Thursday, Aprils, 1989
The Battalion
Page 13
sday, April 6,
yptians
^script
‘Knifed highn0tes
are about a knife
' someone’s life, but
discovers that it i s
i that keeps repeat-
ns song mirrors the
vnole album. Hitch-
a the lyrics are com-
ncludes a humorous
1 the listener to stop
yze the music.
5 ;; ne °f the better
album. It starts out
reases to a frenzied
re slowing down
i song about a guy
[irl, Elaine, to a guy
Because of his loss,
hat whoever wrote
>ve was an idiot and
’ is a chaotic song,
layed by Hitchcock
ning sounds like a
western song. Then
tnd suddenly stops,
gs way off key and
urpose, for an artis-
ould assume). It is
hear his British ac-
s especially notice-
pronounces the “i”
> rhyme with “crib”
e.”
Pair of Eyes" has
rics. If the song is
g I guess it would
power a girl had
ecause she was so
itiful, but it is hard
s the lyrics so hard
1 is the fact that
gs with little emo-
to tell if he is sati-
nusicians, himself,
ons that he sings
t clear if he is even
atirical, humorous
anything. The al-
the lazy listener be-
decide what Hitch-
gyptians are trying
rte through their
is an interesting al
ly to like if you are
ghtly unusual. It is
mt it is not bad ei-
ning quality is that
Music Express for
•um for review.
ting
th.
i Who
tpectations.
tional talent
ivailable in the
b, 5:00 P.M.
D
aid
‘Woman at the Helm’ shares obsession with boating students
— r Aizrr curvorc zad\ „
CLEAR LAKE SHORES (AP)
Perched on the deck of her 12-foot
day boat, Pat Whitlow balanced a
sailing book on her feet, juggling the
tiller as she flipped the pages.
That was about 20 years ago,
when Whitlow was teaching herself
to sail- Through many job changes
and much schooling during her 50
years, sailing has remained the one
constant in Whitlow’s adult life.
Now, it is her life.
Whitlow, an instructor at Women
at the Helm, a Clear Lake Shores-
based school that specializes in tea
ching women to sail, lives on a 26-
foot sloop harbored in nearby
League City. When she’s not teach
ing sailing, it’s a safe bet that she’s
around a boat somewhere.
“Sailing began sort of to possess
me ,” Whitlow said. “I read every
thing I could. I sailed on every boat I
could sail on. I determined that that
was the way I was going to make my
living — on boats, in boats or in the
water. People who believe in reincar
nation think I must have been a dol
phin in another life,” she said.
In this life, Whitlow has been
many things — an actress, a college
dean, a shrimper, a hospital media
director and a temporary Texas-
hater.
Whitlow grew up in Gary, Ind.,
with a penchant for shinning up
trees, scaling brick walls and playing
cowboys and Indians.
She became involved in summer
stock productions in Chapel Hill,
N.C., went on to New York to try to
make her mark on Broadway but
wound up traveling the country with
a children’s theater group.
I was essentially very shy and act-
mg gave me an opportunity to learn
how to be with people in a way I
might otherwise not have had,” she
said. “I got a different kind of edu
cation being with painters and po
ets.”
Whitlow went to Japan during the
Korean War as a civilian, creating
shows, setting up dances and orga
nizing entertainment for U.S. sol
diers stationed there.
“1 had to learn that there so many
better ways of doing things,” she
said. “I saw it happening. We Ameri
cans did offdfrd a lot of people. We
didn’t mean to; we just didn’t know
any better. I came back here being a
better American.”
She returned to get an English
and drama teaching degree from the
University of Colorado and wound
up at a small liberal arts school,
Yampa Valley College in Steamboat
Springs, Colo., where she became
dean of women and taught English,
humanities and drama.
“This was a time of revolution
going on, and people were question
ing our rather puritan ethic,” Whit
low said. “It was an exciting place to
be. I was constantly on my toes,
reading, reseaixhing. It was the most
challenging thing I nave ever done.”
Whitlow had learned to fly air
planes, but substituted sailing when
she could no longer afford to rent
planes. She bought a dinghy and be
gan teaching herself.
“I quickly became aware that there
was so much to know, and there
were easier ways,” she said.
She took formal sailing lessons at
the University of Iowa, where she re
ceived a degree in film and tele
vision. She wanted to be a cinemato
grapher but ended up producing
films and other aids at the Craig Re
habilitation Hospital in Englewood,
Colo.
At a small reservoir nearby, she
honed her sailing skills.
“I’d take the boat out in the back
of my VW van right after work and
sail till the sun went down,” she said.
“I did that for a whole summer,
seven days a week,” she said. “I had
come to the conclusion that was
really the way to sail — to sail alone.”
She bought a 14-foot Hobie cat
and entered her first regatta in Mex
ico. “I got third,” she said. “I
thought I was pretty terrific.”
After stints with a small pub
lishing company and ferrying boats
for clients from Mexico to the
United States, Whitlow came to the
central Texas town of Belton in
1981.
“It was a culture shock,” she said.
“I was distressed by what I saw hap
pening. I wasn’t accustomed to the
good ol’ boy network.”
She added that she was shocked
by the bigotry she saw. Texans’ ob
session with the oil industry also puz
zled her because Texas had so many
other natural resources that were be
ing ignored, she said.
Whitlow was on the verge of leav
ing the state when she read James
Michener’s “Texas” and “Lone Star”
by historian T.R. Fehrenbach.
“They truly changed my life,” she
said. “I began to have a new appre
ciation of how those attitudes of
‘The rest of the world be damned;
Texas will prevail’ were so set for
generations. I guess now I’m dyed-
m-the-wool Texan.”
She also decided to do what she
liked best —,be around boats — and
moved to Rockport, wfiere she took
odd jobs maintaining and varnishing
boats, taught sailing and worked a
shrimp boat until she lost money.
While greeting boats at a Rock-
port harbor. Whitlow met an in
structor with Women at the Helm
who lured her to Clear Lake Shores,
where the business is based. She has
been teaching there almost a year.
She has lived on a boat six years.
“I love it,” she said. “It’s a very
simple life. I used to have all the ac
coutrements — a home, two cars,
furniture. Life was so complex, it
seemed. I felt like I was possessed by
my possessions. I feel infinitely freer
this way.”
New vague color terms
in vogue with designers
creating fashion palette
NEW YORK (AP) — There’s a
brave new color code in vogue, and
its descriptive words can boggle the
mind.
Take nectar, for example, the vir
tually colorless stuff that bees extract
from flowers to make honey. Then,
what to make of an ad for a silk shirt
the color of nectar?
A color word can be hijacked
from any of several contexts — as
fanciful as flora and fauna or as ba
sic as the weather and building
materials.
Ad and catalog colorsmiths, per
haps bored with words such as red,
blue, yellow and green, reach for po
etry and elegance to give us, instead,
garnet, cornflower, saffron and lo-
oen.
Those are the easy ones. Unfortu
nately, they also give us cork, cadet,
mist and verdant.
To confuse us further, one fanci
ful describer’s rhubarb is another’s
plum; this one’s mint is another’s sea
glass; his sepia is her stucco.
They also tend to specialize in
narrow fields. There are the bird
watchers, eyes glued to their egg
shell, teal and peacock. There are
the builders, seeing nothing but
hues of limestone, marble, slate,
adobe and stucco.
We get a cook’s tour with rhubarb,
chutney and pistachio, mint and
sage. Beachcombers have mediterra
nean, sea spray, sea glass and ocean
in their minds’ eyes. A continental
touch comes with ecru, bisque and
taupe, sienna and sepia. We are led
down the gardeners’ path with mari
gold, wisteria, willow, briar — and
thorn.
Official comment is fair, inclined
to be generous, to the perpetrators.
“I think a color name should not
mislead,” says Margaret Walch, asso
ciate director of the Color Associa
tion of the United States.
The association, the nation’s de
posit of standard colors, maintains
archives and a fabric swatch library
and issues color forecasts for gov
ernment and industry.
While a name should put a color
m the correct category, Walch points
out it can also “evoke a kind of fee-
bng.’’
It’s better to say ‘fog’ than ‘a kind
ofblue, light-gray,’ ” she said.
Walch says, “There is an appro
priateness in color naming that takes
mto account the glamour of fash
ion.’’
In addition, she says, “The whole
color thrust of the ’80s has been
movement from simple colors to
complex.”
In its forecasts, the Color Associa
tion sometimes reaches for glamo
rous complexity in its names, but
usually with an adjective popped on
to a safe anchor noun — for exam-
le: volcanic black, fridge grey, kiln
lue, deco green, airy pink.
A glossary of some of the more
oblique terms that have been spotted
in recent fashion ads follows, placed
in what an educated guess suggests is
meant to be their approximate color
group:
• Nectar, blush, shell, petal, mali,
bubblegum: pale pinks, peach.
• Mist, eggshell, sea spray, ocean,
sky, arctic: pale blues.
• Sage, willow, mint, sea glass,
pistachio, palm, elm, balsam: pale
greens.
• Peacock, teal, mediterranean,
tropic, aqua, ocean: turquoise.
• Ecru, chino, bisque, adobe,
thorn, straw, pumice: pale beiges.
• Cadet, periwinkle, flax, pacific,
lapis: blues.
• Midnight, ink, lake, regal: dark
blues.
• Maize, butter: yellows.
• Saffron, citron, marigold, tan-
gelo, sun: oranges.
• Stucco, cork, chutney, toast, se-
f )ia, sienna, clay, toffee, acorn, spice:
ight, warm browns.
• Taupe, marble: gray-browns.
• Maple, peat, cognac, sable, nut
meg: browns.
• Ochre, sesame: yellow-browns.
• Mango, hibiscus, watermelon,
quartz, jasmine, blossom: pinks.
• Verdant, loden, cypress, tus-
can, rattan, aspen, moss, basil, jun
gle: greens.
• Teak: khaki. Limestone: pale
khaki.
• Slate, graphite: dark grays.
Birch, fog: grays.
• Wisteria: pink-mauve.
• Rhubarb, grape: purples.
• Berry, madder, ox-blood, cur
rant, poppy, garnet: reds.
The next time you see an elegant
Parisienne promenading along the
boulevard in an ensemble of taupe,
bisque and ecru, say a silent thanks
to the wordsmiths of the fashion
world.
Those same colors, you see, could
just as well be called mole, soup and
unwashed linen.
New Orleans band stirs up
creole blend of musical styles
DAT
(Continued from page 11)
fectly black and white. It is exactly
parallel to home recording. If
they allow home taping from
VCRs, there should be a parallel
to allow home recording of mu
sic.”
Dr. Don E. Tomlinson, an as
sistant professor of journalism at
Texas A&M University, dis
agrees.
“I think it is very likely the Su
preme Court will distingiush be
tween the Betamax case and this
current situation, and agree, in
some circumstances, with the
copyright owners,” he says.
“At some point, as technology
becomes more advanced, some
body is going to have to agree
with the creators.”
Rosen says the issue of copy
right infringement is so strong
that the RIAA has threatened to
sue any manufacturer who at
tempts to market a DAT player
before the question of its legality
has been decided. The lawsuit
would be brought on charges of
copyright infringement, she says.
Despite these threats, Nakami-
chi, a stereo manufacturing com-
Musicians are
awaiting DAT because
for the first time, they will
be able to make CD
quality recordings of
their own music without
going to the expense of
using commercial
recording studios.”
— Phil Bangert,
Home Recording
Rights Coalition
pany, has decided to release a
DAT player to the public in early
April.
Karen Zaterka, Nakamichi’s
marketing services coordinator,
says the player, the DAT 1000, is
capable of recording and playing
back music. It can be used for
both home and professional use,
she says, and has a retail price of
about $10,000.
