St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 53

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EVERYDAY THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2003 www.STLtoday.com F3 CD REVIEWS ADVICE Strait takes side roads in "Honkytonkville" Sufferers of eating disorders can get the help they need DEAR ABBY other students. I am one of many educators who believe that it is the parents' responsibility to discipline their children and teach them proper social conduct. That said, this is how I handle DearAbby: I was deeply touched by the letter from "Fed Up in Fort Myers, regarding a young girl affected by her mother's bulimia. The children at school call her cruel names, and so does her mother.

because his voice is a perfect fit for the melody and the message. He stays up with the deceptively titled "Cowboys Like Us," a ripping good song with soaring fiddles that praises the days when you can get away from the daily grind and have fun with your friends. Hint: These friends arent riding horses. Nifty guitar work on "Desperately" launches what could be a solid hit The song, about a woman who left him all alone in love, has a different sound and feel to accompany a beautiful melody. The title track, "Honkytonkville," will remind fans of Strait's huge "Does Fort Worth Ever Cross Your and the clever "Four Down and Twelve Across" compares a complicated relationship to a crossword puzzle.

For pure fun, Strait offers up the toe-tapper "Honk If You Honky Tonk." Mandy Davis George Strait "Honkytonkville" MCA Records Dont think if an insult to say that veteran hitmaker George Strait makes albums that all sound alike. With 50 No. 1 hits on his resume and 31 albums under his belt, he's proved that he has a sound with some staying power. And on "Honkytonkville," he displays the smoothest baritone in the business as he wraps his voice around ballads such as "My Infinite Love" and "As Far As It Goes." But on "Honkytonkville," Strait makes his first foray into a gospel song, which is really a Texas swing-gospel mix, on "I Found Jesus on the Jailhouse Floor." Longtime fans are left shaking their heads and wondering why he didn't try this before, I Phair rounds edges on hit-seeking CD a little silly, comparing a lover to a favorite pair of underwear and proudly professing use of a rather shocking, um, beauty product. Having reached a commercial dead end with "Whip-Smart" and "Whitechocolates-paceegg," conflicted indie-rock albums made for a major label, Phair capitulates fully with hit-seeking missiles such as "Why Can't and "Extraordinary," produced by the Matrix, the team behind Av-ril Lavigne.

Other tracks were helmed by Michael Perm and Pete Yorn producer R. Walter Vincent The high-gloss treatment doesn't really suit Phair's rough and randy talents, though. The radio-ready production, like the come-hither photos in the CD booklet, suggests that she may be trying a little too hard for our affections these days. Daniel Durchholz Liz Phair "Liz Phair" Capitol Records "You think I'm a genius, think I'm cool I'm starting to think that young guys rule," Liz Phair sings on her new self-titled album, having her own Demi Moore Ashton Kutcher moment and inviting her Xbox-playing hottie to "rock me all night." As she did on her provocative 1993 debut, "Exile in Guyville," Phair forthrightly tackles songs about sex and sexual politics. These days, things are complicated by her status as a single mom, though, and the song that rings the truest here is "Little Digger," an explanation from mother to son about why the guy in her bed is not the boy's father.

Elsewhere, Phair is more playful, if not my responsibility: Every year on the first day of school I present the rules of conduct in my class to the new students. I tell them that I expect everyone to behave and respect one another. I tell them that I am well aware that some children like to call names and hurt other children's feelings, but I do not tolerate this kind of behavior. I say, "If anyone hits you or hurts your feelings tell me immediately." I will call the parents of the abusive student and tell them what their child did, and that I will not admit their child in my class the next day unless accompanied by one of the parents. I expect the parent to sit in our classroom the entire day and make sure that hisher child does not hurt anyone.

I then ask the students, "How many of you think your mother or father will have the time to sit in our class the whole day?" No one raises a hand. No student ever dares to abuse another student in my class. I hope that child's letter will cause people to think and change the discipline policies that exist in many U.S. schools and I hope that other caring teachers and principals will follow my psychology teacher's instructions and prevent abusive students from hurting helpless students. RETIRED ATLANTA TEACHER If there were more teachers like you, I would not receive the hundreds of heartbreaking letters I do from students who are harassed, bullied and taunted by their classmates.

Dear Abby is written byAbi-, gail Van Buren, real name Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.dearabby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069. Eating disorders are widespread illnesses that affect all segments of society.

