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. ■ysajpf-. .-t.- -/•: ;; ^ - '•■CT?S^—IB HHHBj Bj _ . „>■ ~ . ' £?3 ' , THE GAMECOCK ♦ Wednesday, March 27, 2002 7 CONTACT TIS THEY SAIDIT ■' ^ ^ ^ RENE DESCARTES: “It is not Story ideas? Questions? Comments? enough to have a good mind; E-mail us at gamecockmixeditor@hotmail.com the main thing is to use it well.” * . adventure caro PHOTO BY CARRIE PHILLIPS / THE GAMECOCK Adventure Carolina is at 1107 State St. f BY TITAN BARKSDALE I THE GAMECOCK There’s an adventure just five minutes away from campus, and it begins on 1107 State St. Adventure Carolina, at first glance, might appear to be a refurbished antebellum house. If it weren’t for neon colored kayaks outside, the store’s traditional brick masonry and white columns wouldn’t captivate anyone except a few Civil War buffs. But one peek inside opens up another world of braving nature’s elements, especially those characteristic of Columbia. me aorms are starring to get suffocatingly stuffy again, and, for many, the downtime of summer break ushers in the prospect of traveling and touring. “A lot of people get bit by spring fever, so most go on our river tours and hikes in May through October,” Adventure Carolina manager Corey Ruth said. Adventure Carolina’s employees call themselves adventure specialists and pride themselves on providing customers with the means to kayak, canoe, rock climb and hike in Columbia. Whether through its extensive line of outdoor products or through their guided tours, Adventure Carolina is proving to be the outlet for those who want to experience Columbia’s geography safely. “We are most popular for our guided canoe trips,” Ruth said. “It’s our biggest money getter.” Adventure Carolina’s certified guides, who escort up to 600 people a week through the Midlands’ waterways, are familiar with the area’s terrain. Ruth assures that all of the trips are safe. - Brenda Joyce, a frequent Adventure Carolina visitor, said she went on the two hour Congaree After Work Trip and found it relaxing. “It’s a great way to go unwind after work or classes,” she said. “There’s no phone — just the birds and wildlife. It’s so peaceful.” Joyce said safety isn’t an issue. “They do a really good job,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about safety because they point out what you need to know.” Some of the safety pointers Joyce spoke of come from Adventure Carolina’s expansive video and book library. Ruth said that before each trip, participants watch a video that details the event. In addition, a variety of instructional publications are available for customers. Canoeing is the most popular method of exploring nature that Adventure Carolina offers, but Ruth said that there has been plenty of interest in other outdoor activities. “College students have really been getting into renting our industrial strength inner tubes and floating down the river,” Ruth said. “We also have hiking trips on the Guignard and rock climbing in North Carolina available for people to go on.” Ruth and Adventure Carolina’s employees know customers don’t want to do too much work during a tour or trip. Ruth said Adventure Carolina’s appeal is in the ease of its tours. “All they have do is show up and go play,” he said. “We handle everything else.” Adventure Carolina offers many different trips and tours: the Congaree River canoe and kayak trip, the full moon Congaree canoe and kayak trip, the Saluda River Section II canoe and kayak trip, and the two-day Edisto canoe and camping trip. Hiking and rock-climbing trips are scheduled as well. Reservation information and a calendar of events can be found at Adventure Carolina’s Web site or at its State Street store. Being an extraordinary outdoors person isn’t a prerequisite for experiencing the outdoors in an extraordinary way. Besides, when it’s time for a summer trip, Adventure Carolina does all the work for you. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockmixeditorfajhotmail.com SURF YOURSELF FOR A FULL LIST OF EVENTS, CHECK THE WEB SITE AT WWW.ADVENTURECAROLINA.COM Adventure Carolina Trips March 27 Stone Mountain Climbing Trip March 28 Full Moon Canoe and Kayak Trip March 30 Stone Mountain Climbing Trip March 31 Stone Mountain Climbing Trip April 12 After Work Cane and Kayak Trip 5:30 p.m., every day WUSC Top Ten Albums FOR THE WEEK OF MARCH 16-24 1. “SKORBOREALIS” Danielle Howie and the Tantrums 2. “BODY SPLIT NOFX and Rancid 5L “ OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING’ Eels 4. “LIVE AT THE QUICK” Bela Fleck and the Flecktones 5. “ BLADE IT SOUNDTRACK” Various Artists 6. “EVERYBODY HERTZ" _Air 7. “RING AROUND THE WORLD" _ _Super Furry Animals 8. “SOURCE TAGS AND CODES” And You Will Know Us By The Trail of _ _ _ _ Dead 9. “DON’T BE AFRAID TO COVER” Lo Fidelity All Stars 10. “WE ARE THE ONLY FRIENDS WE HAVE" Piebald f 'If CD REVIEW The Soledad Brothers bring back ‘retro rock ’ “STEAL YOUR SOUL AND DARE YOUR SPIRIT TO MOVE” The Soledad Brothers ★★★★ out of ☆☆☆☆☆ BY WILLIAM MILLS THE GAMECOCK The Soledad Brothers are reinforcing the musical army that’s bringing back the retro rock ‘n’ roll sound. Their new album, “Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit To Move,” is boiling over with a bluesy rock sound that’s becoming all too familiar to indie rock. This album is the blues-influenced rock ‘n’ roll of the early Rolling Stones mixed with the damp and dirty New York nightclub sound of the Von Bondies. “Steal Your Soul” is the Soledad Brothers’ sophomore effort, and it’s their first album as a trio. Guitarist/vocalist Johnny Walker and drummer Ben Swank were the originators of the group’s bluesy garage-rock sound. Later, with the addition of Oliver Henry as the group’s backup guitar man, the Soledad Brothers really began to bring their sound from the garage to the studio. Though the Soledad Brothers are more than capable of making a good impression without outside help, they commonly call upon the expertise of a more established Detroit-based garage blues group, the