Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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•7 TTF! CONTACT US I—I H THEY SAID IT ■ ■ ■ I i EMILY DICKINSON: “We turn Story ideas? Questions? Comments? I I I A not older with the years, but Writeusatgamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com ■ ■ newer every day.” - % MM J1L ■ ' fT* PATC010Y • :_ La © day in the life of patCON ROY Southern author 1 is first guest for Search for Six BY ADAM BEAM THE GAMECOCK Fresh out of the Citadel, a young Pat Conroy found himself search ing desperately to find a publisher for his first book titled The Boo. He finally had to resort to paying a printer to print the book and sell ing copies out of the trunk of his car. So began the great roller coaster of Conroy’s life. Bom in Atlanta, Ga., the first of seven children, Conroy has made a living telling stories about his fam ily, his alma mater and his state. “To me, it seems the writer’s job,” Conroy told Allen G. Breed of the Associated Press. “And cer tainly to expose yourself and the world you find yourself in, the world you see about you. That seems like a good description of what a writer should do.” While Conroy has stuck true to this ideology, it has cost him. His book The Great Santini, published in 1976, which explored his child hood and his tumultuous relation ship with his Marine Corps pilot father, formed a rift between Con roy and his family. The Lords of Discipline, 1980, which exposed the harsh brutali ty of The Citadel, caused his alma mater to turn its back on him and had his book banned on campus. Beach Music left Conroy con templating suicide. Despite his personal trials, Con roy has managed to establish him self as one of the nation’s premiere writers — a fact that has brought him to the University of South Car olina to be honored for his contri butions in education, literature and film. “We were on a mission to get [Conroy] to speak for free,” said Korry Ingleman, a member of the Search for Six committee that or ganized the event. “We started with writing a letter to him. He got in contact with Mel Miller, Search for Six chair, and actually read her a line out of the letter, which was written by Jay Cooper and John Howell, and said that it was very well written. Then he said he would come.” Cooper, a third-year English student, received praise for his line, “Congratulations on being se lected as someone who embodies a creed that we at Carolina hold dear.” “I’m just glad that the letter got him to come here,” Cooper said. “It makes me feel good that I had a part in bringing him here.” Introducing Conroy will be third-year English student John Howell. “I guess the word I would use would be literary hero,” said Howell. Bringing inspiriation from Conroy’s introduction to a Thomas Wolfe novel, Howell will draw a comparision between the letter from Conroy to Wolfe. “There are people who could write Pat Conroy that same letter, especially myself,” Howell said. After living in Rome where he wrote Beach Music, Conroy moved to and now resides on Fripp Island, just off oFBeaufort, S.C. Rhett Jack son, founder and former owner of the Happy Bookseller in Columbia, has visited Conroy on several oc casions. “Yeah, we really got started with him almost with his first book,” said Jackson. “His last book, Beach Music, we had a sign ing here at the store with 3,000 peo ple in line. He signed from three o’clock in the afternoon until 11:30 at night. I don’t think any other book store in the country had more people than we did or that book.” While Conroy had his humble beginnings with his self-publica tion of The Boo, he didn’t make it big until his second book, The Wa ter is Wide. After finally finding a publish er interested in his story, Conroy was ready to send in his complet ed manuscript — handwritten. Af ter the publisher, Houton Mifflin, refused this, Conroy had one friend type each chapter. “They all used a different type of paper and color, and I think the agent finally accepted it was be cause it was a very strange look ing thing and he read it out of cu riosity,” Jackson said. The book, a story about based on Conroy’s teaching experiences in the Low Country of South Car olina on Daufuskie island, sold ex tremely well and made a name out of Pat Conroy. Mifflin went on to publish Con roy’s first three books, before Con roy was picked up by Doubleday publishing. Having reconciled with both his father and his alma mater, Conroy is now working on a new book, My Losing Season: A Point Guard’s Way of Knowledge, which is due out next year. This book is based on his senior year on The Citadel’s men’s basketball team. “Losing is underestimated in America,” Conroy told the Associ ated Press. “I don’t think you learn anything from winning. It just feels good.... But loss you think about. Loss makes you change the way you do things. Loss makes you consider how to do things differ ently. You never want to lose again after you’ve lost like we did that season.” After speaking at the Russell House, Conroy and his wife will spend the evening at a private din ner with the Search for Six com mittee, along with South Carolina First Lady Rachael Hodges. “I’m just real excited,” said In gleman, a third-year advertising major. “It’s kind of a big privilege