They may affect not only the body, but also the mind and appropriate treatment is necessary. Abby, I would like to invite your readers to contact the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders for free resources and referrals. Through a hotline and response to mail and e-mail inquiries, AN AD provides counsel and information to thousands of anorexics, bulimics, compulsive eaters, their families, and also the healthcare community in all parts of the globe. The referral list includes more than 1,500 therapists and inpatientoutpatient programs in the United States, Canada and several other countries, including Great Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Colombia. VIVIAN HANSON MEEHAN, President of ANAD Thank you for the information.

After I printed the letter from "Fed Up," I received hundreds of others from readers of both sexes peppering me with questions about eating disorders. Readers, if you or someone you know needs help or information, ANAD can be contacted by phone: 847-831-3438; by fax: 847-433-4632; by e-mail: or at its Web site: www.anad.org. Please read on: Dear Abby: I would like to comment on the letter from "Fed Up." I was trained in another country to become a teacher. Our psychology teacher explained to us that, since parents cannot be present in school to protect their children, it is therefore the teachers' and the principal's responsibility to protect the students from physical and emotional abuse by i mm PKwmw" 1 Monica ditches the 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., C-Murder and Michael Jackson samples that bogged down the first version of the CD in favor of less obvious attempts at hits. (Cooing over hip-hop samples worked for Ashanti, but not Monica.) She employs singer-producer Missy Elliott for the infectious lead single, "So Gone," which quickly catapults Monica straight to the top.

She further uses Elliott on "Get It Off," which draws on underground '80s club classic "Set It Off," and "Knock Knock." Rapper DMX, gone so long if easy to mistake him for Ja Rule, joins Monica on "Don't Gotta Go Home," and Tyrese assists on "Go to Bed Mad." "After the Storm" includes a bonus CD with several nondescript, mostly mellow songs, including "Down 4 Whatever," "What Part of the Game" and "Searchin'." Monica isn't breaking any new ground on "After the Storm," but at least she comes better equipped to storm the charts. Kevin C. Johnson Monica "After the Storm" Records singer Monica learned how destructive the Internet can be to an artist when any fan who wanted her third CD last year got it for free through rampant downloading. That experience and terrible first and second singles sent Monica back to the drawing board. Now, on the long-delayed "After the Storm," Monica returns for a new version of the CD thaf a leaner, more consistent effort ART REVIEW Warhol's "Vanishing Animals" dazzles with use of color Emphysema is treatable but still not curable By David Bonetti DR DONOHUE Dear Dr.

Donohue: Please tell me all about emphysema. How do you get it? What can you do for it? Does house dust, mice or cats cause it? lates lung cleansing. Without the enzyme, the cleansing mechanism goes wild, lays waste to lung tissue and leads to emphysema. Chronic exposure to some chemicals is another possible cause. Air Emphysema causes the lungs to lose their nor He made drawings based on photographic images, as was his practice, had them made into silkscreens and then printed them in various color combinations on paper with extensive collage work.

Although these creatures are all facing finality as species, there is nothing mournful about the series. Warhol has never been given proper credit for his extraordinary use of color. Working at the same time as the color-field painters and abstractionists such as Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly, whose work is all about color, Warhol was their equal in color experimentation. These works zing with hot, tropical color, perhaps reflecting the climates where many of these animals were struggling to survive. It is a pleasure seeing how Warhol could orchestrate feeling by changing each variation's color combination.

The two images of the Galapagos tortoise, for instance, are both hot in tonality, but the difference between one with a lime-green, aquamarine, purple and orange palette and the one with a blackpurple, orange red and hot-pink palette is immense. Critic David Bonetti E-mail: Phone: 314-340-8343 Post-Dispatch Visual Arts Critic Andy Warhol's studio was called the factory, and, 16 years after his early death, it is becoming increasingly clear that the production level was higher than anyone realized. Warhol was a workaholic and, from all accounts, he made his entourage work hard for their money as well. Every series he produced the famous Lizes, Marilyns, Jack-ies, electric chairs, flowers, soup cans, etc. came in apparently endless variations: not just small, medium and large, but on paper, on canvas, on shopping bags, as posters, with hand work and without In addition to the iconic images, there also were series that didn't get released, were badly distributed or just plain bombed during the extended low ebb his career experienced to- "Andy Warhol: Vanishing Animals" When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

through Friday Where: Lococo Fine Art, 9320 Olive Boulevard, Olivette How much: Free More info: 314-994-0240 This collage of a rhinoceros is from the series "Vanishing Animals" by Andy Warhol. It is on display at Lococo Fine Art. pollution contributes to it. House dust can precipitate asthma attacks, but it is not directly implicated in causing emphysema. Neither are mice and cats.

