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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 2001)
KRNU programs flourish BY ALEXIS EINERSON KRNU, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s radio station that most everyone has heard of and only some listen to, is trying to make its program ming incorporate all different student groups. “Heresy," 9 p.m. until 11 p.m. Tuesdays and “Hot Lunch,” 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays, are two of KRNU's specialty shows that are extremely differ ent in every way. “Heresy,” started in 1989 by Dave Berreth, is the longest running show for KRNU. KRNU changed formats in the summer of 1989 from Top 40 bands to more alternative, said Richard Allowav, general manager for KRNU and UNL lecturer. After this change, Berreth came to him and said he wanted to start a heavy metal show, Alloway said. “Heresy,” also the name of a heavy metal song, is now' hosted by Kaci Lynch, a broadcasting junior at UNL. The show began “hair band” stage, and now Lynch said they have overhauled the show. “There are so many things out there that are influenced by hard rock,” Lynch said. “We try to play the littler known bands or tracks.” “Hot Lunch,” on the other hand, doesn’t play music at all. The talk show started airing at the beginning of last year with Tony Bock, Matt Fiorita and a UNL graduate as hosts. Each person brought their own aspect to the show, Fiorita said. “Tony and I always had a comical chemistry,” Fiorita said. As with any show, Fiorita said, it took a while for the hosts to be comfortable on air. “On our first show we only had two calls. It was horrible,” Fiorita said. “The only place to go from there was up.” "Hot Lunch” has also changed in the last two years. Karissa Armstrong, a senior, is now the third host. “My specialty is sex talk,” Armstrong said. “I bring a whole different aspect to the show.” Alloway said he felt that “Hot Lunch” would not have been possible without its predecessor, "Three Men and a German.” “Three Men and a German” was in basically the same time slot as “Hot Lunch” and was also a comedic talk show that also allowed for the more serious side of college issues. Alloway said that he saw the same thing happening with "Hot Lunch.” “I was a little apprehensive about two hours of comedy,” Alloway said. “Once they started the show, it looked like they were going to be kind of pursuing the same course that Three Men and a German’ took, and that was to kind of take a look at different things on campus - be funny when we can. But if there's something serious going on let’s talk about that too.” While the shows change yearly, the sound of the radio station also changed with the personal tastes of the music staff. “It’s fun for me because then the station is always evolving and morphing, not the same thing from year to year,” Alloway said. Its fun for me because then the station is always evolving and morphing, not the same thing from year to year. ” Richard Alloway KRNU general manager Jerome Montalto/DN Dr. George Wolf, a UNL English professor, is known for his unconventional methods of teaching, which fosters a very effective and productive classroom. Wolf uses hands-on style ■The English professor engages students with an unorthodox method of teaching. BY CHRIS JACOBS If you randomly walked into the classroom before his lecture started, you would think Associate English Professor George Wolf was a music teacher. Music plays loudly, thematically, as he passes out the daily agenda to each member of the class. He offers students an orange out of a large centerpiece that sits on a table in the middle of the room - the epicenter formed by stu dents sitting in a large, discussion-ori ented circle. The orange makes reference to Jeanette Winterson’s "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit,” a book Wolf's gay and lesbian literature class is reading. While “Bringing in the Sheaves” plays, students find passages they want to read aloud - and perform - to the class and relate to personal experi ences of their own if they want to. of course. .And they do. Wolf moves around, almost impa tiently, as they search their books. He helps himself to an orange. He has high expectations. When the music’s over, Wolf asks a student to read the passage she select ed, who in turn, after relating the sec tion to her own life, chooses another student to read. The students perform. Wolf listens with eyes closed. He plays the intermediary. He cat alyzes the responses, helps the stu dents understand their feelings and tells them stories of his own relating to the subject matter, which ranges from relationships with family and friends to religion. At times Wolf and the students are serious. In others, they laugh. They relate. They learn. They’re close. "I want (students) to go through the active, imaginative exercise of trying to get the words on the page realized in some way so they’re not just wwds