Book Review: A compendium of Braschian views

Published in the Mountainview

Walt Brasch's nationally syndicated weekly column on the media provides the source material for Enquiring Minds and Space Aliens: Wandering through the Mass Media and Popular Culture, published by Mayfly Productions. The oddity begins with three different tables of contents. as a way to get potential critics "to shut up and let the rest of us enjoy life." A series of commentaries on the politics and influence of the media, the collection of columns entertains and informs.

Brasch has a finely honed sense of fair play; he breaks ranks with most pundits by holding media organizations and reporters to the same standards to which they hold the public and public figures. He also puts them in familiar contexts, portraying a fictional trade between news organizations, of one seasoned reporter for "two rookie reporters, an editorial clerk, and a future draft choice."

Brasch decries media collusion with big business and government to mislead the people, and satirizes the media's ability to influence the public. He offers several examples throughout the book, including tabloids in supermarket checkout aisles, explaining that as a commentary on American public interest, they are a frightening spectre indeed.

Also frightening, he notes in one somewhat subversive column (“Wonderings of an Idle Mind"), is the American tendency to ignore bad news and to favor what Brasch clearly considers not "news."

Beyond the serious to the humorous are examples of stories journalists can't file (because they're not true), but should (because it would be so nice if they were true). One of these is NBC's reinstatement of a failed series based on the 1960s civil rights struggle, because, despite terribly low ratings, the subject matter is important,

Brasch's work has a serious element; he uses his column to provide a combination of several interviews: Woodstock attendees and Ohio National Guardsmen present at Kent State. A story hard to define in conventional newspapering finds a home and a voice in Brasch's column. A touching arrangement of well-selected quotes demonstrates insight and talent at discerning subject matter which probes the far reaches of the American popular psyche.

Brasch holds forth with critiques, both positive and negative, of all forms of media in the United States. Advertisers take heat for promoting cigarettes, newspapers for hiring practices, government publicists for their forms of "spin control," and news magazines for theirs. Brasch advocates responsibility and accountability, while offering insight into the true motivations of the public affairs industry.

His story, however, is one-sided. Those who disagree with him have no voice of their own in this book. This is only appropriate because it is a collection of columns; the columnist is traditionally allowed to put words into mouths of adversaries and allies alike, while a news reporter tends not to be permitted the same liberty. This is not to criticize Brasch's journalism skills; those columns in which they, rather than his pundit alter ego, are present, indicate a particular adeptness with words and facts.

Perhaps Brasch will expand some of these columns into chapters in a future book; his observations as a veritable turncoat in the news business are informed from the inside, and attempt to permit the average person to see his world from the inside. It is a world with inherent and deep contradictions, and one which until recently had the respect of a large portion of the American public. It is for reasons like those Brasch illustrates that the public's interest in news and respect for news organizations is waning.

Unfortunately, Brasch offers precious little in the way of solutions to this problem. He even shies away from stating point blank that there is a problem; his satire does the work for him, which is simultaneously admirable and disappointing.

For those seeking an insider's look at the media with the irreverence of the public, this is, above all, a book to enjoy. Its title is far from the only quirky and entertaining thing about it; satire is a dying art Brasch has rekindled some and directed it at a common scapegoat:  the media.

Opinion: The rise of a digital nation

Published in the Mountainview

The April issue of Wired offers for your perusal its "Netizen" column, this month by Jon Katz, remarking upon the digital nature of the election of 1996, and continuing into an exploration of the impact of technology on the political and cultural systems of tomorrow.

Katz has fallen into what is becoming a cliched trap: an older person, ostensibly wiser than the "digital youth" under examination, generalizing about the type of person today's twentysornethings are and will become. Whether we are "Generation X," "digerati," or Katz's "Digital Nation," each of those commentaries has contained something very important and lacked something equally vital.