Once emphysema occurs, the damage is done and cannot be undone. However, emphysema can be treated. Medicines and supplemental oxygen alleviate many emphysema symptoms. Pulmonary rehabilitation is an often-underemphasized and neglected treatment. Therapists teach patients what exercises can keep them active and how to go about performing the exercises.

They also teach breathing techniques that alleviate symptoms. Readers may write Dr. Donohue or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, Fla. 32853-6475.

mal elasticity. Emphysematous lungs cannot expand or contract normally when a person breathes in and out. Furthermore, the delicate lung sacs, the alveoli, are destroyed or damaged. Without functioning alveoli, oxygen cannot pass into the blood, nor can carbon dioxide one of the body's waste products leave the blood. The result is what you would expect.

Emphysema patients struggle to get enough air. They cannot move about freely since they are so short of breath. The loss of lung elasticity makes these people have barrel chests. Cigarettes are responsible for the lion's share of emphysema, but they are not the only cause. A condition known as alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency is an inherited emphysema cause.

Alpha-1 antitrypsin is an enzyme found in the lungs, and it regu- "Endangered Species" that was editioned in 1983.) These collages have never been seen publicly before now. They are a rare treat, and if you want to see them, you can't dawdle. The show is closing Friday. Warhol chose animals whose fate was uncertain at the time, from the California condor to the douc langur, a monkey found in Vietnam and Laos. There are 16 in the current show, most with three or four variations.

ward the end of his life. Lococo Fine Art is now showing a fascinating selection of unique paper collages that Warhol made in 1986. Commissioned by the German publishing house Springer-Verlag, the images, from a series on animals facing extinction, were published in book form as "Vanishing Animals," but they never made it into a print edition as originally intended. (They should not be con-fused with the series ADVICE CAROLYN HAX Don't dwell on why relationships happen; it's beside the point Dear Carolyn: I was interested in my best friend last year, but she wasn't interested in me. We got that out of the way, ended up closer than before and everything's been fine since.

Now, I'm happy CAROLYN HAX with a great girlfriend. The problem is, each time my friend becomes interested in someone new, I keep asking myself, "What was wrong with me?" (since she never 1 told me, though I asked). xhjs js especially a prob lem because more recently she's been interested in someone we both know. Point is, even when you have a good idea why you're attracted to someone she's smart, she's pretty, she can belch the "Ode to Joy" there will always be the intangible something(s) that made you choose her over all the other pretty smart belchers. Two people with little in common meet at a cocktail party and talk for an hour straight; two who are perfect for each other on paper barely get past "hello." Can you always explain the difference? For that matter, can you pinpoint why you chose your new girlfriend? Not really.

The best you can do is guess. Your best friend's judgment is just as subject to unknowns, intangibles and downright inexplic-ables as yours is, or anyone else's. Some people use those unknowns to keep flogging themselves, and some turn them around to flog the source of rejection (maybe she's They work best as a kind of release: You cant ever know, so you won't bother to try. Especially since all you ever needed to know was "no." Dear Carolyn: This is an ages-old problem, and I'm looking for a solution. Boy and girl experience problems, and boy withdraws into his own emotional cave.

Girl tries to solve problem through intimate communication, which feels best to her, but boy wants to think about the problem alone, which feels best to him. Girl feels emotionally abandoned, and expresses so. Boy feels emotionally pressured, and expresses so. An impasse is created. Both parties feel misunderstood and underappreciated.

What next? Think Hollywood thoughts and rewrite the ending. Boy and girl both open their minds to different emotional styles. Girl agrees to give boy some private time to sort his thoughts and uses the time constructively herself instead of agitating. Boy agrees to use cave for reflection and not merely to hide from girl, reassures girl so she isn't left to agitate, and emerges from cave before girl and boy grow old. Girl and boy decide to replace the term "impasse" with "opportunity to consider how the other person functions." Or, with "seeya," depending on how good this compromise feels.

E-mail "Tell Me About It': fax: 202-334-5669; or write: "Tell Me About It," co The Washington Post, Style Plus, I Due to the fact that I'm quite happy with my girlfriend now, I feel terrible about continuing to wonder about what my defect wasis. I chalk this up to being unable to grow up and get over not being good enough, but I was wondering if you had any thoughts. I chalk Kept year chalking it up to things that are beside the point Falling for people isn't about their being "good enough." In fact, I think everyone has at least one friend for whom falling in love is about finding someone wretched enough, but that's beside the point, too. ILL EMOTE FOR YOUR BIOTttUW IF YOU'LL SHUT tf FOR MiltE. 1150 15th Street NW, Washington, D.C 20071.

Chat online with Carolyn each Friday at 11 a.m., at www.washingtonpost.com. iJJ A A A A..