War Memorial Rededicated

By wpengine | February 19, 2003

At Anabel Taylor Hall stands a memorial for Cornell alumni who fought bravely and lost their lives in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Their courageous efforts will be once again be remembered during this year’s reunion events.

A rededication ceremony will take place on June 6 to honor the Cornellians who fought and died. The names of 450 veterans already stretch across a panel on the rotunda, and on June 6, the names of John J. Lawendowski ’52 and Roger H. Coye ’52 will be added to the list.

“The original dedication was in 1993. [At the time] we didn’t know the names of these veterans, but both will be added to the memorial,” said William W. Huling ’68, senior corporate programs director in the Johnson Graduate School of Management and university coordinator of the rededication committee.

Lawendowski was a pre-veterinary student, and a marine veteran who died in Vietnam from artillery fire. Coye was in the army, and died in a helicopter crash in 1966. Their families have been invited to commemorate these veterans, but their attendance is still uncertain.

“For some families it is still difficult to deal with the loss. [Also] we have asked President Rawlings and Jay Morley, who is our keynote speaker, and president of the National Association of College and University Business Officers to be in attendance. [He] was a prior military veteran himself,” Huling said.

The Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) has helped in researching alumni and deceased veterans. They have compiled mailing lists, contacted Cornellians around the world to try to find alumni killed in service, and worked on capturing digital images of these veterans.

In addition to this work, some ROTC officers will be present at the ceremony.

“One officer in each service (army, navy, etc.) will be posting the colors and helping usher the event,” Huling said.

“We are very excited about the event. We hope it will be well attended.” Huling added. Coincidentally, the ceremony falls on the 10 year anniversary of the first dedication, and also on the 50 year anniversary of the Korean War.

In addition to the standing memorial to these veterans, the Korean/Vietnam Memorial Scholarship Fund has been a living tribute to their memory since 1995 at Cornell. Select dependents of Korean and Vietnam War veterans have benefited from the financial support it provides.

One of the recipients of this scholarship is Dana Alexander ’04.

“It’s an honor to receive this scholarship. My grandfather was a veteran in the Korean war, and he passed away my freshman year just when I received [the scholarship]. I think it makes me respect the scholarship a

little more and my grandfather as well.” Alexander said.

Archived article by Mary Chu

Cornell Cinema

By wpengine February 20, 2003

Sometimes a movie is not quite a movie. Poet/novelist Sherman Alexie’s The Business of Fancydancing, his debut foray into film, defies almost all the conventions of the medium, and the result never really feels like a film — which, of course, is both good and bad. The film is the semi-autobiographical tale of the fictional Native American poet Seymour Polatkin. Informed by Alexie’s poetry and sharply satiric writing, The Business of Fancydancing explores issues of subtle racism, life on reservations, the challenges of creativity and writing, and complex interpersonal relationships. Alexie deftly juggles these big issues, and though it occasionally appears that he has more on his plate than he can really handle in a two-hour film, he does make great points throughout the narrative. The film’s story is told through an intricate (and sometimes confusing) system of flashbacks, dreams, and imaginings, the story constantly folding back in on itself at every turn. Seymour’s departure from “the rez,” his role in college as a prominent organizer of Native American student groups, readings of his poetry, and dreamlike soliloquies on a black background are all woven together to create an eventually coherent narrative. Seymour is continually questioned about the validity of his art. How can he write about reservation life when he hasn’t been to the rez in years? Where do his poems come from? Particularly revealing is an interview he gives to a reporter, during which he is obviously embarrassed by her probing questions and hides behind sarcastic comments to avoid addressing the pain he feels. Seymour is also questioned extensively about his ethnicity. “Yes, I’m always mistaken for Asian,” he says to one admirer of his poetry, and throughout the film his ethnic identity is a subject of speculation and interest. The film is excellent at bringing out the uncertainty and fear that Seymour feels as an artist of color — best expressed in his frequently gorgeous and confrontational poetry, written by Alexie. The film, as such, is a vehicle for Alexie’s own ruminations on his life and his people. Adding to this feeling is the near-documentarian approach to the actual filming. The movie is shot on low-grade stock, giving the impression of a home movie or an amateur documentary. The camera is always close to the actors, intruding on their private space, creating the sense that the filmmakers have caught these people by surprise in their most unguarded moments. This is particularly true of the scenes on the rez itself, when Alexie’s camera captures emotional sing-alongs and intense conversations about memories, love, and authenticity. The film’s unique style — shards of narrative like a broken mirror, reflecting the many sides of identity — makes for an always interesting experience, even when Alexie’s considerable ambitions get ahead of his actual skills as a director. Still, for the debut from a writer-turned-filmmaker, The Business of Fancydancing is a fascinating movie. It’s a film with a lot to say, and some very unique ways of saying it, which is a lot more than can be said for most movies.Archived article by Ed Howard
Under the Radar

By wpengine February 20, 2003

What would you do if the world was ending in six hours? Let me rephrase. What would you do if the world was really ending in six hours, with no hope of reprieve. All the stupid Armageddon type mock-heroics have come to naught, there’s no bomb shelter, there’s no one holding us hostage. It’s just ending. You have six hours. How do you spend them? Don McKellar considers that question and gets a beautiful array of answers in his strangely hopeful, funny, and wise film Last Night. The film takes place in an oddly tranquil Toronto, punctuated with jarring violence. There are shots which suggest that massive riots have taken place, but the people are mostly past that now. They gather in groups, or sit alone, or wander. And wait. It’s six o’clock and the world ends at midnight. The sun is constant in the sky, an oppressive presence, because it gives the impression of stopped time as everyone focuses on time running out. On this last of days, there’s no place Patrick Wheeler (Don McKellar) would like to be less than with his family. His mother insists on treating the day as some sort of new holiday, rewrapping childhood birthday and Christmas presents and presenting them to her less than enthusiastic children. His father is wordless, motionless, except to reprimand Patrick. And his sister Jenny (Sarah Polly, telling us everything we need to know about her character in her 20 minutes off screentime) just wants to go find one last great party. It’s a great, stifling scene of dysfunctional family, and the audience can easily understand Patrick’s desire to be elsewhere. But as it turns out, Patrick doesn’t particularly want to be anywhere. His wife died a year ago, and for him the world has already ended. So he can’t quite understand what everyone else is getting so upset about. McKellar subtly suggests, especially in the first scene with his family, that there’s an undercurrent of grim satisfaction, of contentment in his character. Misery loves company, they say, and the situation should give him the entire world for company. Why and how this isn’t necessarily the case drive the action for the rest of the film. Patrick escapes from his family only to encounter Sandra, whose car has been ripped apart by a mob (which reappears throughout the film, we’re never told why they’re rioting, expect out of anger at the entire situation) and needs to get across town so she can have one last dinner with her husband. It is one of the film’s nicer touches to make “across town” sound like an impossibly far journey. Sandra and Patrick are stuck together for the rest of the film, which Patrick views with slight irritation since he’d rather be alone, and Sandra with growing desperation since she’d rather be with someone. She tries repeatedly to make Patrick an acceptable companion: “tell me something to make me love you,” she says, near the end. In a romantic comedy, Oh’s demand would be trite emotional shorthand and evidence for her spunky, unorthodox character. But McKellar knows you can’t invent or coerce intimacy. So does the character. So her words become an anguished plea with a selfish wish we can easily understand: no one wants to die with a stranger. The film follows other characters through their last hours, some for the length of the movie, others, like a mother sitting silently in a streetcar with her crying daughter, only for a moment. The recurring characters include a gas company executive (David Cronenberg) who’s personally calling every customer to assure them of service right up to the end and his assistant, who’s staying for as long as he is. The most interesting member of the ensemble however, is Patrick’s best friend Craig (Callum Keith Rennie). Craig covered the walls of his apartment with a list of every kind of sex he’d like to have (an older woman, a virgin, a guy), and then went looking for it. Craig’s been very busy the past six months. Craig’s plan could easily be a one note joke, but the meticulousness with which he goes about his task (and it is a task or a quest, not empty gratification) raises his goal into something more interesting and meaningful. After all, it’s a great way to meet people. Craig has found a way to connect instantly with as many people as he can. One of the best moments is when Patrick walks into Craig’s apartment to find their old french teacher walking out (she quizzes him on irregular verbs). McKellar is the lead actor, director, and screenwriter. Rather than a self-indulgent exercise in ego, what results is a unified vision. McKellar has really thought out this world he’s created. There’s a reality to the film present in the minute details of behavior which can only result from keen observation. There’s a sense that all of the characters are reacting to one state of affairs, with the precise nature of their world delinated in subtle turns of phrase and throw away lines. With a solid, standard (if soon to be extinct) world in place, McKellar can more clearly suggest that what we have are different people’s reactions to the same situation, which in turn tells us more about the people in the film. We come to know everyone, and care for them. For a film like this, the Achilles heel is the end. How do you end the world and satisfy the audience? Instead of floundering, McKellar finds the perfect note on which to end because he is genuinely concerned with the characters he’s created and wants to give them, if not a happy, then a truthful, end.Archived article by Erica Stein