WHITHER WEATHER? BASEBALL-IT'S , NOT CRICKET
GABRIEL ~NDIA'S . SUCCESS STORY
NOGUCHI, MASTER SCULPTOR
SPAN 2
The State of the Union by President Ronald Reagan
5
Isamu Noguchi: Master Sculptor by Lynn Schmidt
12
Nobel-Laureate Perspectives Interviews by Alvin P. Sanoff
16
School Volunteers by Sandra Hinson
20
Keeping an Eye on the Weather
22
Indian Meteorology Streaks Ahead by Ravi Sharma
26
Who Formulates U.S. Trade Policy? by Jacques J. Gor/in
28
Growing With Pride and Products by Krishan Gabrani
32
Baseball: It's Not Cricket by Harish Khare
36
Theodore Dreiser: Novelist of the City by Donald Goodyear, Jr.
39
On the Lighter Side
40
Breaking the Code by John Coppola
45
Better Irrigation for Rajasthan
46
Focus On ....
Editor Managing Editor
Mal Oettinger Chidananda Das Gupta
Assistant Managing Editor
Krishan Gabrani
Senior Editor
Arona Dasgupta
Copy Editor Editorial Assistant
Murari Saha Rocque Fernandes
Photo Editor
Avinash Pasricha
Art Director
Nand Katyal
Associate Art Director
Kanti Roy
Assistant Art Director
Bimanesh Roy Choudhury
Chief of Production
Awtar S. Marwaha
Circulation Manager
P.N. Saigal
Photographic
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Front cover-Bill Ray. 5-Balthazar .Korab. 6 top right-collection Whitney Museum of American Art; bottom left-Michio Noguchi; right-Geoffrey Clement. 7collection Nelson A. Rockefeller Estate. 5-8-all courtesy Isamu Noguchi. 9-Bill Ray. lO-Barbara Morgan. II-Arthur Lavine. 16-19-Bob Eginton. 20-Carol Hightower. 2I-Winfield Parks. Š National Geographic Society. 23-courtesy Indian Meteorological Department. 24-25-Pix #I-Jim BrandenburglLensman; #2 & 3-NASA; #4-Bob Abbey; #5-courtesy National Center for Atmospheric Research (N~AR); #6-Carol Hightower; #7-Leo Ainsworth, courtesy of the National Severe Storms Lab; #8-Robert Madden! Lensman; #9-courtesy French National Weather Bureau; #lO-J. Scott Applewhite, Miami Herald; #II-Š John V.A.F. NeallPhoto Researchers Inc. 28-3I-Avinash Pasricha. 32-33 -collage by Nand KatyaL 34-35-Avinash Pasricha. 41-44-courtesy Vernon Fisher. 45 -William D. Miller. 46 top-Avinash Pasricha; bottom-R.N. Khanna. 47 center-R.K. Sharma. 48-John C. Wicart. Inside back cover-Lee Battaglia except bottom left and center by Carol Hightower. Back cover-Lee Battaglia. Photographs:
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United States International Communication Agency 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 Monthly HK. Mehta Indiarw Thomson Press (India) Limited, Faridabad, Haryana Michael Pistor American 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 Malcolm Oettinger American 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001
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Front cover: Sculptor lsamu Noguchi with "The Void," his 1970 Portuguese Rose Aurora marble sculpture. See also pages 5-11. Back cover: Revolutionary troops gather around a campfire at sunrise in a bicentennial re-creation of the 1781 Battle of Yorktown which signaled the end of the American Revolution. See also page 49.
Even as you read this (if the mails are swift and no plans go awry), the American artist Vernon Fisher is constructing a work on an enormous wall of the Lalit Kala Akademi in New Delhi. He will be using paint, silkscreen, line drawings and an opaque projector on a wall some 32 meters long and 3 meters high. Fisher is the U . S. representative in the Fifth Triennale India, an event that ha s consistently attracted artists of world-class quality. The United States has been represented in all the triennales so far-an exhibition that ha s become one of the most prestigious art events in Asia. Louise Nevelson, who was interviewed in last month's SPAN, created a near-sensation with her sculpture on a tour of India following the Third Triennale in 1975. Fisher's contribution won't travel; it's an integral part of the Delhi exhibition, woven as it were into the wall itself. If this seems mysterious, we recommend the article on page 40, which describes the way Fisher works and what he ..'\ think s about art. .\ The author of the Vernon Fisher article is John Coppola, who is an artist himself--in addition to his regular work as editor and coordinator of art exhibitions for the International Communication Agency in Wa shington, D. C. Coppola studied art, art history and art criticism at Thiel College in Pennsylvania, Northwestern University in Illinois, and at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington,
D.C.
He ha s traveled to Japan to study printmaking with Toshi Yoshida and to Italy where he worked with Luis _Camnitzer and Liliana Porter. Coppola ha s been featured in more than a dozen one-man shows and in group exhibitions in the U . S., Mexico, Colombia and Italy. One of his untitled woodcuts appears at right. Our cover story is also about an artist, the protean sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi. Because of his success in pioneering new forms of art, we have grown comfortable with Noguchi IS once-a stounding creations. They still have the power to dazzle the observer; witness the article's illustrations. But compared to the new approaches toward art being put forward by Vernon Fisher and his contemporaries, Noguchi's work seems almost conventional. Exhibitions with broad scope, like the Triennale India, play an important role in exposing a variety of art and artists to a large audience. With 45 countries participating, art-lovers will have a magnificent opportunity to view different outlooks, to study both radical and traditional styles. And among the artists may be sever?l whose work will remain memorable decades from now. --M . P.
The State of the Union oday marks my first State of the Union address .... It is my duty to report to you on the progress we have made in our relations with other nations, on the foundation we have carefully laid for our economic recovery and, finally, on a bold and spirited initiative that I believe can change the face of American Government and make it again the servant of the people .... To understand the state of the Union, we must look not only at where we are and where we are going but at where we've been. The situation at this time last year was truly ominous. The last decade has seen a series of recessions. There was a recession in 1970, another in 1974, and again in the spring of 1980. Each time, unemployment increased and inflation soon turned up again. We coined the word "stagflation" to describe this. Government's response to these recessions was to pump up the money supply and increase spending~' In the last six months of 1980, as an example, the money supply increased at the fastest rate in postwar history-13 percent. Inflation remained in double-digits and government spending increased at an annual rate of 17 percent. Interest rates reached a staggering 21.5 percent. There were eight million unemployed. Late in 1981, we sank into the present recession-largely because continued high interest rates hurt the auto industry and construction. There was a drop in productivity and the already high unemployment rate increased. This time, however, things are different. We have an economic program in place completely "different from the artificial quick-fixes of the past. It calls for reduction of the rate of increase in government spending, and already that rate has been cut nearly in half. But reduced spending alone isn't enough. We've just implemented the first and smallest phase of a three-year tax-rate reduction plan designed to stimulate the economy and create jobs. Already interest rates are down to 15.75 percent; but they must go still
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lower. Inflation is down from 12.4 percent to 8.9 percent-and for the month of December it was running at an annualized rate of 5.2 percent. If we had not acted as we did, things would be far worse for all Americans than they are today. Inflation, taxes and interest rates would all be higher. A year ago, Ameri<:ans' faith in their governmental process was steadily declining. Six out of 10 Americans were saying they were pessimistic about their future. A new kind of defeatism was heard. Some said our domestic problems were uncontrollable-that we had to learn to live with the seemingly endless cycles of high inflation and high unemployment. There were also pessimistic predictions about the relationship between our Administration and this Congress. It was said we could never work together. Well, those predictions were wrong. The record is clear, and I believe history will remember this as an era of American renewal; remember this Administration as an administration of change; and remember this Congress as a Congress of d~stiny. • Together, we not only cut the increase in government spending nearly in half, we brought about the largest tax reductions and the most sweeping changes in our tax structure since the beginning of this century. And because we indexed future taxes to the rate of inflation, we took away government's built-in profit on inflation and its hidden incentive to grow larger at the expense of American workers. • Together, after 50 years of taking power away from the hands of the people in their states and local communities, we have started returning power and resources to them. • Together, we have cut the growth of new federal regulations nearly in half. In 1981, there were 23,000 fewer pages in The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, than there were in 1980. By deregulating oil, we have come closer to achieving energy independence and helped bring down the costs of gasoline and heating fuel. • Together, we have created an effec-
tive federal strike force to combat waste and fraud in government. In just six months it has saved the taxpayers more than $2,000 million-and it's only getting started. • Together, we have begun to mobilize the private sector-not to duplicate wasteful and discredited government programs, but to bring thousands of Americans into a volunteer effort to help solve many of America's social problems. • Together, we have begun to restore that margin of military safety that ensures peace. Our country's uniform is being worn once again with pride. • Together, we h".ve made a new beginning" but we ha\!e only begun. No one pretends that the way ahead will be easy .... The economy will face difficult moments in the months ahead. But the program for economic recovery that is in place will pull the economy out of its slump and put us on the road to prosperity and stable growth by the latter half of this year. That is why I can report to you tonight that in the near future the state of the Union and the economy will be better -much better-if we summon the strength to continue on the course we have charted. And so the question: If the fundamentals are in place, what now? Two things. First, we must understand what is happening at the moment to the economy. Our current problems are not the product of the recovery program that is only just now getting under way, as some would have you believe; they are the inheritance of decades of tax and tax, spend and spend. Second, because our economic problems are deeply rooted and will not respond to quick political fixes, we must stick to our carefully integrated plan for recovery. That plan is based on four common-sense fundamentals: continued reduction of the growth in federal spending; preserving the individual and business tax reductions that will stimulate saving and investment; removing unnecessary federal regulations to spark productivity; and maintaining a healthy dollar and a stable monetary policy ....
In a recent address to the U.S. Congress and the American people after his first year as President, Ronald Reagan outlined his Administration's programs to meet challenges in both domestic and foreign policy. Excerpts from his speech are reproduced here.
The budget deficit this year will exceed The Federal Government will still subsiour earlier expectations. The recession dize 95 million meals every day. That's did that. It lowered revenues and in- one out of seven of all the meals served in creased costs. To some extent, we are America. Head Start, Senior Nutrition also victims of our own success. We have programs and child welfare programs will brought inflation down faster than we not be cut from the levels we proposed thought we could and have thus deprived last year. More than $500 million has government of those hidden' revenues been proposed for minority business that occur when inflation pushes people 'assistance. And research at the National into higher income tax brackets. And the Institutes of Health will be increased by continued high interest rates last year over $100 million. While meeting all cost the government about $5,000 million these needs, we intend to plug unwarranted tax loopholes and strengthen the more than anticipated. law which requires all large corporaWe must cut out more nonessential government spending and root out more tions to pay a minimum tax. I am confident the economic program waste, and we will continue our efforts to reduce the number o~ employees in the we have put into operation will protect federal work force by 75,000. the needy while it triggers a recovery that The budget plan ... will realize major will benefit all Americans. It will stimusavings by dismantling the departments late the economy, result in increased of energy and education, and by eliminat- savings and thus provide capital for exing ineffective subsidies for business. We pansion, mortgages for' home-building, will continue to redirect our resources to and jobs for the unemployed. our two highest budget priorities-a strong national defense to keep America free and at peace, and a reliable safety ow that the essentials of net of social programs for those who have that program are in contributed and those who are in need. place, our next major Contrary to some of the wild charges, undertaking must. be a this Administration has not and will rtot program-just as bold, turn its back on America's elderly or just as innovative-to America's poor. Under the new budget, make government again accountable to funding for social insurance programs will the people, to make our system of federbe more than double the amount spent alism work again. Our citizens feel they have lost control only six years ago. But it would be foolish to pretend that of even the most basic decisions made these or any programs cannot be made about the essential services of governmore efficient and economical. ment, such as schools, welfare, roads, and The entitlement programs that make even garbage collection. They are right. A maze of interlocking jurisdictions up our safety net for the truly needy have and levels of government confronts averworthy goals and ~any deserving recipients. We will protect them. But there is age citizens in trying to solve even the only one way to see to it that these ,simplest of problems. They do not know prQgrams really help those whom they where to turn for answers, who to hold were designed to help, and that is to bring accountable, who to praise, who to their spiraling costs under control. ... blame, who to vote for or against. The main reason for this is the overThe savings we propose in entitlement programs will total some $63,000 million powering growth of federal grants-in-aid over four years and will, without affecting programs during the past few decades. Social Security, go a long way toward In 1960, the Federal Government had bringing federal spending under control. 132 categorical grant programs, costing But don't be fooled by those who $7,000 million. When I took office, there proclaim that spending cuts will deprive were approximately 500, costing nearly $100,000 million':'-13 programs for ener-' the elderly, the needy and the helpless.
gy conservation, 36 for pollution control, 66 for social services, and 90 for education. The list goes on and on. Here in the Congress, it takes at least 166 committees just to try to keep track of them. . Neither the President nor the Congress can properly oversee this jungle of grants-in-aid; indeed, the growth of these grants has led to a distortion in the vital functions of government. As one Democratic Governor put it recently: The national government should be worrying about "arms control, not potholes." The growth in these federal programs has-in the words of one intergovernmental commission-made the Federal Government "more pervasive, more intrusive, more unmanageable, more ineffective, more costly and, above all, more unaccountable." Let us solve this problem with a single, bold stroke-the return of some $47,000 million in federal programs to state and local governments, together with the means to finance them and a transition period of nearly 10 years to avoid unnecessary disruption .... Our faith in the American people is reflected in another major endeavor.Our private-sector-initiatives task force is seeking out successful community models of school, church, business, union, foundation and civic programs that help community needs. Such groups are almost invariably far more efficient than government in running social programs. We are not asking them to replace discarded and often discredited government programs dollar for dollar, service for service. We just want to help them perform the good works they choose, and help others profit by their example. Three hundred eighty-five thousand corporations and -private foundations are already working on social programs ranging from drug rehabilitation to job training, and thousands more Americans have written us asking how they can help. The volunteer spirit is still alive and well in America. Our nation's long journey toward civil rights for all our citizens-once a source of discord, now a source of pride-must continue with no' backsliding or slumping
"Building a more peaceful world requires a sound strategy and the national resolve to back it up. . .. America would not shrink from making the investments necessary for both peace and security." down. We must and shall see that those basic laws that guarantee equal rights are preserved and, when necessary, strengthened. Our concern for equal rights for women is firm and unshakable. We launched a new task force on legal equity for women, and a 50-states project that will examine state laws for discriminatory language. And for the first time in our history a woman sits on the highest court in the land. So, too, the problem of crime-one as real and deadly serious as any in America today-demands that we seek transformation of our legal system, which overly protects the rights of criminals while it leaves society and the innocent victims of crime without justice. We look forward to the enactment of a responsible clean air act to increase jobs while continuing to improve the quali~y of our air. We are encouraged by the bipartisan initiative of the House and are hopeful of further progress as the Senate continues its deliberations.
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far I have concentrated largely on domestic matters. To view the state of the Union in perspective, we must not ignore the rest of the world. There isn't time tohight for a lengthy treatment of foreign policy-a subject I intend to address in detail in the near future. A few words, however, are in order on the progress we have made over the past year in reestablishing respect for our nation around the globe, and on some of the challenges and goals we will approach in the year ahead. At Ottawa and Cancun, I met with leaders of the major industrial powers and developing nations. Some of those I met were a little surprised that I didn't apologize for America's wealth. Instead, I spoke of the strength of the free marketplace system and how it could help them realize their aspirations for economic development and political freedom. I believe lasting friendships were made and the foundation was laid for future cooperation. Our foreign policy is a policy of strength, fairness and balance. By restoring America's military credibility, by
pursuing peace at the negotiating table wherever both sides are willing to sit down in good faith, and by regaining the respect of America's allies and adversaries alike, we have strengthened our country's position as a force for peace and progress in the world. When action is called for, we are taking it. Our sanctions against the military dictatorship that has attempted to crush human rights in Poland-and against the Soviet regime behind that military dictatorship-clearly demonstrated to the world that America will not conduct "business as usual" with the forces of oppression. If the events In Poland continue to deteriorate, further measures will follow .... Meanwhile, we are working for reduction of arms and military activities. As I announced in my address to the nation last November 18, we have proposed to the Soviet Union a far-reaching agenda for mutual reduction of military forces and have already initiated negotiations with them in Geneva on intermediaterange nuclear forces. In those talks it is essential that we negotiate from a position of strength. There must be a real incentive for the Soviets to take these talks seriously. This requires that we rebuild our defenses. In the last decade, while we soughtthe moderation of Soviet power through a _process of restraint and accommodation, the Soviets engaged in an unrelenting buildup of their military forces. The protection of our national security has required that we undertake a substantial program to enhance ourmilitaryforces. We have not neglected to strengthen our traditional alliances in Europe and Asia, or to develop key relationships with our partners in the Middle East and other countries. Buiiding a more peaceful world requires a sound strategy and the national resolve to back it up. When radical forces threaten our friends,¡ when economic misfortune creates conditions of instability, when strategically vital parts of the world fall under the shadow of Soviet power, our response can make the difference between peaceful change or disorder and violence. That is why we 'have. laid such stress not only on our own
defense, but on our vital foreign assistance program. Recent passage of the Foreign Assistance Act sent a signal to the world that America would not shrink from making the investments necessary for both peace and security. Our foreign policy must be rooted in realism, not naivete or self-delusion. A recognition of what the Soviet empire is about is the starting point. Winston Churchill, in negotiating with the Soviets, observed that they respect only strength and resolve in their dealings with other nations. That is why we have moved to reconstruct our national defenses. We intend to keep the peace-we will also keep our freedom. We have made pledges of a new frankness in our public statements and worldwide broadcasts. In the face of a climate of falsehood and misinformation, we have promised the world a season of truth-the truth of our great civilized ideas: individual liberty, representative government, the rule of law under God. We have never needed walls, mine fields and barbed wire to keep our people in. Nor do we declare martial law to prevent our people from voting for the kind of government they want .... One hundred and twenty years ago, the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union message in this chamber. "We cannot escape history," Abraham Lincoln warned. "We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves." The "trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." That President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together, they weathered the storm and preserved the Union. Let it be said of us that we, too, did not fail; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times. Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this chamber as we are meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty-this last, best 0 hope of man on earth.
1. "The Queen," 1931, terra-cotta, 116x41 x41 em. 2. "Curtain of Dream," 1952, ceramic, 41 x 44 x 10 em.
3. "The Illusion of the Fifth Stone," 5. "Avatar," 1947, 1970, Aji granite, 120 xl 38 x 122 em. bronze, 198 x 84 x 61 em. 4. "The Wave in Space," 1972, 6. "Black Sun," 1960-63, granite, 33 x 125 x 105 em. Tamba granite, 76 em. diameter.
samu Noguchi is one ofthegre&t masters of 20th-century art. American citie~ see~ his help ~o,rev~talize their u.rban centers; art gallenes vie to exhibit his sculpture; and retrospective shows of his work crisscross the United States, Europe and Japan. Noguchi is featured often in th~ press, and art scholars regularly evaluate his career. After 56 years of creating dance sets, city plazas, utilitarian objects, gardens, playgrounds and, of course, sculpture, this 77-year-old Japanese-American shows no sign of slowing down. Most recently, he haยง,designed two gardens, a fountain and sculpture for private contractors in southern California, and haS been checking on the progress of a nine-hectare Bay Front Park being built from his plans in Miami, Florida. Noguchi represents a fusion of West and East: His cultural roots, he says, "are all mixed up." Noguchi's father was Japanese; his mother American Indian and Scotch/Irish. He was born in Los Angefes but spent many of his early years in Japan. When he was 13, he returned to America. He says, "I had a Japanese childhood but an American boyhood, with a paper route and all those things." He settled in New York City in the 1920s, attended art school briefly and so excelled at academic figurative sculpture that, when he was 21, the National Sculptural Society elected him to membership. Around this time, he met, befriended and sculpted dancer Martha Graham and philosopher/designer Buckminster Fuller. Today Noguchi lives in Manhattan and works in two converted industrial buildings in the Queens section of New York City. He spends part of each year on the Japanese island of Shikoku, where he built a house and an open-air studio in 1969. He does most of his sculptures there. Despite Ute diversity of his work, sculpture is the crux of Noguchi's vitality. He says, "I do sculpture for myself, and I do 'it all the time. It is my own resource out of which everything comes." This resource encompasses an astonishing range of materials, forms and ideas, which makes his work-often expressive of birth, continuity and life processes-difficult to categorize. He moves from idea to idea without the security of a consistent, identifiable style. He may use metal, marble, terra-cotta or paper. His drive for innovation coexists with his sense of history. "The future of art is based upon the past of art," he says. "The human experience is a continuing thing. I believe in a certain continuity, what is known as tradition-local tradition, the tradition of the world or the greatest tradition, the tradition of change. The real tradition, of art is the idea of exploratory discovery. Artists are all prophets in a way because what we do leads to what is done tomorrow. We are just links." In his student days in New York, Noguchi often visited the city's then few galleries for avant-garde art, where his imagination was stimulated by the work of photographer Alfred Stieglitz, artist Marcel Duchamp, the Russian Constructivists and others. A 1926 exhibition by the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi transformed Noguchi's vision. Brancusi's
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Facing page: "The Red Cube," 1968, painted steel, 7.3 m. high. Right: For 1samu Noguchi, stone is just one medium for creating art; he also uses ceramics, metal and marble. Sculpting is one of his many talents; he designs theatrical sets, city plazas, gardens and playgrounds too.
simplified forms exemplified the integrity of materials, a perfection of craftsmanship and a red~ction of forms to their essence. The following year Noguchi went to Paris to study art. By a stroke of luck, he met Brancusi on his second day there and worked with him for six months as a stonecutter. While in Paris, he was also influenced by sculptors Albert Giacometti and Alexander Calder and painters Joan Mira and Pablo Picasso. At that time Noguchi was torn between pure abstraction and an anatomical quality. He studied cellular structure, paleontology, botany and zoology. He began a search for forms that have "an emotional kick," forms neither purely abstract nor realistic but somewhere in between. "If you look at art as a function of culture, then I would say art goes beyond figuration, rtonfiguration or abstraction," he says. "The purpose of art is to awaken people to their true condition of nature, to see things. Art is the leaven that makes the bread rise, so it becomes digestible and pleasant. Our life becomes sweet and good to eat. You may say that this is a limiting way to look at art, but if, for instance, we look at a Cezanne, it gives us a great feeling of the nature of life, the nature of the mountain, and it gives us great joy. And I think that the purpose of art is to awaken joy in people, to make them feel good to be living in 'this world. If you can do that through abstraction, fine. I don't care how it is done, but I think that to restrict yourself to the same old limitations of figures and colors that are recognizable and to say that this is art and something else isn't art is demeaning it terribly. It is much more than that. It is everything really; everything you can see is potentially art." Noguchi p~rsued those ideas throughout the Thirties and became one of the most daring sculptors then working in the United States. But he tended to isolate himself and avoided exhibiting his work. He supported himself by creating product designs and sculptural furniture. A popular item he designed and manufactured from 1950 through 1978 was a sculptural interpretation of the traditional Japanese paper lantern, which he called "akari." The lantern consists of off-white translucent pa{)er mulberry stretched over bamboo struts. Akari, in the
"The purpose of art is to aW,akenjoy in p~ople, to make them feel good to be living in this shape of globes, columns or stacked blocks, may be suspended from the ceiling, pinned to the wall or set on the floor or a table, and can be folded into an envelope when not in use. Akari illustrates Noguchi's belief that art can"be "completely natural and pervasive in everyday life." It was this belief, in part, that led Noguchi to design playgrounds for children, including a children's land near Tokyo and "Playscapes" which was given to the city of Atlanta, Georgia, as a Bicentennial gift by the [J,M.] High Museum of Art. "Playscapes" includes a light blue slide that spirals gracefully around a cylinder, and swings that hang from bright orange triangles,' He says: "I like to think of playgrounds as primers of shape and function; simple, mysterious and evocative-thus educational."" Noguchi's exploration of playground design carried him on to other things. "Play Mountain" (an Art Deco design for New York City that was never built), he says, "was the kernel out of which have grown all my ideas relating sculpture to the earth." Long before conceptual art and earthworks (large, outdoor "land sculptures," for which trenches are dug or earth otherwise altered, perhaps even with bulldozers) appeared in the 1960s, Noguchi had proposed what have been called "imaginary landscapes," The 1947 Sculpture to Be Seen From Mars, a simplified face to be constructed with a nose height of one mile, remains in the history of ideas. Noguchi's giant kitelike design, the 1933 Monument to Ben Franklin, is being built in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, almost half a century later, for the city's tricentennial celebration this year. The construction of his designs, however, is not essential for Noguchi: "I'm not a manufacturer, not an architect; I'm-not dependent on whether a piece is built or not. It's the idea that counts." The demand for his services in the United States, France, Germany, Israel and Japan has kept Noguchi on the move, often working on several projects simultaneously. His travels around the world are a fertile source for his ideas. Ceremonial structures and magic ritual interest him and he regards his sculpture, especially the monumentally scaled public works, as part of a historical continuum, He has visited Stonehenge, England; the Aztec pyramids of the Yucatan in Mexico; the prehistoric cave paintings of Lascaux, France; and the astronomical gardens of Samrat Yantra in Jaipur. He has studied Russian icons and the great squares of Moscow, He has journeyed through the Orient from Angkor Wat to the Ryoanji Garden in Kyoto, Japan. His exposure to the East and to Zen is reflected in his favoring irregularity and the imperfect, and in his belief that to go beyond perfection is to reveal greater mystery. After World War II, Noguchi, having avoided galleries and critics for 14 years, exhibited at tht<Egan Gallery in New York City. He was experimenting at this time with new materialsincluding metal rods-and forms. There were seeds of his future work in the show. Night Land, a black fossil marble sculpture in the form of a tilted, horizontal platform, suggested a haunting terrain of forms protruding from its surface and prefigured his landscape tables of the Sixties and Seventies. But the most striking of all were the stone sculptures of interlocking flat forms, nearly human in size and attitude: A vatar (see page 6) and Gregory took on vaguely human and erotic auras. Noguchi continues to manifest an ever-changing vision. Some works, like The Queen (see page 6), resemble human: forms. Others are more enigmatic. Curtain of a Dream (see
page 6) is a single wavy slab of clay punctuated with eruptions, scratches and slits, and tied with rope to twin posts anchored in a wood base. Tetsubin is cast iron, a roughly cubic form with mysterious manipulations on each plane. Noguchi says he and a technical expert devised a way to bend sheet metal "so that the corners came out sharp to give an appearance of solidity" to the sculpture. Humpty Dumpty and Tip Top, sheet metal works, give the impression of being made of paper, folded and cut at will. Human-or larger-in scale, they are both powerful and whimsical in temper. Noguchi says, "By way of self-imposed limitation I insisted on deriving each sculpture from a single sheet of metal-a unity, I thought, was achieved thereby. We impose our own rules of value. I wanted to deny weight and substance." Despite his use of other materials, Noguchi has always returned to stone. "Rocks," he says, "are the bones of the earth." It is the thickness, weight and volume of stone that attract him, as well as its history of use from Stonehenge to the present. With it Noguchi has created a wealth of forms. The Black Sun (see page 7) is a standing doughnut with its hole off-center. The undulating surfaces have flat areas as if they had been sheared off, and the whole sculpture is polished to a.fine finish. The Black Sun expresses a dense and contained energy, and, at the same time, a form without beginning or end, One can see in it reflections of Eastern sensibility, particularly ideas about the beauty of imperfection and irregularity. The same could be said of The Illusion of the Fifth Stone (see page 6), whose roughly textured surface is the result of all-over point chiseling. Symbolic of continuity and growth, it appears to emerge from the earth, and demonstrates the spiritual meaning Noguchi can give to stone. In his autobiographical book, A Sculptor's World (published in 1968), Noguchi describes his philosophy of sculpture and stone this way: "It seems to me that the natural mediums of wood and stone, alive before man was, have the greater capacity to comfort us with the reality of our being. They are as familiar as the earth, a matter of sensibility. In our times we think to control nature, only to find that in the end it escapes us. I for one return recurrently to the earth in my search for the meaning of sculpture .... I believe in the activity of stone, actual or illusory, and in gravity as a vital element. Sculpture is the definition of form in space, visible to the mobile spectator as participant. Sculptures move because we move."
world. If you can do that through abstraction, fine ....
Above: Noguchi's sunken garden at Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, New York City, 1961-64, black river stone, granite paving. Facing page: Martha Graham dances in Frontier on a set designed by Noguchi.
Despite the profusion of forms and materials that he uses, Noguchi insists on the cohesion of his work as a whole. He says, "Everything relates. For instance, my interest in stone comes from the fact that I do gardens, and gardens require stone because they are the only things that will really last and are cheap enough. You could make it out of steel, but that would be rather crazy." Noguchi's gardens range from the expansive and complex UNESCO gardens in Paris to the austere geometry of the marble garden for the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Contained within an interior courtyard, the Yale garden is a white map of the rational mind. Entirely White, the pyramid, circle and cube are geometry gone awry as if to remind us that human creation cannot reach perfection. The Yale garden was the result of collaboration between Noguchi and Gordon Bunshaft, chief architect of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. This partnership also produced The Red Cube (see page 8), which dominates the plaza of the Marine Midland Bank in New York City's financial district. Just a short distance away, Bunshaft had Noguchi build a sunken garden (see above) in the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, for which the configuration of stones from traditional Zen gardens is an important source. Seven rocks excavated from a rushing Japanese river (natural sculpture) appear to levitate above mounds resting on a floor of undulating tiles. Jets spray upward and water covers the floor, suggesting the metaphor of islands in the sea. Noguchi often uses water in his gardens. His concern for the earth and the human relationship with it led Noguchi to tackle projects that go beyond the context of a garden and into the realm of large public spaces. The Detroit Civic Center Plaza was such a project. Noguchi was initially hired to design only the centerpiece of the Plaza-a fountain. "I wanted to make a new fountain, a fountain which represents our times and our relationship to outer space," Noguchi explains. Detroit's Dodge Fountain (see page 5) is an amazing technological wonder. The central ring is 9.1 meters in diameter and rises 5.,5 meters above the granite pavement; 35 different light-and-water configurations are controlled by computer. When the architectural firm hired by Detroit to do the rest of the Plaza saw Noguchi's fountain design, they commissioned . ,
Eve,rything you can see is potentially art."
him and his long-time associate, Shoii Sadao, to design the entire space to complement the fountain. The result was a plaza with graceful terracing down to the Detroit River. Completed in 1978, it contains two amphitheaters, a pyramid that doubles as a seating platform and a small theater. Another attention-getting work at the Plaza is a 36.6-meter aluminum pylon, square in shape with a slight axial twist. The three-and-one-quarter-hectare plaza area was raised 4.9 meters to make it level with the street and therefore more accessible to visitors. "Sometimes," says Noguchi, "I feel I have been distracted from art by social things, but perhaps I am starting a new movement toward the artful use of public space." The Detroit Plaza's success and popularity have inspired other cities. ,Miami, Florida, contracted with Noguchi to do a park to provide a special area for recreation. "I rather enjoy it when somebody says, 'All right I have this problem-I can't get this thing to work.' That's the situation I'm often brought into, whether in the theater or with architects." Noguchi's set designs for theater and dance are a kind of sculpture. Meant to transmit feelings to an audience, they provide more than just a backdrop for the performers. Over a 31-year period of collaboration, Noguchi has created sets for dancer/choreographer Martha Graham. His taste for the symbolic rather than the descriptive or picturesque matched Graham's advances in modern dances. In 1935 Graham asked Noguchi to design a set for Frontier (see page 10), a dance about the opening of the American West. It was Noguchi's first theater design and also the first time Graham had commissioned a set. Noguchi surprised her with the simplest of compositions. As Graham describes it, the set symbolized "the distance of the plaiqs that I feel this girl is looking at, almost for the first time. She's arrived in a new area, a new landscape, and Isamu brought me this very simple, elegant thing-just ropes indicating the distance, the trail and the tracks of the railroad train, and the inevitable fence that gets built as soon as the pioneers take over." Frontier exemplifies Noguchi's belief in the mythical, symbolical potential of forms and the landscape is figurative rather than literal. Noguchi also designed sets and costumes for other choreographers, most notably for George Balanchine's.1948 production of Orpheus. Especially inventive was the. carved wooden mask for Orpheus, a bent tubular form that covers his upper fact:; and emphasizes his metaphorical blindness. Isamu Noguchi appears in between, outside and in the middle of our times. He says: "I consider myself to be an American phenomenon. It is just a peculiarity of America that permits all kinds of strange people to get here who probably wouldn't fit in somewhere else, and I am able to funotion here. "I find myself a wanderer in a world rapidly gr'owing smaller. Artist, American citizen, world citizen belonging anywhere but nowh~re. My life has spanned the gr~atest changes in technology. This will be ever more reflected in the arts. The experiments of yesterday are now a commonplace. I am beset with doubts about the values of art as we go into the electronic age. We are ail swept ~p in its current. Where all we see is change, I like to think that sculpture may have a special .fole-as an antidote to impermanence." 0 About the Author: Lynn Schmidt, painter and former university art instructor, is an American free¡lance writer specializing in art.
Nobel-Laureate Perspectives
Optimism for a Pessimistic Society
More Thought for the Talented Elite
Unlocking the Secrets of Human Behavior
IV AR GIAEVER General Electric Company Prize for Physics, 1973
CHARLES HUGGINS University of Chicago Prize for PhysiologylMedicine, 1966
KONRAD BLOCH Harvard University Prize for PhysiologylMedicine, 1964
I'm basically an optimist. People are infinitely better off now than they were 50 or 100 years ago, in large measure due to technology. A century ago, when people reached age 50, they were wrecks. Here I am, past 50, and I still have many years to goI hope. Yet there is a lot of worry and pessimism in society that I am hard put to understand. People no longer seem to believe, as Americans once did, that any sort of problem could be solved. People have time enough and have become rich enough to start worrying about problems that are almost nonexistent. Newspapers are full of stories, and people get scared about this and scared about that. Sometimes you are supposed to be fat and eat cholesterol, and sometimes you're supposed to be thin and stay away from it. People worry about chlorinated water because, presumably, under certain circumstances it can cause cancer. But you can't live without chlorinated water. If it does cause cancer, nobody has really found out. But the United States is a very healthy society. I don't believe it is going down the drain-at least not in my lifetime.
