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THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, October 10, 2001 CONTACT US H iH , \/| 1 \ THEY SAID IT ■ ■ ■ 1 J ml I I / % T.S. ELIOT: “Some editors are Story ideas? Questions? Comments? Ill A I W I I J failed writers, but so are most Writeusatgamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com I I —I—^1 A f I I A 1^ writers.' « ; r' EXHIBIT « Museum of Art will show Louis Comfort Tiffany’s work through January COLUMBIA MUSEUM OF ART Corner of Main and Hampton streets. Tues.-Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. and Sun. 1-5 p.m. Students $2, Adults $5 345-2215 BY JENNIFER LEE THE GAMECOCK Oscar Wilde once sai “We are all in the gutter, bi some of us are looking at tl and Co. founder Charles Lewis, decided early in life to pursue an art career. Beginning as a painter, he specialized in romantic East ern themes influenced by his travels through that region in the late 1860s. By 1880, he had become interested in interior design. It is in this area that he has achieved lasting fame as the creator of the most rec ognizable decorative arts from the Gilded Age of Amer ica. During the time that the Vanderbilts ruled the rail ways, Frederick Law Olmst ed designed world-famous parks and John Singer Sar gent painted them, Tiffany be gan producing items that had a practical purpose — dishes, vases, trays — but he made them “most appropriate for collectors and lovers of art.” The exhibit at the Columbia I, Museum of Art is proof of the it veracity of such a statement, ie Taking inspiration from LUC UdLUAdl WUUU CUUUUU t him, Tiffany translates the ' botanical into the ethereal with his organic treatment of ’ glass in the shapes of jacks-in- 1 the-pulpit, calyx-flowers, and i lily pads. The vases seem to ! shame any real flora placed in ] them, and often instead of be- 1 ing just a container, they i stand alone as larger-than-life i flowers. 1 If not taking its actual shape from nature, pieces like the Favrile (a Tiffany-patent ed term for the iridescent type of glass) Vase are adorned with loose representations of - the natural world — leaves and vines. An ice plate has taken the idealized quality of ice itself — a frigid blue with cracks in the surface decoration. A red vase stands like a succulent crimson fruit. Gold goblets gleam like Arthurian tableware, appro priate for America’s Aristoc racy. Chalices glimmer like Holy Grails designed for the Kings of Capitalism. As visiting Biltmore Es tate, the mind boggles at the thought of people using such objets d’art as normal drink ing glasses. Today, Tiffany is probably most famous for his stained glass lamps. Knockoffs can be seen in most .Heim i coidiu cuuj j rGI Friday’s. For his lamps, * 'iffany found inspira ion in the English arts ; - - md crafts movement. V, Structuring the shades nore like windows and ! ess like lamps, he was ; ible to create pieces that ■ ieemed to belong more to 1 he world of Titania and t Oberon and less to the world of Thomas Edison. Using different textures and thicknesses of glass, Tiffany was able to produce an effect that looks like the dappled light of a forest or the warm glow of a cozy hearth’s fire coming through in the col ors of his poinsettia petals. Living until the age of 84, Tiffany faced the decrease of the popularity of his works. It was not until the 1950s that interest was renewed and has since then continued to grow. w ww.tuiuuiuicunuscuni.ui g suu a. One of these star-gazers was Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose works from the Jack and Elaine Folline collection can be seen at the Columbia Museum of Art through Jan. 20. As Wilde, Tiffany was an advocate of the “art for art’s sake” aesthetic movement in America. Louis Comfort, the son of (“Breakfast at”) Tiffany PROFESSOR PICKS STEVE JACKSON Adjunct for Honors College and the College of Journalism. Professor of Journalism 4 BOOKS YOU SHOULD READ The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas S. Kuhn The Academic Tribes Hazard Adams Understanding Physics Issac Asimov The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould 4 FAVORITE BOOKS The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley The Uplift War David Brin Stranger in a Strange Land Robert Heinlien, They Walked Like Men Clifford D^Simak CD REVIEW Media hype worthy of Strokes IS THIS IT? The Strokes BY TUG BAKER THE GAMECOCK It’s been quite a while since a band has received as much media hype as New York City rockers The Strokes have. Only two years after starting to play together, the band is grappling with seemingly instant success. Famous musicians such as Radiohead are attending their cpncerts. Some people even paid more than sixty dollars to see its shows before it had released a full-length album. And now that it’s here, Is This It? looks destined to increase the band’s fame. Lead singer Julian Casablancas and guitarist Nick Valensi had been dabbling in music since Casablancas was 15 and Valensi was 13. Bassist Nikolai Fraiture and drummer Fab Moretti later trickled in, but it wasn’t until Los Angles native Albert Hammond Jr. moved to New York with his family in 1999 and began playing lead guitar for the band that The Strokes found their musical identity. In early January, Rough Trade Records honcho Geoff Travis got hold of a Strokes demo of The Modern Age and, according to myth, offered the band a record contract when he was only halfway through listening to it. From there, everything took off for the band. The three-track Modern Age EP was released shortly after and found a home on British radio and U.S. college radio stations. The College Music Journal did a cover story on the Strokes based on this EP alone. And so began the hype. But does the album live up to the expectations the buildup set? Yes, and then some. Is This It? is probably the best album of2001. The pure rock bliss its listeners experience is unparalleled. As Casablancas’ voice comes through the electronic buzz sounding like Lou Reed in his solo work,the band thrashes through imitations of the proto punk-rock of bands such as Television and the Velvet Underground. But it doesn’t stop there. In the sheer rock perfection of the songs on Is This It?, listeners can hear bits of everything from Buddy Holly to John Lennon. The album is short (just more than thirty minutes), but the length makes sense; the album’s songs are focused and frantic. ♦ STROKES, SEE PAGE 8 Lecture discusses the ‘natural law’ of humans BY ERIC SUTTON THE GAMECOCK “Can We Be Good Without God?,” a lecture by Dr. Jay Budziszewski, was held Monday night at the Russell House and attracted more than 120 stu dents, faculty and visitors. Dr. Budziszewki, a professor of government and philosophy at the University of Texas, spoke for an hour and then an swered questions. His lecture focused on natural law and referred to it as the truth everyone knows. He of fered words from St. Paul’s let ter to the Romans, and said God has written on the hearts of every human being. He gave ex amples of natural law including, “there isn’t a human being alive who doesn’t know love is good and murder is evil.” Dr. Buziszewski suggested that we might be able to be good without God, but mostly we can’t. An atheist “may save a child from being struck by a car” and may at times tell tile truth. But by denying God, we eschew all morals because all people know God exists intrinsically he said. He also said there is no such thing as an atheist. These people only think there is no God as he did when in his twenties, he said. If people innately understand natural law why do they still do bad things? According to him, they have a vested interest in doing something despite knowing it’s wrong. Wanting to know the truth is a desire like every other that is competing within ourselves. He was careful when dealing with the specifics of religion. When discussing Christianity he would say, ‘my faith.’ He didn’t hold natural law as the answer to all theological or scientific questions. He said natural law doesn’t answer the question of how to be forgiven, only that we do know God to know the differ ence between right and wrong. Responses to the lecture were mixed. Mary Catherine Shankle, a second-year studio art student | ♦ SPEAKER, SEE PAGE 9