Over The Edge Page 4 OPINION March 24, 1998

El Nino strikes sleepy hollow once again

by Paul Berard

Alright.

In the spirit of Titanic, Deep
Rising and local politicians on
the Multilateral Agreement on
Investment - prepare to get all
wet.

Our tale begins with a dark-
room, full of photographic equip-
ment, with a fridge. The fridge is
used to store film, thus extending
the life of the film onwards from
the expiry date on the canisters.
Now, let us introduce the charac-
ters.

One Manager, who's job is to
run things smoothly and effi-
ciently. A second Sub-Manager,
who handles the darkroom and
film management. Both are intel-
ligent and witty and full of life.
Probably single too.

‘Now for some action.

The Sub-Manager enters, say
stage right.. The stage is set up
with the darkroom. Sub-Manager
‘greets Manager, there is some
witty dialogue, something about
last night, bars and the plans for
the next night. A dry plot with lit-
tle sustenance for those beyond
the fourth wall.

Manager steps out for a
moment, say to get the mail and
do some faxing. Perhaps a lot of
faxing. The virtual office is a
busy place. The Sub-Manager

emerges from the darkroom and
looks around. Seeing he is on his
own, he decides he is empow-
ered. This too happens from time
to time in the virtual office.

And so, after determining that
the fridge is filled with ice, he
comes to the conclusion that he
shall unplug the fridge and
defrost the offending ice. Here
we cannot help but throw in
some witty crack about the
Titanic in an effort to cash in on
that already flooded market. And
so, the-newly empowered Sub-
Manager flings his Mexican cape
over one shoulder (did we forget
to mention the props as an
aspect of our masterpiece?) and
tears the electric plug from the
wall.

Now, perhaps it is not the fault
of our newly empowered Sub-
Manager that he does not know
enough to remove the contents
of the fridge during the duration
of this defrosting process. Nor
could it be his fault that he
neglects to place a towel at the
base of the fridge to alleviate the
coming arrival of the melting ice-
berg. Perhaps it is the pressure
of the coming final exams and
the fact his mother and father
perished on a cruise liner when
he was very young. How could

we expect this young, intrepid
and single man to know what
could not have been taught to
him by his wise and experienced
parents?

Having now provided a pleas-
ant segue from the previous day
in our masterpiece to the new
and fresh one, enter the
Manager. Having finished his
faxing and other activites associ-
ated with his job, gone home,
slept well (alone) and returned
bushy-tailed and bright-eyed, we
find him. ready to deal with any-
thing.

Except a soaking wet darkroom
floor.

As the storyboard rushes
towards its inescapable climax,
we find the Manager struggling
to deal with the situation with a
wadful of paper towel and mop
(sans mop bucket, thank you
ICL...) when, by some most
unfortunate twist of fate, the poor
Sub-Manager enters the scene.

Instantly, the path of the narra-
tive is shifted into the hands of
Anger and Fury, until both com-
batants withdraw to their cor-
ners, torn, bloody and still single.

So, what's the moral to this
story?

This whole scene could have
been avoided if both of these sin-

gle students could fall asleep on
the UNBC campus. They could
have waited for the fridge to
defrost, checked on it once in a
while and been able to avoid get-
ting wet socks. Because a-cho-
sen few have abused the occa-
sional sleeping student and
attempted to become permanent
residents of the Library building,
we all get rudely awakened
when we simply pare out on the
couches.

By having a a bad apples,
this whole sleeping bill was
passed through the administra-
tion and onto
the heads of
security, who
have to
enforce a poli-
cy wherein the
sleeping stu-
dent is awak-
ened to bar-
rage the poor
security per-
son with their
personal view
on the matter.
And the worst
of it is, it's an
educational
choice that
made this pos- |
sible.

JAMES CAMERON’S TITANIC: The Determination of Great Art

! love artists, modest in his
needs:

He really wants only two
things, his bread and his art.
F. Nietzsche

What is great art? It is a good
question, and because of its
ambiguity many _ scholars
believe it is impossible to ani-
madvert on such a general
topic. However, according to
N. Hawthorn (The Scarlet
Letter) and other masiers, to
scrutinize genuine art - and
distinguish it from dull art,
there are set guidelines. In
order for art to become great,
regardless the medium. it
must deliver on all of the fol-
lowing points:

THE DECLARATION OF
GREAT ART:

1) Great art must exaggerate
reality: the bigger the exag-
geration, the more seducing

the art, or as Hawthorne
says, “making light of impos-
sibilities”.

2) The art's exaggeration
must be believable.
Paradoxically, the more
believable the exaggeration,
the greater the art.

3) Great art must promote
humanism. The more social
themes the better.

4) Great art must be consis-
tent. If the art starts in one
style, it must remain the
same to the end.

5) Art can be serious, but
above all it must be playful or
humorous. In other words, as
Hawthorne states, “A sable
field the ‘A’ glues” (translated,
“A gloomy poet is boring”).

Oddly enough, a successful
artistic production, and one
that successfully scores on
all fiye of these points, is
apparent in James
Cameron’s movie’ The

Titanic.

The movie is an
extraordinary exaggeration of
Grim’s fable “Little Red
Riding Hood”. Imagine, for
example, the Titanic vessel is
a metaphor for the Big Bad
Wolf. So, inside the ship, at
the dinner table, there would
be the fable’s players: Rose
is Red Riding Hood, and she
is flanked by her mother and
grandmother- across the
table, Jack the wood cutter is
on one side, and Cal the Big
Bad Wolf (ie. a womaniser or
a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’) is
on the other side. The con-
densed Red Riding Hood ver-
sion of the movie The Titanic
goes something like this:
Mother warns Rose to mind
her own business and stay
away from strangers, and
Wolf-Cal demands Rose to
come to bed. Our Red Rose
ignores her mother and Cal
and she meets everyone on
the ship. To make a long

story short, Jack saves Rose
from Cal; however, they are
still stuck in the bowels of the
wolf-vessel, the Titanic. As in
the fable, Jack and Rose liter-
ally cut their way our with,
you got it, an axe. In the end,
Jack and Rose work their
way up the vessel and seem-
ingly push the wolfram forev-
er into the sea.

The Titanic is certainly a
believable exaggeration of
this popular fable. On the
humanist angle, the movie
represents the birth of femi-
nism, the end of materialism,
the pros and cons of technol-
ogy, class-structure, nature
against man, and man
against man. Moreover it
asks many important ques-
tions, such as: Is materialism
killing us? And even more
incredibly, What constitutes
great art?

James Cameron’s art is con-
sistent in the movie, and it

Hey guys:
ge he

Several of the classrooms were
to have been opened at night,
simply so that students might
have a place to go study. Now it
seems that decision has become
open to a whole new debate. Are
we to have a video camera in
every classroom that remains
open for academic purposes?
What will that cost? Is the solu-
tion to make the entire building
unusable? What will that cost? Is
there an alternative place to
make the study halls available?

Just a sea of questions to
drown in.

Bill was not prepared
Lor sleeping Ch the Hyl

| FREE. STUFF

geen

represents a full circle of the
20th century. Last, but not
least, the movie is very seri-
ous, but much like
Hawthome’s’ story The
Scarlet Letter, it is comical at
the same time. In short,
Rose’s little red ride on the
Titanic is great art in action.
Mark Clements

re submission.

reserves the = to
edit for spelling,
grammar, content, |
withhold, in whole or
in part any Letter to
the Editor.