Wed, Sep 27, 2006
September 27, 2006
LENTZ CENTER FOR ASIAN CULTURE
'Alice's House' Continues at Lentz Center
"Alice's House: Chinese and Japanese Art from the Collection of Alice V. Abel" will run through Dec. 22 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Lentz Center for Asian Culture. A well-known Lincoln resident and distinguished graduate of the University of Nebraska (class of 1946), Abel was a philanthropist with many contributions and honors, including being a board member of the University of Nebraska Foundation and chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Nebraska Wesleyan University. Among her gifts to the city are Hazel Abel Park and the Alice Abel Arboretum at Nebraska Wesleyan. She died in March 2005.
"We at the Lentz Center are very fortunate to have been loaned 22 items from her collection," said Barbara Banks, curator/director of the Lentz Center. "The Lentz Center will celebrate its 20th anniversary in September and we have purposely chosen this time to show Alice Abel's collection. Her collection demonstrates her devotion to Asian art. In the tradition of Don and Velma Lentz, she has been willing to share her collection with the public." more...
LENTZ CENTER FOR ASIAN CULTURE
EAST UNION, 3PM
School of Natural Resources Seminar - "Drilling Back to the Future for Climate Prediction"
David Harwood, UNL
GREAT PLAINS ART MUSEUM, 3:30PM
Paul A. Olson Seminar in Great Plains Studies - "Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show in the Gilded Age"
Louis S. Warren, W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History, University of California, Davis
107 BURNETT HALL, 3:30PM
Psychology Department Colloquium - "Clinical neuropsychology in the courtroom: Probative value, prejudicial effect, juror confusion, or junk science?"
Dr. Paul Kaufmann, Research Associate Professor of Psychology, and Senior Research Associate, College of Law, UNL
E103 BEADLE CENTER, 4PM
Biotechnology/Life Sciences Seminar Series - "Cellular and Molecular Biology of Biotrophic Invasion of Rice Cells by the Blast Fungus"
Dr. Barbara Valent, Kansas State University
NEBRASKA UNION, 9PM
Graduate Studies Presentation - "Practical Mentoring: Working Effectively with Graduate Students"
Dr. Tony Nunez and Dr. Julie Brockman from The Graduate School, Michigan State University
GREAT PLAINS ART MUSEUM, 3:30PM
Winner of Great Plains Book Prize to Give Olson Seminar
Louis S. Warren, who received the Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize for his book, "Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show," will present a talk at 3:30 p.m. Sept. 27 at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St. His lecture will lead off the 2006-07 Paul A. Olson Seminars in Great Plains Studies. It is free and open to the public, as is a reception following the talk.
"The story of William Cody's rise from buffalo hunter and cavalry scout to world's most famous showman is one of the strangest in American history," Warren said. "What inspired this Nebraskan to create the Wild West show, a traveling community that included hundreds of Indians, cowboys, vaqueros and others? What accounts for the show's remarkable success on both sides of the Atlantic over three decades of entertaining the world public?" In pursuing the real story of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Warren uncovers fascinating insights not only into the intersection of western history and western myth, but into the making of modern America.
Warren is the W. Turrentine Jackson professor of western U.S. history at the University of California, Davis, where he teaches the history of the American West and environmental history. Raised in Nevada, he earned his B.A. at Columbia University and his Ph.D. at Yale University. Warren is also the author of "The Hunters Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America" (Yale University Press, 1997), which won the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction Book from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. more...
CENTER FOR GREAT PLAINS STUDIES
MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Quinceanera, Sketches of Frank Gehry Show at the Ross
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Quinceanera and Sketches of Frank Gehry. Both films will be showing through September 28.
In Qunceanera, Magdalena (Emily Rios) is the daughter of a Mexican-American family who run a storefront church in Echo Park, Los Angeles. With her fifteenth-birthday approaching, all she can think about is her boyfriend, her Quinceanera dress, and the Hummer Limo she hopes to arrive in on her special day. But a few months before the celebration, Magdalena gets pregnant. As the elaborate preparations for her Quinceanera proceed, it is only a matter of time before her religious father finds out and rejects her. Forced out of her home, Magdalena moves in with great-great uncle Tomas (Chalo Gonzalez), a gentle man who makes his living selling champurrado (a Mexican hot drink) in the street. Already living with him is Carlos (Jesse Garcia), Magdalena's cousin, a tough young cholo who was thrown out by his parents for being gay. The back house rental where Tomas has lived happily for many years is on a property that was recently purchased by an affluent white gay couple (David Ross and Jason L. Wood) -- pioneers of gentrification in the neighborhood. Carlos quickly attracts the couple's attention and they soon make him their plaything in an ongoing three-way. As Magdalena's pregnancy grows more visible, she, Carlos and Tomas pull together as a family of outsiders. But the economics of the neighborhood are turning against them. Ultimately, this precipitates a crisis that threatens their way of life.
Oscar winning director Sydney Pollack takes a sharp sideways turn with Sketches of Frank Gehry, a documentary about the noted architect. Although the two men have been friends for years, Pollock thankfully bypasses the opportunity to pay a fawning tribute to Gehry, instead presenting a well-balanced portrait that offers both positive and negative commentators the chance to etch their thoughts into celluloid. But it quickly becomes clear that the biggest naysayer of all is Gehry himself, who is painted as a highly self-critical man, clearly ill-at-ease with fame and his own achievements. Pollock offers some screen time to Gehry's magnificent creations, but not as much as a less experienced director might have done, instead choosing to focus on the man himself. People such as Gehry's therapist, Milton Wexler, and garrulous artist/director Julian Schnabel (Basquait) offer their thoughts, but the real magic occurs when Pollock and Gehry are on screen together. The series of interviews between the two men have the kind of relaxed atmosphere that could only exist after years of friendship, and Gehry comes across as an astonishingly normal and likeable fellow who keeps his ego firmly in check. Shooting mostly with hand-held digital-video cameras also brings a nice intimacy to the proceedings, creating a warm testimony to a great artist who has somehow managed to keep his integrity intact despite the ruthless nature of the industry in which he works.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | QUINCEANERA | SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY
