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Dreams hell By Chris Handal Tim O'Brien dreams a lot. During his tour of duty in Vietnj O'Brien, the second guest in the Spi Writers Series, spent much of his ti daydreaming. He credits his active imagination u keeping him emotionally intact. One of his dreams in Vietnam concern returning to a hotel room in his native M nesota. Strapped to the ceiling were two k< ? one with beer and one with Coke ? a tubes from each going to his mouth." In another dream, O'Brien returns hoi vt o r?*? Vi a / v* 1 l-% a 1 /x i>ao *! ? r* r f ? /% n a t uiaiiicd uic 5111 iiv; 1 uvu, iuio iui v^vsugi and stops the Vietnam War. Out of his experiences and dreams cam National Book Award-winning novel, "< ing After Cacciato." "I would never have become a writer i wasn't for Vietnam," the 37-year-i O'Brien said. And given his penchant for dreaming, i not surprising that a good deal of the nove a dream fantasy of one soldier. O'Brien also dreams about nuclear w; When he was a boy, talk of strontium i bomb shelters and fallout gave h nightmares. After one nightmare, he we downstairs to the basement and built his o\ fallout shelter from a ping-pong table, ch< coal and other items. The next morning his father found hi under the table and laughed, though O'Brii said his father was worried about his ment health. "But what he missed is that t bombs are real and thev are out there." He still dreams of nuclear war. "One that I'm in airplane...and I'm looking o the window and watching the cities flash.' One by one they are destroyed, frc ?JT'' im* V3p*v vt 1 B -M( ' ASL KlPlS v I # IfjP I L -'-7-Tr_r UiZ-%"'1 U- \% A : hhht j?m& [ ' . fr- fjflEff v ^r . HBW '.. ^/fwp v JP^ mmmjvr. Surrealists The Swimming Pool Q's, an unusual and ci before their Wednesday night performance in Swimmina Pi V# By Cal Harris When the Swimming Pool Q's got on stage at the Golden Spur Wednesday night, the audience got up and danced. The first few songs like "The Bells Ring" were unfamiliar to the crowd of 150 students, but the sound ? unmistakably the Q's ? swept through the crowd. Their sound equipment attained the clear oerfection characteristic of a matured, successful rock'n'roll band. THIS SHOULD be expected, though, because Wednesday night the Q's were assured their success. Before the show they signed with A/M records. "We're probably the first New Wave band from the South to make it big and still play within its region ? unlike a band such as the B-52s. We went thrrtlinrh uo-1" ''1' .. _ - ??vuCh jrwais ui aiiftui?" when guitar bands were not popular. And it was all because of the critics," said lead singer/songwriter Jeff Caulder. Their new album, which may be released by June, will consist of all new songs. v Rntertf ) shape award Miami to Atlanta to Charleston. And then the captain conies over the loudspeaker and im, says, "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to ining form you there is no place to land." me O'Brien said, "My fears of nuclear war were never about my own death." Rather he 'ith fears "that sense of total civilization going." And out of these dreams and fears has ed come another novel, "The Nuclear Age," in- which took him seven years to write and :gs should be published in nine months, he said, nd One reason the novel occupied so much of O'Brien's time is that he felt nuclear war was ne, an important subject. "At every page I ess finished, I kept thinking, this is an awesome subject so I better write awesomely. e a All my writing has not been about war so 3o- much," he said, "but about the moral questions around war." f it These moral questions include what should aid one die for and what should one kill for. The old reasons, he said, are the flag, liberty, t is motherhood, apple pie and country, he said. 1 is "None of these reasons cut it when it comes to nuclear war. It (nuclear war) underir. cuts our traditional reasons for fighting and K), killing people. The problem is that if there m are no people, mere is no iioerty." nt O'Brien's way to deal with the grave subvn ject of nuclear war is to use humor. He ir- describes "The Nuclear Age" as a comedic novel. m "Going After Cacciato" also had several ;n funny passages, and O'Brien said this is al often a good way to deal with a serious subne ject. "I think sometimes it is, but not always." is O'Brien also talked about his writing ut process. "I find everything hard in writing, m Everything I've done is hard." ^ ' * / - fl 1 eative band from Atlanta, Georgia, signed a recording c the Golden Spur. ool Q's rock Go "We've got a lot of good ammo. I gradua want this to be the best guitar album and th< made this year, and I think it will most < make it," Caulder said. realists The "ALMOST ALL the songs we play which now are new ones. This makes it dif- tion, c ficult for the audience, especially Caulde with the slower tempo songs. But on- The ly with a slower tempo can we evoke with 44 an pmntinnal rfcrinnco " V->? c-r.1/4 " ..? vu|/viuv, lib 3?IU. Willi The Q's did not disappoint their unforg audience as they played old favorites Jackso like "Make Me Bigger than USA" hand.' and "Little Misfit." As t At the end of the first set the band spellei played the new song, "Sacrificial Anoth< Altar," which possesses as much Rivers, potential to become a hit as "Little "a wei Misfit." THE "What I do when I write lyrics is song f take images of realism, almost night v cliches, and juxtapose them with im- the T< ages that are off, way out there ? Unusuj much in the same way that modem that pli writers will deceptively suck the "Th< reader into the novel," Caulder said. umbia of help tAULUKK, WHO wrote his first the Spi songs in high school, graduated from past pe college 10 years ago. is our "For the first few years after said. linmenT I -winning novel ,j& TCMaaggL Reaching for dreams Author Tim O'Brien discusses his dreams and his be tnci nintifr I lUil Iiiyitt. M local ^v,^'rV:-^' ', -m4'-^-:v'.-..-- . fl By John Vaughi Joe Orton's Ld^ sonhisrirafiVm lover and profe Photo bi Barbara Zammit 1967, wrote onl ontract with A&M Records ?f those> known, and alsi The artist h elements into h 3 O?shenanigans in ; Iden opur thereare psychology, sex tion I read all of Baudelaire also a tremendo e otner French symbolists and 1 neatergoers Df the surrealists. The sur- chaos before enl failed in my eyes," he said. the most easy-tc origins of songs like "1789," It's not that th is about the French Revolu- well-deserved gi an be found in the mind of But up agains :r< ing, rapid-fire el band opened the second set duction stumble Restless Youth" and followed Stick in my Hand" with the DIRECTOR ettable lyrics, "Going down to humor, has recc n, Miss., with a stick in my his show quickl; ? Unfortunatel) nc song trailed on the band n?l necessarily p d "M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i." ? and Orton's ;r new song was "Purple status. " which Caulder describes as The script's b rd love story." least once, and ) BAND usually has a surprise frustrating freqi or the audience. Wednesday In the end, th /as no exception. They played moments, dull om Jones' hit, "It's Not viewer questions ll " m 1 mir^Hno cr\ m'jnn rtr>tr\?-c y ....Iii?vniii5 vJW Iliuiljr UailUd UVIV/I3, IIIC V HI y ay for hotel lounges. tions, and why i 2 Spur was our first gig in Col- for the elements six years ago, and we got a lot from WUSC. We love to play THERE'S N(] ir because of the memories of ty theater pond, rformances and because USC "What the Bi favorite university," Caulder mances at 8 p.m For more inforn ist's work 1 w % w w w aim -4fetok.. ' ?m^? Photo by Bill Kalis ioks yesterday afternoon before his reading I farce escapes theater's grasp in "What the Butler Saw" is a modern farce of but one with a tendency to milk its audience a presentation of the play demands equal rom all facets of production, and must be agile the crowd from feeling overmilked. o milk this introduction any longer, I'll get to imit that Workshnn mrront nrnrln/ r V U VUI 1 VIul piuuuv work lacks that necessary sophistication and too, because "What the Butler Saw" offers ageousness quite unlike anything on a local memory. was still a young man when his homosexual issional mentor killed him with a hammer in y a handful of plays in his unusual lifetime. iVhat the Butler Saw" is probably his best 0 probably his most biting and uproarious, urls a full palette of high-handed farcical is creation, exposing six characters and their a mental clinic. 1 some devastatingly funny rips at government, uality and human relationships, but there is us amount of shrill, broad slapstick. should take stock of their tastes for this sort of :ertaining the notion of Orton's play, but even )-please sense of humor may be tested here, le show is that weak; certainly there were some iffaws in the audience opening night. t the material's demands ? nimble comic timlocution and slick staging ? Workshop's pros repeatedly. BILL Mould, a man with a keen sense of tgnized some of these elements and has paced Vr, his cast is not up to the task. These folks are >oor performers, but they are indeed amateurs handiwork is merciless in attesting to that anter tied the tongues of each cast member at some seemed to trip over their lines with lency. e entire production becomes one of sporadic edges, vague style and inconsistency. The ; bogus British accents affected by only some ing energy levels within single characterizathe only entrance without a door gapes open outside. \ need to scorn the effort, but in the communithis is an example of the one that got away, itler Saw" runs through April 1, with perfor. exce^i for a 3 p.m matinee the final Sunday, nation, call the box office at 799-6551.