The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 23, 1984, Page 10, Image 10
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
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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
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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.