The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 29, 1985, Page Page 8, Image 8
Page 8 ? March 29, 1985 Entertainment THE GAMECOCK
Man who bring;
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"Bearskin" by Tom Davenport will be featured at the Souther
Seen Harry Crews
H i.M
Andy Duncan
Assist. Ent. Editor
Bv 2 n.m Tuesrlav. we all susneeteri that Harrv Crews
wasn't showing up.
We were waiting outside Room 131 in the nursing building,
where Crews, a novelist, short story writer and essayist, was to
speak before one of William Pricc F ox's English classes. He
was also to read from his works at a public lecture at 8 p.m
that night, in the first performance of USC's Spring Writers
Series.
Rumors circulated up and down the hallway thai Crews,
who was to drive up from Florida thai morning, was missing
in action somewhere amid the kud/u on the far side of Savannah.
But the rumors remained just thai until Fox rounded the
corner. He looked grim and decidedly Crewsless.
UK CONFIRMED lhe preliminary reports. C rows hail
begun the first of a series of phone calls expressing his regrets.
Reasons for the vanishing act, all of which are off the record,
vary somewhat, but the. bottom line is clear: Crews was
scheduled to show up and didn't.
Fox persevered, reading long selections from Joan Didion's
"Slouching Towards Bethlehem," but he interrupted his
remarks every 10 minutes or so to ask, "What we gonna dc
LI.....
ctuuui naiiy v,icw.>;
It was a rhetorical question, like "Whatever happened tc
Baby Jane," but the class offered some suggestions anyway
The most popular one held that since few knew what Crew<
looked like, Fox could theoretically foist anyone off on the
unsuspecting public as the great man himself.
Fox's only response was to repeat, "What we gonna dc
ahnnt Harrv fVpw*?"
IN THE END, Fox himself did a reading that night, and if ii
bore any resemblance to his usual freewheeling classrooir
style, the audience was grandly entertained.
But Crews's defection nevertheless got the Writers Scries ofl
to a shaky start and reinforced the popular notion that mosi
s tairy tales to li
^ By Mark Armstrong
! Award-winning filmmaker
"s^NS^?^'*lk *? * port will be at USC toniRht
WVyJbv Appalachain-style folk talcs
, * presentation of this semester's
~ two Grimm Brothers fairytali
^ *T 4 "j the Man Who Did Not Wa
yb | Years," with an eye for "loci
I PL ( lijj t , ? which in his case is th:
Lr' f * k ' , i * palachain mountains.
\3LMT .( i j'j | U "Fairy talcs is too limiting o
^ TWrVxi. Jan Millsapps, Media Arts
local coordinator of the Sou
SpPB*^ "They're not sweet little fi
you're used to hearing. They ?
j THIS REALISM is evident
^ ^ casting of mostly local talent
C,i-; -Hi locations near his home.
"Jack and the Dentist':
adapted from "The Master Th
3- , :H the 1930s, is the story of a si
, and petty thief who must over
ble odds to prove himself \vc
fS?fPir the village dentist's daughter.
"X At a crucial point in the st
Davenport's father's chicken c
t' ^,*j transported to heaven in a sac
' ***. deposited in the chicken hous
f ' anti c'ucking chickens make h
' among angels.
S^I^Sr Jw* I Althnnoh fnirv r.ilpc arcn'i
*. .. thought of in terms of ethnic j
t Port made the film for black s
?BEARSKIN" IS the story
seven years without washing, i
or beard or removing his cloth
?... . . bearskin.
n Circuit s second event tonight. Davenport 's versions of
lately? If so, phone
artistic types are about three straws shy of a full broom.
It reminded me of an appearance a couple of years ago at
Illinlhpr Snulli f'nrnlinn I'nlli'nc nf nnnlhor Cnnthnrn rw??.>lict
whom I will call Burbank LaGrange.
LaGrange was, in the words of the chairman of the arts and
letters division, "half drunk and crazy out of his mind" when
he arrived.
/\ muii.r.1 collection or (acuity nastily formed a sobriety
detail but was unable to prevent LaGrange from unleashing an
obscene torrent of abuse at one of the English classes he
1 visited, or from tossing lighted cigarettes into the audience
during his lecture, or from taking off most of his clothes at a
j/?u ij unu mi iuiiiiiii?, ilium ? nil U ih11l.i1ci M1IIC.
He concluded his revels by shoving the knife into the wall,
where it remains to this day, as far as I know. The homeowner
says he's afraid to remove it lest, like a demon of legend,
I .u~ ?: - a i r. n ?
j i.nviKiu^L' in 1111: iiiiuuic in nil; living ruum i ioor, nowiing,
"Who summons me?"
Some writers are more subdued but no less eccentric.
Anyone who ever saw the late Truman Capote on a talk show
realizes to what grotesque lengths the so-called artistic
temperament can transport the bearer.
Sometimes writers lead relatively normal lives but try to
cultivate a bizarre public image for one reason or another.
Stephen King, who makes a good living killing characters off
in various inventive ways, is the model of the sedate
homeowner; he has a wife and a few children, lives in a slcenv
Maine village and is known around town more for his regular
irips to the post office with bulky manuscripts than for any
flagrant abuses of the public decorum.
