Arts ^Entertainment
Rainbow Rowell
Doobie
sing-along
infectious
My high school newspaper came
out once a month. During the last three
days of the month, seven editors sat in
front of Macintosh Classics through
out the daylight hours paginating.
Paginating involved laying out the
pages on Aldus PageMaker. We took
long, hellish days to do what the Daily
Nebraskan does in about three hours
every night.
And we complained. A lot. We got
tired of sitting and staring at screens.
Our legs would fall asleep. We’d get
headaches. We’d get silly and sick of
each other.
We passed the time listening to a
beat-up radio someone had brought
from home. The cord was frayed, and
you had to make it sit just right to
work.
Fight ing over the radio station also
helped pass the time. Our trusted and
finnicky adviser absolutely objected
to rap, heavy metal, dance music, al
ternative music and anything else re
corded after 1980.
So we logged hour upon hour lis
tening to oldies stations. Every once
in a while, he’d wander out of his
office, munching on a bran muffin, to
say, “Ah yes, this song reminds me of
the summer of 1972 ...”
I remember one particularly long
afternoon from my senior year. School
had been out for two hours, but we
were still in thejoumalism room work
ing on the paper. Our adviser had to
call the printer earlier that day be
cause we missed our deadline. Again.
It was winter and the heaters in the
journalism room were broken. They
stayed on all the time, and even with
the windows open, the room stayed
hot and scratchy.
We were tired and wanted to go
home. No one felt like talking.
Then it started.
I think it started with Scott, the
sport? editor. We all sat in a line, and
he sat on the end.
“Old black water, keep on rolling
Mississippi moon, won’t you keep
in shining on me?”
Then Gwen, in the middle of the
line, picked it up. Gwen was the news
editor, and she was pretty shy. I don’t
think she even knew she was singing.
Pretty soon, we were all singing.
Now, I don’t remember ever learning
or even liking that song, but I can sing
it from beginning to end, and so could
everyone else in the room.
I bet you can, too. Try it. Start
singing “Black Water” by the Doobie
Brothers. I bet you a dollar your friends
and loved ones syill know the words. I
bet you two dollars they love that
“dance with your daddy” line.
Never before and never since have
I seen a group of people erupt into
song. Without a word, we divided up
the parts. “By the hand, hand, take me
by the hand,” half of us would sing.
“Pretty mama,” the rest would chime
in.
It was, in a word, beautiful.
Until our adviser dragged his crusty
self from his office and put an end to
our magic moment.
“Enough of this racket, we have
deadlines to meet!”
Rowell is a senior news-editorial, adver
tising and English major and Dally Nebras
kan managing editor.
Aaron Steckelberg/DN
Gold-medal grapes
Nebraska winery squashes competition
By Albert Schmid
Staff Reporter
PIERCE — When gold medals are given for
wine, they usually go to wineries in France,
Germany, California, Australia, New York... and
recently Nebraska.
Ed Swanson, owner of the Culhil 1 Winery near
Pierce, was pleased to add a gold medal from the
American Wine Society for his 1994 “Reserve
Red” to his growing collection of honors.
Swanson also has won bronze medals from the
American Wine Society and the India Interna
tional Wine Competition for CuthiH’s“Mead,”a
sweet wine made from honey. It is the least
expensive of his wines, selling for $9. The honey
used for the Mead comes from the Elkhom Bee
Hives.
•The “Reserve Red” sells for $18 a bottle and
is aged in American oak barrels for 13 months.
Swanson, who has been making wine for 20
years, offers seven different varieties of wine.
Three more are to be released late this year. From
the dry white or red, to semi-sweet white, blush
and sweet wines, Swanson has been able to up
production from 1,300 gallons in 1994 to almost
4,000 gallons this season.
“My roommate had to work with the wine so he (the
distributor) gave us a few bottles of wine to try at home. We
were beer drinkers from Nebraska. It had a harsh taste. We
ended up pouring most of it out. ”
ED SWANSON
Owner of the Cuthill Winery
Nebraska does not fall within the normal geo
graphic parameters for a successful grape harvest
because of “short summers and harsh winters,”
Swanson said.
