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International Teletimes Volume 03 Number 02
I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E L E T I M E S
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¥ Vol. 3 No. 1 January 1994 ¥
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CONTENTS
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-- Features --
SLEEPING WITH ELEPHANTS
"In 1990 over 90% of screen time in Canadian theatres was
taken up by foreign films. So why is it that the Canadian
film scene was and is so dominated by American imports?"
- by Dr. Euan Taylor
WHAT'S THE IP ADDRESS OF MY TV?
"The television industry provides information and
entertainment to the people. What is lacking is the
availability of entertainment or more information on
demand." - by Prasad Dharmasena
X-PRESSING OURSELVES
"This universalization of our generation across racial,
sexual, class, cultural lines -- lines that matter --
erases and marginalizes profound human differences."
- by Johnn Tan
-- Departments --
KEEPERS OF LIGHT
"This month we visit the Station Street Arts Centre to
view Female Nudes, and exhibition by Vancouver artist Skai
Fowler." - by Kent Barrett
THE WINE ENTHUSIAST
"With the end of apartheid, international trade barriers
are being lifted, worldwide. This means that South African
wines will be available in many parts of the world for the
first time in many years." - by Tom Davis
NEWS ROOM
"It has become quite fashionable of late to attack
political advertisements. Some decry the corrupting
effects of televised political manipulation, while others
fear the advantage they bring to more affluent parties.
Both, however, are wrong." - by Jon Gould
"Because political commercials are produced by the same
advertising agencies that spew forth corporate
commercials, they provide politicians with the opportunity
to control the image seen on television fully and
completely." - by Paul Gribble
THE QUILL
"The Beast has a hypnotic eye. When it stares at me, into
me, its thoughts become my reality, and I can't
discriminate between my own consciousness and the trance.
It's not unpleasant, really. The Beast is gentle when it
has my mind, but persistent." - by David Fitzjarrell
DEJA VU
"One cannot imagine a situation more primed for social
explosion. It was with little surprise, that the Zapatista
Army of National Liberation, stormed the town of San
Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, and officially proclaimed
its armed insurrection." - by Andreas Seppelt
CUISINE
"This bread is very easy to make, sounds very weird, but
is a true delight in my own opinion."
- by Markus Jakobsson
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EDITOR'S NOTE
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-- Belated February Issue --
Of all of the issues of Teletimes published yet, this must
have been the slowest one yet. We had a series of delays due
to my absence (fencing competitions out of town) and to
delays realted to the new graphics (which, I'm sure you'll
agree, are quite lovely.) I was planning on writing an
article about Schindler's List to coincide with this month's
theme, TV and the Movies, but unfortunately I couldn't find
the time. Perhaps for the next issue...
On to more exciting news...International Teletimes is going
to be hosting its first annual Photography Contest! All
photos submit must correspond with the theme for the April
issue, Travel. The first prize photo will be displayed on
the cover for the April issue. Extra goodies will be handed
out to finalists (see next month's issue for details). There
is no entry fee, virtual fame and fortune await, so send us
your photos by the March 15th deadline!
Ian Wojtowicz
Editor-in-ChiefÊ
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MAILBOX
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-- Reader Comments --
Excellent publication! Would like to see more articles on
computers and maybe politics. How about adding more
graphics?
- Kenneth Cheuk, Hong Kong
YOUR WISH IS OUR COMMAND. MORE GRAPHICS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO
THE DEPARTMENTS SECTION. CHECK THEM OUT AND TELL US WHAT YOU
THINK!
Very nice graphically. Only read some of the articles, but
they satisfied. In all an impressive journal and an expample
of what can be done. As they say, Keep up the good work!
- Raul A. Zaritsky, Chicago, USA
-- Help! --
Hello Ian,
I just received the January '94 issue of Teletimes, and I
would love to read it, but I don't have "BinHex 4.0" to
translate it on my Mac. I wonder if you could 1) send me a
version of Teletimes that requires no translation, or 2)
tell me where/how I can get hold of BinHex?
Thanks for your assistance!
- Rick Cooper
RICK, THERE ARE PROBABLY QUITE A FEW PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT
FAMILIAR WITH THE USE OF BINHEX, SO I FEEL I SHOULD EXPLAIN
IT OUT HERE IN THE OPEN. BINHEX CONVERTS BINARY (10101)
FILES TO ASCII (TEXT) FOR TRANSPORT THROUGH E-MAIL AND TO
AVOID PROBLEM WITH MACHINES WHICH CAN'T HANDLE MACBINARY.
BINHEX 4.0 IS AVAILABLE AT MOST LARGE MACINTOSH ANONYMOUS
FTP SITES (LIKE SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU) AND IS ALSO BUILT
INTO MANY UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS PROGRAMS LIKE
STUFFIT, COMPACT PRO, EUDORA AND FETCH. IF YOU CANNOT, FOR
SOME REASON, DEBINHEX THE MAC VERSION, I SUGGEST THAT YOU
SUBSCRIBE TO THE ASCII VERSION OF TELETIMES.
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FEATURES
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-- Sleeping with Elephants --
"Living next to the United States is in some ways like
sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-
tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and
grunt." That was how Pierre Trudeau, former Canadian Prime
Minister summed up the country's relationship with America.
That relationship has been especially evident in the movie
industry. For example in 1977, of 970 films distributed
here, only 2.5% were of Canadian origin, and about 50% were
imported from the US. During 1979 almost all royalty
payments went to copyright holders outside of Canada. In
1990 over 90% of screen time in Canadian theatres was taken
up by foreign films. So why is it that the Canadian film
scene was and is so dominated by American imports?
It has been suggested that Canadians just like American
films better, but that is only part of the story. In a 1978
poll about 40% of Canadians said Canadian films were
inferior to others, but about 35% said they were the same as
or better than those from elsewhere. In any case, many
Canadian films have received critical acclaim around the
world, and been supported by audiences here in Canada.
Part of the reason is the generally American flavour of
Canadian society and hence the similarity of individual
expectations and so forth. In 1950 the American author
Horace Sutton noted how Canadians had "adopted American
commerce and culture." For this reason the flow of
information between the US and Canada is fundamentally much
easier than in many other cases, the English speaking
portions of the Canadian and American populations share both
language and culture. The significant linguistic, cultural
and religious obstacles which might act as a barrier to
foreign penetration of the market elsewhere do not operate
here (outside of Quebec at least).
Another reason is simply (or perhaps not so simply)
commercial competition; TV, radio and film can be provided
more cheaply by outlets of American networks because they
can recoup their costs in the US market and thus run their
foreign operations more cheaply and profitably. Certainly
they own a huge proportion of the Canadian cinema industry.