VKT UK relishes writing stories that would curl TorI
quemada's hair, and in a funny credit card commercial he
swoon* lliroiiolt :i oloomv nnnnr finrt nn/llv
supposed eccentricity.
Many people were surprised by what they saw as Crews's erratic
behavior, but they shouldn't have been. The man once
wrote a novel about a junkyaru owner who planned to eat a
i Ford automobile. We're not talking James Michener here.
? And if those disappointed by the Harry Crews affair are
considering tossine awav all their Crpws nr?vptc in Hicouct th??v
> should remember one all-important fact.
The writer exists independently of his work, and we can't
i allow our opinion of the writer's personality to cloud our opi;
nion of the work.
> I KNOW nothing whatsoever of John Updike's home life,
dui ii i were 10 discover inai ne s a lousy crump who beats his
wife and poisons dogs, it wouldn't change the fact that his
1 books are great.
1 1 know little about Harry Crews, but the first sentence of his
first novel is, "Enigma, Georgia, was a dead end."
F Anyone who has the guts to start his collected works off
t with a dead end deserves some respect.
fe to visit USC
sometimes considered controversial because
Tom Daven- of the realism of the characters, as well as
to screen two adherence to the plot and ending of the
in the second original story.
Southern Cir- His dedication to the original stories is
reflective of his belief in the theories of
'iroinia. retells Bruno Bcttelheim. who has advanced the
es, "Jack and idea of children's folk stories as valuable ^
"Bearskin: Or dramatizations of often unexpressed fears &
sh For Seven children experience.
al mythology" Davenport once wrote, "As products of
*t of the Ap- their collective unconscious, (folktales) are as
much a description of the inner mind of man
f a term," said as is the genetic code that gives us five fingers
professor and on each hand and an upright posture."
ithern Circuit.
liry tales like THE SOUTHERN Circuit is sponsored by
ire much more the South Carolina Arts Commission Media
Arts Center, the National Endowment for
fhf? Arte nnrl flip Arte npnartmnnt
n Davenport's The two films run thirty minutes each, and ^
and filming at the audience will have the chance to ask
Davenport questions after the screening,
s Daughter," The Southern Circuit tours six
iief" and set in Southeastern cities, bringing seven
killed trickster internationally-recognized film/vidcomakcrs
come impossi- aiong witn tneir work.
irthy to marry Sharing the tour with other cities cuts
down on the costs of the program, Millsapps
ory, filmed in said.
:oop, Jack has
[hat he will be THK THIRD program of the semester will
k. After being feature filmmaker Eagle Pennell on April 19.
e, the feathers Pennel! will present "Last Night At The
im think he is Alamo," set in a dank, suburban Houston ^
bar where the regulars gather the night
conventionally before their bar is to be closed and demolish;roups,
Daven- cd to make room for a new high-rise
ichool children complex.
The film was written by Kim Menkel,
wnose previous work includes me screenplay
of an out-of- for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."
t with the devil Vincent Canby of The New York Times
?y if lie spends said the film was "an unassuming, allrutting
his hair American classic. . . " _
es, including a Friday's program with Tom Davenport
begins at 8:00 p.m. at Belk Auditorium and
folktales arc is free to the public.
?
I ??set? ?m
UPU to host record
convention tomorrow
I By Linda Poteat
The bi-annual Record and Comic Convention will {>
transform the Golden Spur in Russell House into a flea
market of sorts on Saturday, March 30.
Record and comic dealers from all over the Southeast
will set up tables in the Spur and hawk their wares. j ^
During this gigantic sale tens of thousands of albums and ^
comic honk< will tv> r?fm tlm nukli^ ?? ?ri??
? ^ ..... ?- ?V Miv j/mviiv ni |/a IW3 i wilgjllg
from 25 cents to $500.
Carl Singmaster, of Manifest Productions, first organized
the convention. Together, Singmaster and Contemporary
Sounds, the concert committee for the Carolina
Prnoram t Inion hririo ?a ratumhin
0 xviumtiiu i iv up)wiiuiiii; in wuy
and sell rare or unusual albums and comic books, while offering
good deals on not-so-unusual items.
Almost all musical styles will be represented at the convention
? pop, jazz, reggae, heavy metal, and hardcore.
Comics such as X-Men, Twisted Tales, and The Fantastic
Four will be offered, Singmaster invites the public to "bring
an armful" of albums or comics to trade or sell. d
Featured at tomorrow's convention will be Mike Hoffman,
cartoonist for Twisted Tales. He will be signing
autographs, talking about his work and doing character
sketches for a nominal fee.
I I
Traveling art show
i a mm*
to open at mckissick
? By Robert O'Connor "1j ti / ^
The colorful and exciting Spring Art Show will open at
USC's McKissick Museum April 1.
The show annually features some of the finest contemporary
work done by artists from the Carolinas and will be
on view at McKissick until April 23.
All remaining exhibits of the show will be in North
rornlin.
voi unua.
This is the 26th year that the South Carolina-based textile
corporation has sponsored the art show and the second
year it has been exhibited at McKissick. "V
Museum Director George Terry could not be more v
pleased.
"We are proud once again to host the Springs Traveling a
Art Show," he says. "It is the best way to see the contem
porary art of the Carolinas and certainly one of the most
popular presentations we have."