Records ']6NI MITCHELL HEJIRA

Joni Mitchell major market for "Hejira." fonso Johnson (bass) and John "Hejira" Joni Mitchell is a very com- Scofield (guitar)-with them. This Asylum 7E-1087 i plex woman who is able to wear further makes me wonder what Performance: Very Good many masks and get away with went wrong, because these two Recording: Excellent it, but on this album, the mask have no-nonsense, musician's The trouble with any Joni is removed. reputations. When the C-D Band stick to Mitchell album is her ongoing Grade B. tug of war within herself. She is instrumental (very serious in inevitably down, reconciles her- nature) the resulting music is self to happiness and then sees The Billy Cobham- inevitably a solid plus for . through her facade and ends on band However, when they try their a melancholy note. "Live On Tour in Europe" hand at emulating Zappa com- This is not the rule, of course, Atlantic SD 18194 edy routines, they stumble. but she is so heavy and writes so Performance: Varies Perhaps it was funny in concert. poignantly and skillfully about Recording: Very Good Half of this LP is very good her experiences that the above This should have been a and half is not. In this case, it is is my stereotype of her. monster album. Billy Cobham, not enough. Apparently it was Much of "Hejira" (a fleeting most often noted as a solo jazz not enough for them either; to a better place) is based star, was also an original they just broke up. Too bad. around the dilemma of her need member of John McLaughlin's Grade C plus. for artistic freedom juxtaposed brilliant first Mahavishnu Or- with the thought of how nice it chestra. George Duke also has a would be to stay with a lover for few solo albums out, but in this some time. I get the impression writer's opinion,^ was at his best that she has never been happy when he performed with Frank If you catch yourself relaxing in front for any length of time. Zappa. That last statement is I don't intend to give the not without supporting evi- the TV on break, Network may deter you impression this is a bad LP (it dence. 1 have seen Duke four liam Holden) objects, but is and grace. isn't) but I imagine people who times with Zappa. ' by Larry J. Alderink overruled-and fired—by Frank An alternative is found in Max already like Mitchell will be the Cobham and Duke have Al- The standard for a good or a Hackett (Robert Duvall, here Schumacher's wife (Bernice bad TV program is its rating the corporation man personi- Straight). In a world lacking points. Each weekly rating fied) who is the hatchet man authentic passion, she asks only represents approximately imported by the conglomerate for allegiance and loyalty from a 700,000 television households which now owns UBS. husband whose lover is incap- Events Calendar and translates into roughly $20 So Beale makes a hit by able of love. But the real Friday, February 25 million in profit. The effort and tapping the anger and self- protagonist is Max Schumacher, 9:50 a.m. Student Chapel - JAY HERRON energy of the industry are hatred of the audience. His news director, husband in a Classes close at the end of the academic day directed towards one goal: show is packaged by Diana, a middle-age marriage, and lover 7:00&8:45 pm Dist. 23 High School Basketball Tournament: Mem. - getting rating points. That is the mannish woman easily aroused of Diana. He struggles to "art" of television; whatever February 26 - March 6 and satisfied quickly and inept become conscious of himself contributes to that art is valued and maybe he makes it. He MIDSEMESTER RECESS at all but her work. After a bit, and anything that does not serve the package becomes old hat knows where he will compro- Saturday, February 26 that art is disvalued. and rating points fall. With the mise (for a job—who wouldn't 8:00 a.m.-Minn. Music Teachers Association: Hvidsten Hall Human beings? They're collaboration of a Marxist Liber- these days?). He .isn't destroyed 7:30 p.m. Dist. 23 High School Basketball Tournament: Memorial points, they're to be valued only ation Army (turned by TV into by being an appendage of his Aud. if they fit the input of TV art and gun-toting folks interested in lover, used at her convenience Sunday, February 27 the throughput of its cash flow. syndication rights), Beale is and for her service. He can love 3:00 & 7:00 pm F/M Communiversity Classes Viewers? 1/700,000th of a point gunned down on his show, a without being loved in return, 8:30 p.m. Coffee reception following classes: Centrum ...humanoids in a brave new sacrifice to Molech, the con- and that requires strength. He world. does not seek a narcotic to February 28 - March 2 suming and insatiable TV escape his anger and his guilt Penton Seminar: Park Region Club Room Such is the assumption of cables. Molech is the ancient Network by Paddy Chayefsky god who devours our children and his un-knowing. He isn't a Tuesday, March 1 (remember Marty? Middle of the 30 hours each week, who uses packaged character; when he 7:00 & 8:45 pm Region VI High School Basketball Tournament: Night?) and director Sidney us and then goes on seeking doesn't know, he admits it. He ^ ^ Memorial Aud. Lumet (Serpico, Dog Day After- whom he may devour. isn't a puppet, and he knows it, Wednesday, March 2 noon). Our attention is focused I suggested NETWORK is for he can get outside himself to 9:30 a.m. In-service training, CC Secretaries: Centrum on the TV generation-on the about consciousness. A char- see himself--which means he's a sort of thinking done by those big self. He is as feminine as he Thursday, March 3 acter analysis indicates subtle who watch TV 30 hours each levels of striving and develop- is masculine. He knows that 7:00 & 8:45 