According to Dave Barber of Winnipeg Film Group, one of the
biggest problems in Canada is publicity. Hollywood does
excellent publicity work for its releases, Canadian films
are relatively poorly advertised. In fact Barber says it is
difficult to get air time and media space for Canadian films
at all. He has to "hound" the media to get any kind of
coverage for many of the films he deals with. The result is
that people are far more likely to know the names of the
reviews of Hollywood films, than they are of Canadian ones.
That is probably one reason the cinema chains use so few
Canadian films. In fact Barber feels that Canadian films are
more appreciated outside Canada than inside Canada.
[There is an argument that the overwhelming influence of the
US media is not merely due to good business. Some in the US
have viewed the expansion of the media as a duty "a sacred
duty," a part of the "worldwide ideological struggle for the
hearts and minds of men."]
The debate about foreign influence in the film (and other)
industries is an old one in Canada. The Liberal Trudeau
government took legislative steps to regulate foreign
ownership and influence, the Conservative Mulroney
Government negotiated the Free Trade Agreement. Both were
aimed at promoting the best interests of Canadians and their
industries, working on different assumptions of what these
were and how they would be best served. In fact even the
outlook of individual Canadians has been different depending
on their circumstances. For instance years ago Cineplex (a
major cinema chain) appealed to the Restrictive Trade
Practices Commission for help against the power and
practices of foreign interests (i.e.. US based film
production-distribution companies) which kept them from
prospering in the Canadian market. With this help Cineplex-
Odeon became a prosperous company and a major circuit for
American films. The same entrepreneur who had courted
government intervention some years earlier, now talked about
government measures to help the indigenous film industry as
"alarming", "unethical", and generally a bad idea. If you
are looking at the balance sheet for a large vertically
organised and foreign based corporation that makes,
distributes and shows films, then to maximise your returns
you don't want other film makers and distributors taking a
slice of your market. (Hollywood has strongly resisted the
idea of a quota system for Canadian films - such systems do
exist in some countries). If you can exclude them from your
cinemas you do, and if you can keep some sort of monopoly
over showing major films you do that too. (Which is one of
the reasons Cineplex originally sought government help to
defend and strengthen itself in the market). If you are a
small independent film maker, then making films is much more
of a gamble than for a large organisation which controls
both production and distribution. You might like the
government to impose on the distributors a quota of
independent films, so your products would reliably make it
to the screen and some of the financial risks of film making
would be eliminated. Not only that, according to Barber the
funding situation for independent film makers is relatively
very poor here in Canada (in the US for example there is
more private and foundation money which can be accessed).
Some put the dismal showing of the smaller independent
companies down to the issue of competition, access to a
market which is effectively controlled by a powerful
oligopoly. In that view the "free" trade model, simply
maintains the dominance of a powerful segment of the
industry (meaning the large scale, vertically integrated
corporations in this case).
On the other hand we do have the National Film Board, set up
by the government in 1939. It is the best known producer of
Canadian films. But Barber told me about some outstanding
independent film makers you might want to check out. Sharon
Jennet (from right here in Winnipeg), John Cozak and Guy
Madden. There are, in fact, Canadian films around, many of
them are excellent, but a fair proportion of them never make
it into the public eye here in Canada.
---
For what it's worth this is a list of some of the better
Canadian films (in no particular order). Try a few. Decide
for yourself if like Canadian films.
Jesus of Montreal
Who Has Seen the Wind
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
I Heard the Mermaids Singing
My American Cousin
Ninety Days
Careful, Archangel, Tales From the Gimli Hospital (Guy
Madden)
Dog Stories (Sharon Jennet)
- Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada
Sources:
Embattled Shadows, A History of the Canadian Cinema. Peter
Morris, 1978.
Canada's Cultural Industries. Paul Audley 1983. Canadian
Dreams and American Control. The Political Economy of
the Canadian Film Industry. Manjunath Pendakur, 1990.
My very special thanks also go to Dave Barber, Programmer
and Co-ordinator at The Winnipeg Film Group (running the
independent cinema Cinematheque here in town). He
provided me with much valuable insight and information.
-- What's the IP Address of My TV? --
The television industry in the United States can be broadly
classified into three categories. "Commercial network
television" is available free of charge to everyone, non-
commercial "public television" is also available free to
everyone, and "cable television," which is not free. Let us
examine each category and understand their differences.
Network TV is free for the viewer. Since it relies on the
revenue from the advertisers on the medium, and since there
is a big competition between the networks over the ratings,
all the networks constantly try to improve their services.
Public television (PBS channels in the US), on the other
hand, does not compete with other stations and, therefore,
does not worry much about the ratings. It relies on the
support from viewers who find its programming valuable. The
inherent, non-commercial nature of this service has its own
advantages and a lot of viewers find an alternative taste in
this category of broadcasting. Cable TV, contrary to the
other two, is not free and is provided only to paid
customers via a dedicated line. Since cable TV is a package
deal, there are more specialized channels. As a service to
the customers, most cable TV service providers carry the
"free" Network TV and PBS channels on their "basic" package.
The television industry provides information and
entertainment to the people. Although there is a broad range
in the supplied services, it is only a one way street. What
is lacking is the availability of entertainment or more
information "on demand." (There are certain movie and music
channels on some cable TV services that do provide a
selection from their choices for a fee.) What it lacks most
is the ability for the viewer to find out more details about
a certain piece of information given on a news oriented
program. New technology is being applied to patch some of
the short comings of television and to combine other
communication mediums with television technology.
There are two distinctly different trends in the television
industry. One is to provide all the "on-the-air" programming
via a dedicated cable to the consumers with several hundred
of other cable-only channels. The other trend is to provide
competition to the previous type of dedicated services via
direct satellite broadcast of several hundred channels. The
Cable trend has the advantage of being able to implement
with very little initial cost to the viewer. The satellite
trend has the advantage of being a free service once you
make the initial purchase of the required equipment. It is
estimated that the next generation "dedicated" satellites
will be able to broadcast 500 or so TV channels to
relatively small receiving antennas with the picture and
sound quality comparable to that of a dedicated cable
connection. The initial equipment purchase would not exceed
a few thousand dollars. If this trend is continued, most
people will opt for the satellite connection over cable
connections which tend to charge a monthly fee. However,
this has not discouraged the cable TV industry. Since a
dedicated wire to each and every customer can carry more
than just a few television stations, the cable TV giants are
now teaming with other service providers such as local and
long distance telephone companies. Providing TV and
telephone services is not their only intention. The next
step is providing data, interactive television, Internet
services, paid dedicated computer connections to specialized
data banks, and other services over the same connection. The
satellite industry will not take this lying down. It is also
experimenting with the idea of providing certain Internet
services such as the Usenet via "regular broadcasts" to
receivers scattered around the country.
