The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 17

Hie Orlando Sentinel The TV scene listings and highlights, C-4 Monday, July 7, 1986 A boom in cosmetic surgery for blacks By Alexis Moore Love KNT NEWS SERVICE fists in anger and defiance. Today we are seeing a return to an attempt to blend into the woodwork. If you are going to climb the career ladder, to land a position with a Fortune 500 company, say, it pays to look as good as you can," said Dr. Harold E. Pierce, the Bala Cynwyd, dermatologist and surgeon who pioneered cosmetic surgery on blacks- almost 30 years ago.

"Generally, these patients find the wide saddle-bridge nose and the large lower lip unglamorous in today's environment," said Pierce, who is black himself. Because the vast majority of cosmetic operations on black patients are Please see BLACKS, C-2 For longtime Michael Jackson watchers, his transformation from an adolescent member of the Jackson Five into a glittery rock star involved far more than lights, costumes, choreography and hit songs. Sometime in the early '80s, his whole face seemed to change his nose, in particular. A couple of years later, in late 1984, singer Patti LaBelle also had her nose narrowed, enhancing a new image that coincided with her wider popularity. LaBelle and Jackson may be among the most famous of those who have decided that black can be more beau tiful, but they are far from alone.

Despite some blacks' concerns that such-surgery reflects a lack of racial identity and a desire to "look white," thousands of blacks during the last decade have sought surgical nips, tucks, lifts and implants to alter their looks, for many of the same reasons that whites have done so for years. "Ten years ago, blacks were holding up clenched rfs hi df 1 iJ -v' Michael Jackson in 1980 (left) and in 1986. SARAH KEYSSENTINEL Artview Message art for public eyes Valencia's show of subversive art doesn't mince images By Laura Stewart Dishman SENTINEL ART CRITIC Lift csd ft i nit iif I i n-1 Separate Separate! I Lift end Ei r-wm Separate I ubversion can be subtle. It's unlikely that many peo ple will see it in Barbara Community College's East Campus. And that poster is meant to do nothing less than change the way its viewers see the world.

Kruger's poster is typical of the avant-garde exhibit, both in its old-fashioned, commercial format and its obscure meaning. Limited in color and visual appeal, the poster presents a flat statement as if it were just a routine public service announcement or advertisement. A closer look dispels that notion. The man squints into a surveying instrument, focusing his attention on the viewer. Clearly, the viewer is expected to do the same; just as clear Kruger's black-and-white poster of a man with a spyglass, but subversion is just what the artist had in mind when she designed "Surveillance Is Your Busywork." The poster, copies of which will be displayed in 50 Tri-County Transit buses this month, is one of the 42 pieces in "Public Art A Blunt In-trument," the exhibit at Valencia show are more obvious, and more ominous.

One of the most beautiful, Edward Ruscha's "Mind If I Laugh In Your Face?" is also among the most stinging. Chalky blue pigment stains the background, and light falling through a window casts a cruciform shadow behind the words of the title, which are stenciled across the work's surface. No human form is present to speak the sarcastic words, so the divine presence implied by the cross is responsible. Some works hint at deep meaning without drawing direct connections between Imagery and text. Nine black-and-white photographs hang together to form a square on one wall of the gallery; each photograph is marked "Lift and Separate." One shows three pieces of silver flatware, one the sheer side of a skyscraper, one a mass of people, one a shuttle launching off its pad.

None of the im-" ages relates to another, yet together: they suggest objects that belong in groups and that are in some way a part of our common humanity. No such seriousness restrains two Please see MESSAGE, C-2 1 Thorn Duffy RADIO WLOQ disc jockey goes the extra mile Radio programmers are known to go some distance to get interviews with top fnusicians. This week, Bob Church of WLOQ-FM (103.1) will go to Switzerland. Church, WLOQ's morning host and program director, will attend the 20th Montreux International Jazz Festival in Switzerland, where he expects to speak with a number of the stars on the festival bill. "The contacts are being made; the calls are already in," Church said.

Beginning Friday during the morning and afternoon drive-time programs, WLOQ listeners will hear from Church hourly on the happenings in Montreux. Church may file additional reports at night. "I'm going to play it by ear," he said. "I'm going to try to do the reports live as much as I can." He'll have to take into account a six-hour time difference between Florida and Switzerland. Church will leave on Wednesday, accompanied by a WLOQ listener, Sheryl Barrett of Orlando, who won the trip in a station contest.