pm Region VIM High School Basketball Tournament: week and those who attract an even his book, blowing the Memorial Aud. ment, and the tendency to audience and give it the stuff for become identified with the whistle on TV, has already been Friday, March 4 its thinking. objects of one's consciousness. done, so he abandons even that 7:30 p.m. Region VI High School Basketball Tournamen': Memorial Lectures and books' (and Dunaway'sTDiana is a careerist, effort to tell a banal truth. Beale Aud. occasionally newspapers) stimu- born of the medium and des- has the courage to sacrifice Saturday, March 5 late thinking, whereas TV wants tined to die from it; her self is so everything, for he lives accord- 7:30 p.m. Region VIII High School Basketball Tournament: to control thinking: in the buried in her work that she can ing to .the code of those who will Memorial Aud. interest of cash flow (program- neither feel nor think. She is a know themselves however great ming people now come from woman whose self-descriptive the anguish and however de- Monday, March 7 manding the test. CLASSES RESUME following Midsemester Recess advertising, sales, and manage- "masculine temperament" pro- 8:00 a.m. Administrative Council meeting: East Complex, East ment) a tranquilizing medium pells her to be on top. Then Becoming conscious of TV as Room . serves the purpose of reducing there is Peter Finch's Howard the dehumanizing mechanism 9:50 a.m. Chapel - Bread & Cheese - PASTOR LIVDAHL all of life "to the common Beale: at the end of his career in our lives-that is what Schu- 12:00 -1:00 pm Spanish Conversation Table: Red Room rubble of banality." he wants to breathe clean air (a macher comes to see, and that 8:00 p.m. A.A.U.W. meeting: Frida Nilsen Lounge Even newscasting becomes touch of Hindu prana) and is his message for us. Chances 8:15 p.m. CONCORDIA CHOIR Home Concert: Memorial part of programming by giving reveal a new truth (Moses on are we'll hear it and forget about Aud. an audience what it (thinks it) Sinai). In his madness he it by 5:30 the next night. But let Tuesday, March 8 wants; Faye Dunaway's Diana achieves a new awareness, a us go back to the beginning: 9:50 a.m. Chapel , » tells the truth when she advises clear sanity in a world of before TV, before theater, be- 11:45-12:45 pm Spanish conversation table: Red Room the news department, "if you're "bullshit" (his word for the fore ritual...there is Dionysos. 7:00 p.m. Tae Kwon-do Club: North Gym going to hustle, do it right." plastic garbage of TV). Yet even Dionysos, the mad god, trans- 7:15 p.m. Bible study with PASTOR GRIMSTAD: East Complex, Oak I think the movie is an effort his self-knowledge is limited cending consciousness in mass Room to think about thinking. At stake and worse, self-deceptive. His ecstasy and group happiness. Or 7:30 p.m. Fireside Chat with SA Pres. candidate PAUL LARSON: is a problem of consciousness dignity is fragile; his very is Chayefsky pointing to Apollo, F.N.L. and even ways of knowing, and message about calling a halt to the supremely gifted and de- , 8:00 p.m. Young Life group meeting: Library 302 that provokes a crisis if the TV is dependent on TV broad- manding individual, isolated 8:00 p.m. S.P. Coffeehouse: Tabernacle audience has the mind to think. casting. The ancient Greeks and alone, vulnerable in his The Network story is clear and called it by its right name: ate, freedom, joyful if not happy in_ Wednesday, March 9 relatively well connected. It the divine madness in which his self-knowledge, creative in 9:50 a.m. Chapel - PASTOR ERNIE MANCINI centers around Howard Beale, self-knowledge is heightened his struggle? Apollo, too, knew 12:00-1:00 pm Spanish conversation table: Red Room anchorman for the fourth- but finally cancelled. Hackett is how to move and move on, how 7:30 p.m. S.P. Coffeehouse: Tabernacle ranked United Broadcasting Sys- perhaps the most despicable yet to dance the-dance that is born 10:00 p.m. Communion service: Centrum tem. Beale was fired because his familiar of all-cold, calculating of joyousness, strength, and Thursday, March 10 ratings were low, but he devises bureaucratic rationality...ready courage. But I wonder if even 9:50 a.mrChapel . and announces on the air a plan to move with the knife, his Schumacher knew how difficult 11:45-12:45 pm Spanish conversation table: Red Room to go out with a bang; he will corporation, his very self. Or is it is to dance "when the sun 6:30 p.m. Concordia Home Economics Assn.: Frida Nilsen Lounge blow out his brains in the it Mr. Jensen (Ned Beatty), the turns black," to dance "with the 6:30 p.m. Norwegian Club meeting: Lib 405 middle of the 7:00 news. The corporate head for whom the devil on your back." Did 7:00 p.m. Tae Kwon-do Club: North Gym ratings will go up--and be only reality, the only nature, is Schumacher know what Mer- 7:30 p.m. Missionary Affiliation Fellowship: East Complex, East sustained by a suicide of the currency flow? Even Marxists leau-Ponty calls "that flash of Room - •' •"• > j week or a sequel, the Mao dissapoint us-not the working fire, that streak of lightning, 7:30 p.m» Social Work club meeting: Park Region Club Room Tse-tung Hour! Of course, that men of all nations struggling to that moment of victory/' or as 8:00 p.m. S.P. Mini-concert, ALICE DE JONG: Centrum is not "objective" news but smash their chains out the Hemingway's Maria says, "that 9:00 p.m. AKX-Mondamin Society meeting: Science 380-386 creating the news. Director of manifesto-of management. Mar- gloria which in its brilliance 10:00 p.m. Campus devotions: Tabernacle news, Max Schumacheru (Wil- lene Warfield plays it with skill blots out everything else?"

'February 25, 1977 THE CONCORDIAN PAGE 5