Katz's postpolitical world, a world in which traditional liberal and conservative values are conjoined in a mixture of individual responsibility and respect for the common good, is ripe with promise. He closes his column with the daunting sentence: "If they choose to develop a common value system, with a moral ideology and a humane agenda, they might even do the world some good." Katz has put himself, rightfully or not, in the role of mentor to what he calls the "digital young," an educated elite with technology at their fingertips around the clock.

It is in this role, and not the role of social observer, in which he fails miserably. A mentor's role is to see trends, possibilities, potential, and ramifications, and to advise upon a course of action. A protege's role is to listen to the mentor and decide what action to take.

The digital young are clearly the proteges in Katz's article, and yet he fails to give us any advice. Instead, we are left with the condescending hope that we do "something right" and end up being a benefit to our world.

In our own defense, this generation has traditionally rejected many norms and ignored not a few expectations (including, most notably, fear of the Soviet Union) in our time. It is ridiculous to suggest that we be expected to heed the advice of our elders; indeed even Katz remarks upon the individualized nature of youth today. However, as much as what we have ignored has benefited us, so too has it hurt us. We have lost the connection to tradition and to experience which has kept our species alive for many thousands, even millions of years.

It is precisely now, at this watershed time, when we need to hear all the voices speak; Katz lauds the Internet's ability to permit this to actually happen. We now need, more than ever, the wisdom of the years and the energy of youth to combine. Our elders are certain to give us som bad advice: we younger people are certain to make grave errors in judgment. It is now time to minimize the damage and learn and make what we can.

We may indeed be able to do the world some good, but we are certain to do more damage without leadership. That leadership must come not only from among our own, but from generations which have gone before, which remember a non-wired world, and which learned of the value of personal communication, and has experienced firsthand the impact technology has on a way of life.

Katz poses many questions: "How will this generation solve the world's problems?” is but one. Has he already given up the possibility that he may be part of the solution, if he chooses to work with us? Is he now becoming part of the problem, and passing the challenge off to other people who he claims are better equipped to handle it? Katz is an astute observer of social generalities, but he does not offer solutions, and seems unprepared to be part of them.

Perhaps historians will one day lament the leadership provided by the Baby Boomers to the Wired Generation; perhaps it will be the Baby Boomers about whom is said, "They could have done the world some good."

Drama Review: Dracula strikes a vein at Middlebury

Published in the Mountainview

Last weekend the Department afTheatre. Dance. and Film/Video outdid itself in the Arts Center Studio Theater. "Dracula," directed by visiting director Blake Montgomery '93, was a spectacularly intricate web of mystery. More a show than a play, taking place on a minimalist Brutalist set, "Dracula" engaged without entrancing, mystified without terrifying, and provoked thought without confusing.

The adaptation from the Bram Stoker novel, created by the cast and staff of the 1997 Spring Production Company, was, simply put, a melange. Putting a classical Greek chorus around Victorian characters, providing startlingly accurate sound effects onstage, and with unobtrusive lighting, "Dracula" was more theatrical than it was theater.

It was, to be sure, an excellent production. The set, which did not change throughout the show, took on characteristics of a castle, a house, a tomb, a train, a canal, and a bustling seaport. Character movements and dialogue served as the only transitions between locations; lighting, directions of character entry, and intricately blocked movement throughout the set provided the visual cues which ensured the audience was aware of scene changes.

The main driving force behind the story of "Dracula," that or evil, was persistent but not scary. The secondary force, latent Victorian eroticism, was only present in the character of the Count himself, who engaged in pelvic thrusts with victims, while drinking blood from their necks.

Complicating matters of audience comprehension, but providing illumination into the story, was the gender reversal: male cast members played female characters, and female actors played the male roles. At first disorienting, this switch became believable and integrated well into the performance.

A part of the show which did not fit well was the sole foray by a character into the audience. Dracula, terrified of his pursuers. raced up the stairs, paused, and then exited from the balcony. It seemed a gratuitous move, in a theater world where audience involvement is becoming commonplace. Monologues were most often directed at the audience, as expositions, rather than solitary ruminations.