Swanson, the former general manager for
Marathon Press in Norfolk, worked his way up at
the press and then phased himself out as the
winery and vineyard took up more of his time. He
has been working on the vineyard for 10 years.
After graduating from Norfolk High School,
Swanson moved to Arizona, where his interest in
wine began.
“My roommate was working for a (beer and
wine) distributor,” Swanson said. “My roommate
had to work with the wine so he (the distributor)
gave us a few bottles of wine to try at home. We
were beer drinkers from Nebraska. It had a harsh
taste. We ended up pouring most of it out.”
Learning to make wine has been a trial-and
error process, he said, and he has attended many
workshops and seminars on the subject.
He says he hopes to add more varieties of wine
over the next few years, including dessert wines
that may be available two seasons from now.
The winery is open to visitors during the
holidays, 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday. The winery’s regular hours are limited to
9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.
on Sunday. It alsowill be open Christmas Eve and
New Year’s Eve from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Jazz group spruces up show
oy OIITT A. MICKS
Staff Reporter ~
It’s Christmas music in a whole new light.
The Nebraska Jazz Orchestra hopes to reinvent
the traditional tunes tonight with “Christmas & All
That Jazz,” with Annette Murrell as guest vocalist.
The Nebraska Jazz Orchestra, formerly the
Neo-Classic Jazz Orchestra, is celebrating its
20th anniversary season this year.
“The NJO was founded 20 years ago by a
bunch of UNL graduates who were looking for a
place to continue playing jazz like they did in
college and found no place to do that,” said Ed
Love, music director of the Nebraska Jazz Or
chestra. Love also plays saxophone, clarinet and
flute for this performance.
“We started getting together on Sundays, then
having concerts, forcing ourselves to practice,”
Love said.
Since then, the group has expanded its season
— six concerts are scheduled this year — and
lined up other engagements, such as the Arts
Council Touring Program to other Nebraska
towns, including Imperial and Central City.
But the group has a special place in its heart for
Lincoln.
“We’ve gotten a great response in Lincoln,” said
MikeMurphy,saxophonistforthegroup.“Wehave
a real loyal following. We play full houses.”
The Nebraska Jazz Orchestra comprises 17
musicians and includes instruments such as saxo
phone, trombone, trumpet, clarinet, piano, bass,
drums and guitar.
Annette Murrell, who has sung at the Zoo Bar
and several other Lincoln venues, will provide
guest vocals for the orchestra. This will be the
second time she has performed with the group.
“We had heard her singing with her own group,”
Love said, “and she sings in sort of a gospel,
traditional voice, so we figured that Christmas tunes
would fit her style of singing very well.”
Many of the songs were arranged by Peter
Bouffard, the Nebraska Jazz Orchestra’s guitar
ist. Others were composed by Dave Sharp, a UNL
music professor.
Joel Nielsen, administrative assistant for the
Nebraska Jazz Orchestra, said the group “felt that
the time was right. They hadn’t done the Christ
mas theme for several years, and since the book
ing was for the first week in December, they
figured ‘Why not?”’
Among the songs to be performed are “God
Rest Ye Merry Gentleman,” “The Holly and the
Ivy” and the “Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Love said the group would perform “jazz
arrangements of traditional songs.”
“We hope we will be swinging,” he said.
The concert starts at 7:30 tonight in the grand
ballroom at the Ramada Hotel, 141 N. Ninth St.
Tickets will be sold at the door—$5 for students,
$2 for senior citizens and $12 for adults.
Long-winded
Wild Bill’ true
to hero’s life
i
By Jenny Parmenter
Film Critic
A smoky saloon filled with no-good gun
slingers and drunken gamblers becomes
unnervingly quiet as the
mysterious stranger enters
the room.
This scene is frequently
described in many West
erns before some gun
si inger with the wrong atti -
tude talks to the mysteri
ous stranger and gets shot,
and “Wild Bill” is no ex
ception.
Tf ______ , •
nuwcvci, mysterious
stranger Wild Bill Hickok’s (Jeff Bridges)
reasoning may be a little strange: he shoots
men for touching his hat.
So begins another thrilling tale of the Old
West.
‘‘Wild Bill” is another director’s attempt to
See BILL on 13
Movie
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