on a page,” said Wolf, who has been teach ing at the University of Nebraska Lincoln since 1966. Wolf’s methods are unorthodox. In his gay and lesbian drama course. Wolf said he wras going to ask his students to act out ideas on how Luis Alfato’s piece "Downtown” could be staged. The piece has one scene where a character is seen stuffing his face with Twinkies that is first taken as funny, but as he continuously eats them, the humor is lost, Wolf said. "I hope someone chooses this scene,” said Wolf, pointing to a box of Twinkies he brought to school. “But you never know when it’s going to work.” “I'm willing to take the risk because I don’t think enough teachers do take risks. And I don’t think enough stu dents take risks either. If education's going to continue in any kind of mean ingful wray, that kind of risk taking has to go on.” Wblf demands his students to take action in his classes and relate with the writers of the texts he asks them to read. Amanda Bergeron, a senior com munication studies major, said stu dents also worked in groups, had a speaker come to class and conducted classes in which each student wras forced to say something about the text. “Instead of just analyzing the texts, we talk about our lives and analyze the texts together,” Bergeron said. Wolf said the most powerful thing he could do for students wras shut up. "People are willing to take the opportunity to really talk about their vital connections with what they’re reading.” he said. “That's w'hy readers read. That’s why writers waite. They don’t wTite to prepare students for graduate school. They w'rite to connect with other human beings.” Wolf said this type of learning had been shut off from students by exams, documented notions of what they should get from a book and other expe riences they had where people told them they didn't know howr to read. “They are told that only the cog nizant understand wtto further torture them until they can get away from col lege and stop reading entirely like George Bush,” he said. Because there is no standard cur riculum for gay and lesbian literature, Wolf chooses every book he teaches, usually gi\ing the students books - as gifts according the professor - the stu dents wouldn’t pick up on their own, Wolf said. Wolf wrants students to stray from 7 want (students) to go through the active, imaginative exercise of trying to get the a on the page realized in some way so they’re not just words on a page. ” George Wolf English professor the normal curriculum they have received most of their lives. Said Wolf: “A fundamental educa tion has to take us from the provincial place we all start from, whether it’s geo graphical provincialism or ideological provincialism, and then we enter a world that is supposed to tell us the world is much more complex than we imagined.” This can be easier said than done, Wolf said. "It means struggle, a whole lot more than just getting the homework done. Some leave as soon as they see, 'I can't be invisible here.”’ He’s right. It’s impossible to be invisible in this man’s presence. But you shouldn't want to. George Wolf’s self-developing style of teaching proves to be effective in forcing stu dents to read texts in a personalized manner. Fear not. It works. Hip-hop magazine hits Lincoln ■ Two area residents are trying to cover what their commercial counterparts leave out. BY SEAN MCCARTHY Hip-hop purists throughout the United States will soon have a magazine to call their own. Dundee Magazine will focus on the musical and cultural aspects of hip-hop and will be distributed to such key cities as Philadelphia, Chicago and areas in New York and California. However, the center of this activity is located in the most unlikely of hip-hop cities - Lincoln. Dundee Magazine was founded by Ercell Watson and Jon Bilima. Watson is a junior English major at Union College and is also taking classes at Nebraska Wesleyan. Bilima is a senior marketing major at Union College. The two became friends in 1991 when they both lived in Berrien Springs, Mich. Watson has lived in Lincoln for six months. It was a call from Bilima that brought him to Nebraska. Bilima laughed as he told Watson there was a lot of opportunities waiting for him in Lincoln. “I lied to him and told him we have beaches and mountains,” Bilima laughed. Watson has planned on developing a magazine for hip-hop purists for about six years, but it was Bilima who pushed Watson to get started on the magazine while he was in Lincoln. He told Watson to stop dreaming about the magazine and start working on getting it devel oped. “I told him, ‘Let’s not look at the obstacles and mountains in the way,’” he"* said. Dundee Magazine is set to hit record store and record company magazine shelves April 5. Bilima, a native of Malawi, Zimbabwe, handles the busi ness aspect of the publication while Watson, a Nashville native, handles the creative aspects. The magazine has seven reporters in Lincoln and eight out