The cast was solidly commited to flexibility. Costumes did not change throughout the play, despite widely differing circumstances and locations. The change of a character's nationality took advantage of the caricature skills of a native Texan actor; the set's versatility and believability has already been explained. Each member of the chorus also had a part in the actual plot of the tale. Further, the physical demands of moving around the set on foot, much less on all fours or on stomachs or backs, were strenuous, and were more than in a more conventional production of this story.

The character of Dracula, played by Michole Biancosino '98, was excellent. Not only was the makeup and costume extravagant and clear from the first moment about who this character was, but Biancosino's portrayal of the possessed and tortured Count was at once reserved and passionate. Motivated by desire, relentless, and fearful of failure, Dracula's attempts to create more vampires, and his ultimate defeat at the hands of determined cross-wielding pursuers, were well played. They conformed to some stereotypes of Dracula's behavior, while also illustrating a tortured side of the Count often lost amid the evil and fear he symbolizes.

The rest of the cast, some well-known on the Middlebury stage, and others newcomers, all conducted themselves with what can only be called Middlebury aplomb: their skill, courage, and attitude reflected how hard hey thad worked, and the challenge of the intensity of the story they performed.

This was, it must be noted, a rare event in the history of Middlebury theater. Not a single person stood to applaud at the end or the Saturday matinee performance. Everyone stayed seated throughout the applause. There was no encore appearance of the cast. It was as if the entire audience had become infected with some of the apprehension and malaise they had just seen acted out on the stage. The audience was also swift to depart after the cast retreated from the stage. Neither an indictment of the show, or a laudatory indicator, it demonstrated that uncertainty about the world had been assumed by the audience, at least in the short term.

Opinion: Our ignorance of eternity

Published in the Mountainview

There is in the heavens now a symbol of divine disapproval, a harbinger of doom, a messenger from the gods, a comet. Described by one astronomer on NBC's "Today" show as "an iceberg, twenty-three miles wide, hurtling through space, disintegrating," the Hale-Bopp Comet is now visible to the naked eye.

It is in the north-by-northwestern sky both in the morning and the evening, and will be visible at least through mid-April, if not later in that month. It will pass relatively close to Earth, within about 100 million miles. This is not as close as Halley's Comet came eleven years ago, but is closer than most comets come to our planet. Detected about two years ago by two astronomers (Hale and Bopp), working separately, it is bringing to us knowledge about the universe's very beginnings.

Comets are thought by astronomers to have been created at the moment of the Big Bang. Some of them, like the one whose crater was recently found off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, crashed into planets. Some have no doubt been sucked into stars, and others, like Halley’s, are in regular orbits which are predictable and observable. Hale-Bopp, on the other hand, is a survivor.

It has no known orbit, no explicable reason for coming into our solar system now (as opposed to sooner, or later), and will leave our solar system for parts of the universe we know nothing about. It is not expected to return for nearly 5,000 years, by the best predictions of Earth's scientists.

Comets have an odd place in human history. They have always been seen as messengers from other times, other places, other people. Even now, in the age of ultra-rational science, comets are fossils from the Big Bang, carrying clues to the origin of the universe. Centuries ago, comets drove icicles of fear into the hearts of peasants and academics alike. They were signs of certain doom, crop failures, unhappy gods (or God).

Many things feared long ago we now can explain and study intellectually. There is, however, sornethirig very deep about a comet. No matter their origins, or their chemical composition, the appearance and disappearance of comets throughout history has always reminded humans that there is something larger than this planet, even than this solar system. Whether we are the sole sentient beings in the universe or not, we cannot escape the reality of the immenseness of space.

Hale-Bopp, when it returns, if it ever does (a lot can happen in 5,000 years traveling all over the universe - just as Arthur Dent), will be the best-traveled physical body we know of. It will have gone to more places in the known and unknown universe than any space probe from any solar system. It will have reached distances beyond radio contact with Earth, beyond sight of places from which you could see the Sun.