Rosen declined to say if the
RIAA has planned any legal ac
tion against Nakamichi, saying
only: “We’ve heard about the
layer. Nakamichi’s player is a
10,000 deck. We’re a little skep
tical that it is a typical consumer
marketed product, but we are
watching to see what happens.”
Gene Joyce, owner of Audio
Video electronics in College Sta
tion, says Nakamichi may be
opening the door for other man
ufacturers to release DAT units
to the public. However, they may
wait to see if Nakamichi is sued,
he says.
Bangert says although it seems
DAT would benefit only home
music listeners, the technology
could benefit the public in ways
the RIAA has not considered.
“There are a number of bene
fits,” he says. “As far as consumer
recording goes, DAT is a better
cassette recorder providing a bet
ter quality recording.
“Another application not ad
dressed by the RIAA are those
available to musicians,” he says.
“The record industry says all mu
sicians oppose DAT. This simply
is not true.
“Musicians are awaiting DAT
because, for the first time, they
will be able to make CD quality re
cordings of their own music with
out going to the expense of using
commercial recording studios.
They will be able to send digital
demo tapes to record companies
or radio stations.”
Bangert says computer data
storage is another DAT applica
tion not considered by the RIAA.
DAT has a higher data storage
capacity than CD—ROM, a cur
rent method of information stor
age, he says.
“As a result of their holding up
DAT, these other groups are be
ing denied access to the product,”
Bangert says.
Despite any benefits of DAT,
experts agree that pirating (illegal
home recording) of recorded
material is inevitable and could
even become detrimental.
Tomlinson, a lawyer who tea
ches a media law course at A&M,
says “The legal ramifications of
the introduction of digital audio
tape are a likely increase in pirat
ing and a decrease in the amount
of compensation to the creators
(of recorded music).”
Joyce agrees, saying the
RIAA’s argument is a legitimate
one.
“In all faith, the recording in
dustry is getting hurt,” he says.
“If you buy an album and record
it for a friend, then that artist
doesn’t get any compensation for
it.”
Others say the RIAA’s fears of
pirating are unrealistic. David
Gilbert, owner of Digital Audio
Exchange in Bryan is one of
them.
“The RIAA feels home record
ing and copyright infringement
can get out of hand because DAT
offers such high quality record
ing,” he says. “I think it is a fal
lacy. There will always be a little
of that going on. The RIAA has
blown the issue out of propor
tion.”
Because of the threat of pirat
ing, critics of DAT say the tech
nology could result in a loss of
music. Tomlinson says musicians
may be less willing to record, as a
result.
“One question raised by DAT is
if it would cause creators to be
less interested in creating given
the idea they will be less able to be
compensated for their creativity,”
he says.
“What’s the incentive for
continuing to be creative if your
efforts are not going to be rewar
ded?”
Solutions to the problems
raised by DAT have drawn as
much criticism as DAT itself. Pro
posals include playback-only
DAT players which would be un
able to record, an excise tax on
blank digital tapes and DAT play
ers, and placing copy protection
bits on pre-recordea material that
would make copying impossible.
Playback-only DAT players are
the least likely solution, says Mike
Vellott, assistant manager of Au
dio Video.
“If you do that, why have DAT
at all?” he says. “The only advan
tage DAT has over CD is the abil
ity to record.”
Many experts agree placing an
excise tax on the sale of blank dig
ital tape and DAT players would
solve the problem.
“The best solution is to charge
some kind of excise tax,” Tomlin
son says. “The majority of blank
audio tape is purchased for the
purpose of recording someone’s
copyrighted material.
“Charge all of us another per
cent or two for the purchase of
that audio tape. Install a system
of taxation in order to create a
pool of money and figure out a
formula to compensate the copy
right owners.”
Joyce says the largest problem
with the idea of an excise tax is
determining what record com
pany gets what percentage of the
tax.
Cooper says recording studios
should be exempt from the tax.