A decline in education is the greatest problem the United States faces. We sugarcoat our education and bring it down to a low level. In many places, students who can't read get their high-school diplomas anyway. This effort to bring everything down to a palatable level is a cancer on the society. What we have to do is make more room _for the highly talented elite of the United States-the boys and girls of 10 to 18-who can study calculus and the like. The more we care for and nurture our talented people, the better off we will be. At the same time, of course, we have to provide education facilities for the rest of the young. It is going to take a dose of salts and some strong words to bring about needed changes. But I am optimistic, unless our great enemy catches us. That is the population explosion.
The behavioral sciences offer some of the most interesting questions facing mankind. The physical and natural sciences will progress at an everincreasing rate, but whether their achievements can be used beneficially will depend on human behavior. We are beginning to learn more and more about behavior from the purely molecular point of view. We are finding out about substances in the brain that influence behavior. Some scientists believe that we are close to understanding the hormonal, molecular basis of schizophrenia. We are coming closer to understanding the extremes of human behavior. These strides, which appear very promising, may not solve behavioral problems, but they are the first step toward creating conditions in which the talents of individuals can be best used for society. Already, many mental diseases have been controlled by drugs; mental hospitals, which used to be overcrowded, are now practically empty. I'm fully aware of the potential dangers of abuse that can grow out of a better understanding of human behavior. But anything new that has a beneficial effect can be abused.
Some of America's top thinkers-its Nobel Prize winners-gathered in Pittsburgh recently at a function organized by Carnegie-Mellon University. Taking advantage of this rare rendezvous, Alvin P. Sanoff, associate editor with U.S. News & World Report, asked some of the learned men to ponder two vital questions: What are the gravest challenges facing the United States and the world at large? What can be done to meet those challenges?
Learning Science JOHN BARDEEN University of Illinois Prize for Physics, 1956 and 1972
Science has to come to grips with the fact that fewer and fewer high-school students in the United States are taking courses in physics, chemistry and advanced mathematics. There's been a drop-off in what high-school graduates know about science. I would like to see a revival of interest in science in the general population, rather than just among the highly talented who hope to enter the field. I also am concerned about the future of technology in our society. We're facing a dangerous situation in that graduates of our engineering schools get very high salaries, so that they don't have much incentive to go to graduate school and get a broader education. In the past, the emphasis in engineering schools was on giving students a background that would provide a foundation for their future activities. Today, the focus is on training them simply to do a job in a narrow specialty. The result is that American engineering graduates are less equipped than those in Japan, West Germany and the Soviet Union.
Too Much Effort for Too Little
Health: To Each His Own
SHELDON GLASHOW Harvard University Prize for Physics, 1979
BARUCH BLUMBERG The Institute for Cancer Research. Philadelphia Prize for PhysiologylMedicine, 1976
The very survival of the human race under the threat of nuclear weapons is the great challenge confronting the global society. On the positive side, we have avoided a war with the Soviet Union since 1945. That is an incredible achievement, and I am hopeful that we can do the same for another 35 years. I also am concerned about the economic survival of Western Europe, Japan' and, most especially, the U.S. Our automobiles have about 5 or 10 times the number of flaws per manufactured unit as Japanese-made models¡. If you do not have workers who believe in doing the job well, then it hardly pays to do the job at all. Today, there are more people employed by McDonald's making hamburgers than by the entire U.S. steel industry. It's clear that, in the short term, you will make more money selling hamburgers than by, having a long-range plan to produce an electric car. So a lot more energy, a lot more intelligence go into fashioning the next generation of hamburger than into the next generation of car. Instead of making real things like cars and tractors, we have a country that makes special hamburgers, Big Macs. We're awfully good at it, but it's not clear that the future belongs to Big Macs.
Preserving peace and dealing with poverty in the United States and the underdeveloped world are a great concern, but there are developments in the health field that also are worthy of special attention. Increasingly, we find causes of hospitalization are related to illnesses that doctors cannot prevent, such as alcoholism and drug abuse. These illnesses are a consequence of the individual's own activity. Doctors can make a contribution to dealing with such problems, but really there's not a great deal they can do to prevent them. Responsibility resides with the individual. What people really want out of medical care today is not to be incapacitated, hospitalized-at least until a reasonable age. We're beginning to approach that in industrialized countries as the number of people surviving into their '80s increases. Despite all the progress in advanced countries, there still are major medical problems in Africa and Asia and other places where tropical diseases are rampant, and there is not a great deal of research or energy being put into prevention of these diseases.
most parts of the United States, solar heating is hopeless. ' As serious as our energy problems are, the situation is even worse elsewhere. We are lucky. We have quite a bit of oil, tremendous amounts of oil shale and a lot of coal. Western Europe, on the whole, has little of any of those, and Japan is in even worse shape, as are most developing countries. An exception are countries in the Southern Hemisphere that have a lot of undeveloped waterpower they should use.
Unlimited People, Limited Resources POL YKARP KUSCH University of Texas at Dallas Prize for Physics, 1955
What troubles me is a world population that is increasing exponentially. A rational way of running the world would be to reduce the number of people. Without controls on population growth, the ability to provide a reasonable allotment of resources for every individual will diminish. Already, an awful lot of children age five and below are dying of hunger around the world. That is appalling and does no honor to mankind. Even we in the United States, blessed with a wealth of resources, are beginning to be pressed hard because of population increases. . Water is becoming a problem. In the Southwest, some cities survive on water from underground aquifers. But that water has a finite lifetime. Growth and development also are leading to relentless erosion of soil that was built up over thousands of years. We keep losing land to the eternally growing shopping centers. Farming is now undertaken by corporations instead df a farmer owner, and that is often bad for land. Nonetheless, there remains a general mood of optimism-a feeling that no matter what happens we can save ourselves. But many of our resources are finite. We're not going to improve anything if our population continues to grow. If we could somehow reduce the rate of increase in population, many of our problems would disappear.
No Quick Fixes to Energy Woes HANS BETHE Cornell University Prize for Physics, 1967
Energy is America's greatest longrange problem. We are not going to lick inflation permanently unless we solve the energy problem. Finding a solution will take time, and we will need cooperation from many parts of society. I would propose to deal with our oil problem in three distinct ways. First: produce synfuels. Second: conserve. And third: substitute other fuels for oil. My goal would be to stop importing oil altogether in 10 years. Transportation is one area where we can reduce the use of oil. Smaller, more efficient cars will enable us to save about one-third of the oil now going into automobiles. I also would try to shift a lot of truck transportation to the railways, which use much less oil per ton-mile than trucks.. As for airplanes, there probably isn't terribly much to be done. They already use oil efficiently. We also should phase out use of oil for things other than transportation, such as generating electricity. For space heating, natural gas should be substituted for oil whenever possible. Some people view solar heating as holding great promise. But the cost is simply prodigious. Except for heating water, solar is like the emperor's clothes-there is nothing there. In
Understanding Science From Science EDWIN McMILLAN University of California, Berkeley Prize for Chemistry, 1951
I'm concerned about the public disaffection toward science. People recognize science as doing great things for their lives. But when it comes to appreciating science and having sympathy for it, they mostly don't. They associate it with the mad scientist making monsters in dimly lit laboratories rather than understanding what the activity of a scientist is really like. In the United States, there is also disaffection with government, which perhaps started with Watergate. The Vietnam war had a huge influence on general disaffection. Public faith in government declined when people realized that the things officials said were in many cases downright lies. Unfortunately, I am at a loss as to how to combat this negative feeling that many have. 0
Recent American Laureates and Their Work The Nobel Prizes, considered to be the world's most prestigious awards, were founded in 1901 by Dr. Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, to reward those who have "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." Americans have figured prominently in the list of award winners in recent years (especially in the science category), winning' awards in four of the six categories in 1981. Four Americans shared awards in medicine and physics, one won the economics prize and another shared the chemistry award. "The awards to Americans will continue at this rate," says Professor Ingmar Grenthe of Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. "In the United States, you have elitist universities which pick the best people, offer the best working conditions and can afford the best equipment."
In the past 10 years, 17 Americans have won or shared the Nobel Prize in 'Medicine. Stockholm's Karolinska Institute awarded half of the 1981 prize money of $180,000 to Dr. Roger W. Sperry, 68, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The other half was shared by Canadian-born American citizen David H. Hubel, 55, and Sweden's Torsten N. Wiesel, 57, both of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. All three were honored for their work in analyzing the way the human brain interprets and utilizes signals from the outside world. Dr. Sperry was cited for "extracting the secrets" held by the two hemispheres of the brain, and Hubel and Wiesel for clarifying how information reaches the brain through the eyes. Dr. Sperry's research with humans and animals enabled him to map the two halves of the brain to show how different functions are controlled in separate regions-he proved that the left side is "cognitive," handling language and conceptual thinking, and the right side is intuitive and creative. Dr. Sperry's discovery has opened fantastic research possibilities, for example, in predicting the results of brain damage. Hubel and Wiesel showed how the human brain receives and decodes information transmitted by the eyes. "They proved that the brain is not a computer ," a Karolinska professor commented. .
The Nobel Prize in Physics was also shared by two Americans and a Swedefor work on laser beam studies of the atom. Professor Kai Siegbahn, 63, of Sweden's Uppsala University, following up on research that won his father the same prize in 1924, received half of the $180,000 award.' The other half was shared by Prof~sors Nicolaas Bloembergen, 60, of Harvard University and laser pioneer Arthur Schawlow, 60, of Stanford University. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Professor Siegbahn "for his contribution to the development of highresolution electron spectroscopy"; and the American professors for their work in the development of laser spectroscopy. The spectroscope is an optical instrument that produces and measures spectral lines-an arrangement of light or other forms of radiation separated according to wavelength, frequency and energy. The lines are useful in chemical analysis, since they reveal the presence of particular elements. "The way you probe an atom is to probe it with the light of different frequencies," explained a spokesman for the U.S. National Science Foundation. "What the laser did was to give us much better control over the light, and allow us to separate the whole infinite number of atomic states one from the other. With the laser we can do all sorts of atomic experiments we never dreamed of before." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that Schawlow's work in the late 1950s initiated "the whole dynamic field now associated with laser studies." Schawlow, speaking to reporters in Stanford soon after the announcement of the award, said that medicine and chemical research are two fields where major breakthroughs have occurred as a result of laser research. "If's sort of fun to see a lifetime of work being rewarded," was the reaction of Bloembergen when he heard about his Nobel Prize at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. He has been working with lasers for 20 years. Born in Holland in 1920, Bloembergen has been an American citizen since 1958. Schawlow was born in Mount Vernon, New York, and has been a professor of physics at Stanford since 1961. Early in
his career, while at Bell Laboratories, Schawlow worked with Nobel laureate Charles Townes who developed the maser, a predecessor to the laser (The laser is 20,000 times stronger).
Dr. Roald Hoffmann, 44, of Cornell University and Dr. Kenichi Fukui, 63, of Kyoto University in Japan, shared the $180,000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for independently developed theories on the course of chemical reactions." Their work, said the Academy, aids in the development of drugs and in some biological analysis, by helping chemists predict the outcome of synthesizing new compo\lnds. Th6ir award-winning research attempts to explain how atoms behave, why molecules assume their special geometric shape and just how they move during the course of a chemical reaction. While Dr. Fukui is the first Japanese to win the chemistry prize, Dr. Hoffmann is the 23rd American on the chemistry list since 1901. Born in Poland, Dr. Hoffman moved to the United States in 1949 and became an American citizen in 1955.
Professor James Tobin, 63, of Yale University became the 10th American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, set up by the Central Bank of Sweden only 13 years ago. Tobin is the chief architect of a "portfolio selection" theory analyzing factors that influence families and businesses in deciding how to handle debts and assets. The economist himself described his theory to newsmen as "the principle of not putting all your eggs in one basket." The Academy said that Tobin's work "unquestionably inspired substantial research during the 1970s on the effects of monetary policy, the implications of government budget deficits and stabilization policy in general." Tobin, who was a member of President Kennedy's Council of Economic Advisers in 1961-62 and has served as a consultant to the U.S. Federal Reserve System and the U.S. Treasury, is the author of Macroeconomics, The New Economics One Decade Older, and Consumption and Econometrics. On the Yale University faculty since 1950, he is now chaiqnan of Yale's department of economics. 0
SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS "Doing
Whatever
Needs to be Done" TEXT BY SANDRA HINSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB EGINTON
Four million Americans help make education more effective-and fun-by volunteering time and talents. Helping students with academic subjects and extracurricular activities, they also relieve regular teachers of routine chores. It's an enriching experience-for students and volunteers. Twice a week when Pat Wellman takes her two children to Dommerich Elementary School in Orange County, Florida, she goes in with them and spends part of her day helping the teachers with "whatever needs to be done." Wellman is not alone; more than 3,700 persons donate their time and abilities to the county's public schools. All over'the United States, four million Americans participate in school volunteer programs. Local volunteer groups are loosely affiliated with the National School Volunteer Program, Incorporated, based in Alexandria, Virginia. But each group's program is independent, shaped by the specific character and needs of the community and school it serves. In Houston, Texas, for example, volunteers screen kindergarten children each year for indications of possible difficulties in language development, motor skills, distance vision and hearing. In rural western Maine, where five small towns share four elementary schools, the local School Administrative District budgeted some of its limited funds to pay a part-time program coordinator who trained 75 volunteers to help students. In Boston, Massachusetts, more than 160 high-school students participate in a volunteer tutoring program; as they tutor others, they improve dramatically their own academic skills and self-esteem. Twenty-six employees of five businesses in Beaumont, Texas, get time off with pay to tutor children in three elementary and two middle schools. People totally unconcerned with academics help in other ways. The New York Yankees-a leading professional baseball Facing page: Pat Wellman helps afive-year-old with fingering in a violin lesson. Volunteer Wellman tutors in reading, math and music.
team-recently played a benefit game to raise money for the New York City program's recruitment and training drive aimed at adding 200 schools to the 326 already served by volunteers. And IBM Corporation released one of its executive sales specialists to work for a full year at the National School Volunteer Program headquarters. The Orange County program in which Pat Wellman participates grew out of a three-year pilot project begun in 1971 by an organization of housewives in Orlando, the county's major city. The project was so successful that after the third year, the County Board of Public Instruction assumed responsibility for the program and put the small volunteer operating staff on the payroll. School Volunteer Services of Orange County has four main objectives: to develop understanding between the county's 103 public schools and their communities, to enrich school curriculums, to provide individual instruction and to relieve teachers of other responsibilities in order to give them more time to teach. Regular volunteers provide supplemental instruction and other instruction-related assistance for one or more hours a week. Each school has a coordinator of volunteers and a teacher who is in charge of liaison. The coordinator helps recruit at the school and neighborhood levels, matching volunteers-with the aid of the teacher go-between-to specific requests from teachers for the services they need. Volunteers come from all age groups and all walks of life. Neither a college degree nor a background in education is required; some effective teacher aides have not completed high school. Three Orange County colleges give academic credit to student volunteers as part of Orientation to Education courses.
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This plan benefits the public schools and also helps the student volunteers discover if they want to pursue teaching careers. "I feel that there's a place for almost anybody in the volunteer program," says program director Eleanor Fisher. Those who cannot teach, she says, can grade papers, bind books or help out on playgrounds. Fisher organized a series of workshops for teacher aides that cover reading and math skills, storytelling, music, art, library and physical education assistance. Special training is given to volunteers who wish to work with gifted children, with the mentally retarded, or with those who have specific learning disabilities. More than 500 volunteers who cannot give time ~gularly but who have special skill or expertise in particular subjects, are on call as needed by teachers. Experts in accounting, advertising and art lead the list. This group provides some 1,600 presentations in an average school year. A young blind man talks about his handicap. A retired beekeeper explains the social organizations of insects. Collections of butterflies, china, dolls, snakes and shells are made available for study by students. Professional persons discuss their work and job opportunities in their fields. Americans who have lived abroad display artifacts and photographic slides from every corner of the world. Another group of volunteers meets weekly with small groups of youngsters to teach them hobbies and skills that are not in the school curriculum. Cake decoration, woodworking, ceramics, tennis, piano, sewing, square dancing, ballroom dancing, and scuba diving are typical subjects. Other Orange County program activities include: Turnabouts: Some 235 high-school students earn credit for working as volunteers one or more hours a day in elementary and junior high schools, and nearly 400 junior-high youths earn credit for tutoring within their own schools. Listening to Children: Volunteers with special training are assigned by school guidance counselors to befriend children who have suffered such traumatic experiences as death or divorce in the family. English as a Second Language: Instruction for Cuban and Vietnamese refugee children and others with language problems. A Little Bit of Spanish: To introduce American fifth- and sixth-graders to the language spoken by the largest group of immigrants in Florida. Participants in the Orange County program give it high marks. "It's very very gratifying," says Pat Wellman. "We can see the children improve almost every week we work with them. I enjoy being there with my own children and with the others, too." Volunteer Laverne T. Ryan says: "I saw one child's spelling grade jump from D to A after I'd been doing individual work with him. I have never felt more needed, and that's a good feeling." Sixth-grade teacher Helen Jacobs says: "One of my volunteers, Leland Kirst, is 82 years old and he's truly amazing. He was a chemistry and physics teacher for 45 years, and he has a tremendous rapport with my slow math students. Ninety percent of our students showed real growth working with him." "I can't praise the program highly enough," says Roy Eldridge, former principal at Dommerich and now assistant superintendent of elementary education for Orange County. "It's absolutely incredible what the program has done for our students. Today, educators want parents to come in and share in the learning process." 0 About the Author: Sandra Hinson is a Florida-based free-lance writer who writes for several American magazines.