of-state reporters who are in contact by phone and e-mail. Watson said he wanted to create a magazine because it reflected a love of two arts - writing and hip-hop. He was disappointed at the lack of coverage hip hop receives in commercial magazines. “There’s just a bunch of crap out there right now," Watson said. Watson said Dundee Magazine will include record reviews as well as band profiles and cultural features. Break dancing, beat poetry and graffiti art are all aspects of hip-hop culture that he hopes to cover in articles. Most commer cial publications have shunned these aspects of the hip-hop culture because of big business interference, Watson said. "You can’t sell break dancing; you can’t market graffiti,” he said. Lincoln may be an odd place to oper ate a magazine trying to appeal to the universal aspects of hip-hop, but Watson said he has met people in the city with a deep appreciation for the culture. Still, there is a noticeable difference between Lincoln and Oakland, Calif, wfiere he ini tially went to Lanev College. "In California, hip-hop is just normal in the street community,” Watson said. “It's always going on.” To cover the overhead costs of start ing up a magazine, Watson is relying on investors and advertisers. However, the majority of the funds are currently com ing out of his owti pocket. To keep in con tact with the reporters from out-of-state, Watson said he preferred to talk on the phone despite the financial advantages of e-mail. “My bill’s going to suck this month,” Watson laughed. The publication will initially be free for the first six to 12 months. Watson said he hoped advertisers would cover the majority of the costs by the third or fourth issue, 'rite group Ugly Duckling is slated to be on the cover for its premiere issue. To kick off die magazine’s publica tion, there will be a show' featuring the Ground Control Allstars tour, featuring Aceyalone, Rasco, Kd-O.G. and Masterminds at Knickerbockers, 901 O St., on March 17. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster for $24 and at Recycled Sounds for $21. Tickets can also be pur chased from New Wave Marketing Concepts Inc. at 4029 S. 48lil St. for $20. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and opening acts Kanser and The Unconventionalz are set to perform at 8:30 p.m. Lincoln photographer captures prairie on stamp BY MAUREEN GALLAGHER Traveling through Nebraska with his family, Michael Forsberg saw the state the same as most - a long, rolling, never ending cornfield. The prairies and flatlands were what you had to travel through to get to the mountains. Now that flat expanse of grassland is his work, his art and his passion. Forsberg began taking pictures when he was a junior geography major at the University Nebraska-Lincoln. working as a group leader for the Outdoor Adventures Program. Forsberg found himself leading groups of students through beautiful sites in the area but having nothing to show for it. He began taking a camera with him, and, in his words, “One thing led to another." He has had work appear in publications such as Audubon and National Geographic, and he currently works as a photographer and writer for NFBRASKAland magazine. Forsberg’s photograph of Nine-Mile Prairie, “October in theTallgrass No. 036,” has been chosen by the U.S. Postal Service as part of a series of stamps called American Scenes. There will be a reception and stamp signing tonight at the Great Plains Art Collection in the Christlied Gallery. Hewitt Place, 12tl1 and Q streets. The reception, called “Celebrating Prairie" is from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Great Plains Art Collection, the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains and Audubon Nebraska. Forsberg said that he was originally sur prised when he was first approached about using his photograph. “The other stamps are of well-known places, tourist attractions such as Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon," Forsberg said. “This is good for Nebraska and good for the Great Plains." Sharon Gustafson, Interim Curator of the Great Plains Art Collection, said Forsberg’s work has a characteristic that inspires preservation. “I am enamored by his work." she said. “It has surfT a beautiful and serene quality that makes people want to keep these places the way they are.” Forsberg said that as his love of photo graphing this area grew, his ambition to pre serve it grew. “I’ve always been curious about the world," Forsberg said, "and my photogra phy helped foster an appreciation for the natural world.” In Forsberg's eyes, preserving die Great Plains is preserving a part of our heritage. “A quarter of the country used to be prairie, and now we have only a few scat tered remnants." Forsberg said. "What is left is like a few treasured jewels.” “I want to keep some of these places around, and by bringing people back a pic ture, I can bring back to them some of the meaning of the Great Plains.”