The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 40

The Philadelphia Inquirer The new Virtually Yes group: a Yes, Yes ZZ: if ''ZZ'Z'- a a i i 2 11 The Philadelphia Inquner MICHAEL S. WIRTZ filled Friday for the appearance of etry, generally, is honest, so it seemed like a good opportunity to get an honest look and feel about a particular woman." "It was very insightful," said Debbie Zelnick, 32, an occupational therapist who went to Borders with two friends. "And it's interesting to see somebody that you think of as being very Hollywood being really open and down to earth. She has the same feelings we have." Charles Maslin, 23, a philosophy graduate from Temple, went because of Sheedy's verse. He even recommended German poet Rainer Maria Rilke to the star as she inscribed "To Charles, with love Ally Sheedy" in his copy of Yesterday.

"It touched a lot of things in me," Maslin' said of the reading. "I write poetry myself. A lot of what the The Borders Book Shop was In "Yesterday I Saw the Sun" Sheedy shows people who she really is. heck, that's OK, too. "The poem about recovery struck home for me," Lance Pustin, 42, said afterward.

"There are a lot of people who are in recovery who are extremely creative people." Like most folks there, Pustin, who works in energy conservation, went to the reading as a fan of Sheedy's films, not her writing. "When you see people on the screen, you wonder what they're like in person. And po and with hope, Free Library marks 100 years By Tom Moon inquirer Music Critic Fans have come to expect occasional personnel changes from Yes, the popular art-rock band that began in London in 1968. But the lineup coming to the Spectrum on April 16 is a novelty even by Yes standards. Eight veterans of the quintet, whose affiliations span any number of Yes incarnations, have joined forces to form a virtual Yes orchestra.

Vocalist Jon Anderson, drummers Bill Bruford and Alan White, guitarists Steve Howe and Trevor Rabin, keyboardists Rick Wakeman and Tony Kaye and bassist Chris Squire will perform in the round at venues throughout the United States and Europe. The Yesshows '91 tour, to be produced and presented by Philadelphia's Electric Factory Concerts, will be the first under the Yes name since 1988. (A 1989 "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman Howe" trek was panned by critics.) The tour will be preceded by the release of an album of new material written by the expanded group. Dialogue is due late next month from Arista, and is characterized by vocalist Anderson as "some commercial, very heavy rock-and-roll, some very cosmic and earthy music." In addition, Atco Records plans this fall to release a digitally remastered CD boxed set intended to be the definitive Yes compilation. On the tour, expect a heavy dose of classically influenced Yes standards.

"We'll be covering the history of the band, as well as one or two things from the new said Thursday from Los Angeles, where the band is mixing Dialogue. "It feels good to bring in the '90s as a full unit again. Everybody is flexing their muscles. It's much different from anything we've ever done before." Anderson, 47, acknowledged that the band has had its share of ere- paring for the 21st century," said the response so far had been "encouraging," with close to $50,000 received. This money will be earmarked for special programs to combat illiteracy, help children with their homework, provide career information and so on.

"It isn't meant in any way to supplant money from the city, but to supplement it," said Shelkrot. "There are things the library must do that the city has never supported, and cannot support. We need that money to go the extra mile." Shelkrot's aim for the library's second hundred years is finding new ways "to bring books and people together." The key, he believes, is merchandising. "We've got to look at the retail world," he said. "We can get people to come into the library, but what do we do then? Traditionally, we make it really tough for them to find anything good to read.

We've got to take some lessons from department stores." He would like to see libraries full of eye-catching displays and easily visible "face-out" shelving: "Publishers spend all this money designing the cover, and what do we do? We hide it." Shelkrot's vision of library-as-de-partment-store is incorporated into revised plans for a proposed branch library in the Ogontz section. He describes it as "a wonderful building books on multilevel Lazy Susans, up against a curved Lexan window so you can see them from the street. It would really make a statement." There have been proposals for a branch in Ogontz since the mid-1980s. But the way things look today, the system may have to close several of its branches permanently rather than open any new ones. "I hope it doesn't come to that the neighborhood library is the strength of this whole system," said Shelkrot.

"But the board of trustees umf 'mi 'ML Newt Entertain. Later With Bob Costal iJoker'a Tonight WHd Newi Perspective actressBrat Packer Sheedy. world seems to want you to be is what you become. You lose sight of yourself, especially in light of today's society and the pressure from the media. And she explicates that in her writing quite nicely." For Maryanne Maganas, 24, who works for a food broker in Malvern, the sight of the star of two of her favorite movies The Breakfast Club and St.

Elmo's Fire left her beaming. "I think her poems are very inspirational, and I can relate to her," Maganas said, clutching a just-autographed copy of Sheedy's book. "I know what she's gone through, and I think a lot of girls our age have gone through similar times. "It's a great thing that she can come out and be so honest with people." reading room in earlier days. His biggest challenge, he said, is convincing city leaders that the library's needs are as real as those of the homeless, the run-down parks and streets, even the Police Department.

"We've got to make them realize books for kids are as important as pants for cops," he said. The library mounted its first-ever private fund-raising drive a month ago, when appeals were mailed to 500 local businesses. Shelkrot, who termed it "an important part of pre NIGHT OWL mt Tonight 11:30 Lata Night Phil Donahue; Evening JoanJett Magazine Yes in 1989 (from left): Wakeman, Anderson, Bruford and Howe. ative differences since re-forming, but said that they were expected. "It's part of the creative process.

We have a kind of gentlemen's agree-' ment to make it work. That means there needs to be a lot of give and take. We've just begun discussing how we'll do the different things: Sometimes Steve will play acoustic guitar and Trevor will play electric. Everyone will have to learn to underplay rather than overplay." The album and tour follow years of sporadic negotiations, and four months of nonstop discussions between band members and their managers. Anderson said that he would have preferred to do a Yes project rather than 1989's Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe record.

But despite interest on the part of band members, the matter got bogged down by litigation concerning the use of the Yes name, among other things. Anderson said he can't predict how the new work will be received. "We want to keep testing ourselves, but MTV rules, doesn't it? We've never been a hit-single band. The music reflects the different facets of this band's career, and hopefully enhances the initial idea of the group." has directed us to reduce the number of libraries rather than cut back service." Branch closings, long advocated by some who say the system's resources are already spread too thin, might wake up apathetic Philadelphians to the library's plight, said Friends' director Whitelaw. "We hope it doesn't happen," she said, "but it certainly would get the message across." In the meantime, library officials are dealing with the branches on what Shelkrot terms a "crisis-by-crisis" basis.

i They received emergency zation for a new roof for the busy Andorra branch only after library personnel who had become adept at catching leaks in buckets arrived for work a month ago to find "it was literally raining inside," according to children's librarian Marianne Fulton. The $11,000 repair to the building at Henry Avenue and Cathedral Road was completed a week ago. At the Ritner Children's Library on South Broad Street, workers patch holes in the antiquated boiler with epoxy every week. The boiler was condemned last summer but replacement was stymied by the budget crisis; most winters the library has to close down for a month or two because the aging mechanism can't generate enough heat. "Hopefully it will make it through this winter," said librarian Marilyn Barr.

And Alan Fleming, librarian at the Lehigh branch, at Sixth Street, is still waiting for the repairs scheduled on his turn-of-the-century building since 1984. Sheets of plastic line the walls to keep the crumbling plaster from falling on patrons; with every rainstorm it crumbles a bit more. "But it's not falling down on any- body at this point," Fleming said philosophically. "I think people are just happy we're here." Tuesday, Feb. 19, midnight to 6 a.m.

IW "M'" w.i.r TicTac To Be Buaineu Morning Stretch Dough Announced 4:55 Off the Air AM Pha'delphia Good Morning Delaware Valley Richard Roberts Benson 4:55 Benson 5:25 Success-N-Life im im mi Ten Great Writers: Soldier's Home FyodorDostovevsky Monday, Feb. 18, 1991 Ally Sheedy reading her poetic lines ALLY SHEEDY, from I when friend Demi Moore delivered Sheedy to the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota. Sheedy, 28, has written for years (a children's book, She Was Nice to Mice, was published when she was 12). Her mother, Charlotte Sheedy, heads one of New York's powerhouse literary agencies. But even with those literary credentials and connections and the fact that she has been involved in Poetry in Motion, a Los "Angeles-based workshop of celebrity actorpoets (Robert Downey Justine Bateman, Judd Nelson) the actress had no plans to publish her poems.

But then "somebody suggested to me that it would be good to publish them," she explained to a fan. "A lot of women my age have gone through the same things or even if they haven't had the same experiences, they've had similar emotions and it's not easy to find anything out there where someone will actually say, 'This is how I feel' Sheedy talked about the pressure of being a star in Hollywood, where you're expected to look cinematic even if you're just going down to the corner for a six-pack of Diet Mountain Dew. "You're supposed to look like I don't know like you're from another world. You're expected to be an 'actress' you can't just be a person, and that was very dangerous for me, because I feel separated from myself. I don't feel like I've been able to be who I really am." Which is, in fact, one reason Sheedy has embarked on this tour: to show people who she really is through the words on the page.

And if she sells a few books (about 70 copies were sold after her reading) In crisis FREE LIBRARY, from I Shelkrot. And staff for the sprawling system, already stretched so thin that branches sometimes have to close when a librarian goes home sick, has been further decimated by a hiring freeze. The workforce, 79S in October, is now 781. Shelkrot expects it to drop to 770 in four to six weeks, "at which point we will have to close at least four of the branches. We can't stretch any further." Another blow: Two weeks ago the state cut $400,000 from its 1991 appropriation to the library.

Twelve percent of the library's budget comes from the state; 3 percent comes from individuals, foundations and the federal government. So there's a heavy backdrop of irony to the ambitious, yearlong centennial celebration, which begins at 2 p.m. today with a party and champagne reception at the Central Library, 19th and Vine Streets, and includes a series of musical performances, a celebration of black writing and a storytelling festival. "It's been a horrendous year," acknowledged Shelkrot. "But we don't really have any choice but to forge ahead." The Free Library, started with a $250,000 bequest from local attorney George S.

Pepper, was long considered a jewel among the city's institutions, with the magnificent 64-year-old Central Library, a replica of the 18th-century Ministry of Marine on Paris' Place de la Concorde, as its centerpiece. Its decline began in 1978, when skyrocketing labor costs forced the city to chop $700,000 out of the library's operating budget. More than 100 staff positions were cut, bookmobile service was abolished, hours were reduced and all but a handful of branch libraries closed on Saturdays. "That really shook the library to the core," said Shelkrot. Though the operating budget inched upward over the next decade, it was never quite enough to keep pace with inflation in the publishing industry or needed repairs in the system's aging buildings.

Usage, on a downturn since the early 1960s, continued to decline. But over the last two or three years, library officials had begun to see glimmers of hope. The Goode administration was sympathetic to the library's plight. Before October, "we hadn't been getting extraordinary increases, but we hadn't had the cuts some other institutions have had to face," said Shelkrot. With a book acquisition budget that had reached a healthy $5.7 million for fiscal 1991, the system was catching up in fast-growing areas such as science and business, and remedying critical shortages in children's fare (in 1986, one North Philadelphia branch lacked even such classics as Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood), career publications and books demanded by the city's growing numbers of immigrants.

Long-deferred repairs were made on numerous branches, including the renovation of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems in 11, new roofs for 14, and asbestos removal in another 14. At the Central Library, where leaks threatened priceless rare books and orchestral music, a $1.2 million roof was completed in 1988. And a membership drive in the fall by an advocacy group known as Friends of the Free Library brought an amazing 2,000 new members, "and they're still coming in," said Sheila Whitelaw, Friends' executive director. "We thought that was very successful in these trying times." Most significant, in Shelkrot's view, library usage began increasing 8-D PSD fs3 M3h fea 1 I wmi 5rWi Z'W ff4- T'Ati ft r4 Glimpse from 100 years of history: The Central Library's main Funerlin6rlfi('66) (Michael Caine, Oacy Into th Night Lenny Clarice; JoePantoliano Air (Programming begina at 6:45 a.m.) Programming My Talk Show Portrait of an Escort C80) (Susan Artspach, Tony Bill) PaidPro- Chapter grammmg UamasCaan, MarchaMaeon) Home Shopping Spree of Martha vrsf46) Your Life The Strange Love of Martha (vera (Pater Pale John Cassavetes) For All Mankind ('89) (Documantary) (PhilllDPelev. Heidi Hatmer) IBaftraSgeiMnd, WifraRva.

CD Stingray (9 Ghoete Frontline Off the CD Paid Uam8 Woods, Kay Lena ArtenioHall Party Machine Lifestyle of the Rich 11:30 Famous Brother! Hitchcock Success-N-life war AMC Movie ftffofft'47)(PatO'Brien) BRV Peppermint Soda (PG, 77) lEIeonoraKlarweirt, Odflt frfchal) gy: DIS HBO One (Matthew Stand MAX 1 Drain '90) (AmlfwStevmWCapiey) (Jeff NOS Theater of Stars Made for Each Other'38! Night Altman, 320FuniwGiri('68 in 1988, particularly among children. "Most people think of the '60s as the library's heyday, but in the early '60s only 22 percent of Philadel-phians had a library card," he said. "Now 47 percent do. It's much more democratic." Under Shelkrot's leadership, the library is trying harder to respond to the public's immediate needs books about resume-writing and AIDS, self-help publications even if it means paying less attention to books that might be valuable to future generations. "With the information explosion we have to be more and more careful," he said.

Not reluctant to embrace current technology, the system was fully computerized in the mid-1980s, and today videocassettes, taped books, CDs, PCs and fax machines vie with more-traditional services. Nor has Shelkrot, who as a young branch librarian in North Philadelphia got teenagers reading to younger children on street corners and in playgrounds, been shy about occasionally using unconventional methods to entice people into the library. A 1988 Rock Rap'n Read program designed to encourage ninth graders to get library cards, for example, featured the Dead Milkmen (who de Rapper Big on video as BIG DADDY KANE, from I ty in it we'll send it back and ask them to recut it." Kane is not surprised. He's getting grief from his own family. "My mother's going crazy.