We can explain a lot about Hale-Bopp, and describe it in meticulous detail. But we must always admit that there will always be things we do not know, and things we cannot explain. Comets remind us of this. They appear overhead, move through the visible heavens, and disappear. We know why this happens — gravity. We do not, though, know all of what it means, and we never will.

Comets are a sign of something we have come to truly fear these days: human ignorance, impotence, and insignificance. Hale-Bopp, as an unexpected and unpredictable heavenly body, forces us to confront what we do not know, what we cannot know, and accept that the universe (or the gods, or God) is larger than we are, here on Earth. We must deal with this fear of the unknown and remember that there will always be an unknown.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his First Inaugural Address, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." We often try to forget even that. Hale-Bopp, the oddly-named visitor from other worlds, other galaxies, and Beyond, signifies to us all that we must conquer fear, because we cannot dispel the cosmic ignorance from which fear comes, and to which we are, ultimately, doomed.

Opinion: Larger than Life

Published in the Mountainview

I now have the opportunity to experience my own art on the scale on which I experience others'. Five of my photographs now hang framed on the walls of my apartment, next to photographs by friends, commercial art, and maps of various parts of the world. At art galleries and museums I see photos blown up and matted, mounted on the wall.

My images are now in that context. The decision to do this was very personal: I want to be reminded of my visual artistry every time I walk into my living room and my bedroom. I want to remember that I am a photographer and to see some of my own best work hanging with what I consider to be that of others. It puts me in context, reminds me of my place, and, in the end, makes me smile.

I had a hard time choosing which of my thousands of images to blow up and put on my wall, for me to see, and for my visitors to look at. I wanted to choose something people would admire, but of which I was also very proud. I wanted to show off what I consider to be my best work. They will not be my best-selling images, nor my most universally accessible. They will, however, be my first favorites.

My own reaction has been the most interesting. Others have made the appropriate comments: "Oh. I like it," "It's so...orange,” and so on. I, on the other hand, see something new in each image each time I look at it. I remember something more about the rest of the scene, outside the photograph, or something someone said to me just before or after I made the picture. More often than not, I remember what I felt when I made the photograph.

I explore, each time I see a photograph, the feeling the artist had when she made the image. I try to feel what she felt, to figure out what she left out of the image, to figure out why there is a dark spot in the lower right corner. I have always done this, with photographs, paintings, lithographs, and so on. I have never before been able to study my own work.

I find, happily, that I can learn more from myself than I thought I could, I also have found a lot of room for improvement. variation, and learning. I can pay close attention to details I would have missed in a slide show.

This self-examination and evaluation of my own work is art excellent barometer of my mindset and ability at the moment. It permits me to understand more concretely where I am and what I am doing with myself. The art serves the artist, even as I create it.

It gives me hope that visual communication can still have this effect on me and on others; in an increasingly visual age expressive images are in high demand. Expression of feelings, ideas, and thoughts are at least as important as expression of facts, figures, and non-fiction. The world, shrinking and even closing in a bit, is becoming more surreal, more abstract. Art of all media are expressing this feeling.

The exploration of the artist's mind and heart have been the topic of much discussion and debate for centuries. Entering that dialogue is important and energizing. It affirms the relationship between the self and the surroundings, and enforces respect between the two. Not without risk, it invites not only praise but criticism and misinterpretation. That is part of the bargain: the art is left to speak for itself. Its effect is never predictable, and the artist will never react the same way to her own art as she does to others', or as others do to hers.

Perceptions of the world are dangerous: they reveal ourselves below the surface. Images created by artists, like words spilled by writers onto the page, give away sometimes more than they reclaim.

The relationship between an artist and the public is never clearly defined. I invite you to visit my walls and see for yourself, and to share with me your thoughts on the world I see.