White Stripes. Jack White, singer and guitarist for the White Stripes, engineered and helped produce “Steal Your Soul” as well as the Soledad Brothers’ self-titled, 2000 debut release. Having migrated to Detroit from lesser-known parts of the United States to record a single off their first album, the Soledad Brothers were quick to pick up on the hearty sound of the White Stripes and other bluesy Detroit rockers. With the under-produced and raw sound of “Steal Your Soul,” the * ♦ REVIEW, SEE PAGE 8 Translating the ‘Kamasutra’ BY JILL LAWLESS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LONDON - More than 1,700 years after it was completed by an enigmatic Indian scribe, the “Kamasutra” is among the most famous Hindu books ever written — and, many believe, the most misunderstood. Academics hope a frank new translation will help the “Kamasutra” — which means “a treatise on desire” — shake its saucy reputation and regain its status as a literary classic. “It’s by far the most com plete and interesting work about sexual psychology that has been written — a cross be tween ‘The Joy of Sex’ and ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover,”’ said Wendy Doniger, who translat ed the book from the original Sanskrit with psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar. “The great misconception is that it is about the positions, which is the silliest part of the book, and a very short part of the book,” she added. “Kamasutra” was released today in Britain and Oxford University Press and will hit bookstores in the United States in June. Written probacy in third century Northern India by Vatsyayana Mallanaga, “Kamasutra” catalogs sexual positions, enumerates the va rieties of kissing and expounds on the amorous role of scratch ing and biting. But it also tells readers how to flirt, conduct a lovers’ quar rel, seduce someone else’s spouse and blend potions to stimulate a sagging libido. With its aphoristic advice on attracting, satisfying, keeping and shedding a partner, the book is often more “Sex in the City” than sex manual. “It is always said to be a book about man’s manipulation of women, but a great deal of it is about women’s manipulation of men,” Doniger says. ‘It’s really about power, politics and sex.” Doniger, who teaches the history of religion at the University of Chicago, says the “Kamasutra” has been ill served by its best-known English translation, completed in 1883 by British writer-ex plorer Sir Richard Burton. Doniger says Burton’s lan guage is “Victorian and flow ery,” while the original Sanskrit is direct and robust. “The Kamasutra is punchy, Hemingwayesque — ‘he touch ■'f. ♦ KAMASUTRA, SEE PAGE 8 Oscars continue to impress FTiTT-T———-r——————---53 adam McAllister GAMECOCKMIXEDITOR@HOTMAIL.COM The posters have trumpeted “The Gold Knight Returns” over the past few months, and return he did as the Academy Awards .aired this past weekend on ABC. This year’s installment seemed to strive for the less often-heard phrase: more is, well, longer. Viewers at home who tried to watch the Oscars in its entirety were “treated” to more than four hours of awards and' long-winded speeches. And that doesn’t even include Joan Rivers. As even the most casual observer knows, Oscars night is the high point in filmmaking awards. It’s often imitated yet never fully matched. The academy itself formed way back in 1927 and is made up of more than 6,000 members from all aspects of the industry. During the course of the evening, it seemed as if we had to hear from all 6,000 of them. • Aside from this year’s record setting length, the newly updated » awards had too much extraneous activity, such as a performance by Cirque du Soleil, eight film clips and music montages and, as host Whoopi Goldberg said, a good bit of behind-the-scenes “mudraking.” This was most noticeable in the racially charged background surrounding Denzel Washington’s and Halle Berry’s nominations and subsequent wins. Washington, who I feel has yet to turn in a performance— including that in the overrated “Training Day”—worthy of the Best Actor statuette, took home the award, but it seemed to be based on complaints that blacks are malevolently all but shut out . of the awards. Washington’s closest competitor—last year’s winner, Russell Crowe — most likely lost for a handful of reasons, the most prominent being the backlash from his character’s overlooked life choices, including reported homosexuality and delusion induced anti-Semitic remarks. In addition, Crowe has yet to make things easy on himself; he reportedly roughed up the director of a British awards show after part of Crowe’s acceptance speech for the Best Actor award was cut from the broadcast for time. “A Beautiful Mind,” however, did receive its fair share of awards, including a deserved victory over the fan favorite “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship ~ of the Ring” for Best Picture. For the night’s high points, one needn’t look much further than the honorary awards given to two of Hollywood history’s more deserving men, Sidney Poitier and Robert Redford. In addition, this year saw some rare mold breaking nominees such as “Moulin Rouge,” the first musical to compete for Best Picture since 1979’s “All that Jazz,” as well as “In the Bedroom,” a fantastically bleak drama that is not the usual fare in the Best Picture category. Also, placing the feather in the cap of the awards was perennial Oscar no-show Woody Allen, who made a special trip to the Hollywood arena—his first despite a handful of wins—to honor his home city of New York in an understated montage of the city’s greatest clips. Despite their flaws and their inflated running time, the Oscars continually deliver, constantly impress and, thankfully, incite dispute. This month, it will be nearly impossible for the elegance of the awards, from the dresses to the after-parties, to escape critique. Regardless of which horse you’re pulling for, this awards show can still make most smile. McAllister is a third-year media arts student.