1. In a school in Orange County, Florida, volunteer Beverly Schweizer, who works as a therapist in a hospital, conducts a program called "All About Hospitals," aimed at easing children's fears about going to hospitals. 2. Watched by curious students, Salvatore Sammut, a 91-year-old retired auto worker, mends books at an elementary school. During his three-hours-a-week sessions, he gives tips on bookmending and encourages students to help him.
3. Volunteer Allison Gade works with children at a school for the handicapped. 4. A young girl watches fascinated, as profession. clown Pat McClure puts on her makeup. 5. Nancy Ahlin, who assists in teaching Russian at a high school, uses visuals as she . relates a Russian folk tale to her students. 6. Grace Miller teaches Spanish, the language of Florida's largest immigrant group.
eeping an Eye on the Weather Red sky in the mornmg, sailors take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight. Rain before seven, stop by eleven. Mares' tails and mackerel scales make tall ships take in their sails. People have tried to predict the weather for thousands of years. They used the haphazard observations of generations of weather lore or relied on religious beliefs, as was ancient custom: Their predictions were often wrong. In the 18th century with the invention of instruments for measuring wind, humidity, air pressure and precipitation, the science of meteorology began to come of age. Scientists were soon drawing weather maps and by 1849 could communicate forecasts quickly over telegraph. Today the techniques of meteorology depend largely on technology . Weather satellites orbit the earth, computers convert raw data to numerical codes and produce weather maps, and automatic instruments record weather observations. Yet none of these tools would be effective without the network of more than 3,500 survey stations participating in the World Weather Watch. Their reports give meteorologists all over the world an accurate picture of the globe's weather. In the United States, several hundred
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) facilities monitor weather conditions. These surface weather stations, upper air stations, automatic weather stations, weather radars and environmental satellites constantly funnel data into computers at National Weather Servlce offices where meteorologists prepare more than two million forecasts annually. The forecasts cover both short-range and extended predictions. The longer range the forecast, the greater the chance for error. Early warning of severe weather often makes the difference between life and death for people in the path of a storm. A specialized NOAA office, the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, monitors the warm waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean for signs of developing hurricanes. Satellite photos give meteorologists their earliest hint of gathering winds, and weather reconnaissance aircraft known as "Hurricane Hunters" are regularly sent to measure a storm's velocity, pressure and the exact
location of the eye. When a storm finally comes within range of land, radar stations along the coast take over. Throughout this tracking process, the National Hurricane Center issues frequent advisories about where and when it expects the storm to hit land. This system alerts residents of low-lying areas in time for them to head for higher ground. Because of concern that people in rapidly developing coastal communities may not be prepared to cope with a lethal storm, NOAA has initiated intensive public education programs to make them aware of the dangers. Unlike hurricanes, tornadoes are relatively short-lived. Thejr destructive paths are small and they strike with little warning. Their damage can be devastating. Meteorologists at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, use satellite photos and radar to study thunderstorms that might spawn a tornado. Doppler radar, part of the U.S. Government's storm research program since 1971, functions like conventional radar but can also detect shifts in wind velocity through the echoes from rain. These wind shifts indicate severe thunderstorms or tornadoes. The great advantage of Doppler radar is its earlywarning capability. It can detect rotating winds within a¡ cloud an average of 20 minutes before the first damage, whereas current warnings are based on actual tornado sightings. One of the most exciting directions weather research has taken is the effort to control or alter the weather. In one such study, Project Stormfury, U.S. scientists attempted to weaken hurricanes by seeding clouds. When effective, seeding reduces hurricane winds and storms' potential for damage. Four storms were seeded between 1961 and 1971 with some positive results. However, officials suspended seeding experiments in response to the public's fears that seeding might cause a storm to intensify or change course. Now researchers focus on developing better computer models, improving instruments and gathering extensive data on the structure of hurricanes. They hope that someday this work will lead to their ultimate goal: control of violent storms. Opposite page: A leading tornado expert, Theodore Fujita of Chicago University, experiments with the storm machine he has designed to study the effects of tornadoes.
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Indian Meteorology Streaks Ahead by RA VI SHARMA
On the 8th of next month, INSAT lAthe multipurpose Indian National Satellite built to the specifications of the Indian Department of Space by Ford Aerospace and Communications Corporation - will be launched by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Besides serving telecommunication and TV, the fifth meteorological satellite in the world will fill a gap in the world meteorology data resources. Once it is placed in orbit, meteorologists will be able to get weather data every half hour. Until now two U.S. satellites, TIROS and NOAA, had been supplying vital information related to cyclone warning, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, humidity, etc. INSA T 1A and INSAT 1B (the latter to be launched in 1983) will give a boost to Indian meteorology by providing a very fast and regular supply of information. Indian meteorology already has a complex network of data supply. "Five hundred forty-nine surface observatories are maintaining a vigil round the clock over the weather," says Additional Director General of the Meteorological Department S.K. Das at Mausam Bhavan in New Delhi. "Sixty stations out of the world's 549 observatories release balloons four times a day going up to a height of six kilometers in the atmosphere to record wind speed and direction. Another 33 stations release larger balloons twice a day in the stratosphere reaching up to a height of 25 kilometers from the ground carrying transmitters and sensors to measure temperature and humidity." Das points out that these balloons are released at the same time all over the world-at 2400 hrs. GMT and 1200 hrs. GMT -so that the weather situation throughout the globe at a given moment can be mapped. The information from international stations comes by telex, teleprinters and satellite to the Delhi office within three or four hours of their recording. "Analysis is done within six hours of receipt of information in the analysis cell of the department," explains G.S. MandaI, meteorologist in charge of the Northern Hemisphere Analysis Centre. Charts are made from this data, and low or high air pressure areas plotted. When the air is descending in a particular column of atmosphere, pressure increases at the bottom of the column, leading to fair weather. Ascending air develops low pressure, which About the Author: Ravi Sharma is a feature writer with the Center for Science and Environment, New Delhi.
may result in rains if there is moisture or may mean a cyclone or storm, depending upon the intensity of pressure. MandaI's cell, which works round the clock, informs all ships, ports and towns in India of impending cyclones, storms, rains through the radio, newspapers and a wireless communication network. Three days before the cyclone hit the east coast of Andhra Pradesh in 1979, a U.S. satellite had located the approaching storm and informed the Indian meteorological department. When it moved into the 400km. range of the cyclone warning lO-cm. radars located on the east coast, the broad area lying in the path of the cyclone was defined. Indian meteorologists warned the states of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh of the cyclone bearing down upon them. Twelve hours before it actually reached the coast, the specific area the storm was going to hit was named. Andhra Pradesh authorities were able to evacuate the villagers of Srikakulam district in advance due to this warning, saving thousands of lives. In agriculture too, meteorologists are now playing a very important role. India, a predominantly agricultural country, is largely dependent on the monsoons, despite all technology. In the bad years, the total grain production of the country can decline by as much as 15 percent. Past experience shows that bad weather in one grain-growing area has a tendency to coincide with bad weather in grain lands elsewhere. As Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, a member of the Planning Commission, said at the 1979 World Climate Conference, there is a probability that when grain yields decline as a result of bad weather in one part of the world, they will be lower in many other parts as well. Such widespread bad harvests occurred in 196466, and again in 1972-74. But with accurate prior information on the dates of the beginning and end of the monsoon and the total quantum of monsoon rain, grain production can be stabilized by modified water management, and appropriate distribution of foodgrains can be planned in advance. A new service called the Agrometeorological Advisory Service (Agrimet) was launched in 1977 for the state of Tamil Nadu. It aims at improving the effectiveness of weather bulletins by giving an interpretation of the weather in terms of its effect on crops. Farmers are advised on what actions to take. Under this service, specially prepared weather charts together with crop reports are studied jointly by meteorologists and agricultural specialists. After a discussion, they prepare detailed advisories tai-
lored to the requirements of cultivators in the region. A recent evaluation of the operation of the advisory service in Tamil Nadu has validated its usefulness to the farming community. The service is now being extended to other regions and will cover all the Indian states by 1983. In recent years the Meteorological Department has also increased the accuracy of its monsoon predictions. "Seventy-five percent of the monthly and 85 percent of the seasonal monsoon predictions prove correct now," says Das, adding that "a lot more has yet to be done." The monsoon is generated by the uneven heating of the land and the sea. The land surface warms up rapidly, because the heat that it receives remains on the surface and very little is able to penetrate more than a few centimeters through the soil. Consequently, the temperature of the land surface and that of the overlying air rises. Owing to convection in the water, heat can penetrate to much greater depths. Water temperature therefore remains substantially lower than temperatures on land. The warm air above the land rises to a particular height, after which it flows out to the sea. To replace this rising air over land, breeze from the sea flows in, cooling the cOqstal areas. In summer, the tropics receive more heat from the sun, activating this exercise of wind transfer. Hot tropical air rises and flows to the south. There is a large return current from sea to land to compensate for the rising air. This happens in June when the sun's heat is most intense, especially over northwest India. The summer monsoon represents the return flow from the sea to the land in the form of a large daytime sea breeze. Its duration is about 100 days. Until recently, scientists thought the summer monsoon originates entirely in the northern hemisphere, but Monex (international monsoon experiment conducted by India with U.S. collaboration in the summer of 1979) proved that it is not true. The trajectories of balloons released in the experiment indicated that the origin of the monsoon is in fact in the southern hemisphere. Much more data has been collected with the help of the Monex experiment through five. research ships from the U.S.S.R., three civilian research aircraft from the United States and four research ships and one aircraft from India. Another important subject in which the meteorologists are making progress is "artificial rain." The success of these experiments will of course be a boon to Indian agriculture. The Indian Institute of Tr.opical
To keep pace with the latest space technology for weather prediction, the Indian Meteorological Department has recently installed sophisticated equipment to obtain very -high -resolution weather photographs, like the one below, from data beamed by orbiting U.S. weather satellites. Meteorology in Pune is doing exercises in seeding clouds by spraying cumulus clouds with common salt or silver iodide from aircraft. The salt creates artificial nuclei around which water vapors condense, and turn into rain. "But the experiment is still in its initial stages," says S.D.S. Abbi, director of publications in the Department of Meteorology. Improvements in space science technology have helped to make weather forecasting even more accurate. To tap the free data available from orbiting U.S. weather satellites, India acquired its first Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) equipment in 1965. Since then, seven more indigenous APTs have been established in different parts of the country. The Meteorology Department has just imported from a U.S. firm an Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (A VHRR) to get superior cloud cover pictures with far better resolution. As an orbiting weather satellite, TIROS or NOAA, passes overhead, the equipment is switched on to record the picture data transmitted by the satellite. Later, the taped data is replayed, and in 20 minutes a very high-resolution photograph of the area is produced. Even more advanced than this will be the $5 million worth of receiving equipment which the department is installing to receive meteorological data from the new INS AT satellite to be launched from the U.S. in April. On command, INS AT will be able to produce a picture of the subcontinent every half hour. Issuing weather forecasts and warnings is not the only contribution made by Indian meteorologists. They are now helping farmers to decide on the time to sow and harvest crops and assist engineers in locating multipurpose hydroelectric projects. In all its operations India's Meteorological Department works in cooperation with the World Meteorological Organization; both are trying to develop more accurate early warning systems. In fact, the Indian department is a link in the world network of meteorological organizations taking "active part in the Global Atmospheric Research Program in a worldwide scientific effort involving both theoretical research and complex field experiments that are expected to lead to a fuller understanding of the structure of the atmosphere. The studies should make it possible to predict accurately all large-scale weather movements for periods of 10 days and longer. They may also take us nearer to that ultimate goal-of not only reading, but changing the weather. 0
. As this cloud-seeding plane flies through clouds, silver iodide flares attached to its wings drop millions of tiny particles into the air. On a successful run, ice will form around the silver iodide nuclei and fall as rain. . The Skylab U.S. satellite has photographed tropical storms. 3. Heavy cloud cover over the Southern Hemisphere as recorded by Apollo 17. 4. Rotating winds within a tornado, as drawn by computer. 5. Big as a slice of grapefruit, this giant hailstone crashed into Kansas in 1970. 6. Twice a day nearly 2,000 weather stations send up balloons carrying mcmy sensing devices coupled with radio transmitters to aid weather forecasting all over the world. 7. Tornado over Enid, Oklahoma, June 5, 1966. A wide area of America's Great Plains is termed "Tornado Alley. " 8. Meteorologist clears icefrom his instruments on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, over 2,000 meters high. 9. Cumulonimbus clouds are the source of hail, thunderstorms and heavy rain. Hurricane David hits Florida, 1979. Particles in the atmosphere block some of the sun's warming rays; this may be making the earth cooler.
Who Formulates U.S. Trade If Americans were asked to name the international economic issue other than energy that most affects their economic well-being, they would surely choose "international trade." This concern has not been lost on ailing U.S. industries, • which almost automatically give import competition a prominent place among the chief causes for .their precarious financial predicament. In 1977, when the U.S. steel industry, which had suffered through many years of low capital formation and productivity, approached Washington for assistance, foreign import competition was high on its list. In 1978, when the Chrysler Corporation, which had overestimated America's demand for large cars, requested federal assistance to avoid bankruptcy, it cited import competition from Japanese automobiles. And in 1980, the Ford Motor Company and the United Auto Workers union asked the U.S. Government to grant the automobile industry import relief. This ~awareness of the impact of international trade also extends to the export side of the trade ledger. In 1979, when President Carter imposed a grains embargo against the Soviet Union to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, American farmers complained about the loss of this export market. This hypersensitivity about international trade is especially curious at a time when U.S. determination to fight inflation should lead to more obvious calls for increased imports to increase supplies. And at a time when wide fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and the currencies of America's major trading partners-sometimes reaching as much as 50 percent-should be viewed with concern, U.S. citizens are much more attentive to trade issues and concerned about tariff restrictions and other barriers that hinder the movement of goods. This popular attention and the various pressures and counterforces that often make the course of U.S. trade policy appear erratic, can be explained both by the traditional overlapping of responsibilities between the Executive Branch and the U. S. Congress in the area of trade policy, and by the popular perception that international trade is closely linked to jobs for Americans. The shared responsibility for internati0nal trade stems from the U.S. Constitution itself. Under Article I, Congress reserves the power to regulate foreign commerce while delegating to the President the authority to conduct foreign affairs. Because foreign trade policy and international negotiations on the reduction of trade barriers involve both these powers, Congress has delegated international negotiating and trade policymaking authority to the President while establishing close congressional consultative, advisory and oversight links with the Executive Branch. Since the President cannot negotiate the reduction of international trade barriers without explicit congressional approval, Congress-beginning with the first Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934 and most recently in the 1962 and 1974 trade acts-has periodically given such authority to the President for a fixed period of time. The frantic rush and hard last-minute bargaining between U.S. and foreign trade officials that characterized the conclusion of the Kennedy Round of trade negotiations in 1967 and the Tokyo Round in 1979 result from these time limits that
Congress imposed, in each instance, on the Executive Branch negotiating authority. Once his negotiating authority expires, the President cannot reduce trade barriers without a grant by Congress of further negotiating authority. This often has been a long and cumbersome process. International trade negotiations are conducted within the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), which is both a loosely structured international organization and also a body of rules based on the mostfavored-nation principle that governs U.S. conduct in international trade and provides procedures to settle trade disputes. The organization of the Executive Branch to deal, with international trade policy reflects the widespread popular concern about international trade found among the American people. The President's principal trade adviser and chief international trade negotiator is the United States Trade Representative (USTR). To facilitate international negotiations, he has the rank of ambassador. To ensure that he has clout in interagency policy coordination in Washington, he is a member of the President's Cabinet; his office is a unit within the Executive Office of the President.
