The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 103

section Critics guide 2 Desmond Ryan 3 Concert listings 7 Pop topics 8 Sunday, August 22, 1982 Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Author! Phila. poets in pursuit of fe jpfwtodpltia Inquirer entertainment elusive fame ii" rTnitfa alBlitWIntMiHww, mi There is a small subculture hidden from most of us it is a community of poets who almost every night give readings in galleries and bookstores, at colleges, in rooms above bars. By Ann Kolson Inquirer StaH WHUr Up a steep flight of stairs, above Robin Book Store on 13th Street, Justin Vitiello is reading his works out loud. He is a slight man, with dark hair and a mustache, and he is wearing a work shirt, blue jeans and wire- 1 I A'-) IlillilBll llillwlliili illliiililllS Philadelphia Inquirer CtRALO S. WILLIAMS mmmmmmmmm hi tnairfc, Justin Vitiello, above, recites his poetry at Robin's Book Store, and Harold Watson, below, reads at Bacchanal.

Examples of the writings of area poets are on Page 10-G. nmmed glasses. His poetry fills the room, his voice rising and falling with emotion: "We rave when we want some peace, bite when we're feeling tender, stab when we want to caress, wail when we're singing for joy. Behind him are racks of old magazines. The bald head of a mannequin sits tilted on the windowsill.

At the back of the room, on a table covered with an Indian print bedspread, are a jar of Nescafe and a pot of hot water. The IS or 20 people in the audience many of them Vitiello's friends have paid $1.50 to be here tonight. They sit on mismatched chairs, offering their encouragement, as night falls on the busy street. Justin Vitiello, Temple University professor, translator, actor, director, political activist, is a poet. "Poetry is ignored by the media, but poetry is part of our life," he says in a nearby corner bar after the reading.

"Poets want to be taken seriously. I know that the stuff I write is never going to be made into a movie by Sylvester Stallone." Vitiello's poetry has appeared in several journals and anthologies. But, he admits, "Occasionally I'm discouraged. I'm 41 and don't have a book published." Justin Vitiello is one member of the local poetry community what one poet calls a "very volatile, small, intense world" in which poets struggle with, and sometimes against, one another to achieve recognition and, perhaps a measure of fame. The poetry community is a small subculture, hidden from most of us.

The size of the communty is unknown. But almost every night of the week, there are poetry readings in galleries, in backrooms of bookstores, at colleges, above bars. These poets, known mainly to each other, attend one another's readings and, sometimes publish one another's works. Philadelphia is home to a broad spectrum of poets from the nationally and internationally acclaimed to the largely self-proclaimed. It is hard (See POETS on 10-G) Special to The inqurar MARTY lEDERhanDlER Despite book sales in the millions, Stephen King maintains, 'It's funny to be successful The unpretentious King of horror By Ken Tucker Inquirer Stall Writer Look into the window of any large book store in town and chances are you'll see a dark, glowering picture of the man who has written Carrie, The Shining, Salem's Lot and six other books.

The words beneath the picture say: "Beware! You Are Entering Stephen King Terror-tory!" mwjwww -mm wkwmwww Twirlmi iriiritii That ad may be corny, but who can deny its "One of the hard things about success is that somewhere in the back of my mind is the idea that a lot of people are going to be reading my work and there's a lot of potential for disappointment, if it isn't exactly what they want. That can be hard to live with. And I've always wanted a large audience for what I do, because otherwise it seems like a masturbato-ry act." King doesn't have to worry. In paperback alone, he has more than 25 million volumes in print. Until Different Seasons, all of his novels were what King calls "flat-out horror stories." Whether he's writing about a little girl who can set people aflame simply by staring at them (Firestarter) or peering into the addled brain of a rabid Saint Bernard (Cujo), King populates his books with ordinary folks who slog through life and are as astonished as we are when something bizarre occurs.

He's got the common touch, and his readers (See KINGonl2-G) wrote, Creepshow, will open; Stephen King makes his screen-acting debut in the film. Oh yes: there's also a Creepshow trade paperback comic book, every lurid panel written by well, you get the idea. Stephen King has the terror-tory covered. "It's funny to be successful, you know," King said recently during an interview in New York. "To write this stuff and have so many people buy it.

This new book Different Seasons is selling really great and it seems very strange to me. I think the stories are good, but I'm surprised there hasn't been buyer resistance because it's not a horror novel." A stocky man with a soft face and a hard Maine accent, King in person is as unpretentious as his prose. He obviously remembers the days, not much more than a decade ago, when he worked as a janitor and a stocker of library shelves before Carrie, written in his spare time at night, enabled him to become a full-time novelist. accuracy? King new book, Dijjerent Seasons, a collection of four stories, sits atop the hardcover bestseller lists, while over on the paperback bestseller lists, King's Cujo is also No. 1.

The Gunslinger, a group of short stories previously published in magazines, was is sued in a limited edition this summer and sold out its deluxe, signed edition of 500 volumes at $60 a piece; 10,000 copies of the regular $20 version of the book are also almost sold out. And next month, a horror movie King A renegade Australian movie director begins to get his due By Desmond Ryan Inquirer Uovie Critic In the genteel and classy world of Australian filmmaking, George Miller, the director of The Road Warrior and Mad Max, stands out like a kangaroo. While his fellow directors like Peter Weir (Gallipoli), Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career) and Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant, The Getting of Wisdom) collect awards and critical acclaim around the world, Miller can be found in some dusty corner of the Outback crash. to the point of taking up medieval weaponry. For most of them, the only thing worth dying for is a gallon of gasoline, a fluid more precious than blood in the new order.

