. Mark
ALBRACHT
Art of appreciation
Disinterest drives wedges between students
Aside from the category of people
who categorize people, there are four
types of students at the University of
Nebraska. There are students who
like football, but don’t like art There
.n . .. an> students who
like art, but don’t
like football.
There are
students who dig
both (or, at the
very least, don’t
object to either).
And there are
students who hate
hnth I’ve never
actually met the fourth kind, but I
don’t want to exclude anybody from
my simple generalizations. I’m
guessing that these fourth-type
people, whoever they are, iso think
Ted Kaczynski would make a lovely
president, so enough about than.
I land in the category that digs
both. Because of the natural tendency
to hang with like-minded people, my
perception is that the majority of
students at UNL also fall into this
category. Of course, I may be wrong.
I do know people who reside in
the other groups and, to make it as
blunt as a lead pipe, they irritate me.
I want to point out, however, that
these people also carry many
attributes that I agree with and enjoy.
But it’s their condescending attitude
toward what they do not like that
thoroughly annoys me.
Listening to some students speak
during the last two weeks, a person
might get the impression that our
university is on the vage of a black
plague. “How terrible!” they would
say. “We must stop this infestation.”
Infestation of what? Termites?
Rats? Bubonic germs? No. Sculp
tures.
Sculptures?!? The installation of
“Tom Notebook” was the ultimate in
what some see as a trampling of
student rights. Under the grassy
knolls that hold the giant sails of the
academic-inspired art, there lies the
it-—
Listening to some students speak during
the last two weeks, a person might get the
impression that our university is on the
verge of a black plague "
memory of what appeals more to
their aesthetic sensibilities—a
smooth, concrete surface on which
they could park their cars. It doesn’t
matter that they never parked their
cars there in the first place, as it was
faculty parking. Buried with die
concrete is the ideal that someone’s
car could be parked in that lot so
blissfully close to a great many
campus buildings. The very thought
of which, I’m sure, draws a single
tear down their collective cheeks.
Never mind that there’s a parking
garage in the works to fix this most
impertinent of issues. Never mind
that you have to walk far no matter
where you park. Never mind that
parking lots are ugly. What’s done is
done, and to them it’s heartbreaking.
This anti-campus-art attitude is
not new to this university. Three,
years ago when green space was
thought of, there were similar groans.
Granted, green space isn’t technically
ait, but it does beautify the campus.
Not coincidentally, buried beneath
that spot is a parking lot. But the
replacement of parking is not the
only reason for grumbling. It’s not
even the main reason.
The major objection is due to a
distaste for art in general. That’s not
to say these students dislike all art,
it’s a they-know-what-they-like
when-they-see-it sort of thing. They
lack an appreciation of art for art's
sake.
They want their entertainment to
be mindless. They won’t stand for the
bony finger of thought-provocation
tweaking their brains and asking to
be heard. They want to be passive.
They do enough thinking in
school, they say, and when a sculp
ture is put in their path, it’s only a
needless obstacle to swerve by in an
Indy-500 effort to not stumble late
into class and be greeted by the
professor’s unforgiving eyes. And
because they don’t appreciate the
sculpture, they call it a worthless pile
of junk. That’s what makes them feel
better.
On the other side of the coin
reside the ultra-artistics. They have a
fantastic appreciation for all
artforms. But what they do not
appreciate and, more irritatingly,
what they do not tolerate is that
which does not appeal to their
intellects, most notably Nebraska
football. Quietly, deep in the back of
the Coffee House, safe from the open
streets of Lincoln, they diverge from
their in-depth discussions of Andy
Warhol or Fellini or Dadaism (take
your pick) to thumb their abstract
noses at the Husker program, their
off-field problems, and particularly
the fans thereof. Single-minded, get
a-life fanatics, they call them, the
very mass-market-driven ilk that
pushes America deeper down a
cultureless spiral.
What if the great unifying aspect
of this state was not Husker football?
What if it was some kind of ultra
! prolific art scene? Let’s say, for
instance, that Nebraska cinema could
be matched nowhere else in the
world, conducting festivals that
pitted such homegrown talents as
Francois TYuffaut, AlfYed Hitchcock,
Eric Rohmer, the Coens and Quentin
Tarantino against Hollywood
outsiders like Robot Zemeckis, John
Hughes and that guy who made “Ace
Ventura.” Wouldn’t you, as an art
lover, don your Fellini’s “8 1/2” shirt,
your Luis Bunuel ball cap, and go
running raucously through the streets
shouting “we’re No. 1" as the local
boys swept the Cannes Film Festi
val?
I don’t mean to preach to either
side of this coin. I would rather see it
tossed down a well with the wish that
both sides would respect the other.
I’m not saying that everyone needs to
like everything. Football will never
be to everyone’s taste — and neither
will “Tom Notebook” for that matter.
All I’m asking is that people consider
other people’s opinions in a positive
way and not make any unwarranted
assumptions. Such an attitude could
lead sports-only fans to feel the
exciting, kinetic energy of a Jackson
Pollock, or an only-art-please
connoisseur to see the unpredictable
artistiy of a diving end-zone catch
that puts the home team ahead with
three seconds left on the clock. If it
doesn’t pan out for either person, at
least it was given an open-minded
chance.
But there are people who are set
in their ways. No need for change,
they say, they already know what’s
cool and what’s not. On Saturday, as
I walked under the shadow of the
spectacular ‘Tom Notebook” on my
way to the immense shadow of
Memorial Stadium for the season
opener, I wondered how it was
possible that I also walked across a
tom campus.
Albracht is a junior philosophy
major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
Cliff
HICKS .
The road to Gatescape
Bill’s ready to take on the World (Wide Web)
Aug. 13,1996. Bill Gates,
chairman of Microsoft, announces to
the world that Microsoft now owns
not only the whole planet, but
everything on it.
OK, a bit
much, perhaps,
but on that day,
the first
electronic
World War
wasbegun.lt
premises to be
a big (me, too.
No holds
barred.
anything goes, across the entire globe
—virtually.
The key to the World Wide Web
is Netscape. Or it was, anyway.
Maybe it still will be. That is what
Microsoft wants to dispute.
Netscape is the graphical browser
that allows millions of users every
day to use the World Wide Web, the
multi-faceted sight-ond-sound
connection to the Internet that gives
people the ability to point and click
their way along the information
superhighway,
-i It’s a trig business, and Bill Gates
wants it—like a kid who’s too
greedy to share his toys with all the
other children.
. Sure it doesn’t sound like all that
a
It’s a big business, and Bill Gates wants
it—like a kid who’s too greedy to share
his toys with all the other children.”
much. I mean, it’s not, like, going to
replace Windows, right?
Don’t be too sure about that.
The winner of this fight will be
worth billions. Right now, the battle
is over the business of interfacing the
Internet through PC terminals, but •
this fight’s going to get a lot bigger a
lot quicker.
Five years ago, this stuff was
barely beginning to take off. In five
years, everything may very well be
connected to die Internet. Really.
By next summer, televisions that
access the Internet will be a common
sight in electronics stores every
where. TWenty radio stations across
the United States already broadcast
through the Internet as well as across
the airwaves.
- - Rumors about the future are foil
of wild speculation. It has been said
that the Internet may put places tike
Blockbuster out of business when it
offers the ability to #t any movie on
instant demand. Soon it may even
replace phone lines with fiber-optic
connections.
The world is getting connected—
and in a big hurry. Pretty soon,
everything wilt exist for the public at
large to access. Anyone anywhere
will be able to do anything.
So when the people at Microsoft
ask “Where do you want to go
today?” they’re serious about it, and
THEY want to be the ones to take
you there. - 1
How serious a threat is this? Bill
Gates has dedicated all of Microsoft,
all $70 billion dollars that the
company is worth, into becoming the
Internet leader.
Getting nervous? Both sides are.
This is poker with the pot more
than overflowing. With Microsoft’s
$70 billion, Netscape’s $3.1 billion
and the projected trillions, yes
trillions, in projected income
holding their breath.
Netscape’s few edges are intense
customer loyalty and dozens of perks
that Microsoft hasn’t gotten—yet.
But since Microsoft Explorer comes
free with every copy of Windows ’95
and Bill Gates has $1.5 billion in
research and development, this may
not hold. /
Plus, once again Microsoft has
been reported to the Justice Depart
ment on claims of anticompetitive
behavior, which caused Gates
endless frustration before.
And, of course, Netscape has a
fairly close deal with the developers
of Java, the language which is
crossing all boundaries and empow
ering everything on the Internet. But
Gatos is trying to pry this open too,
so anything goes.
hi the end, hopefully Microsoft
wifl get the shaft and go belly up,
while the underdog Netscape will
emerge to give Bill Gates someone to
call Ids constant enemy. ,
If not,, we can just rename
Microsoft—either Monopoly or Big
Brother. Orwell, you were 20 years
off. 4
Hicks MMaiophgasort aewt-^