ith the increased importa. nce Of. international trade to the U.S. economy (the ratio of foreign trade to the Gross National Product rose from about 8 percent in 1970 to more than 17 percent • in 1979), the position has lately attracted top political personalities-such· as former Chairman of the· Democratic National Committee Robert Strauss, and former Governor Reubin Askew of Florida in the Carter Administration; and former U.S. Senator and Chairman of the Republican National Committee William Brock under the Reagan Administration. What these men lacked in trade expertise they more than made up for in political sensitivity and close relationships with the President and Congress-both important internationally and domestically in the development of U.S. trade policy. Although the USTR office was established in 1962 to spearhead the Executive Branch's efforts in the trade area, it is by no means the only agency involved in the trade policy process. Almost every governmental department has an interest in foreign trade policy and, consequently, has a voice in policy development. For example: • The U.S. Department of Commerce is responsible for promoting U.S. industrial exports and for ensuring that trade policy is coordinated with industrial development policy. • The U.S. Department of Agriculture is concerned that trade policy decisions take full account of agricultural interests, especially the development of foreign markets for exports. • The U.S. Department of Labor administers the Trade Adjustment Program, which assists workers who have lost their jobs because of imports and seeks to ensure that trade policy decisions do not increase unemployment in the United States. • The U.S. Department of State, a key actor across a wide spectrum of international economic issues, is responsible for ensuring that foreign policy considerations are taken into account in trade policy decisions. • The U.S. Department of the Treasury is responsible for
U.S. trade policy is framed in complex interactions between the President and Congress with business pressure groups exerting a certain influence. ensuring that such decisions include consideration of their impact on the American economy-especially on inflation and employment. In addition to this ongoing interest in trade policy, some trade policy decisions require the views, at one time or another, of almost every agency of the Federal Government, including the Defense, Interior and Transportation Departments, and the Office of Management and Budget. The involvement of such a large number of agencies, frequently with conflicting views, is coordinated by the interagency Trade Policy Committee (TPC) , which provides the necessary guidance to the USTR. The TPC, which was established in 1962, has been widely acclaimed and has served as a model for interagency coordinating efforts on other issues. The TPC meets often on a broad spectrum of issues; and the USTR, as chairman, has the major voice in determining the policy guidance that he receives. Congress is also highly organized to carry out its constitutional obligations in the trade policy area. It has a unique relationship with the USTR office, which is mandated by statutes to report directly both to the President and to Congress. The handling of trade policy issues within Congress closely parallels that of the Executive Branch. While the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate, through their standing trade subcommittees, have the primary responsibility within Congress for following trade matters, other congressional committees have a major interest in key trade issues. Thus, the agriculture, commerce, banking, governmental affairs, armed services, foreign relations committees and other committees of both houses become involved in the process. The congressional role in formulating trade policy goes beyond the mere collaboration of its committees with the Executive Branch. Individual members of Congress are particularly sensitive-in political terms-to the effect of trade policy decisions on jobs in their districts or states. This is especially true in the House: A major industrial plant shutdown can idle a significant percentage of the approximately 500,000 constituents that that locale's Congressman represents: Furthermore, foreign competition is especially ~evere in such labor-intensive industries as textiles, shoes, steel and automobiles; this serves to increase constituent pressure on members of Congress to help them gain some form of import relief. Together with the advice that the USTR receives from officially constituted industry, agriculture and labor advisory groups, Congress is the key barometer of domestic perceptions of trade policy. The regional focus of Congress, with its attention to domestic economic interests, and the larger concern of the Executive Branch for the international commitments of the United States and the maintenance of open foreign markets for American exports, add an air of tension to the formulation of U.S. trade policy. The bridging of this gap is the essence of the process, which puts a premium on good executive-legislative relations. Passage of the Trade Agreements Act of 1979, which provided congressional approval of the final Tokyo Round package, was facilitated by close cooperation between key Congressmen and trade officials throughout the five-year international negotiation process. This permitted Congress to
make its concerns, born out of domestic considerations, known to the Executive Branch early in the process. This helped build the congressional consensus behind the final Act, which was reflected in its overwhelming approval (395-7 in the House and 90-4 in the Senate). The different pressures and views that can be brought to bear on trade policy issues are best exemplified by the Executive Branch's responses to the calls of the steel and auto industries for import relief. Following a spate of steel plant closings in the northeastern United States in 1978, President Carter came under intense pressure from the Congressional Steel Caucus-consisting of Congressmen from the steelproducing states-and organized labor, to curb foreign steel, which the American steel industry alleged was being dumped in the United States at below market prices. Foreign steel suppliers denied the allegations and argued that they were being made the scapegoats for the problem of a highly inefficient domestic industry. They threatened to retaliate against U.S. exports under the rules of the GATT. The Executive Branch thus was presented with a choice that had grave and conflicting domestic and international ramifications.
February n 1979, the U.S. Government instituted the steel "trigger price mechanism" (TPM) as the keystone of a comprehensive program for the steel industry. The TPM established prices that served as benchmarks to indicate when imported steel mill products were probably being sold at "less than fair value" (definition of "dumping"), which permitted more. rapid enforcement of the Anti-Dumping Act. As a result of this minimum pricing program, 1979 steel imports were 17 percent below those of 1978; and U.S. consumption of imported steel declined in 1979 to 15 percent of all steel consumed from a high of 18 percent in 1978. The American automobile industry was, however, not so fortunate, so to speak. In late 1980, Ford, joined by the United AutoWorkers, claimed that Japanese imports were the cause of the auto industry's record unemployment of 300,000 auto workers, and filed for import relief. Their petition was turned down by the International Trade Commission; and Congress, led by the Michigan delegation, sought to pass legislation giving the President authority to negotiate an agreement limiting the number of cars and trucks sold in the United States from Japan. The measure passed the House but was killed in the Senate on the penultimate day of the session. In the final analysis, trade policy is rooted in domestic economic policy; the relative calm with which the trade policy process unfolds is determined by the relative health of the domestic economy. With high inflation, low industrial productivity, and continued pockets of high unemployment, one can expect that, for the foreseeable future, the formulation of trade policy-pitting the more parochial interest of Congress against the Executive Branch, and the inflation-conscious consumer against the U.S. worker worried about his job-will remain a rocky process. 0
I
About the Author: Jacques J. Gartin is executive .assistant to the U.S.
Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.
From its modest beginnings in 1961, Gabriel India has grown into a giant in the field of automotive components. One of the most successful examples of Indo-U.S. business collaboration, Gabriel manufactures some 12 lakh shock absorbers a year for the Indian and foreign markets.
TEXT BY KRISHAN GAB RANI PHOTOGRAPHS BY AVINASH PASRICHA
O
ne crore rupees is no longer the magic figure it once was in India. But it is still the kind of fortune that many small businesses cannot amass in a lifetime. At 20, Gabriel India claims a net worth four times that. More important, Gabriel India has become synonymous with shock absorbers; its name is often used generically like Bata and Goodyear. Gabriel India, which takes its name from its American collaborator, Gabriel International U.S.A. (now a division of Maremont Corporation of Chicago) was born in 1961 with a mere Rs. 10 lakh. Nurtured by the expanding automobile industry in India, it grew big and strong because, as its jaunty managing director, Vibhay Sinha, told me, "the founder, D.C. Anand, Jr., insisted on quality and unhesitatingly rewarded hard work and talent." And no one exemplifies the success of this policy more than Sinha himself. His total devotion and unrelenting demand for constantly improving product and performance have brought him handsome rewards. Sinha, 42, who holds a master's degree in engineering from Northwestern University in Chicago, was working with Ford Motor Company in the United States when Anand offered to make him project manager of his new company Purolator India if Sinha would return to India. Anand's innovative policy is to hire professionally qualified Indians settled overseas. Sinha joined Purolator in Left: This machine at the Gabriel plant in Mulund, near Bombay, automatically cuts rods of various diameters into required lengths for making different types of shock absorbers. Insets: Shown at top are 36 of the 42 parts used in a shock absorber. Quality-control workers (left and far left) check each shock absorber for physical, chemical and endurance characteristics.
1966. In 1969 he rose to the position of works manager and a year later he became general manager. In 1973 he was made vice-president of Purolator. Later that year, he joined Gabriel India as vice-president, and in 1978 was named managing director. The company rarely has to go out looking for executives because employees seldom leave. Although there are occasional complaints about working "under constant pressure" and its effect on family life and health, employees generally remain satisfied because each knows that if he improves the product, or sales, or processes, he will be amply rewarded.' That is Gabriel's strength. "The pride in our product makes us unbeatable," said Sinha. "We couldn't have mopped up such a huge chunk of the Indian market, and for so long, without quality. And our consumer loyalty is not confined to India alone. We export to some 20 countries, including some of the advanced nations like Australia." Employee professionalism and loyalty are nowhere more evident than in research and product development. Starting with technology supplied by the American collaborator, Gabriel India has adapted it to suit local conditions and needs, constantly refining and improving the basic processes. For example, it has developed its own designs for shock absorbers for the Vijayanta tank and the Indian railways. (In fact, the company may soon be exporting shock absorbers to Maremont Corporation for use by American railroads.) The company also has developed, but not yet marketed, special shock absorbers for passenger cars fitted with radial¡tires that are now coming in vogue in India. "Now we are self-sufficient in shock-absorber technology," Sinha noted. "In fact, we are assisting Maremont undertake turnkey projects overseas." Quick on his feet as he is with his tongue, the debonair Sinha took me on a hurried tour of the plant, located in Mulund near Bombay. I soon realized the futility of trying to understand the intricate process of assembling the deceptively simple-looking shock absorber. It has 42 components. But the information that he fed me was interesting-and worth pondering by auto owners. The quality of a shock absorber can make a tremendous difference in the
performance of a vehicle. In addition to ensuring a smooth and comfortable ride, Sinha told me, "superior shock absorbers can give you an extra 5 percent in gasoline consumption, extend tire life by about 20 percent and spring life, in the case of buses, by as much as 70 percent." What came as a real jolt to me was learning that shock absorbers can't be reconditioned. I thought of the money that I had foolishly wasted on reconditionings all these years. "You see, when a shock absorber has run for, say, 30,000 kilometers, there is bound to be wear and tear in most of the 42 components," Sinha said. "So you must change most of them for the shock absorber to give you reasonable service; that is not practical. Besides," he continued, "shock absorbers contain a special' fluid. It is petroleumbased, with a number of additives, including mineral oil. The additives impart an important property to the fluidstable viscosity at varying temperatures. This is important because shock absorbers have to operate under different kinds of climatic conditions. What most reconditioners do is to just put ordinary motor oil which in fact makes the running heavier for the vehicle." As '1 got ready to leave the Gabriel plant, I knew that my story would not be complete until I met the man behind this stunning success-D.C. Anand, Jr.
he
meeting was an unexpected experience. Anand, 48, by no stretch of imagination fits the image of arrogant, tough industrialist. He is ' soft-spoken, retiring and even selfeffacing. His suave manner and calm demeanor give no hint of the man who 22 years ago quit a lucrative job with Mahindra & Mahindra (now an important Gabriel client) and ventured out to carve a small niche for himself in the industrial map of India. Beginning with Gabriel India in 1961, Anand went on to launch three other eminently successful enterprises. In 1963, he set up Victor India in Nasik, Maharashtra, to manufacture gaskets in collaboration with Victor division of Dana Corporation of Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A. (In 1976, the company's name was changed to Perfect Circle Victor when the Nasik plant put up a piston-ring-manufacturing unit in collaboration with Dana Corpora-
Vibhay Sinha
D. C. Anand, Jr.
tion's Perfect Circle division.) Three years later, Anand negotiated another successful collaboration, this time with Purolator Inc. in Rahway, New Jersey, to make automotive filters in New Delhi-and now in Parwanoo, Himachal Pradesh, as well. But his proudest triumph came when Gabriel India's new division, Anand Bearings, was commissioned in Parwanoo in November 1979. Built at a cost of Rs. 9 crore in collaboration with Federal¡Mogul Corporation of Detroit, the new project represents a giant leap for Gabriel India from its modest beginning two decades ago.
Gabriel India makes all kinds of shock absorbers in its assembly line operation in Bombay (above). Under the dynamic leadership of its management, the company has recently established a new engine bearings unit at Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh. Although each of these companies has been nurtured assiduously over the years and all are widely respected for their products, it is Gabriel's new bearings division that is obviously Anand's favorite child. His face lights up and his reticence disappears at the mention of Anand Bearings which, he unabashedly admits, was born out of the impulsiveness of youth-"only when you are young can you attempt such foolhardy affairs. I conceived of this project about 10 years ago when I was 38." He boasts uncharacteristically of his new creation. It is probably the first vertically inte-
the responsibility of developing the town where our plant is located. We don't look upon Parwanoo merely as another site for another of our plants. We have adopted Parwanoo. We didn't want to be predators, but wanted to integrate with the town, be a part of it and become its good citizens." Conscious of the responsibility of business to ameliorate socioeconomic conditions, Gabriel India is changing the very landscape of backward but idyllic Parwanoo. In this sleeping town, with its few stray factories, Gabriel India has built a giant plant that would glorify any place anywhere. "A deluxe plant"that's how Federal-Mogul's group vicepresident John Peyton, speaking on the occasion of the plant's inauguration in 1979, described it. The plant has provided employment to hundreds of local people, though it has not yet achieved full production capacity. And employment is but one element in the Anand Bearings mosaic. The others, probably more significant from the community's viewpoint, are bungalows for managers, a hostel for young women employees, quarters for workers, a school for children, a dispensary and a doctor. To top it all, Gabriel India has set up a plant nursery to grated-and most modern and sophis- preserve the beauty of a town that sits on ticated-engine -bearings- manufacturing the foothills of the Himalayas. With an plant in India, even perhaps in the whole inventory of some 100,000 plants of of Asia, excepting Japan. In the short two varying shapes and shades, for use all over years it has been in production, Anand the town, the nursery cost Rs. 5 lakh, bearings have won wide consumer which is half of what it cost to set up acceptance in the country; the company's Gabriel India itself in the first instance. Today Parwanoo hums with activity as sales registered a whopping 36 percent increase last year and it has bagged such never before, and exudes hope and conprestigious and quality-conscious busi- fidence. ness houses as TELCO and Mahindra & Anand is more than satisfied with his Mahindra as customers. company's efforts, "considering our small But the reasons for Anand's pride lie size and limited resource capability," far beyond the mundane realm of profits although he admits that "you can always and losses-they lie in Gabriel India's ' do a little more. After all, one realizes at new social awakening. "Until we set up some stage that making money is not-or the bearings division, we were primarily should not be-the sole purpose of the concerned with our immediate familycorporate sector. It is also important to the quality of our products, service to the share yourself with your community, with customer, the welfare of our employees, your country, to be socially useful, to be the balance sheet," Anand said matterconstructive." But he is quick to share of-factly, adding, "It does not mean that credit for the company's achievements, we are no longer concerned with these citing the invaluqble assistance that the things. We are. But what makes Gabriel company has received from the central India's new bearings division unique is and Himachal Pradesh governments: that perhaps for the first time, a small "Without their help, this would not have company like ours has taken upon itself been possible." 0
BASEBAll
The flush of triumph, the agony of defeat-it's all in the game. Center is the author's favorite hitter, Reggie Jackson, Yankee, and sailing through the air for a catch at top is Yankee Craig Nettles. The diagram gives the game's physical (but not metaphysical) parameters.
1 qci
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Baseball? ne could begin by defining it as a bat-and-ball game or by saying it is as American an institution as the flag, apple pie, the Statue of Liberty and John Wayne, or by quoting Jacques Barzun's view that "whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball." But I like to begin at the beginning. Baseball is a bit like cricket. However, not many Indians in the United States appreciate baseball, because they find it less interesting than cricket. And in India everybody lives and dies
O
by cricket-just look around. Why, even my four-year-old niece knows who Sunil Gavaskar is, and more important, can pronounce that name without slurring the "r," her usual speech imperfection. My friend Prabhakar Bhatt, who lives in New York City and should know about cricket-he played for the U.P. University XI in the early 1960s-maintains that baseball is an unscientific game: The ball is round, the bat is cylindrical, and hence there is no control. In cricket, at least the bat is flat, allowing the batsman control over direction and intensity of contact with the ball. I think Prabhakar is wrong; dead wrong.
It's Not Cricket
by HARISH
KHARE
"Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball."
Let me now give you a few facts and initiate you into the superior world of baseball. In its basics, baseball approximates the game of cricket. A player (pitcher, bowler) with a ball throws (pitches, bowls) the ball at a player from the other side (batter, batsman) who, in turn, is supposed to hit it ~ with a bat and is then obliged to run a ':,:..... ~ certain distance (to first base, the other ~ ~ end) in order to score (a hit, a run). The ball in baseball weighs between 5 and 5114ounces, in cricket between 51/2 and 5314ounces; in circumference, a baseball is between 9 and 9lf4 inches, a cricket ball between 813/16and 9 inches. A baseball bat cannot be more than 42 inches long as compared with a maximum of 38 inches for a cricket bat, and not more than 2314inches in thickness at its greatest diameter, compared with 4114inches allowed in cricket. The baseball bat, however, is cylindrical. From stump to stump the cricket pitch is 22 yards (66 feet); in baseball the distance between the pitcher's mound and the batter's box is 60 feet 6 inches. While in cricket the ball is in play anywhere around the batting end, in baseball the ball is in play only inside the chalked lines stemming out in a V-shape from the home base (home plate) at the batter's end.
