Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 42

Lifestyle10 Arts Leisure13 Advice8 Television17 C9 Asbury Park Press July 12, 1984 Croquet rolled past gentility Rooney ArI $5v A. flirtation, role reversals, feminine domination. II "Croquet the background, with mallets upon shoulders or hands in pockets." And by the end of the century, the popular game originally described as "innocent, healthful and intellectual" was being condemned as an "evil," and "corruptive" a "naked vice," dominated by sexually aggressive females. The intimidating Duchess and Queen, characters in "Alice in Wonderland," made their debuts in the publication during the height of croquet popularity in 1865. The Yale exhibit notes that the novel's description of the croquet game exemplifies what may have been growing feelings about the sport at the time.

The queen, throughout the game, seemed particularly fond of shouting "off with his head!" "IT SEEMS CLEAR that the iconic croquet stroke embodies more than a symbolic pressing of the heart," the catalogue speculates. "The woman course they all have their own mallets, made to order." Every year, Mrs. Linden hosts an invitational tournament at her Spring Lake home. Her croquet mall and garden was professionally designed, and the architect won an award for the design, she noted. Croquet, she noted, is "fairly new in America, but it's very popular in Africa and New Zealand.

It's the national sport of New Zealand." There are currently hundreds of clubs in the U.S. she said. Mrs. Linden, who has a home in Indian Creek Island, where she resides during the winter, said croquet is "all they do in Palm Beach." "And Central Park has two malls for the New York clubs. Of course the gates are kept locked, so outsiders can't use them." Mrs.

Linden, in response to a question, said she "couldn't possibly answer" what drew her to the game. "That's the same as asking someone why they play any kind of sport." By LINDA WALLS Press Staff Writer WHEN CROQUET was imported from England to this country in the late 19th century, women played the game in modest, long, ruffled dresses, with sleeves that covered their arms to the wrist, and often carried parasols to shield delicate complexions from the harsh rays of the sun. Before croquet, the leisure activities of affluent Victorian-era women were generally confined to inside the manor. The revolutionary new sport brought them outside, and according to a Yale University catalogue accompanying a traveling art exhibit on the game, croquet opened the door for flirtation, role reversals, feminine domination, and symbolic castration of male players. The "Winslow Homer The Croquet Game" exhibit, a series of oil paintings, chalk drawings and wood engravings, was assembled at Yale University Art Gallery where it opened this spring.

THE TRAVELING EXHIBIT is installed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. through September; at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York from Sept. 29 through Nov. 25; at the Art Institute of Chicago from December to February; and return to New York, for exhibit at the national Academy of Design in New York City, from March 7 through May 5. The series examines the style of the American artist, who executed the first serious artistic study of croquet during the 1860s, and the subtle undertones of the game that constituted the first physical sport in which women were permitted to compete against men.

Because of the new opportunities for flirtation, croquet was popularly dubbed "the game of love." The Yale catalouge reports that "in the croquet game, contact and competition between the sexes was sublimated into an elegant, highly formalized ritual, occurring in a deceptively wholesome garden setting, amidst a display of finery and manners." It also was termed a "ladies game." IN MANY of the paintings, the exhibitors point out, "males appear in subservient or passive roles, stooping to place a ball for the croquet shot, advising on stategy, standing idly in BILL People 6My Way Again9 Singer Frank Sinatra has taken up floating residence in Greenwich Harbor in his new yacht, "My Way Again," a Greenwich, innkeeper says. The $2.7 million, 96-foot-long yacht is docked at the Showboat Inn, and Sinatra often stays on board, said Joseph Keating, owner of the Showboat Inn. The yacht is 2 weeks old and sleeps 14 people. Keating said Sinatra probably would use Greenwich as the yacht's home port, while the singer and his entourage cruise to Newport, R.I.; Atlantic City, Long Island and eventually to Europe. The Showboat is also the docking facility for its own yacht, "The Presidents," a 1931 vessel that served presidents Harry Tinman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

What can they be up to? IF THERE'S one thing Americans can't stand, it's smart politicians who make all right moves. This may be the best thing the Democrats have going for them this year. The way they've gone about selecting their candidates has been so inept that by the time the election is held, they may be the sentimental favorites. All America loves a loser. Walter Mondale, who you don't hear called "Fritz" much anymore, thought he could win friends by pretending he might choose one of them to be his vice presidential running mate.