“A surcharge on blank tape is a
great idea because most blank
tapes are used for home record
ing,” he says. “However, a sur
charge shouldn’t be charged to
the recording studios because
they use blank tape to help create
music.”
Copy protection bits can be
placed on any pre-recorded digi
tal material, including CDs and
DATs, and make it impossible for
the recording mechanism to re
cord the signal, according to an
article in the August issue of Mu
sician magazine.
“Copy protection bits could be
feasible,” Cooper says. “It would
be advantageous to protect music
in some way.”
Joyce says the copy protection
bits would be ineffective.
“Copy protection bits are pre
tty hokey,” he says. “They don’t
work well. Anytime you put copy
protection on something, some
one finds a way to get around it.”
Copy protection bits have ad
verse side effects as well, Joyce
says.
“(They) make the CDs more
expensive and lessen the quality,”
he says. “That may be the only al
ternative, but you would prefer
not to have to do that.”
Despite complications with so
lutions, experts agree the issue
must be cleared up because copy
right problems are becoming a
major side effect of the techno
logical revolution.
“We are making major ad
vances in technology that cause
the copying of electronic signals
to become easier to accomplish,”
Tomlinson says.
“While having these new ad
vances in technology is wonder
ful, somebody needs to come to
grips with the downside of this
technological revolution, the
copyright problems. I would hate
to see the world get into a mess
with the issue of how to compen
sate creators.”
^1“
i he legal ramifications of the introduction of
digital audio tape are a likely increase in pirating
and a decrease in the amount of compensation to
the creators (of recorded music).”
— Dr. Don Tomlinson,
attorney and Texas A&M media law professor
Grandma’s knitting now done by computer
new YORK (AP) — They’re
railed the “heartbeat of New Or
leans.”
And in music circles, the Neville
Brothers are known as “musician’s
Musicians.”
For more than 30 years, the Ne-
V1 lle name has been synonymous
Wl th all the traditions of the Crescent
Clt y. Their sound is culled from a
gumbo of styles —jazz, Caribbean,
. ncan, Cajun, rock, funk — result
ing m music as distinctive as New
deans itself. Charles Neville, who
plays saxophone, calls it New Or
gans rhythm and blues.
The brothers — Art, Aaron,
arles and Cyril — worked individ
ually for more than two decades be-
0 re they finally merged their di-
'^se talents in 1977. After several
interlude, the
its new album,
leilow Moon.”
the collection, including eight
n ginal songs, is perhaps their most
and personal album, one in
ich they express their concern for
s °cial issues.
n The album’s first single, “Sister
osa, is a tribute to Rosa Parks, who
came one of the catalysts for the
, Vl n ghts movement in 1955 when
e refused to give up her seat for a
u Ite person on a segregated bus in
‘ outgomery, Ala. The rap-reggae
mber, written and performed by
Percussionist Cyril, reflects the al-
un is and a two-year
and has just released
bum’s overall theme: to educate peo
ple by increasing their awareness.
“If you don’t learn from history, it
tends to repeat itself because it can
definitely happen again,” said Art,
the keyboardist.
“Look at the neo-nazis and Skin
heads,” added Cyril, wearing a “Stop
Apartheid” button. “We want to give
youth a chance to look at each other
on their own terms, rather than how
it was in the last generation who had
a certain amount of fear and hatied
pumped into them before they got a
chance to look at people and decide
for themselves.
“We want to convey to youth that
they don’t have to be superhuman or
smart to make a change for the bet
ter in the world.”
“My Blood,” another song by Cy
ril, speaks about the roots of oppres
sion, with particular mention of
South Africans, Haitians and native
Americans.
Iso a remake of Sam
Change Is Gonna
two Bob Dylan covers,
of Hollis Brown” and
n Our Side.” Although
yril trade off as lead ve
st of the album, Art gets
to belt out “Fire and
with the same enthu-
:ms to have for life in
arles is heard promi-
; instrumental Healing
BORGER (AP) — The image of
the grandmother sitting in her rock
ing chair with her knitting needles
clacking is a little out of date.