The object of the game is to score runs by advancing runners around the four bases-first, second, third and home-in sequence. Each runner reaching home plate safely-without having been touched by the ball in the hands of a player from the other side-scores a run. Unless, unfortunately, the ball he hit was caught on the fly by an opponent. A baseball side has 9 players; a cricket team has 11; but in baseball-unlike cricket-anyone of a "bench" of 25 players can be substituted for one of the 9 on the field. (The two leagues have different rules about substitute pitchers-but we won't go into that.) A baseball game has nine innings, each limited to three "outs," as opposed to 10 outs in each of two innings in cricket. For the regular professional baseball season, the teams are divided into two leagues-American and National. Each league includes two divisions-Eastern and Western (see page 35). The teams in each league playa 162-game schedule, taking on every other team in their league 18 times during a regular season; but a team's winning/losing standing is computed only in its division. At the end of the season each year, the "winningest" teams (yes, that is an expression frequently used) in each division meet in a best-of-five-games series for the league championship (the pennant) and the right to meet the other league champion in the best-of-seven-games World Series. Not all that exciting, eh? Perhaps, but the way to enjoy baseball-like all other team sports-is to have a favorite team, a team you want to root for, a team that attracts your unambiguous loyalty. Every American I know who enjoys baseball-and that includes practically everybody-enjoys the game in terms of a team. The New York Yankees are my favorite team. To commit oneself to the Yankees is like joining a fraternity: Instantly you are accepted by the other Yankee fans as "one of the boys" on a basis of equality. My love for the Yankees spans most of my social relationships in America. The New York Yankees are undoubtedly the greatest team in baseball history. Baseball and Yankees are indeed synonymous. Look in any sports encyclopedia or baseball record book and you will learn more than a handful about the Yankees. Of course, some of the great baseball players like Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Don Drysdale, Sandy Koufax and others regrettably never wore the Yankee pinstripe uniform, but then many other great names-Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle-did and did so proudly. As in yesteryears, some of today's finer players like George Brett, Steve Garvey, Dave Parker, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer are not Yankees; but Reggie Jackson, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Graig Nettles, Dave Winfield, Bucky Dent, Willie Randolph and other celebrated players are beloved denizens of Yankee Stadium on 161st Street and River Avenue in The Bronx, New York City. I recall a memorable evening during the 1978 World Series between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers of the National League. That year the Yankees had made a most remarkable comeback to win the championship of the American League and redeem the faith of every Yankee fan. Then, inexplicably, they lost the first two World Series games, played in Los Angeles. The Series moved to New York for the next three games. I invited my friend Paul Serafino to dinner and baseball, and he eagerly accepted. Otherwise a very intelligent person, Paul is, unfortunately, an incorrigible Dodger fan. I am sure that, like every other Dodger fan, he prays fervently every day to the good Lord to ensure that the Yankees and the Dodgers will meet in the next World Series so that his favorite team can beat the hell out of
. pictures of well-known players, their instant heroes. Probably the hated Yankees." Sportswriter Stan everybody above the age of eight recalls a few favorite games in Isaacs' observation many years ago precise detail. In contrast, although I am sure, if pressed, most that "Nobody understood the Yankee cricket enthusiasts would recall that the Brisbane Test (Decemmystique better than Dodger partisans ber 1960) between Australia and the West Indies ended in a tie, or feared it more" is as valid today as it few would remember how much Alan Davidson scored (80) or ever was-even though the Dodgers how Ian Meckiff got run out. A baseball fan is a walking had not beaten the Yankees since encyclopedia about his favorite team. 1963. (We in India have nothing that Compared to cricket, baseball has excitement built in: resembles this extraordinary sports rivalry; only the Mohan Bagan-East Bengal perennial standoff could be said to evoke There is forced movement. A batter gets only three "strikes"; the third strike is an "out." He is charged with a strike if he that kind of intensity of passion among the fans.) Back to the 1978 Series: With their team now two games either swings and fails to hit the ball or if he fails to swing when ahead, every Dodger fan had renewed faith in the intentions of a ball is pitched into the "strike zone" -an imaginary rectangle in the air over home plate between the knees and waist of the the good Lord. And Paul wanted to savor the expected Dodger victory just a notch more by seeing me squirm watching the batter. The batter must have a keen eye to judge whether the pitch will enter the strike zone-a judgment that must be made Yankees go down. So after we loaded ourselves with keemaPaul is a connoisseur of keema, hot and spicy-and naan, soft quickly to allow time for a swing. If the ball is not in the strike and buttered, we parked in front of the television set, with zone and the batter did not attempt to hit it, his good judgment Canary Island cigars and Remy Martin, to watch Yankee is rewarded with credit for "a ball." Four of these credits earn pitcher Ron Guidry trying to cap his brilliant season of 25 wins him a "walk" -a stroll to first base. If the batter swings and hits the ball, the hit is either "fair" and three losses. However, this was not one of Guidry's better days. He was or "a foul ball" (out of bounds). If it is good, he is obliged to run obviously struggling. But what the Dodgers did not know was toward first base. He is "safe at first" or any subsequent base if that the Yankee third-baseman, Graig Nettles (the Magic he reaches it without having been tagged "out" by being Dragon of Third Basemen, as he is called), was about to give touched by the ball held by an opposing player. It isn't easy. Listen to sportswriter Roger Angell describe a the kind of dazzling display rarely witnessed in that corner of the diamond. Time after time Nettles would make a dramatic batter's task: acrobatic dive at a blazing line-drive from a Dodger batter, scoop up the ball and then throw it just in time to nail the ... the business of making cont"ct with a blurry white missile that is flying at you at a speed that ranges between 75 and 95 miles per hour, of hitting a ban runner at first base. Well, Guidry and Nettles saved the day and delivered with guile and spin (or no spin), and sometimes with malice, which the game for the Yankees. Continuing their comeback, the will sailor sink or bend through a narrow panel of strike zone (or just miss it: Yankees also swept the next three games and won the World don't swing!) in something less than a quarter of a second after its launching, Series for the second time in succession. (To Paul's delight, the and must be intercepted with your bat, which is (most unfairly) a cylinder, of, course, and then redirected with enough force and plan and muscle and Dodgers turned the tables in the 1981 World Series.) confidence and plain luck to land it untouched somewhere out there on that Since baseball is played not across national boundaries but ruled, overdefended pasture, so that-Well, let's forget it, folks, because it against city teams (rather like the Greek city-states sports), it is clearly can't be done. mercifully free of national prejudices. Instead, the passionate hatred.is directed against the other team, the other division, the The pitcher operates under similar constraints. He must other league. The intensely competitive spirit between friendly have control. He is only as great as his control. He must not partisans of rival teams like Paul and me enhances the fun. only send the ball at a speed of 80 to 90 miles per hour into the That is why baseball is a game that unites Americans. strike zone, he must also have enough "english" (guile) on it to Comes baseball season and everywhere-in bars, in schools, in cause the batter to misjudge it. He must combine speed, subways, on buses, in Senate cloakrooms, in living rooms, on mystery and curve. street corners, in country clubs, in restaurants, at work, during In other words, there is no place for a Bapu Nadkarni or a lunch, over cocktails-people discuss, analyze, criticize games Chetan Chauhan. Remember when Pataudi took 102 minutes and players; second-guess coaches; diagnose the teams' weak- to score five runs against England at Bombay in the 1972-73 nesses; predict the outcome of the day's game and the season's series? Well, that just is not cricket; nor is it baseball. In standings. Baseball conversation is a bond not only between baseball there are no "draws." There must be a decision. If no friends but even in many marriages. It can smooth an awkward decision is produced in nine innings, extra innings are played situation: One evening lastsummer I had driven to a New York until a decision is reached. In 1964, for example, the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants played 7 hours and 33 minairport to pick up a friend and, like most people everywhere, found it convenient to park my car illegally in front of the utes for 23 innings. Yet cricket's most memorable game terminal and wait for my friend to come out. Almost im- -the 1960 Brisbane Test-ended in an mediately, a traffic cop materialized at my side. As I was ordinary draw. mentally groping for some excuse that might mollify him, he What makes baseball exciting is the oneassured me it was all right; he merely wanted to join me in on-one confrontation. All the great actionlistening to the Yankee game commentary on. the car radio. I "stealing" bases, making "double plays," was spared a traffic challan. Such are the advantages of catching fly-balls, scoring home runs-thrives membership in the Yankee fraternity. on one"on-one combat. It is a game for individualists. Very rarely does a single player Among Americans, baseball loyalty begins early; preschool children collect cards enclosed in chewing-gum packages with dominate a cricket game enough to determine the outcome of any match; exceptions have been few and 'The Dodgers originally played in Brooklyn. a borough of New York City. Between 1941 and 1956. the far between-Jim Laker's 19 wickets for England against Yankees and Dodgers met seven times in the World Series. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles. a feud that could be attended by subway became a transcontinental rivalry.-EDtTOR Australia at Manchester in 1956, for example, or Holding's 8
for 92 and 6 for 57 for the West Indies against England at the Oval .in 1976. But nothing probably compares with the individual effort in baseball, as exemplified in pitcher Catfish Hunter's perfect game (the remarkable feat of retiring 27 batters in a row) in 1968. Then there is the home run-a bit like a sixer in cricket, but far more significant. Sportswriter Joseph Reichler described a home run: For excitement and sheer impact, nothing can ever match the lusty home run in baseball. The eternal nemesis of every pitcher, it can mean instant joy or sudden death, depending on your turn at bat. It is the only hit whose significance is always immediately obvious, the great equalizer':-a brash, savage weapon designed to attain quick redemption for earlier mistakes. Long after the score has been forgotten, the memory of a home run remains vivid. The home run was the trademark of Babe Ruth, the mystique of Henry Aaron, the essence of Reggie Jackson.
Oh, yes; Reggie Jackson. He is a Yankee and baseball's undisputed superstar-has been for more than a decade. He was on the cover of Time magazine long before John Travolta, "Charlies' Angels," J.R. Ewing, the Persian Gulf or Jimmy Carter. He plays right field and bats number 4 spot, the "clean-up" spot (equivalent to batting two down in cricket, as Don Bradman did and Viv Richards does). He comes to bat exuding what Mark Twain described as "the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces." He bends to pick up a tiny extraneous object in front of home plate, hands it to the umpire, spits in his palms, rubs them together, grips the bat again, takes his glasses off, whips out a tiny handkerchief from his left hip pocket, cleans the glasses, readjusts his batting helmet, spits out the juice of sunflower seeds he has been chewing, wriggles his six-foot frame, readjusts his grip on the bat and glares into the pitcher's eyes. Total concentration, as if 50,000 spectators had ceased to exist. Eyes glued on the ball as it curves toward the plate, then he swings. Bang. It is gone. He knows it is gone. The pitcher knows it is gone. He stands there at home plate to watch the ball's majestic trajectory into the centerfield bleachers. A split second, the crowd roars, he trots around the bases. The game has changed, once again. Ponder a statistic: three home runs in one game of the -1977 World Series. By Jackson, of course. The most remarkable thing about those home runs is that each was hit on the first pitch. Think of the tremendous concentration, talent, power and experience that must blend into that stroke to send the ball blazing for 400 feet. As Yankee coach and catcher Yogi Berra once sagaciously observed, "The game is not over till it is over." Take the fifth game of the 1981 World Series, between the Yankees and the Dodgers. The Yankees are ahead 1-0. Seventh inning.' During the season, the Yankees started the seventh inning 65 times protecting a lead, and 61 times they won. Now, pitcher Ron Guidry is in his groove and has retired 15 of the last 16 Dodger batters. Pedro Guerrero comes to the plate and bang! A home run for the Dodgers. The game is tied. Four pitches later, the Dodgers' Yeager hits one longer blast. The Dodgers lead 2-1. It is a different ball game; it is a different World Series. Baseball is also a game of strategy, and the manager is the kingpin in the strategy. He decides who will pitch when and where, who will bat and in what order. Like the commander of About the Author: Harish Khare is an assistant editor with The Hindustan Times, New Delhi.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Eastern Division
Eastern Division
Chicago Cubs Montreal Expos New York Mets Philadelphia Phillies Pittsburgh Pirates St. Louis Cardinals
Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox Cleveland Indians Detroit Tigers Milwaukee Brewers New York Yankees Toronto Blue Jays
Western Division Atlanta Braves Cincinnati Reds Houston Astros Los Angeles Dodgers San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants
Western Division California Angels Chicago White Sox Kansas City Royals Minnesota Twins Oakland A's Seattle Mariners Texas Rangers
an infantry unit~ he often has to make quick decisions that may mean the differ-ence between winning and losing a game: When to pull out a pitcher, how to pitch to a particular batter (ordering a "sacrifice," a bunt or a "walk"), when to send in a "pinch' hitter" are crucial decisions. During the 1956 World Series against the Dodgers, the legendary manager of the Yankees, Casey Stengel, performed a juggling act so unpredictable-pulling out superstar Mickey Mantle and bypassing Whitey Ford in favor of lesser known names-that it astounded both the observers and the opponents. Remarked one umpire: "Stengel must talk to God." The ultimate beauty of baseball is the subtle interaction it induces between players and spectators. One bard wrote of "ancient bonds of imagination and appreciation and expert knowledge that have connected each true fan to each player of this beautiful and difficult sport." A player values the approbation of the bleacherites more than that of writers and broadcasters. Occasionally, great players get into a love-hate relationship with their fans. The most legendary such relationship was between Ted Williams and Boston. Williams played for the Red Sox from 1939 to 1960 and was one of the greatest basepall players. He hit a total of 521 home runs, but never tipped his cap to acknowledge the crowds' applause. For Williams this refusal became a matter of principle, but the fans thought it was sheer petulance. When on September 26, 1960, Williams came to bat for the last time, he hit a mighty home run. An appreciative crowd stood up and cheered and cheered. But Williams refused to come out and acknowledge the fans' applause even this one time. Novelist John Updike-like all creative people a connoisseur of baseball-described the scene: Though we thumped, wept; and chanted, "We want Ted," for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontrapsferable. The papers said that the other players and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in som,e way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters. 0
eodore Dreiser 'NOVELIST OF THE CITY ritical opinion about Sister Carrie the modern American city. and its author, Theodore Dreiser, It is true that William Dean Howells, has, for more than 80 years, been Stephen Crane and Frank Norris, writing in widely and sometimes bitterly divided. The the final decades of the 19th century, used controversy began even before the novel's the city as the background for their novels. publication, for although the house of But Howells, for all his sYUlpathy with Doubleday had, upon the recommendation human misery, views city dwellers with of Frank Norris, contracted to bring out a detachment and fails to enter imaginatively first novel by an unknown, young, unsuc- into their lives. Crane's Maggie, "a girl of cessful newspaper reporter, no one had the streets," while falling victim to the lusts foreseen the impact that novel, Sister Car- of men, also falls victim to the romanticism rie, would have upon the sensibilities of of her creator and emerges as little more Mrs. Frank Doubleday, the publisher's in- than a stereotype: the whore with heart of fluential wife. At the last minute, when gold. And even Norris, whose brutish Dreiser's book was in page proofs, the McTeague overwhelms the reader with its formidable Mrs. Doubleday, who had read sights and smells and sounds of lower class the novel quite by accident and been shock- San Francisco, writes with a rich boy's ed and horrified by its theme, persuaded her melodramatic flair for sex and violence and husband that he should not publish such an depravity observed but not shared. outrageous work. Although Doubleday was But Theodore Dreiser was not an outsidnot able to break his contract with Dreiser, er, nor was he a romanticist. He was a child he was able, quite skillfully, to see that very of the streets, a man of the city. For him the few of the 1,000 copies printed were ever great American metropolis was not just a purchased. By refusing to advertise Sister painted canvas or a stage setting. It was a Carrie, by failing to promote either the vital, terrifying, convulsive presence in his novel or its author, Doubleday condemned life and, consequently, in the lives of his the book to almost instant obscurity. characters. As Sinclair Lewis acknowledged: "DreiThe year was 1900. But three decades later, while accepting ser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he the Nobel Prize for literature in 1930, dared to publish 30 long years ago and Sinclair Lewis told the assembled digni- which I read 25 years ago, came to housetaries: bound and airless America like a great free western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity Now to me, as to many other American writers, gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain Dreiser more than any other man, marching alone, usually unappreciated, often hated; has cleared the trail and Whitman." from Victorian and Howellsian timidity and gentility in But that western wind blew not from the American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion prairies or the forests, but from the city; and of life. Without his pioneering, I doubt if any of us it is the city which stands as the central could, unless we liked to be sent to jail, seek to express protagonist of Sister Carrie, overshadowing, life and beauty and terror. as well as overwhelming, the paler, frailer Today Dreiser stands pre-eminent among human characters of the novel. In his American novelists of the city. No other relationship with the city, Dreiser shares a writer has been so ruthlessly honest in his physical and spiritual affinity with his charportrayal of the urban masses; no previous acters, and one might imagine him saying, writer had been able to put aside moral as an echo to Gustave Flaubert's famous preconceptions and present the reality of pronouncement, "Carrie, Drouet, Hurst-
C
wood-les trois, c'est moi." Flaubert's famous novel of 19th-century realism, Madame Bovary, was written before the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species. Sister Carrie, after it. Realism shuddered with the impact of the Darwinian hypothesis. The new ideas, as well as the new aesthetic ideals, of Darwin's evolutionary thought made immediate demands upon language, forcing it to go beyond the limits of accepted "reality." Not only did scientists and philosophers have to reformulate their interpretations of the world, but writers, also, confronted the necessity of finding new ways of presenting experience. Foremost in the development of a new, post-Darwinian literature, which would become known as Naturalism, was French writer Emile Zola. In his massive, 20volume Rougon-Macquart series, he set out to formulate "the social and natural history of a family under the Second Empire" (my italics). Darwin's theories of heredity and environment, his insistence upon "natural" forces that mankind could neither understand nor control, his startling metaphor of "the jungle," with its brutal laws of survival, created an intellectual as well as linguistic dilemma. As the contemporary mind, conscious of the tension caused by Darwin's theories, thrust outward toward a new reality it sought both to comprehend and define, the very nature of language itself evolved to meet the challenge. Realism confronted a straightforward world in which man played an active, decisive, comprehensible role. Naturalism presented a world governed by determinism-determinism as defined biologically by Darwin, economically by Marx, and psychologically by Freud. Dreiser, in writing Sister Carrie, faced the prevailing intellectual discomfort of postDarwinian thought, but "triumphed over prevailing literary attitudes toward his material by ignoring what other writers had done
For Dreiser, the great American metropolis was not just a painted canvas or a stage setting. It was a vital, terrifying convulsive presence in his life and in the lives of his characters.
and wntmg simply of what he knew," Kenneth S. Lynn writes in the introduction to a 1957 edition of the book. And what Dreiser knew was the city, that glittering yet terrifying jungle in which turn-of-thecentury Americans had to fight for survival. America might have had "no landmarks," as Henry James archly observed from the comfortable distance of England, but it did have cities, Chicago and Boston and New York and San Francisco-places filled with hope as well as with despair; vital, determining, Darwinian battlegrounds of existence, of comprehension, of expression. Like his heroine, Carrie Meeber, Theodore Dreiser' had to confront¡ this new reality, had to define it, and had to triumph over it in order to survive. It was inescapable, a powerful "magnet attracting," as he described it in the first chapter of the novel: To the child, the genius with imagination, or the wholly untraveled, the approach to a great city for the first time is a wonderful thing. Particularly if it be evening-that mystic period between the glare and the gloom of the world when life is changing from one sphere or condition to another. Ah, the promise of the night. What does it not hold for the weary! What old illusion of hope is not here forever repeated! Says the soul of the toiler to itself, "I shall soon be free. I shall be in the ways and the hosts of the merry. The streets, the lamps._thelighted .chamber. set for dining, are for me. The theater, the halls, the parties, the ways of rest and the paths of song-these are mine in the night." Though all humanity be still enclosed in the shops, the thrill runs abroad . It is in the air. The dullest feel something which they may not always express or describe. It is the lifting of the burden of toil. Sister Carrie gazed out of the window. Her companion, affected by her wonder, so contagious are all things, felt anew some interest in the city and pointed out its marvels.