Just the opposite has happened. By suggesting he might pick a woman, he has raised the hopes of a lot of women and when he doesn't pick one, they're going to be plenty mad. GARY HART hasn't been any smarter. He says he hasn't given up the idea of being the Democratic candidate. He's going to carry his fight to the convention floor in San Francisco next week.

If Hart is convinced he has a chance, why isn't he talking about who he'd have as his running mate? Why doesn't he have reporters asking Mondale if he'd accept second place on the ticket? Hart should pick one person as his running mate and then call Mondale wishy-washy for not deciding on his. Everyone says the Democrats are long shots to beat Reagan. If it's true, they ought to be taking some chances. Hart could come up with someone different. Teddy Kennedy, for instance.

Gerald Ford. A BLACK WOMAN like Barbara Jordan would attract attention. If the Democrats are going to be beaten, they ought to at least lose after conducting the kind of smart, dirty political campaign we've come to expect of politicians in this great land of ours. The biggest number of potential voters available to Democrats is not women, blacks, Jews or Hispanics. The biggest number of potential voters available to Democrats is Republicans.

I'm talking, not about the total numbers of those so-called minority voters, but of the relatively few who would switch candidates because of an issue. Most of the women who are voting as women have already made up their minds. ON THE OTHER hand, there are still millions of women who think of themselves as people first and women second, who could be persuaded to change their minds about whether they're Republicans or Democrats. In the past few days, I've taken a poll of seven women. Of all the women I talked to, 33 percent hated Reagan so much they don't care who the Democratic candidate is.

An almost equal number, 31.5 percent, liked Reagan so much, they don't care, either. It was interesting to note that while 19 percent liked the idea of a woman on the ticket, 100 percent reacted negatively when the name of any specific woman was mentioned. MY POLL showed that 23 percent of the married women were going to Vote the way their husbands voted. Twenty-three percent were going to wait and see how their husbands were voting and then vote the other way. The remaining percentages were doing the dishes and said they had not realized this was an election year.

If the Democrats are unable to pull themselves together to run the kind of clever, devious, conniving political campaign that we expect, if they're elected, how can they be expected to deal with the Russians? It is possible, of course, that I'm underestimating them. If this Is all just a front, if the Democrats are conducting the ultimate devious campaign by deliberately appearing to blunder along in a lovable way, President Reagan has reason to be concerned. Andy Rooney'i syndicated column appears Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. social past time in this country for a number of years, but according to one of the game's enthusiasts, it's popularity continued in other countries, and the game may be in a period of rennai-sance here. Mary Sue Linden, of Spring Lake and Florida, said players practice are on her court in Spring Lake every day.

She established the first croquet club on the east coast 28 years ago, a feat which won her mention in the croquet Hall of Fame. "I'm there right along with Harpo Marx," she said. Every Thursday, members of the Green Gables Croquet Club rotate in putting on a dinner, complete with appetizers, for 60 persons. "The mall is lighted, for night players, so they might be playing as late as 2 or 3 a.m., Mrs. Linden said.

Gub members play an American version of English croquet, she said, using six wickets and a stake in the center of the mall. The dress is casual, but all whites, she said. And "Of Leaning By Charmaine A. Dale Press Staff Writer LONG BRANCH "I would give up my math degree to play video games." That's how Bill Bastable reacted after he reached the score of 816,120 after more than 13 hours on the Ms. Pac Man game in the 7-11 store at Ocean and Joline Avenues, here.

"I have the type of hand-eye coordination for the Ms. Pac Man game and I would give up my degree to do something like write a book on the (Ms. Pac Man) game," said the 23-year-old video player. With muscle aches and a bandaged bruise on his right hand, Bastable walked into the supermarket at midnight Monday. He didn't realize then that he would beat his old score of 710,130, set on April 20 at a Ms.