If I was living with her right now, she'd kick me out. She said I was losing my mind. My pop asked me was I some kind of freak or something," he said. Kane's debut, long live the Kane, sold 480,000 copies. That was back in 1988 when most rappers Kane included wore track suits and gold ropes and did trash-talking raps on their sexual prowess.

With It's a Big Daddy Thing, Kane goes for a sophisticated, Teddy Pen-dergrass look and does sexy love raps. The long-form video features scribed the library as "a great place to pick up and a rap group who did a number on the library. "If it might work, we'll try it," said Shelkrot. But the current budget crisis threatens to curtail that kind of programming, and even makes it difficult for the library to respond to issues and trends as Shelkrot would like. "The war, for example I'd have loved to go out and get several thousand books about the Mideast," he said with a shrug.

"All I could really do was suggest to the branch librarians that they put together displays, using magazine articles." The Central Library is renowned for its collections, which include original manuscripts by Edgar Allan Poe, cuneiform tablets dating to 3000 B.C., and the world's largest collection of orchestral scores. Though many are of great value, selling them off to ease the current financial crisis "is not an option," said Shelkrot. "They're important not only in terms of our national stature, but of their value to the people of Philadelphia and the region," he said. "Anyway, many of them were given to us or purchased with private funds, and we couldn't sell them if we did want to." Daddy Kane a nude dude Kane's hit single, "All of Me," a duet with the king of pillow talk, Barry White. Kane's attempt to transform himself into a sex symbol could be viewed by some as damage control.

During the fall he was the subject of a widespread rumor that he had contracted AIDS from a groupie. "IThatl hurt, but I try not to pay stuff like that any attention," said Kane, who has denied the rumor. Did his handlers think that by exposing Kane's fine physique, they could end the talk once and for all? No, says Kane. "I am just trying to separate myself from everyone else. I can't step into anyone else's footsteps because that's getting them paid.

I have to do my own thing." Omar Sharif) 32Sfeathers(nVS9) Christian Stater laODwn'TimalR, 65) (PariJankifflBBarrY) Movie 5:10 4:40 Cures The Starman (Carole Lombard. Jamas Stewart) Day Young) Variety 12:45) Paid Programming BloodfiatlR, WfT DeadsnaUL'SS) Paratope Am Miflet) 1 (Don Wilson, Joe Marie AvaHana) Master of Dragontrd Ed Hams) (OwerReeAEarthaKKt) Dttorganizsd Crime (R, TheUst Horsemen ('44) (rJormM, Hi PSM Hard to KiS III '9t (Stevw Seagal, KeBy UBroA) SHO Original Mfltomat (Christopher Lambert, TMC The Secret of the Ice Cve(PG-13, '90) IMermdaWitchr42) TNT iffredrfc March, Veronica Lata) (R, '83) 4:45 Robin Hood '89) The Enchantment 445Whirlpool('34 UackHolt) MArnel '421 (Hovt Axton. Corttn Bernaen) 145IMamedaMontarFrom Married Outer Spac ijMffi JmSmM' AtE DavidL-Wolper Presents Agatha Christie Henlon EdBegiey Jr.atimprov Abrahamlincoln( 30) (Walter Huston) BET Midnight Love Videos Our Voices LiveL.A. Video Soul Peid Programming CNN Nowsnlght News SonyeLive News Sports NewsnightUpdete Larry King Overnight News Early Bird COM Higgina Boys Oruber Abbott Movie Showcese Stand-Up M.Python Blk, Adder ESN College Basketball: UNLV at Long Beach State Muscle SptCenter Up Close College Basketball: Purdue at Michigan (Replay) Getting Fit FAM Beauty lithe Beast Beeuty the Beast The 700 Club Paid Programming Larry Lea LIF Spenser: For Hire Peid Programming SC Sportscast. College Basketball: Creighton at Notre Dame (Replay) Sportswire TBS Voice of the Planet Parti I ICousteau: Papua New I National Geographic Explorer iHogan's IGomerPyle (FaveDunaway, William Shatner) Guinea Oaoodila Mm Heroes TDC Beyond 2000 Monitor Wild Some Enchanted Ulands TLC Movie Gallery GEO 1 0th Frame University Lecture Series Spirit of Place AH Odds All Odds Spanish Spanieh TNN Nashville Now Crook Country Standard Time Off the Air (Programming begins at 9:00 a.m.) USA The Equalizer Madame's Insider Paid Programming WGN Interns fata of Oklahoma (60) The Topeka Terror i'45) I Twilight I One Day Soap 8he'sBaionBnaxway('S3)(yQirMayoTn "ffi iDulceDesafw Comprado DaMujeres Poors Diabla Amor MiPequena Cf) Bachelor Laredo J.

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