In that passage, Dreiser establishes the dialectic that dominates Sister Carrie: the real city, reality in its most palpable form; and the imaginary city, illusion in its most magnetic form. And here, too, though the eye might pass quickly over it, is the first mention of the theater, the basis for Carrie's metaphorical interpretation of reality. The story Sister Carrie tells is a story of evolution, adaptation, synthesis. In the dialectical conflict between reality and illusion, Flaubert's pre-Darwinian heroine, Emma Bovary, became a hapless, hopeless victim. But Dreiser provides Carrie Meeber with the unconscious means of adaptation and, ultimately, survival. For Dreiser, reality was essentially dynamic, not static-a process of realizing rather than a condition of realization. Flaubert's Emma stands immobilized between the demands of reality and the desires of imagination. She lives and dies in a static condition of realization. Carrie, however, lives, and survives, in the active process of realizing. She is a dynamic and evolutionary heroine, a creature of the post-Darwinian reality who, instead of being crushed by the collision of opposites, adapts to them, combines them within herself, and survives. Before' .the sCientific, philosophic and social revolutions of the 19th century, the terms "literal" and "metaphorical" stood in opposition. Metaphor became a device by which to transform or disguise or even hide the real, the literal. One either called a spade a spade, or one called it a cunning, persistent delver. But in the face of new realities, writers of all sorts turned to
metaphor as an instrument of precision, as a way, not to embellish reality, but to explain it-not to transform it, but to translate it into more readily comprehensible terms. No longer did there need to be a "literal equivalent" for each metaphorical formulation. Flaubert's Emma Bovary was frustrated and ultimately defeated by the attempt to reconcile her metaphorical interpretation of reality with the "really real." Carrie Meeber accepts, unknowingly and unintellectually, that the literal and the metaphorical are independent of each other. For her, the city, be it Chicago or New York, is "really real," 'but there is also another reality, a metaphorical reality, which holds for her a deeper, fuller meaning. When Carrie encounters a reality that no literal formulation can adequately express, she turns to metaphor, not to disguise the truth, but to disclose it. And the foundation of that metaphor is the theater. It is well known that Dreiser himself, from the time of his arrival in Chicago, had been excited by the theater. With its beautiful actresses and handsome, suave, welldressed actors, with its lights and color and make-believe excitements, "the theatrical world was to Dreiser a microcosm of the glamorous city, a quintessence of its artificial splendors," Kenneth Lynn comments. So, too, Carrie Meeber, just as she had been initially drawn to the city, was soon drawn to the theater. A performance of The Mikado "pleased Carrie immensely," Dreiser writes. The color and grace of it caught her eyes. She had vain imaginings about place and power, about far-off lands and magnificent people. When it was over, the clatter of coaches and the throng of fine ladies made her stare.
The theater becomes not only "a microcosm of the glamorous city" for Carrie, it also becomes the means by which she seeks. to
"Sister Carrie came to a housebound and airless America like a great free western wind and gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman," said Sinclair Lewis. define more precisely the reality of her world, a world in which she must, above all things, survive. In order to become "the fittest," in Darwin's terminology, Carrie becomes an actress. The world of the theater also provides a parallel to and commentary on Carrie's relationships with the two men in her life, Drouet and Hurstwood. In one artful scene Dreiser has this menage a trois attend a performance of The Covenant, a typical popular 19th-century melodrama in which a neglected wife yields to the seductive voice of a would-be lover. Drouet, who has been neglecting Carrie and thereby affording ample opportunity to Hurstwood to press his love's cause, condemns the stage husband as "a chump." "A man ought to be more attentive than that to his wife if he wants to keep her," observes Drouet, ironically passing judgment upon himself and sanctioning the amorous intrusions of his rival. In a strikingly Darwinian passage, Dreiser describes his heroine: Carrie was possessed of that sympathetic, impressionable nature which, ever in the most developed form, has been the glory of the drama. She was created with that passivity of soul which is always the mirror of the active world. She possessed an innate taste for imitation and no small ability. Even without practice she could sometimes restore dramatic situations she had witnessed by re-creating before her mirror the expressions of the various faces taking part in the scene.
Dreiser moves with assurance in developing this theme. The chapter in which Carrie first appears on the stage, in an amateur production of Under the Gaslight, is entitled "An Hour in Elfland." The "really real," the life of the city which surrounds Carrie and which she is at pains to comprehend, suddenly breaks down in th~ face of the metaphorical, and at once becomes "Elfland." Hurstwood, watching Carrie's performance, blinks his eyes, catches the infection, and realizes that "the magic passion, which will yet dissolve the world, was here at work." That "magic passion" does more than dissolve the reality of the city; it serves as the instrument of precision in Carrie's formulation and comprehension of the life of the city which is her "jungle." Carrie's acting presents to her own imagination, not so much the' experience of reality, but reality as experienced through the metaphor of the theater. As Dreiserwrites:
For Carrie, as we all know, the stage has a great attraction. She had never forgotten her one histrionic achievement in Chicago. It dwelt in her mind and occupied her consciousness during many long afternoons in which her rocking-chair and her latest novel contributed the only pleasure of her state. Never could she witness a play without having her own ability vividly brought to consciousness. Some scenes made her long to be a part of them-to give expression to feelings which she, in the place of the character represented, would feel. Almost invariably she would carry the vivid imaginations away with her and brood over them the next day alone. She lived as much in these things as in the realities which made up her daily life (my italics).
Just as the literal in language failed philosophers and scientists who sought to present an interpretation of the new ~reality of the post-Darwinian era, so too the literal is inadequate for Carrie's daily experience. Carrie was neither philosopher nor scientist, yet she had to find a more precise method by which she could order her experience. But she was an actress-and that innate ability assured her survival through her metaphorical interpretation of reality: . And now Carrie had attained that which in the beginning seemed life's object, or, at least, such fraction of it as human beings ever attain of their original desires. She could look about on her gowns and carriage, her furniture and bank account. Friends there were, as the world takes it-those who would bow and smile in acknowledgment of her success. For these she had once craved. Applause there was, and publicity-once far off, essential things, but now grown trtvial and indifferent. Beauty also-her type of loveliness-and yet she was lonely. In her rocking chair she sat, when not otherwise engaged-singing and dreaming.
The dialectic continues. The city, that brutal "thesis" which threatened to overwhelm Carrie, had its "antithesis" in the illusions of the theater. From these opposites, Carrie Meeber, the young girl fresh from the country, fashioned not only¡a new self, Carrie Madenda, the actress, but also a more precise ordering of reality. Yet as we see her at the novel's close, the "synthesis" has become another "thesis," and the process must begin again. Adapting, evolving, surviving, Carrie sits dreaming. Flaubert, for all his realistic tendencies that have made Madame Bovary so prominent in the development of 19th-century realism, detested real life and praise<fart as though it were some kind of transcendent negation. The major-problem he faced was how to reconcile the symbolic values of poetry to a genre founded on the realization of the difference between objective facts and subjective ideas. In the character of
Emma Bovary, the activating force arises from the contrast between her sentimental illusions and the plain facts of reality. Carrie Meeber acknowledges no such contrast. The city demanded a new interpretation of reality, demanded an instrument of precision, demanded a metaphor. For her, as well as for Dreiser, that metaphor found its embodiment in the theater: Thus in life there is ever the intellectual and the emotional nature-the mind that reasons, and the mind that feels. Of one come men of action-generals and statesmen; of the other, the poets and dreamers -artists all. As harps in the wind, the latter respond to every breath of fancy, voicing in their moods all the ebb and flow of the ideal.
In the development of the American novel, Dreiser's place is assured. No other novelist, either before or after him, has portrayed the city with such force that it becomes the protagonist of his work. Even the impressionistic vision of the city in Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer lacks the power of Dreiser's realism. For him, the city was "the magnet attracting," the irresistible force of reality in the post-Darwinian world. Just as Darwin, faced with a new and startlingly compelling reality, a reality which defied literal interpretation and explanation, I had recourse to metaphor in lyrical passages , in The Origin of Species, Theodore Dreiser, faced with the city, roots his naturalism in the metaphor of the theater. Flaubert, without the benefit of the Darwinian evolution of language, could not allow the metaphorical to replace the literal in Emma's life and, therefore, had to sacrifice her to the conflict between the two. But Carrie Madenda learns how to reconcile the oppositional forces in her life: Sitting alone, she was now an illustration of the devious ways by which one who feels, rather than reasons, may be led in the pursuit of beauty. Though often disillusioned, she was still waiting for th~t halcyon day when she would be led forth among dreams become real. Ames had pointed out a further step, but on and on beyond that, if accomplished, would lie others for her It was forever to be the pursuit of that radiance of delight which tints the distant hilltops of the ~ili. 0
About the Author: Donald Goodyear recently returned to the United States after completing two years as a visiting lecturer on American and comparative literature at Utkal University in Orissa. He was formerly a professor at Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
"Allowing for a 15.2 percent inflation rate, 1 feel like a million dollars."
BREAKING
THE CODE
Selecting an exhibition by artists who are Museum's exhibition "Directions 1981," as still working and maturing puts a museum "both representational and abstract, literal curator in the position of a sportscaster and symbolic. The work is an amalgam of announcing the results before the game is photography, painting, drawing, collage, over. The critics, the "referees" of art, have projection and construction." Not yet 40 years old, Fisher is very much a not yet had their say. So the curator takes a chance, perhaps risking some loss of face, product of the state of Texas: He was born but also hoping to be the first to spot a in Fort Worth in 1943, was graduated from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene future champion. During 1981, curators at three major U.S. (and received a graduate degree from the University of Illinois), and now lives in museums took their chances and presented exhibitions showcasing American art of the Denton, where he teaches at North Texas moment. The one artist who was repre- State University. His art, however, transented in all three exhibitions-at the Whit- .scends the merely regional. Says McClintic: "His work bespeaks the ney and Guggenheim in New York City and intelligence of a well-read artist, very much at the Hirshhorn in Washington, D.C.-was of his own time, with a sophisticated underVernon Fisher. This artist is expected to represent the standing of modern art and an eye for powerful images as well as the perspicaUnited States in the Fifth Triennale-India, which begins in New Delhi this month. His city and loquaciousness of a born storywork has been described by Miranda teller. " Fisher's most recent paintings combine McClintic, curator of the Hirshhorn
highly individualistic, sometimes autobiographical narratives, told in a deceptively informal voice, with images of contemporary suburban life in the southwestern United States. These paintings integrate mulhpIe images and narratives in such a way that viewing them is like watching the start of a film. in which action. and credits appear simultaneously. "One reads Fisher's text and looks at his images (or vice versa)," notes Susie Kalil, Texas editor of Artweek, "grasping the story and catchy phrases through a series of perceptual shifts and accommodations .... Fisher's tableaux gnaw away at the viewer as they explore the mysteries of ordinary reality, and the more one contemplates these elements and their relationships, the more ambiguous the metaphors and structural levels become." These unsettling works of art are products of an artist who has worked at the craft of painting as carefully as he has at its content.
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Fisher first paints on paper a picture, often adapted from a photograph, laminates it to a polyester material that strengthens the paper, and then lays the sheet directly on top of another to which he has affixed strips of raised-letter plastic tape, spelling out the narrative. Next, he lightly sands the surface of the painting, exerting enough pressure to cause the letters to press through the painted paper. In one sense, perhaps, these works can be viewed as books-and indeed Fisher did spend two years creating one-of-a-kind vinyl books. The smaller paintings still resemble book pages, both words and images being comprehensible simultaneously. But much of Fisher's work is quite large, sometimes measuring up to 500 centimeters in a single dimension, incorporating numerous images and narratives. In these works, one cannot consciously look at the image and read the narrative at the same time.
And so the viewer is confronted by the changing frames of the movie credits, looking at the whole, but aware that text and image must ultimately be perceived as separate elements. Looking first at the words, then through the words to the image and back again, creating parallel perceptions of what the artist describes as "two (at least) structures existing simultaneously-one existing in the story, the other in the visuals. They do not, I am convinced, coincide, yet we will inevitably invent connections between different orders of reality, each with its own symbolic content." For all the skill apparent in Fisher's technique, it is that content that finally distinguishes his work. He repeats two primary themes: first, the character and process of art making, particularly the interrelationships between life and art, and the process of transforming one into the other; second, communication of the adventure,
vulnerability, hope, love and death as experienced in contemporary American culture. Typical of the first theme is Desert Malevich IV, a 1978-80 acrylic painting and photograph laminated onto paper, measuring 50.8 x 101.6 centimeters. In this work, a black-and-white photograph of a desert roadside' combined with an allegorical narrative about a walk in the desert is played off against a colorful painting with a quotation from the Russian constructivist painter Kasimir Malevich about his own philosophical journey into the realm of the nonobjective. "There are crisscrossing correspondences between the two panels," says McClintic. "Visually, the simple geometric shapes of the painting have been abstracted from the photographic scene in a style echoing that of Malevich; verbally, Fisher has constructed a story that directly corresponds to the Male-
vich quote. Although Malevich turned away first, 79 birds cut out of paper and painted from the everyday world as a source of art, with quick, gestural brushstrokes are stawhile Fisher is absolutely engaged in it, they pled to the walls; in the second, a photo realboth sought to evolve in their work a 'direct ist painting of the back of a camper (vacaform of representation of the world of tion vehicle) is intermixed with a narrative; and the third reproduces a panel from the feeling.' " The second theme predominates in cartoon strip Nancy in which an object flying Fisher's work: a good example is 84 Spar- through the window splatters her cake rows, a 1979 work in acrylic and graphite on batter. Writing in Artweek, critic Fred Hoffman laminated paper that measures 175.2 x 447 centimeters. It consists of three parts. In the offers this interpretation of the painting:
"The disparity in size and format of the three images signals the inappropriateness of looking for narrative continuity. Rather, they present differing metaphors of order and stability. The camper, usually associated with movement, here becomes an ironic symbol of root-bound immobility. The peripherally located images playoff the stasis implied in the central panel. The birds, perched in a seemingly fictitious tree, appear ready for flight, as if the viewer's
"Breaking the Code" (left and detail below), 1981, 472.4x657.8 em., 472.4x599.4 em., 472.4 x 304.8 em., mixed media wall installation at the Fort Worth Art Museum.
space will soon be transformed into a swarming mass of chaotic energies. On the other hand, Nancy's drama is unfulfilling in terms of credible anxiety. While a graphic depiction of the unexpected becomes banal, the tension exuding from a bunch of mindless sparrows is overwhelming. Fisher thereby reminds the viewer that metaphor is a necessary fiction-enabling the mind to believe in its perceptions, yet at the same time not implying that experience has con-
crete, demonstrable or logical meaning." Fisher's narrative in the center panel unites these three images of natural orderbirds perched in a tree, a recreational vehicle set against a cloud-filled sky, a child and her aunt mixing a cake-into a metaphor about disharmony and violence in daily life. The story tells of an accident, the narrator "crouched beside the camper, holding my arm down between my legs, the blood streams from under my shirtsleeve,
and down my wrist and off the tips of my fingers" and concludes by asking, "Is this how it ends or what?" The imminent flight of the birds as if they had been scared off (and Fisher has since rearranged the birds so that they are starting to emerge from the square pattern and flyaway), the unanticipated violence on a vacation trip, the disruption of the cake making-these are the unrelated experiences from which Fisher is asking that we create a semblance of order.