Pac Man game in a Trailways bus terminal in Philadelphia. "It wasn't until I reached 500,000 with two spare men left, that I realized I could break my record." Bastable, who lives at 112 Cedar here, has been avidly playing video games since he was a freshman at Monmouth College, West Long Branch. But, he is now devoting all his efforts to Ms. Pac Man. "I've always wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Now I've finally been able to set some kind Scene, 1866" by Winslow Homer: places her foot on one of the two closely Juxtaposed balls, and administers a sharp thwack with a long stick; we have a rather thinly disguised symbol of female aggression against a male-dominated society. The croquete-rie (croquet equipment) is phallic and the gesture is castrating." Homer's treatment of the game appears to follow what the authors state may have been the artist's fascination with depicting the fashion of the times. He used a fashionable-looking figure, termed the lone, "reusable" figure in many of his paintings, simply moving her around the court, sometimes in the same pose, and the same dress. POSSIBLY FOLLOWING fashion, Homer abandoned croquet as a subject for his art after 1869. His reusable figure was used again, however, in other environments, such as the lady overlooking the beach in "Long Branch, New Jersey." Croquet lost favor as a fashionable worlds" for the next three years by splitting his teaching time between Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles.

Wilson, an authority on crime, urban politics and law enforcement, will teach one semester at Harvard in Cambridge, and one at UCLA before deciding where to stay permanently. He will retain his endowed chair at Harvard and hold a tenured position at UCLA, a Harvard spokesman said. License needed American television evangelist and faith healer Ernest Angley was detained on suspicion of practicing healing without a license, the Munich, West Germany, prosecutor's office said yesterday. Angley and two assistants were taken into custody Tuesday night, after the evangelist allegedly tried to perform faith-healing on several people at a meeting in a Munich hotel, prosecutor's spokesman Hubert Voll-man said. The assistants were released after identity checks, Vollman said, without giving their names or nationalities.

The Associated Press on talent of record." The Monmouth College graduate explained his start in playing video games. "It was my way of getting out the frustrations of not doing the absolute best in projects. I would spend as much as $5 at one time (to perfect a system)." Now all he needs is one quarter sonce he did perfect a system. "I've gotten 3,332,820 on Pac Man; 47,300 on Space Invaders; 3,000,000 on Q-Bert, and 130,000 on Galaxia. Those are his favorite he said.

"I wanted to get to 1,000,000 on Ms. Pac Man but the game inverts its screen at the 256th board and that's where Bastable got his 816,120 score. By 'inverting its screen', I mean the screen changes colors and goes bonkers. The Ms. Pac Man men moves and your score builds but the dots are still there." Pac Man is his favorite video game, but "Ms.

Pac Man runs a close second," said the video player. What would Bastable say to a budding video player? "If you are serious about getting; better, you must have a craving for the game. If you don't have the instinct then don't play," stressed Bastable. Ms. Pac Man is not the only video on which Bastable gets a high score.

BASTABLE: some kind of record." i mi in Jii i mm mmmyf qmmmitmmrmmmmmiBmmmmmimL I it' 1 w'f 1 1 fy r. Atlanta-bound Britain's Princess Anne concluded her tour of Southern California, after visiting a mechanical shark and a bevy of royalty-struck actors in Los Angeles. The 33-year-old princess left Los Angeles International Airport at mid-morning for Atlanta. Security was especially tight because President Reagan's son, Michael, also was on board, a airline ramp supervisor said. Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II, also was scheduled to visit Raleigh, N.C., before returning tomorrow to England.

On Tuesday she kept a tight schedule that shifted her from Beverly Hills to Universal Studios to meet English-born stars including Joan Collins, Elizabeth Taylor and Jeremy Irons. Among her encounters was one with "Bruce," star of three "Jaws" movies. The princess, a lover of horses and dogs, was impassive on a tour that introduced her to the toothy mechanical shark. Splitting his time Political scientist James Q. Wilson plans' to "have the best of both it LJ Associated Press RAISING MONEY Actor Paul Newman gestures while speaking at a fond-raiser held by the Women's Trust in Cambridge, Tuesday for the "Project.

Gender Gap Action Campaign to Defeat Reagan." With him is Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo..