeld” on the big screen in
the Crib, from 8 to 9 every Thursday
night. Other events will begin at 9,
some lasting as late as midnight,
Caruso said. - ^
Next week, however, will be an
exception—me iNeorasKa-uxianoma
State football game will be broad
cast.
“We really didn’t think we could
compete with the Huskers,” Caruso
said.
Tonight, the Crib will be the site
for Disco Night, Caruso said.
“We will transform the Crib into a
disco,” Caruso said. “We’re bringing
in the disco lights and those big,
mirrored balls.”
A 15-by-15-foot dance floor also
will be brought in, Caruso said.
“They won’t have to cut a rug on
a rug,” he said.
Although these changes to the Crib
are temporary, Daryl Swanson, Di
rector of Nebraska Unions, said some
permanent changes may be under
way.
“We are trying to do something to
change the character of the Crib,”
Swanson said, “and we wanted to
mark the occasion of the expanded
programming in the Crib.”
Swanson said there were plans to
See CRIB on 16