for us to be on stage with him and eating dinner with him.” Now that Conroy is 55, he says his experience has shaped his writ ing. “The thing no writer can help is getting older, having more experi ence,” Conroy told the Book Report on America Online. “Now I’ve seen people die — my mother, my grandmother, six members of my class at The Citadel in Vietnam. And I have to figure out what it means to gather something up so it doesn’t look like Chaos. The death of my mother was a major turning point — I didn’t know mothers could die at 59, and I did not know she would be so coura geous when she died. I think she was teaching her children how to die and do it right.” BRANDON LARRABEE/THE GAMECOCK THE CHARTS Top 10 Movies . Figures are for the weekend of Oct. 9 19-21. MOVIE BOX OFFICE 1. From Hell $11.3 miMion 2. Riding in Cars... $ 10.8 million 3. TrainingDay $9.5 million 4. Bandits $8.4 million STheLastCastle $7.1 million 6. Serendipity $5.8 million 7. Corky Romano $5.3 million 8. Don't Say AWord $4.4 million 9. Zooiander $3.3 million 10. Iron Monkey $3.2 million Top 10 Albums Figures are for the week of Oct. 15 • 21 TITLE_ ARTIST 1. Pain is Love_ Ja Rule 2. A Day Without RainEnya 3. DarkDays..:_ Bubba Sparxxx 4. The Blueprint Jay-Z 5. SilverSideUp Nickelback 6! Totally Hits 2001 Various 7. Songs in A Minor Alicia Keys 8. [Hybrid Theory] Unkin Park 9. 8701 ■ _ Usher 10. Satellite P.O.D. i p 4 Star-studded concert rocks New York BY NEKESA MUMBI MOODY ASSOCIATED PRESS Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Elton John and Billy Joel joined other performers Saturday in a “Concert for New York,” which served as a benefit for the city while celebrating its resiliency in a time of crisis. David Bowie kicked off the mammoth concert with a poignant rendition of Paul Si mon’s “America,” then rocked a crowd that included thousands of firefighters, police officers and rescue workers with the appro priately titled “Heroes.” “It’s an absolute pleasure to play for you tonight,” Bowie told the crowd at “Concert for New York,” which was broadcast from Madison square Garden live on VH1. Despite the tragic circum stances that led to the concert, the star-studded event was anything but somber — instead, it was a raucous celebration. One of the biggest ovations was reserved for the 6,000 fire fighters, police officers and res cue workers honored for their heroic efforts in the Sept. 11 at tack on the World Trade Center. Celebrity presenters including Harrison Ford and Susan Saran don brought rescue workers on stage and lauded them for their heroics. The guests then intro duced performers. Firefighters and police officers laughed and danced in the aisles. Saturday Night Live cast member The Concert for NYC raised over $14 million in ticket sales alone, photo special to the gamecock Will Ferrell got laughs with his impersonation of President Bush, and Adam Sandler reprised his Operaman character in a risque segment that mocked Osama bin Laden. “There’s not a day that goes by that people don’t want to laugh,” Sandler said backstage. “People are in great pain and you want to just laugh and feel good for a minute and that’s what comedy is trying to do right now.” When Joel sang the first few lines of “New York State of Mind,” the crowd went wild. “You look out from the stage, and you see a sea of blue,” Joel said backstage. “You see firemen, you see cops, and these guys risk their lives everyday. They do this all the time ... to be able to see a smile on some of these people’s faces - they’ve gonejhrough so much, they’ve lost so many of their friends.” Among the evening’s most in spired performances included The Who, which energized the crowded with renditions of hits such as “Baba O’Riley,” and “Be hind Blue Eyes,” and Mick Jag ger and Keith Richards, who sang “Salt of the Earth” and “Miss You.” The evening also had its somber moments. Destiny 's Child performed a stirring gospel med ley after singing its hit, “Emo tions,” while the Backstreet Boys dedicated their performance to one of their tour crew members who was on the plane that hit a tower of the World Trade Center. Interspersed with the perfor mances were short films cele brating the spirit of the city by di rectors including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese. In addition, the concert featured appearances from New York sports figures, in cluding the Knicks’ Allan Hous ton, Yankees manager Joe Torre and Hall of Famer Reggie Jack son. Paul McCartney was the night’s final act. Wearing an American flag pin and T-shirt with “FDNY” printed on the back, the former Beatle sang five songs, including “Lover to a Friend,” a new single he said would raise money for the Sept. 11 Fund, “Yesterday,” and “Free dom,” which he wrote in the af termath of the World Trade Cen ter attack. Its lyrics included the line, “I will fight for the right to live in freedom.” “This is one of the greatest nights for me,” he told the crowd. “I want to thank you guys for everything you’ve done, on behalf of the British, on behalf of Amer ica, on behalf of the world.” The finale featured McCartney leading members of the nigfit’s all-star cast singing “Let it Be,” joined by a few police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers, then a reprise of “Ft)pe dom.”