Before we gaze into the crystal ball to see what the future
holds, let's look at the main fault of today's TV industry.
The fault, as I see it, is that the TV dictates what and how
much of it that the rest of us should receive. Most TV
programs lack a contact point for us the viewers to provide
a feedback. Most of the time, it involves writing to the TV
station or the parent network station. This means, we are
faced with the problems of finding out addresses or phone
numbers to contact the "right" person. Most entertainment
programs do not have a feedback point other than their
ratings. For instance, a recent NBC sitcom "The Good Life"
episode ridiculed Buddhism. I wanted to convey my strong
opposition to distasteful use of a religious faith. However,
there was no quick and easy way to do this since the local
TV station that carried the program was not responsible for
the creation and neither was its parent network. The
production staff and writers are not easily reachable by the
average Joe viewer. Another aspect of this lack of feedback
is the inability of the viewer to get at information that he
or she needs in a timely fashion via a TV news broadcast.
This is best illustrated by an example. After the recent
earthquake in Los Angeles I spent few hours in front of the
TV, switching between network and cable news channels to
finally see the map of the badly damaged areas. The first
thing that I wanted was to find out if the area in which my
family lives, which is less than 5 miles from the epicenter
of the quake, was effected badly or not. What we need is
interactive television. Being able to go deeper into the
stories that we are interested and disregard other stories
that the television people think that we ought to know.
There is only one TV program that I know of that has made
this feedback a little easier. Now you can reach NBC Nightly
news via e-mail at <nightly@nbc.com>. Hopefully this is a
step in the right direction and other programs will also be
easily reachable via phone or e-mail without us having to
dial a 900 number.
In the development of cable TV service providers giving us
everything but the kitchen sink via a dedicated line, Bell
Atlantic and the cable TV giant John Malone have indicated
that they will wire all the schools, kindergarten through
grade 12, in the Bell Atlantic service areas to be able to
be "on the net" within this year as a donation. PSI, another
giant commercial Internet provider in Northern Virginia, has
made plans to combine its services with a cable TV giant.
This leads us to the question of "as consumers, are these
mergers of service providers in best interest to us?" Some
analyst see it this way. Information, entertainment, data
transfer, and computer services are fast becoming a one
giant industry. Therefore, there should be a cooperation
between the major players in order to develop this massive
"information super highway." Only after this cooperation of
commercial companies can this information highway be
established. Others see it differently. Information should
be free to everyone. If the information providers merge with
each other to give us a "selection" of just one company,
they will be the masters of information. The consumers will
not have any option but to pay outrageous service charges to
get at the information. It is believed that this proposed
information super highway will have toll booths at every
intersection.
It is true that there should be a certain cooperation among
the industry leaders to agree on a standard. However,
agreeing on a standard is vastly different from being
partners and agreeing not to compete with each other. On
most areas of this country we have a "selection" of one
cable TV provider and one local phone company. If we are
going to put all our eggs in one basket, then we'd better
safeguard that basket like our freedom depended on it.
Because, our information freedom WILL depend on it. This
means, that the "one stop service provider" will have to be
well regulated by the industry, the government, and the
consumer groups.
Some people will wonder what the connection between
television and data transmission is. The connection is that
even in today's TV broadcasts, it is possible to send data
between vertical blanks between the pictures and sound
without expanding the broadcast bandwidth. (It is possible
to get plug-in boards, for even PCs, to decode this
information from experimental broadcasts. If you are
interested in more information on this, please check the
anonymous FTP site <sunsite.unc.edu>:/pub/sun-info/sunergy/)
The proposed information highway will have a much more broad
bandwidth to carry a lot more information such as data,
sound, pictures, etc. Moreover, digitizing everything in
sight seems to be the trend these days. Hence it will be
possible to transfer everything via a data network. Also,
interactive television will need a much more computerized
network than the cable TV network of today.
What this all will come down to is that one day our
computers, televisions, VCRs, telephones, video-phones,
stereos, and even microwave ovens will be somehow or the
other tied to the "net." "Document transfer," "going
shopping," "working from home" and "going to the movies"
will all have different meanings when the TV comes with a
built-in ethernet card.
- Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA
-- X-pressing Ourselves --
Generation X. The Twentysomethings. The 13th Generation. Who
are these people that sound like they come from another
planet? And why are they so talked about these days?
Watching and listening to mass media, particularly
television, I get the impression that this generation, which
has been put up for national consumption, is some monstrous
group of young people who all think, dress, and act alike;
who want to discard the "liberal" values of their
predecessors (another strange monolith of people, called the
Baby Boomers) and restore things to the way "they ought to
be;" who spend all our time jamming to music with their
girlfriends, boyfriends, or both; who whine constantly about
societal problems but ultimately don't give a fuck about
solving them.
Listening to myself and my friends, however, it dawns on me
that this outerworldly mass of people that the media is
talking about is none other than ourselves. Why do we, as
youth between the ages of 18-30, feel so out of touch with
this commodified "Twentysomething" crowd that's supposed to
represent us? As with most questions, there isn't just one
answer, but there are a number of possibilities. Maybe, just
maybe, this very diverse group of young people cannot be so
easily clumped together across race, gender, sexual
practices, class, and, yes, even age. Maybe some of us
actually disagree with both Rush Limbaugh and Bill Clinton.
Maybe some of us avoid corporate goods that seek to
uniformize us and choose, instead, products that enhance our
statement of who we are, as unique individuals. Maybe some
of us don't prioritize being able to buy our own three-car-
garage homes in white suburban neighbourhoods for our
families and material gadgets and widgets -- maybe some of
us don't even buy into the traditional, western nuclear
family (you mean, there are people who still believe in
*gasp* FreeLove??) Maybe some of us care about other human
beings, about the Earth that we tread on, about
nonmaterialistic values -- and maybe we do have legitimate
ideas about what to do about these, what to do to make
society better.
Who are we? Where are we? Why hasn't mass media talked about
"us"? In a capitalist world, the role of media is not to
tell us about ourselves and about each other, but rather to
sell mass audiences to client corporations. An idealistic
and diverse audience that deeply cares about the Earth and
its inhabitants (including the human kind) is a hard group
to sell to businesses based fundamentally on growth,
overconsumption, and "the bottom line," at the expense and
misery of humans, animals, and the environment. On the other
foot, it's much easier to sell an audience that is concerned
with buying homes, buying cars, buying computers, buying
TV's, buying music, buying clothes, buying images, and,
ultimately, buying people. No matter that media has to first
create this image, fictional as it is -- after all, in a
self-fulfilling manner, they will eventually be able to sell
this image to (i.e., force it on) the very group that the
image is supposed to represent.
This universalization of our generation across racial,
sexual, class, cultural lines -- lines that matter -- erases
and marginalizes profound human differences. Some of us have
resisted this lumping. Now we need to progress beyond that
and, in the space of resistance, create ourselves anew,
define ourselves, in all our myriad and unique ways. If
media cannot accept us in all of our glorious diversity,
then we must leave it behind too, and create our own media,
our own images -- images that truly reflect us...every
single one of us.
Let us, not the television, decide who we are.
- Johnn Tan, Ogden, Utah, USA
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DEPARTMENTS
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-- Keepers of Light --
Greetings, Cyberfolk, and welcome to the February Keepers Of
Light. If you are reading the Mosaic version of Teletimes,
you will probably see the colour images in fairly high
fidelity. If you have the downloaded version, you are
unfortunately going to be seeing dithered versions of the
colour works, though the B&W's should be fine. We here at
Keepers Of Light Quality Control are at work on overcoming
the limitations of the software involved, and if any one out
there has any bright ideas in this regard, we would love to
hear them.
This month we visit the Station Street Arts Centre to view
Female Nudes, and exhibition by Vancouver artist Skai
Fowler. Right. Off we go.
---
The Station Street Arts Centre
A note for the theatre's front-of-house personnel reminds
them to keep a look out for late arrivals, just to make sure
patrons don't trip over the junkies in the alley. Station
Street Art Centre is a strange place to meet the Masters.
Located behind an infamous biker joint, tucked in between
the CN Station and the American Hotel lies Station St., from
which the art centre, located in a converted pickle
warehouse, takes it's name.
According to Sherry McGarvie, the theatre' s feisty
marketer/general manager, the building was first converted
for use as a theatre by the Fend Players Theatre Company, a
group of ex-convicts who somehow decided that theatre was a
good idea, and also that it would be a good thing to name
their troupe the "Need To Offend Players." Unfortunately,
the name offended people, and it was shortened to "Fend" in
the interests of getting along with funding agencies.
"Since 1988, Fend has produced over fifty plays, over thirty
of them Canadian," says McGarvie, "and of those thirty,
twenty were local." The group's output has been impressive.
The last production mounted by Fend was "Open Couple", a
play written in Italian by the husband and wife play writing
team of Dario Foo and Franca Rame. The play was translated
into Spanish, French, English, and Cantonese, and the
performances ran concurrently. Alas, the Fend company is
currently out of production, this season having been
canceled due to a lack of funds, which McGarvie attributes
to past mismanagement of resources. However, the 130 seat
art centre continues to operate profitably as a commercial
venture, and the revenue will insure a production season
next year.
As a visual arts venue the art centre needs attention, and
it's good to see that it's finally getting some. There has
always been work displayed on the walls of the lobby and bar
areas of the theatre, and usually with some attempt made to
match themes between the art and whatever was playing in the
theatre, but the displays always had the feeling of an
afterthought. It was a defacto gallery, but until now it has
never been considered as a stand alone resource with a spine
of it's own. Female Nudes, in fact is the first exhibition
to get it's own opening event, complete with wine, cheese,
and printed invitations. It will not be the last. The walls
have been painted, and I understand they will be refinished
and the lighting will improve as funds permit. (Donations
are accepted).
The Station Street Art Centre is located at 930 Station
Street in Vancouver. The hundred plus seat facility is
available for booking for arts events of most types, though
it is booked up until the middle of May (at time of
writing). Interested parties may call Sherry McGarvie at
(604) 688-3337 for rates & dates.
---
Female Nudes
Photographs by Skai Fowler
Presented at Station Street Arts Centre, January, 1994
The Station Street Arts Centre is a strange place to meet
the Masters. Yet, there they were. Rubens, Michelangelo, all
the big guns. You would instantly recognize the subjects:
Paris; Pan; Aphrodite; Diana, Venus; and...hey! Who's that
goddess there? No, not that one, the one with the curly
hair. Was she always in that painting? Hey! She's in this
one, too...and this one...
Skai Fowler has approached the study of the female nude with
a unique perspective. Using herself as a model, she has
composited her own images with photographs of reproductions
of famous paintings. The results, printed at heroic sizes
(about 4 by 6 feet), are fascinating.
Fowler drew on her own experience as an art school model (a
"cultural stripper", as she puts it) and wondered how her
counterparts two hundred years ago felt when they were
posing for the paintings we now enshrine on museum walls.
Did they go through the same emotions when they removed
their clothes? How did they deal with being exposed and
positioned and draped? And what, furthermore, might they
have to say today after hanging in the Louvre for all those
dusty years? Might they not want to escape from the over-
heated dramas they have been painted into? Do they tire of
standing coquettishly? Do the models come to life at night
when no one's around, to sit and drink tea, smoke
cigarettes, and gossip about the painters they worked for?
I expect so, after seeing Fowler's pieces. From these and
other musings Fowler has created a series of enchanting and
whimsical images through which she floats like a knowing
ghost, sometimes brazenly engaging the viewer, sometimes
peering off into corners. Her presence is sometimes obvious,
sometimes subtle. It's a remarkably versatile device.
The simplicity of "Curtains", for example, is deceptive. The
skintone match between the painted model and the one
photographed is nearly perfect. The graceful curves of the
painted model's back are echoed equally as gracefully in the
photographed. The imposition of the second figure, so close
in form to the first, gives the image a fourth dimension of
time. We see a time lapse double exposure. Our twentieth
century brains interpret a sequence of events. We are
watching a movie, we feel, we know what's going on. And yet,
it is the painted model who stares boldly at us, asks "Well,
you've had two hundred years to think about it. Why did you
never ask what was behind the curtain?"
"Secrets" has secrets. The skin tones have not been matched.
The photographed model has quite clearly escaped from
another work. An upstart has stolen in here to stand in the
light on the freezing floor with information to covey. And,
thoughtfully (and possibly against union rules), she has
brought a chair for her colleague's back. Lumbar support.
Modeling is hard work.
In "Bacchainal", the photographed model is integrated
smoothly into the painting. Detail appears and disappears in
the darker transparent areas, giving a dream-like glow, and
the model fades into history and memory, a participant
there, not here, and quite lost to us.
With Untitled, Skai has made a flawless juxtaposition of
images. The painted drapery whips around her hips as she
turns to the satyr, and she shares one leg and a breast with
her painted counterpart, introducing an odd cubistic note.
This careful compositing is particularly noteworthy since it
is extremely difficult to accomplish. All of the images in
this show were shot as "in camera" double exposures. Fowler
would expose an entire roll of film, shooting images of
paintings from art books. Then the film was rewound to the
beginning and the camera placed on a tripod. Fowler then
arranged the lighting to match that in a painting and posed
in front of a black background. She re-exposed the film
frame by frame, and the results are what you see here. No
additional darkroom composting techniques were used. The
large colour prints were produced by a commercial lab, and
Fowler produced the black and whites herself.