Today’s grandmother probably is
sitting next to her electronic knitting
machine, programming patterns
onto a floppy disk that she edits on a
home computer.
And she is making sweaters a lot
faster that way.
Elene Chisum, Alice Hutchinson
and Wanda Guinn of Borger have
learned the ins and outs of electronic
knitting.
Recently, they were gathering
their samples and heading for a
monthly meeting of fellow machine
knitters in Amarillo.
“Knitters are sharing people,”
Chisum said.
“During the meeting each of us
will generally show something we
have done and then answer ques
tions about the patterns. Most of us
have the same brand of knitting ma
chines.”
Chisum, a retired teacher, is on
her second knitting machine.
“You’re limited only in what you
can do by your ability,” she said.
“The machine is amazing in what
it can do, as long as you know what
to tell it,” she Said.
She works on her home computer
to make changes in knitting pat
terns, then stores the finished pat
tern on a floppy disk.
That disk is put into a disk drive
located on the knitting machine.
Some special attachments are re
quired for some patterns, but the
machine will automatically knit or
purl.
“You can program it and let it do
the knitting. You don’t have to sit
there and watch it.
“If you have a pattern you don’t
want centered, you have to tell the
machine that. . . A beeper goes
off when it’s finished.”
Chisum says she began knitting by
hand in high school, making scarves
for soldiers during World War II,
but seldom uses that method any
more.
She says her friend Wanda Guinn,
semi-retired from a photography
business, started her venture in ma
chine knitting with a much more am
bitious project — a pants suit.
“No one told her she couldn’t so
she tackled it as her first project,”
Chisum laughed.
When Chisum started she made
sleeveless sweaters with no ribbing.
Now she can even make an expen
sive double-knit look.
Her husband Herbert showed off
a sweater she made for him, gray
with an unusual design.
“Welve been married for 40 years
plus, and that’s the first one I ever
made for him.
“It’s the first one he’s ever
wanted,” she said.
Other family members also appre
ciate her work.
Her grandchildren even send her
pictures or patterns of sweaters they
want.
“All four of my grandchildren
think Granny can do anything,” she
says.
Chisum has made her family
members sweaters, Christmas socks
and skirts.
“I’m always trying new techniques
just to see if I can do them,” she said.
She has even learned to make lace
on the machine.
The thread for her knitting ma
chine is by the pound, not yardage,
but she says the thread goes a long
way.
“The price varies, up to $45 a
pound or as low as $6 to $8 a pound.
It’s definitely cheaper than handk
nitting.
“I would never attempt to make a
sweater or dress by hand knitting,”
she said.
“About the only hand knitting I
do now is Christmas stockings.”
The room where her knitting ma
chine is located is filled with cone-
shaped spools of thread in all kinds
of colors and types.
“Yarn can be reclaimed,” she said.
“I use a steamer made of ceramic
and thread the yarn through it.
“It takes all the crinks out of it. Af
ter knitting, the thread is heavily
crinkled, but the yarn is as good as
new when I take it apart. The yarn is
gorgeous,” she said.
Chisum says she works on her ma
chine only 30 to 45 minutes at a
time.
“I wanted it for a hobby. When it
becomes a business, it won’t be fun.”
She does knitting for other peo
ple, but says she doesn’t make things
for herself.
She made one of her grand
daughters an intarsia sweater with a
woman’s head on it.
The pattern was sketched on a
mylar sheet and transferred by the
machine.
“You have to have the gauge just
right,” she said.
She keeps a notebook of her pat
terns, and also has computer print
outs for her favorites, including a
Minnie Mouse she did on a grand
daughter’s sweater along with a
Christmas tree.
Chisum also has decorated sweat
shirts with her knitting.
One of her grandsons’ favorites is
a sweater with footprints going
across the back and over the shoul
der.
Chisum says she looks at her knit
ting machine and electronic tools as
other people may look at any spare
time obsession.
“I think of them as my golf clubs,”
she says.