The road warrior reluctantly saves a sort of post-nuclear family from an assortment of outlaws who make The Wild Bunch look as threatening as your local Softball team. He is played by Mel Gibson, who made such a strong impression as Frank, the city kid who goes off to meet his fate in Gallipoli. The Road Warrior may offer a dif-fprpnt Rftting. hut Miller believes its hero has a long and honorable ances The Road Warrior allows Gibson to take up the character he created in Mad Max, a film that did not do well in the United States. "I think it just got lost in the shuffle over here," said Miller, who continued to work as a doctor to support his movie addiction until Mad Max succeeded.

"I was working on other screenplays, but there was a lot of pressure to make a sequel," he explained. "I had a lot of resistance to the idea, but when I began thinking about the character's potential for development and the idea of doing it as a reinterpretation of old myths, I came around. Then we got tne idea ot wnat His international recognition has taken the form of a $100 million international box office for Mad Max and the banning of that 1980 film in Sweden because of its violence and liberated attitude toward road safety. Things may be changing for Miller, and not just because the notoriously strict Swedish censors have allowed The Road Warrior to be shown in their country. The Road Warrior is earning praise as well as money for its macabre wit and technical virtuosity.

The movie is set in Australia after a nuclear which men retreat into the past even try. "I think that hidden in a lot of films like this is a retelling of the stories we find in mythology," suggested Miller, 36, who, like American writer-director Michael Crichton, gave up a career as a doctor. "The Road Warrior is a retelling of the heroic saga. The hero is burned out and wandering through a dark wasteland and not part of a collective society. He's someone who reluctantly comes to realize that he really isn't alive.

That's something that recurs in westerns, in samurai movies and in the medieval stories of wandering knights." happens when you remove energy and a society collapses." For all that, The Road Warrior is still a suavely executed action film, replete with amazing stunts and collisions of a strange assortment of vehicles from gas tankers to one-man gyrocopters. In its theme, flagrant commercial appeal and sheer noise level, the movie stands apart from the work of other Australian directors. With encouragement and tax support from the government, these directors have turned to Australia's past as a penal colony and then as an (See MILLER on 13-G) By JOHN CORR On the town along genuine artifacts from the islands, provide Polynesian entertainers, serve drinks and dinner and clean up afterward. Elan, the singles club in the Warwick Hotel, is giving away two mystery "escape" weekends, but under rather unusual conditions. You have to register beforehand at the front desk, then show up at 7:30 p.m.

on Thursday with your suitcase packed. Two winners, one male and one female, will be selected by lot, and they will leave immediately for the airport and the three-day trip to an undisclosed resort. If you are not packed and ready to go immediately, you are disqualified. Before you get any ideas, it should be pointed out that there will be separate accommodations at the taurant at 1920 Chestnut has a heroic imagination and great dramatic flair. But, even for him, this latest project is extraordinary.

Arnoldi will re-create the famous 1888 dinner at Delmonico's that was prepared for perhaps history's most celebrated assemblage of American gourmets and gourmands including Theodore Roosevelt, Diamond Jim Brady, Lillian Russell and members of the Rockefeller, Mellon and Cabot-Lodge dynasties. The meal, which will be served Aug. 30, will include "extraordinary presentations" of saddle of white-tailed deer, sturgeon, young squab and other dishes. There is a prix fixe of $60. Coming soon is a classy new bar-restaurant at 222 S.

15th St. to be called Ricks. It replaces the defunct Top of the Toos. And they are closing October, the "regional American restaurant" at 26 S. Front so that owners Irv Chacker and Jerry Poplar can go off in search of new recipes.

This year, they are heading for Texas. October reopens Sept. 9. SHOW TIME; They are planning a lively fall season of cabaret entertainment at the Cabaret at Equus, 12th Street near Spruce. As a preliminary, the improvisational comedy team of Monteith and Rand will be giving two shows, 8 and 10 p.m., Aug.

30. The cabaret is small, so reservations are a good idea. PARTIES: The people at the Kona Kai Polynesian restaurant in the Marriott have come up with an interesting catering service. If you want to have a Polynesian party in your home, they will decorate for it, bring A gigantic outdoor party is being planned by the proud inhabitants of what they are calling "The Golden Mile." The party is to celebrate (and call attention to) what has been happening on City Avenue south of the Schuylkill Expressway. What has been happening is the opening of T.GX Friday's, Denny's and the Best Western Hotel, the ongoing $32 million transformation of the former Holiday Inn into the Adam's Mark Hotel and the massive renovations just completed at the Marriott.

There will be big-band music and performances by the cast of Mame, the current show at the City Line Dinner Theater. Drinks will be $1 each, as will the portions of food prepared for the Sept. 15 party by the Marriott, Best Western, Friday's, San Marco, Fran O'Brien's and the Magic Pan. TARNATION: The collapse of the "urban cowboy" craze is complete. Filly's has gotten rid of its mechanical bull.

"We are no longer just a country-western cowboy bar," said owner Stan Chapman. "We are now a dance hall and nightclub." Filly's, 237 Chestnut has built a stage where the bull corral used to be and plans a wide variety of nightly entertainment, including rock bands, singers, comics and even some good old country music on occasion. There is also a large dance floor. "People are into dancing now," Chapman said, "and the urban cowboy stuff has died out." What did he do with the bull? "We put him out to stud." RESTAURANTS: Soren owner-chef of the L'Aigle D'Or res 'Golden Mile' to throw a party (Hi iff irfU niil.g.