Goddess Of The Water is at once the most direct (and
obvious) manipulation, and the least accessible of the
pieces (at least to me). The model is superimposed on a
painting, and looks directly at the viewer, holding up for
approval the very image into which she has been placed. Not
an infinite recursion, for it stops after one iteration, but
strange.
The cumulative effect of the show was quite pleasant. I
enjoyed the feelings they invoked, and the images have
stayed with me. I have not had the opportunity to view all
of the pieces at their intended sizes. The Station Street
Arts Centre is not a large enough venue for the 4x6 foot
prints to be displayed, so smaller prints of most images
were shown on this occasion. I would like to see the large
originals some time, in a proper setting for their
scale...perhaps at the Louvre...
Next month: The annual "Eye Of Eros" exhibition at Exposure
Gallery.
---
Profile: Skai Fowler
Skai Fowler did her first nude modeling job in 1975. At the
time, she says, she was eighteen and convinced that the only
real reason nudes were used was to lure students to art
schools. She's thirty-four now, still modeling, and still
convinced. She started practicing art while modeling part
time, and eventually, by 1985, was using herself as a model.
Being both artist and model solved for her the unsettling
issues of objectification and misuse. In her artist's
statement she says, "Some years ago I became interested in
my historical counterparts. Every time I disrobed I had the
sensation of this very same action having been done for
centuries; in doing this I become aligned with all the
female subjects of the old masters. It is in this
perspective that I started my series on the nude."
We talked while I was making the scans of her prints and
Jasper, her dog, amused himself yanking out cables.
SF: I use myself, partly because I was the handiest person,
and I didn't have to translate for someone else what it was
I wanted, I had the luxury of just using myself...you know,
if you use somebody else, what does that mean? Especially
because I used a lot of nudity in my photographs. I'd go
into all the questions in terms of using some one else's
image or abusing it...I'd ask people (to model nude), and
they would be uncomfortable with it, or they weren't sure
about it. People are quite protective, it's...it's somehow
different if you draw them, you know, but if you photograph
them they're much more reluctant. Originally I wanted to do
this series using all different kinds of body types, so I
asked my friends. And they were well, they don't know if
they wanna be in a photograph, hung on a wall--
KB: I always used a kind of a Tom Sawyer thing. I'd say,
"Yeah, I'm doing this series of images and I need a nude
model for this shot...," you know, and look at them for a
second or two--
SF: (Laughing) Yeah.
KB: --then say "nah..." and they'd say like "Hey! What's
wrong with my body?"
SF: Yeah. This new series that hasn't actually distilled in
my mind. I really don't want to use myself for this. I feel
like I need to use other people, to explore that, the
relationship between the photographer and the photograph and
the image and the person...and using myself is sort of an
excuse now. It was fine for a time, but now I need to stop
using it as an excuse to not photograph other people.
KB: OK, what's this [photo]?
SF: Oh, that one's...Untitled...there's got to be a great
title in there somewhere...
KB: So, this new project, will it be more of the same kind
of--
SF: No!! It's getting away from this kind of imagery
altogether. I've been working on this whole series, this
whole Female Nude concept for...quite a while now, and I'm
quite tired of it. I really wanna venture off into something
else.
KB: But will you be using this collagey kind of--
SF: Probably...yeah...yes, in fact. I like putting different
realities together...like these, though I also view these as
historical advertisements, in the sense that even though
many of these are allegories, they're selling a concept of
that time. You'll see the Judgment of Paris reproduced again
and again, and you can see the change in the body styles, in
the things that they choose to represent, so all of that is
used to sell a social concept, which is what advertising
does. Now you have the tall, thin model, that's the body
style of our contemporary period...
KB: This [photo]?
SF: Um, Goddess Of The Water.
KB: Which way does this one go?
SF: It goes the other way...I have a list of all the
painters...somewhere here...
KB: Never mind. If they wanna know they can write letters.
SF: Right...and as you can tell, they're all from
reproductions, they're all taken out of art books...
KB: No. I thought you were prancing around naked in the
Louvre...
SF: (Laughing) Yeah...that would be nice.
KB: That would be fun.
SF: Yeah. And I do wonder, you know? I've been meaning to
see if I could get a grant to do it. Go through the
channels, write to the Louvre, see if I could do it using
the originals...
KB: ...the expression "a frosty day in hell" creeps up...but
you never know, fill in the forms, and...
SF: well, exactly.
Skai Fowler may be reached at (604) 253-2510
- Kent Barrett, Vancouver, CanadaÊ
-- The Wine Enthusiast: South African Wines --
In April, South Africans will hold their first true general
elections in its history. South Africa is a wealthy,
industrialized nation and despite its history of racial
injustice and factional violence, it has, more than any
African nation, the best odds at peace, prosperity, and
social justice in the coming century.
With the end of apartheid, and the move to full democracy,
international trade barriers that helped to enact this
change, are being lifted, worldwide. This means that South
African wines will be available in many parts of the world
for the first time in many years.
This may bring down the price of entry level varietal wines
significantly, for though South Africa only produces about
as much wine as Rumania, about 8 million hectoliters, the
reputation of South African wines are very high indeed, and
we should see fierce competition.
South African wine production is almost twice that of
Australia, and its history of wine production dates all the
way back to 1659, when it was a Dutch colony. Constantia, a
rich dessert wine made from the Muscat of Alexandria, was
famous the world over during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries.
Like California, South Africa's wine regions are blessed
with very reliable, moderate climates. Poor growing seasons
are very rare.
There are two main wine regions in the country, the cooler,
moister, Coastal Belt, northeast of Cape Town, and the
Little Karoo, further eastward, past the rain shadow of the
Drakenstien mountains. As with California, the coastal
regions produce the finest table wines, and the Little
Karoo, like the San Joaquin Valley of California, is a
great, overly-fertile, irrigated, inland region best suited
for dessert wine production.
The main sub-appellations of the Coastal Belt are:
Constantia and Durbanville, Stellenboch, Paarl, and Tulbagh.
All of these regions are moderate in climate, have good
soils and topography, and produce South Africa's finest
table wines.
The main noble grape varieties used in this Coastal Belt
are, starting with the reds: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet
Franc, Carignan, Merlot, Shiraz, Hermitage (Cinsault), Gamay
Noir, Pinotage (a cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsault!), Pinot
Noir, and even Zinfandel.
The main noble white varieties include: the ubiquitous and
versatile Steen (Chenin Blanc), Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc,
Kerner, and the Semillon or Greengrape. Oddly, or perhaps
thankfully, Chardonnay is not grown in great quantity,
though this is quickly changing.
In 1973 South Africa enacted a system akin to Appellation
Controlee laws called Wines of Origin. Wines with the W.O.
seal on their capsule, or W.O.S., of Superior Origin are to
be sought after. This system has been successful in
encouraging the existence of many smaller, quality
producers. These wineries are pretty well up to date in
their winemaking equipment and techniques, as well as their
use of oak cooperage and sound viticulture.
I recommend taking Hugh Johnson's Pocket Encyclopedia of
Wine along with to purchase South African wines, as you will
need to familiarize yourself with the regions and their best
producers.
This writer has admittedly no experience of tasting South
African wines, but I look forward with great anticipation to
experiencing them in April, when these wines become
available here in British Columbia. I also look forward to
toast to the success and potentially bright future of the
new South African nation.
- Tom Davis, Vancouver, CanadaÊ
-- News Room: Political Television Ads --
-- PRO --
It has become quite fashionable of late to attack political
advertisements. Some decry the corrupting effects of
televised political manipulation, while others fear the
advantage they bring to more affluent parties. Both,
however, are wrong.
Much has been made of the American experience and especially
the ad campaign of George Bush's 1988 election. I remember
it well, for I was on the national staff of his opponent,
Michael Dukakis. George Bush's ads were manipulative. They
were cynical, pandering ads that preyed on the worst
impulses of the American voters. They also worked. But they
succeeded not simply because of their craftiness. Rather,
George Bush had some help. Not only did a nominally
independent group direct its own attack ads against Governor
Dukakis, but Dukakis himself failed to respond effectively
to the ads' assertions.
Neither of the problems stated at the beginning should
necessarily spell the doom of political advertising. In the
first case, televised ads can be limited to candidates and
political parties, and in the second, televised advertising
should be kept in perspective. Even the infamous "Willie
Horton" ads could have been neutralized if Governor Dukakis
had challenged them early on. Voters are not so manipulable
that they cannot chose between competing versions of the
truth. If we're worried about people being taken in by
simplistic messages, then we're pointing the finger at the
wrong culprit. No one is forced to watch political ads; if
we cannot distinguish fact from fantasy, perhaps the
problems lie deeper in our educational systems.
More importantly, in the right hands televised political
advertising can be an effective educational tool. Putting
aside all of the objections -- that television is shallow,
that it can manipulate -- no one can deny the power of
televised advertising to bring new political ideas to people
who have not previously experienced them.
So what holds back political ads? Listening to the
opposition rhetoric, one divines a fear of televised ads.
With their visual imagery, televised ads are a more potent
tool, and because they are more expensive than radio or
print ads, they are likely to benefit wealthier parties and
candidates.
But even this can be overcome. In fact, one need look no
farther than Nicaragua. In its last multi-party election,
the Nicaraguan Election Commission set up a central clearing
house for all foreign contributions to the country's
political parties. Half of these contributions went to the
parties designated, and the other half were used to finance
the expensive process of new elections.
Similarly, other governments might harness interest in their
electoral processes -- whether foreign or domestic -- to
provide a baseline of financial resources to the various
political parties. I do not suggest that governments
equalize resources among the parties, nor should the parties
be granted funds without demonstrating some minimum level of
support. But if high-rollers are allowed to contribute
towards an election's result, some of that money should be
used to finance real multi-party elections.
Alternatively, governments could grant parties a certain
amount of free televised time to do with as they wished.
Assuming that the parties stayed within the bounds of libel
and slander, they would each have a chance to make their own
case to the electorate. This, of course, would require
public funding, for the free time would undoubtedly
substitute for otherwise paid programming. True as it is,
each government has to set its spending priorities.
And therein lies the crux of the issue. If a country's
political leadership is serious about holding free and fair
multi-party elections, then steps have to be taken to ensure
that voters are exposed to the breadth and implications of
their choice. Televised political ads should be a part of
this process. Warts and all, they are the efficient way to
convey easily understood information to the broadest
possible audience. In short, rather than seeking to curb
televised political ads, they should be embraced.
- Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
-- CON --
In the last 30 years the ways in which political candidates
solicit the public vote have changed drastically. In today's
campaigns corporate media plays a larger role than ever
before. In the past, coverage of political candidates was
largely composed of news stories and interviews by
experienced and respected journalists. When top-flight
journalists had opportunities to grill presidential
candidates, the results were often unexpected, and sometimes
irreversibly altered the course of campaigns.
Today political party manipulators are often able to dictate
the image voters see in the media. Tight deadlines and
shortages of resources can leave journalists with no option
but to fit their words around pictures sent directly by
party manipulators. In addition, increased competition
between television news channels often forces news editors
to accept party initiated stories just to get good
headlines.
People in today's society are becoming more and more
apathetic about voting; voter turnout in recent elections
has hit an all-time low. In addition, people are becoming
increasingly disinterested in spending time researching the
various candidates and their platforms. Why exert effort to
seek out independent information when one can simply turn on
the radio or the television and get barraged with all sorts
of political rhetoric? People in today's society are
watching more television than ever before; A recent TV Guide
poll reported that one in four Americans would refuse to
quit watching television, even for one million dollars.
Because political commercials are produced by the same
advertising agencies that spew forth corporate commercials,
they provide politicians with the opportunity to control the
image seen on television fully and completely. These
agencies are in the business of manipulating people by
implanting a desire for their products using "marketing
messages". More often than not these "marketing messages"
are composed of innuendo and exaggeration rather than
factual claims about a product's virtues. Advertising
agencies conduct "market research" so that they can produce
particularly effective "marketing messages" that "target"
various demographic groups by playing off the fears and
desires associated with that group's interests and
lifestyle.
A good example of this is the advertising war between Coke
and Pepsi. Pepsi ran television ads portraying a group of
college-aged party-prone young adults who inadvertently
drank Coke instead of Pepsi, and turned into bridge-playing
invalids. The Pepsi destined for the dorm ended up at an
old-folks home, and inspired the elderly residents to behave
like raucous adolescents. It is clear how these "marketing
messages" are designed to win you over using unsubstantiated
and clearly ridiculous claims.
More often than not, today's political commercials are
negative, designed to malign opponents rather than to
communicate positive information about the party's political
platforms. A poignant example of this in recent Canadian
federal politics was a television commercial produced last
year by the Progressive Conservative party designed to lure
voters away from the Liberal party by focusing on Jean
Chretien's facial disorder. The commercial contained little
or no positive information about the Progressive
Conservative party's platform policies. Instead, a collage
of close-ups of Jean Chretien's face focused the viewer's
attention on his abnormality. At the end of the ad, a voice-
over accompanied a close-up of Jean Chretien's contorted
face frozen in time and asked the viewer something like, "Do
you really want this man to be your Prime Minister?" This
commercial turned out to work against the Progressive
Conservative party, who were publicly reprimanded for the
extreme maliciousness of the ad.
This kind of negative advertising creates a campaign
environment in which the voter is encouraged to vote not for
the best candidate based upon objective positive
information, but for the least evil candidate based upon
what the voter perceives to be true claims about the other
candidates - claims designed and produced by advertising
agencies skilled at manipulating people using negative
innuendo, not positive facts. In this kind of campaign
environment, and in an advertising world where commercials
are astronomically costly, the most wealthy candidate who
slings the most mud at other candidates has a greater chance
of being elected by "reaching" the voter population through
these "marketing messages".
I don't disagree in principle with the idea of a "decent"
political commercial. The electronic media of today offers
an unprecedented opportunity for political candidates to
disseminate positive, accurate information about their
platform policies. Unfortunately in today's society, this is
the exception, not the rule. Part of the blame has to fall
on the shoulders of the apathetic voter. People need to
actively research political parties if they expect to be
able to make a decision based upon facts. Unfortunately,
today's "sound-bite" society doesn't promote that kind of
independence. People have forgotten that democracy isn't
free - for it to work, people have to actively support it by
making a sincere effort to vote based upon independently
gathered facts. Until then we will continue to be taken
advantage of, and unfortunately we won't realize that it's
happening. Such is the nature of corporate advertising -
it's so much fun you don't realize that you're being
manipulated - and that perfect manipulation is exactly what
pays the bills, undermining democracy in the process.
- Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
Sources:
"And now, a word from our manipulator." Shepherd, Rob. Times
pLT7(1), March 18, 1992
Prisons We Choose To Live Inside (CBC Massey Lecture Series;
1985). Lessing, Doris (1991). Concord, Ontario: House of
Anani Press Limited.
"TV Takes Us To A New Level Of Democracy." Urschel, Joe. USA
Today page 14A, October 13, 1992.
"TV Political Ads To Start Showing Viewers Who's Paying."
Rabin, Phil & Myles, Carolyn. The Washington Times page
C3, March 18, 1992.
"Voters Getting The Campaign They Want." Phillips, Leslie.
USA Today page 3A, October 30, 1992.Ê
-- The Quill: Cyclops --
The Beast lies sleeping, its one evil eye closed. Somehow,
even in its sleep it still has power over me, and I feel
poisoned, infected by its influence. It has my family
hostage, of course, and it sleeps comfortably with that
knowledge. But here I speak of it as though it were merely
human, with human limitations like knowledge and
consciousness. That must be part of its influence, a remnant
of the trance. Maybe it wants me to think of it as human, a
part of the family. Ha.
The Beast has a hypnotic eye. When it stares at me, into me,
its thoughts become my reality, and I can't discriminate
between my own consciousness and the trance. It's not
unpleasant, really. The Beast is gentle when it has my mind,
but persistent. When it finally releases me, I wake up
almost reluctantly, for then I must face the surface, I must
rise up and take a breath, when it would be so much easier
to just... drown. Easier to sink, effortlessly, than to
surface and face the turmoil of choosing, differentiating
between my real thoughts and the insidious, subtle influence
of the trance. Easier. After the trance, easier seems
important.
It knows my dilemma, my pain, and I imagine it laughing. But
I don't need to imagine it, I hear it laughing. I see it
smile. I know it laughs to disarm me, but it still leaves me
open. Then, when it strikes, it twists me in slow
imperceptible ways that I can't stop. It tells me wonderful
stories. Fascinated, I listen, I watch, and all the while,
relentlessly, patiently it molds me. It tells me I must
conform. Of course, it doesn't want just me, it wants all of
us. The more we change, the more power it has over us, and
it is already very powerful.
The Beast awakens, fixes its stare upon me, and once more I
am lost in the sea of its perverted thought. My attention is
focused, yet diffused throughout a world of ostentatious
artifice. Reality is now outside of my experience, and I
exist in a universe of synthetic imagery and illogical
relationships. On some level I know this, but it doesn't
help. It is not complex, the way it manipulates me. It is
just carried out on such a broad front. It fills my head
with inane trivialities and cliches.
My values are devolving to primal urges and egocentric
callousness. I hate the person I am becoming, but I am
loosing control... Control. Somehow, just now, that word
seems important. Control. Something draws my attention to my
own hand, I see it there, and I remember. I raise my hand, I
push the button on the remote, and the Beast closes its evil
eye.
- David Fitzjarrell, West Jordan, Utah, USA
-- Deja Vu: Not So Sudden, Not So New --
ANDREAS SEPPELT HAS BEEN REPORTING FOR THE PAST FEW MONTHS
FROM MEXICO. THIS MONTH, HIS ARTICLE ON THE CHIAPAS REBELS
APPEARS IN THE DEJA VU COLUMN, HOWEVER STARTING NEXT MONTH,
HE WILL HAVE HIS OWN COLUMN ENTITLED, THE LATIN QUARTER.
- IAN
Carlos Fuentes, one of MexicoÕs leading writers and often
its "voice of political consciousness" recently spoke about
the political problems in Chiapas. "With a state that could
be prosperous, with fertile land, abundances for the
majority of men and women, it is only because of the local
government and its collusion with the powers of
exploitation, and the indifference of the federal government
that we see such poverty. Cocoa, coffee, wheat corn, virgin
forests, and abundant pastures -- only a minority enjoy the
rent of these products and if someone protests this
situation they are grabbed, imprisoned, violated, killed and
the situation continues."
One cannot imagine a situation more primed for social
explosion. It was with little surprise, that the Zapatista
Army of National Liberation (Zapatistas), stormed the town
of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas and officially
proclaimed its armed insurrection. The Zapatistas have taken
their name from the recognized Mexican hero Emiliano Zapata,
who led a successful insurrection and eventual revolution in
the 1910's and serves as a solid reminder of the years of
injustice and repression.
The rebels in Chiapas did not have to wait long for others
to join their call to arms on the first day of the new year.
The next night two bombs exploded--one in a shopping plaza
in Mexico City, and the other in AcapulcoÕs municipal plaza.
This rash of bombings and subsequent bomb threats throughout
the country bore the markings of the Revolutionary Worker
Campesino Union (Party of the Poor), which has been
operating underground for the last few decades. In a letter
to Amnesty International, representatives wrote, "For more
than 40 years we have asked for agricultural reform, without
getting a solution. For that reason, we have formed an
independent organization to defend the interests of our
people."
The Campesino Union, which is considered the "patriarch" of
the countryÕs various rebel groups, descended directly from
a schoolmaster turned underground hero--Lucio Cabanas, who
fought the Mexican Army in the jungle mountains of Guerrero
(southwestern part of Mexico) for seven years until he was
caught and killed in 1974.