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"Any coherency that we experience in the world we bring to it," Fisher says. "Coherent, unified experiences are relatively rare when compared to the infinite number of ordinary and diffusive daily experiences. Coherent experiences are commonly seen in art forms and scientific enterprises. Meanwhile we have daily thousands upon thousands of experiences wherein nothing resembles a focused, unified reality. There is no focus to the experience, no unity, no elimination of information, no conclusion. "My art is like the second kind of experience-polymorphic, impure and eccentrically inclusive, relatively unsifted information." The incorporation of this unsifted information into Fisher's media-derived paintings produces an unusual effect. Although
traditional modes of communication are employed, they do not fulfill their expected functions. That effect, which permeates Fisher's work, was perhaps best encapsulated in a work published in an issue of White Walls: A Magazine of Writings by Artists devoted to "words as images." Fisher juxtaposed a chart of the sign-language alphabet as seen by the receiver against a chart of the same alphabet as seen by the sender. One of the accompanying narratives, in full, reads: My mother receives letters from a friend she has known since childhood, but who has since gone blind. When she gets these letters, she finds that occasionally her friend has gotten off the home keys. Instead Qf making
sense, the sentences read: Djr pvvsdopmxyb gomfd yjsy jqt, etc. My mother has tried placing her hands in different positions on the keyboard and repeating the sequence to determine what was being said, but so far she hasn't ~een able to break the code. Breaking the codes of art, of media, of ideas, of experience, is what Fisher's work is about; breaking the codes and infusing them with meaning. His painting is about "ordinary, miscellaneous, subjective experience and about the 'objective' process of organizing that experience, in art as in life." 0 John Coppola is a Washington-based writer and editor specializing in the arts. He last wrote for SPAN on painter Robert Motherwell.
Better Irrigation for Rajasthan To realize its agricultural potential, Rajasthan has initiated 15 medium irrigation projects, which are expected to increase the state's foodgrain production by some 65,000 tons. Photo at right shows u.s. Ambassador Harry G. Barnes, Jr. (center) during his recent visit to one of them-the Panchana project in the Swai Madhopur district.
Rajasthan-the very name has become synonymous with dry, barren land, where camels, hardy sheep and goats graze on stunted shrubs, where trees without foliage look like eerie sentinels in the brown drabness of the countryside. That was true some years ago. Not any more. Rajasthan is becoming green. The brown earth is hidden by green fields of wheat, by yellow mustard, carrots and turnip greens. The miracle has been wrought by water. Water from surface wells, fromtubewells and from small and medium irrigation dams. The United States Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) is playing a small but significant role in this miracle. U.S. AID is providing $35 million for 15 medium irrigation projects in Rajasthan, that will maximize the use of surface water. Collectively called the Rajasthan Medium Irrigation Project (MIP), it is a five-year project designed to remove the prime constraint to increasing food production and rural employment in that state. Irrigation at present is provided to only 17 percent of the cultivable land in Rajasthan, while roughly 60 to 75 percent of the groundwater potential has already been developed. Thus, expanded surface irrigation from MIP will then mitigate the effects of monsoon failure during kharif, provide increased and more reliable water for rabi and permit limited cultivation of crops during the hot, dry season. The program will help irrigate or mod¡ ernize the irrigation of about 65,000 hectares of land and benefit 32,000 families. The project as a whole should result in a 65,000-metnc-ton increase in foodgrain production and a Rs. 125 million annual increase in net farm income. One such irrigation scheme is the Panchana project in the Swai Madhopur
district of Rajasthan, which the U.S. Ambassador to India, Harry G. Barnes, Jr., visited in January. The Ambassador spent several hours examining the dam and the excavation of canals, and study- . ing the effect that this project will have on small farmers in that area. He came away impressed and hopeful that the project win greatly increase food production, employment and income of the rural poor in the project area. The Panchana project has a 731-meterlong earth-filled dam that will store 531 million cubic meters of monsoon water. A 101-kilometer canal system will provide irrigation for about 8,000 hectares of land downstream. As in the other 14 projects, U.S. AID is providing 67 percent of the cost of constructing the civil¡ works. The Panch ana project is estimated to cost Rs. 966 lakh. "Until recently, one major drawback has been the underutilization of available water," said William H. Janssen, chief of U.S. AID's agriculture and rural development at New Delhi. "In India the accepted range of surface irrigation systems runs as low as 30 percent and as high as 60 percent efficiency, against an ideal of close to 100 percent from an engineer's point of view. In fairness that's not too bad on a world standard. The United States doesn't approach 100 percent efficiency either. But, you have so much water and that must service a certain acreage and produce a certain qmintity of crops. Inefficiency comes from certain physical things: [such as] the canals are not lined with concrete, so there is leakage. "However, the problem comes at the farm level; there is not enough wbrk done on the farm management side; when the water gets there, the farmer hasn't been trained to use it efficiently." All these problems are being taken
care of in the Rajasthan Medium Irrigation Project. For instance, the new canals are lined with concrete. "The bulk of the money that we are putting into irrigation," said Janssen, "is not so much simply to build more irrigation facilities, it's to work as a lab to bring in the technology, try to figure out how to make these systems work. I would hope that our systems would work at a considerably higher degree of efficiency than the old systems. At Panchana, the expectation is that it will be close to 100 percent efficient. " Moreover, in the past, Janssen pointed out, water was delivered to 40-hectare chaks, and from then on it was the farmer's responsibility to take it to his field. This led to a lot of water wastage. "In Rajasthan we will deliver water as close to the farmer's fields as possible-to eighthectare chaks. This will greatly help the farmers to use almost .all the water available to them, and to translate the water into increased production." Janssen hopes that the demonstration effect of the project will spread to other states. If that does happen, India could increase her food production dramatically. As Dr. G. Rangaswami, agriculture adviser in the Planning Commission, said not too long ago: "At the present we have 50 million hectares under irrigation, which is by far the largest in the world ... but the irrigation potential is also substantial-about 113 million hectares." In Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's new 20-point program enunciated in January, top billing was given to "increase irrigation potential, develop and disseminate technologies for dry-land agriculture." The Rajasthan medium irrigation pro~ jects are just what the Prime Minister called for. They are designed to increase the efficiency of both existing and new irrigation projects. 0
SIGHT SAVERS AMBASSADORS OF MUSIC
WORLD BOOK FAIR TALKING BUSINESS SOLAR-POWERED REFRIGERATORS ~
"It was only approas the days go by. ¡priate that the First The purpose of the Hyderabad workshop, which was organized by the â&#x20AC;˘ Global Intraocular ~ ~ Lens Implant Work- city's Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital, was shop was held in India. India has one to instruct Indian doctors in this techof the highest incidences of cataract in nique, according to Dr. Reshmi. "We the world," said Dr. Miles A. Galin in gave lectures, showed slides and an interview in New Delhi shortly actually performed intraocular lens Dr. Reshmi before he and his colleague Dr. implant operations." Chandrappa S. Reshmi left for the cochaired the meeting with India's United States after attending the world-famous ophthalmologist Dr. P. Siva Reddy. (Recently, the American , workshop in Hyderabad early January. A cataract is an opacity in the Academy of Ophthalmology bestowed human lens which leads to blindness. the title of Honored Guest on Dr. But it is a curable form of blindness, Reddy.) Dr. Reshmi is an Indian-born according to Dr. Galin, one of America's most renowned eye surgeons. He American ophthalmologist practicing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He deis a consultant in ophthalmology at theMt. Vernon Hospital in New veloped one of the first intraocular York. "When you remove the cloudy lens implant operations in the Unitr.ed human lens, you must replace it with States years ago. In fact, the workshpp , an artificial lens system, so that the was Dr. Reshmi's brainchild. "For the last 10 years, I have bfl,en vision is restored to the extent possible," explained''Or. Galin. "Unfortuplanning and working on holding sqch nately, in India many of the 'patients ! a workshop in India," Dr. Reshmi who have cataracts removed receive said. "In my own humble way, I wan~d nothing. They see better than before, . to help the country of my birth, and the best way I thought I could do that but not much better. Some, of course, wear thick glasses or contact lenses, was to bring eminent eye surgeons from around the world to share their but even that is not good enough. Many a precious eyesight is lost in this professional skills and knowledge with way, and the patients, rather than eye surgeons here in India. "I am glad that the workshop was so being productive, become burdens on successful. We had doctors from socie~y." In the United States and other Japan, the United Kingdom, the Western nations, a permanent plastic Soviet Union and a number of other lens system is inserted in the eye as nations. Indian doctors were very ensoon as the defective organ is re- thusiastic."and picked up the procedures moved. This gives the patient instant for lens implants 'very fast. We also vision. He may not get clear vision made video recordings so that the immediately, but he gets vision that doctors could go back to them in case they had any difficulty." functions. And it gets better and better
TO INDIA WITH LOVE The Young Ambassadors, a group of 19 singers and dancers from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, visited India late January through early February as part of a five-week tour of the subcontinent. The group performed for student audiences in Bombay, Chandigarh, Madras and New Delhi, where they called on Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Their most successful concert was called "To India With Love," a 90-minute spectacular that takes one on a musical tour of some favorite places in the United States-glamorous Hollywood, awe-inspiring Rocky Mountains and bustling Broadway in New York City.
BOOKS FOR ALL
o
India's Fifth World Book Fair was inaugurated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi February 4 in New Delhi. Organized by the National Book Trust, the fair attracted 450 publishers and booksellers from within the country and 65 publishers from 30 foreign countries. Among the major foreign countries that participated in the fair were the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, China and the Soviet Union. The II-day fair gave a glimpse of India's impressive strides in the field of publishing and also provided book publishers and the public in India a unique opportunity to sample books from overseas-and strike business deals. Among the American publishers who attended the exhibition was W. Bradford Wiley, chairman of John Wiley & Sons, which completed 175 years of publishing recently. Commenting on the fair, Wiley said that it had improved tremendously and rapid-
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ly over the years. He ranked it as the third best -after the Frankfurt book fair and the one organized by the American Book Publishers Association. This was his 15th trip to India, and he has attended all the world book fairs here, since they began in 1972. After her inaugural address, Prime Minister Gandhi went around to visit a number of book exhibits. She stopped by the SPAN booth where A.K. Mitra from SPAN Subscription Service greeted her.
E
AMERICAN
~GAZINE FOR
EXPLORING WAYS TO EXPAND TRADE Recently, the Indo-U.S. Joint Business Council met in New Delhi to review bilateral economic issues and to seek increased business cooperation between the two nations. Among the topics discussed were the investment climate in India, transfer of technology, scope for undertaking joint business ventures in third countries and trade issues. The council, which was set up in 1976, meets alternately in India and the United States each year. Held under the aegis of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FlCCI), the meeting was attended by 50 Indian and 30 American industrialists. The Indian delegation was led by FICCI president Arvind N. Lalbhai, with Bharat Ram as the coleader. The U.S. delegation
was headed by Orville L. Freeman, president of Business International Corporation. After the two-day meeting, Freeman said the talks were useful in that they had focused on crucial economic issues of bilateral interest, like bringing American investment capital and technology to India. "The investment climate in India is certainly much better today than it was before," Freeman noted. "There appears to be a definite movement toward the private sector of the economy in India, and there has been a lot of entrepreneurial activity in recent years. "But it is still not very clear whether this improvement relates to investment from within the country only or to foreign investment as well ... in my judgment, there has
been a definite movement toward that also. Some American companies are still skeptical. They feel that the government must further ease regulations, remove obstacles in the way of foreign investment and expedite decisions. "The investment climate in India has suffered ever since the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act was passed. I sincerely feel this has been counterproductive to India's interests. It is a specious argument that foreign investors take away money. That is a minor point. The important thing is that they bring in latest technology, quicken the developmental process. They provide training to people, create jobs. This is in India's interest. I am glad that things are now moving in the right direction.:'
In a number of countries around the world, January 30 was observed as Solidarity Day in protest against the suppression of civil liberties of the Poles by their military government; to demand an immediate release of thousands of workers, artists, writers and other freedom fighters; and to call for an end to martial law in Poland. The day began with mass rallies, protest meetings and prayers. In Japan, thousands of union members marched in Tokyo, carrying banners and placards, and raising slogans in support of the people of Poland. In Vienna, hundreds braved pouring rain to join a demonstration outside St. Stephan's Cathedral. Similar protest meetings were held in many other European cities-in London, Nottingham (England), Brussels and in several cities of West Germany. A Londonbased spokesman of the Czechoslovak human rights group Charter 77 announced its total support of Solidarity Day. He said that a statement issued in Prague condemned "violent repression" in Poland. In the United States, the country's largest union, AFL-CIO, organized Solidarity Day rallies in all 50 states, with major demonstrations in 16 cities. The most impressive rally was held in Chicago, which has the largest Polish community outside Poland. More than 10,000 people participated in it, including Lane Kirkland, the AFL-CIO
president, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig. Speaking on the occasion, Secretary Haig said: "Throughout the United States, Americans are showing that Poland matters to them. Not only Americans but peoples of many states around the world are marking this moment in behalf of Poland. "In an age of materialism, when statistics machines seem to matter most, the people of Poland remind us of the simple dignity of the workplace that is the birthright of every worker. In a time when philosophers debate the best socia! system for mankind, the people of Poland remind us that man requires freedom if he is to be truly creative. In a world of change, the people of Poland have shown that change can be most promising when it is peaceful." In New York City, thousands of American labor union members de-
Medical clinics in India and other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America will soon have solar-powered refrigerator-freezers to store vaccines needed in the fight against communicable diseases such as polio, diphtheria and measles. Under a pilot project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Agency for International Development, 30 solar-powered refrigerators will be installed in 21 countries. Each refrigeration unit can store 75 liters of vaccines. The power comes from a 1.2-by3.7-meter solar cell panel which can produce up to 325 watts of electricity. Lead-acid storage batteries are connected to the unit to assure uninterrupted power supply during sunless periods. Although a solar-powered refrigeration unit costs much more than a kerosene refrigerator-$5,OOO against $500-the main advantage of the solar-powered refrigerator is that it can,
monstrated support for Poland's Solidarity union movement at a rally. Colorful union banners were raised alongside placards and signs inscribed with slogans such as "Soviets Go Home," "Free Political Prisoners in Poland" and "Free Lech Walesa." Buttons, ribbons and large red-andwhite posters proclaimed the single word "Solidarity." The U.S. International Communication Agency broadcast a 90-minute television program, "Let Poland Be Poland," as its contribution to Solidarity Day. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany, one of the 16 heads of state and governments who appeared on the program, said: "With our friends in Europe and America, we demand of the Polish leadership: Lift martial law, let the detainees go free, return to the national dialogue with the church and with the elected leaders of Solidarity." The program, beamed via satellite, was seen by some 260 million people in 36 countries and heard by another 100 million pver the Voice of America. Although the program, which La Cite of Brussels (Belgium) called "neither anticommunism, nor antiSovietism nor antisocialism," was not allowed to be seen or heard within Poland by the military government, a few Poles managed to see it. For instance, crew members of the Polish container vessel Adam Mickiewicz saw it in Sydney, Australia, and were touched by it. Reporting on its interviews with them, Channel 9 TV of Sydney said: "All who had watched applauded 'Let Poland Be Poland' and claimed it had moved them to tears."
unlike its kerosene counterpart, preserve vaccines for longer periods. Most vaccines, to remain effective, must be kept at 4 to 8 degrees Celsius. Minus 20 degrees Celsius is recommended for extended storage of polio and measles vaccines. Kerosene units have proved unsatisfactory: They are costly to maintain, and the fuel supply is uncertain. Lack of reliable refrigeration, which can cause the vaccine to lose potency, has seriously hampered disease control in developing countries. Developed for the U.S. space program, solar cells-photovoltaic cells-cost about $2,000 per watt in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1979, thanks to the burgeoning technology, the cost had been reduced dramatically to about $15-and today the cost is as low as $10 a watt. As more and more of these cells are used, industry leaders expect the cost to come down further. I
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New techniques to ensure the survival of the world's dwindling forests include cloning naturally superior trees and adapting cultivation practices to minimize land clearance (agroforestry). A forest saved can serve man in a multitude of ways-that philosophy motivates an Indo-U.S.forestry project in Madhya Pradesh.
The Center for Disease Control, described as "the family physician of the American body politic, " battles the world's most dangerous afflictions.
The Many-Sided Smithsonian Called "the nation's attic" because it exhibits everything from teddy bears and ball gowns to flying contraptions, the Smithsonian Institution collects knowledge as well as paraphernalia. Sparking international projects, its experts cast a wide net.
The rascal of modern dance, Twyla Tharp has taught choreographers some new tricks. There's a method to her seemingly floppy and informal dances-her creative freedom has influenced even classicists like Mikhail Baryshnikov.
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Pageant of Liberty Yorktown 1981 became Yorktown 1781 for a few historic moments in October in tribute to the Battle of Yorktown and its her:oes. On October 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis and his 7,000 reacoats surrendered in the face of the combined American and French onslaught, marking the end of the American Revolution. Free from the British, a new republic was ready to make its debut in the world. The Bicentennial celebrations in the small Virginia town, watched by thousands of Americans including President Ronald Reagan, took the shape of parades, fireworks and cultural activities that recalled a momentous past. There were soldiers in uniform and women in the costumes of the time. Among the gathering were important visitors from France-
President Francois Mitterand and Richard de Grasse, a fifthgeneration descendent of a French admiral who played a crucial role in the battle. There were also descendents of Count de Rochambeau and Marquis de Lafayette, key allies in the American cause. The celebrations culminated in a mock re-enactment of the battle and the British surrender. Cannons were fired, troops marched up and down, the uniforms were authentic (even to the extent of being handmade as were the 1781 ones), the battle was fought with the same result-but this time in a spirit of fun. And patriotism too. In his speech President Reagan recalled Lafayette's famous words spoken soon after the battle: "Humanity has won its battle, liberty now has a country."