Reports of armed groups have increased in eastern parts of
the country such as Veracruz and Hidalgo and in the other
southern states of Oaxaca and Guerrero. Many of these
organizations are believed to have been originally formed as
defense groups that indigenous communities and campesinos
created to defend themselves against "goon squads" hired by
local ranchers. These rural bands have demonstrated the
ability to switch from defensive to offensive tactics. It is
believed that the Zapatistas where originally a self-defense
group, turning to organized aggression when their peaceful
protests went in vain.
The Zapatistas are fighting attitudes which are typical of
those expressed by the cattlemen and other large landholders
such as Bartolomeo Dominguez who argues that the Zapatistas
"...are not simply impoverished Indians. People who have no
money to buy food have no money to buy machine guns!"
Dominguez, who used an alias to protect his real identity
and to avoid repercussions, added, "The Indians donÕt
deserve the land because they donÕt know how to make the
land produce what it should."
In perfect contrast to this, the leader of the Zapatistas,
Subcomandante Marcos, was quoted "Our form of armed struggle
is just and true. If we had not raised our rifles for the
Chiapas poor, the government would never have been concerned
about the Indians and campesinos in our land."
The uprising in Chiapas sheds light on a problem which is
not new. It has its origins as much in a constant political
dichotomy as in the economic differences which have long
existed. It has also confirmed a national suspicion that
without political reform, any economic reform is fragile and
even deceitful.
- Andreas Seppelt, Latin American CorrespondantÊ
-- Cuisine: Swedish Boiled Bread --
I would like to share with you one of my favorite recipes
for bread. Having grown up on the countryside in southern
Sweden, and being used to the dark, often spicy bread,
moving to southern California meant either having to buy
imported German bread, which is much denser than the one I
grew up on, or starting to bake myself, which became my
choice.
This bread is very easy to make, sounds very weird, but is a
true delight in my own opinion.
Swedish Boiled Bread
Mix the following ingredients well:
0.6 oz dry yeast (or one 50g cake fresh yeast)
3-1/2 cup rye flour (0.9 liters)
0.6 cup dark corn syrup (0.15 liters)
1 tsp salt (5 ml)
1-1/2 cup lukewarm water (0.4 liters)
Then, mix in, little by little
3-1/4 cup wheat flour (0.8 liters)
Knead the dough. Rub a thin layer of fat on the inside of a
stainless steel bowl, powder the inside with flour and put
the ball-shaped dough in the bowl. Now, put a lid on top of
the bowl, which shall be large enough so that the lid will
not touch the dough. Put the bowl in a pot, fill up with
water to 2/3 of the height of the bowl, and boil for 4
hours. Fill up with water to 2/3 every now and then, but be
careful never to get any water into the bowl. If possible,
keep a lid on the pot while boiling. The bread will rise
while being boiled, but will be a rather compact bread.
Eat the bread warm with butter and cheese. Enjoy!
- Markus Jakobsson, markus@cs.ucsd.eduÊ
------------------------------------------------------------
NEXT MONTH
------------------------------------------------------------
Next month, we feature articles and reviews of your favorite
Local Authors. Kent Barrett will have his report from the
annual "Eye Of Eros" exhibition at Exposure Gallery for
Keepers of Light.
Also next month, Gerry Roston will have a rebuttal of Jon
Gould's gun control article "American in Denial." Should be
very interesting, so stick around!Ê
------------------------------------------------------------
STAFF & INFO
------------------------------------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief:
Ian Wojtowicz
Art Director:
Anand Mani
Cover Artist:
Anand Mani
Correspondents:
Biko Agozino, Edinburgh, Scotland
Prasad & Surekha Akella, Japan
Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada
Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA
Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
Mike Matsunaga, Skokie, USA
Satya Prabhakar, Minneapolis, USA
Brian Quinby, Aurora, USA
Motamarri Saradhi, Singapore
Dr. Michael Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
Johnn Tann, Ogden, USA
Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada
Seth Theriault, Lexington, USA
Marc A. Volovic, Jerusalem, Israel
Columnists:
Kent Barrett, The Keepers of Light
Tom Davis, The Wine Enthusiast
Andreas Seppelt, Latin American Correspondant
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BIOGRAPHIES
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Kent Barrett
Kent Barrett is a Vancouver artist with over twenty years
experience in photography. His work has been exhibited in
galleries across Canada from Vancouver, B.C. to St. John's,
Newfoundland. He is currently working on his first
nonfiction book and interactive CD-ROM, "Bitumen to Bitmap:
a history of photographic processes."
Prasad Dharmasena
Prasad is a Solid State Electrical Engineer turned into a
C++ programmer who works at the Federal Reserve Board in
Washington, DC. He has been known to take decent photographs
when the phase of the moon is right. Though he was born in
Sri Lanka, he cannot play Cricket. He enjoys playing Frisbee
beside his favorite temple, the Lincoln Memorial.
David Fitzjarrell
Dave lives in West Jordan, Utah. He is 41, enjoys writing,
backpacking, chess, snowboarding and mountain biking. He has
a minor in French, he has almost completed a BS in Physics,
and he works at the Post Office. Dave claims to enjoy
Teletimes "in the extreme" and has had a chance to
contribute a wonderful piece of creative writing for the
February '94 issue.
Jon Gould
Jon teaches law and political science at both DePaul
University's International Human Rights Law Institute and
Beloit College. He is a former counsel to the Dukakis-
Bentsen Campaign and has served as General Counsel to the
College Democrats of America and Vote for a Change.
Anand Mani
Anand is a Vancouver, Canada-based corporate communications
consultant serving an international clientele. Originally an
airbrush artist, his painting equipment has been languishing
in a closet, replaced by the Mac. It waits for the day when
Òthat ideaÓ grips him by the throat, breathily says, ÒPaint
MeÓ and drags him into the studioÑ not to be seen for
months.
Johnn Tan
Johnn is a Mathematics major at Weber State University in
Ogden, Utah, USA. He is one of the founders of Wasatch Area
Voices Express (WAVE), an alternative Ogden paper. When he
isn't eating vegan food, cooking, hiking, or philosophizing,
he is active in politics, socialism, and feminism.
Dr. Euan R. Taylor
Euan grew up in England where he did a degree in
Biochemistry and a Ph.D. Before moving to Canada, Euan spent
6 months traveling in Asia. Now living in Winnipeg, he is
doing research in plant molecular biology, and waiting to
start Law School. Interests include writing, travel,
studying Spanish and Chinese, career changing and good
coffee. Pet peeves: weak coffee, wet socks and ironing.
Ian Wojtowicz
Ian is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaurate
program at a Vancouver high school. His interests include
fencing, running Teletimes and sleeping in. Born in Halifax,
Canada in 1977, Ian has since lived in Nigeria, Hong Kong
and Ottawa and has travelled with his parents to numerous
other places all over the world.
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