The first show following heir arrival, the night of July 10, will feature Eric Clapton and Friends. i Eric Clapton at a jazz festival? "Montreux has a little bit of everything," Church noted. "In Europe, the guidelines for labeling music are a bit looser." Apparently so. I After the new wave rock of Talk Talk on the night of July 11, Montreux will host jazz acts better known to WLOQ's audience. i They include: Special EFX and Pat Metheny July 12, Sade and David Sanborn July 13, the McCoy Tyner Trio and Freddie Hubbard July 14, Al Jarreau and -Chaka Chan July IS, Miles Davis July 17 and George Benson July 18.

While the city slept: For 24 hours, they manned their two-way radios, contacting fellow ham radio operators throughout the nation and the world. 1 The watch began at 2 p.m. June 28 as members of the Orlando Amateur Radio Club gathered at Oak Ridge High School for their annual field day. The exercise allowed club members to hone the skills that hams everywhere in the nation would use if a disaster knocked out telephone lines. "We're really the primary backup communications for the entire United States," said George Shriver, the Orlando club's publicist.

Hams also step in to aid international communications during disasters elsewhere. When an earthquake struck Mexico City on Sept. 19 last year, said Shriver, "we had operators who didn't go to bed for two days." To simulate emergency conditions during their field day, the Orlando hams operated three of their radios with portable generators and four others from recreational vehicles. They dealt with other hardships as well. The electronic bug killer often had to be turned off.

"Bugs' getting zapped cause a lot of static," Shriver explained. Hams also help out in situations aside from disasters. The Orlando Amateur Radio Club volunteered to provide communications for the fourth Pan-American Junior Athletics Championship games scheduled for last weekend at Showalter Field. Anyone interested in getting a ham radio license can take a course in basic electronics and radio operation from the Orlando Amateur Radio Club. A 12-week course, which costs $20, will begin July 21.

For further information, call TOM BURTON SENTINEL T7 ly, he should report anything he discovers about his neighbors, his colleagues, his family. Kruger's poster pokes fun at the behavior of people in a totalitarian society, then suggests that we might be just as guilty of being led by dictators. Other works in the 'Lift and Separate' by Mitchell Syrop is a grouping of unrelated photos that end up relating. Barbara Kruger's poster will be displayed in 50 Tri-County Transit buses this month. Inscrutable 'Little China' a 10 on the oddness scale Two authors are battling it out with Rock Hudson biographies By Jay Boyar By Joe Logan SENTINEL MOVIE CRITIC Movie review KNT NEWS SERVICE iff Trouble in Little China is a failure, but it's a fascinating, atypical failure.

'Big Trouble in Little China' Cast Kurt Russell, Dennis Dun, Kim Cattrall, James Hong, Kate Burton, Victor Wong, Suzee Pai Director John Carpenter Screenwriters: Gary Goldman, David Z. Weinstein Adaptation: D. Richter Cinematographer: Dean Cundey Music: John Carpenter, Alan Howarth Theaters: Colonial Promenade 6, Seminole Plaza, University 8 Cinemas Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes Industry rating: PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned) Reviewer's evaluation: Reviewing key excellent, good, average, poor, awful who spent three months working with Davidson. Hudson's face stares out from the cover of both books. It is a face that endured 64 movies, three TV series and almost 40 years in Hollywood, but one that withered and paled as the Hollywood giant, much to the shock of the world, succumbed to AIDS Oct.

2, of last year. Rock Hudson: His Story is by far; the more widely distributed of the: two books. Its publisher, William Morrow, ordered an initial printing' of 250,000 copies, and on June 29 the book moved onto The New York Times best-seller list. Idol, published by Villard Books, a division of Random House, ordered a first printing of 60,000 copies and several days ago gave the go-ahead for 20,000 more. Because of the race to the print shop, both books were researched and written in a matter of months, much to the frustration of all three writers.

And both books purport to be the inside truth about the man who towered over Hollywood as an international sex symbol. For all their differences in Welcome to the front lines of one of the hottest publishing showdowns in recent years: the Hudson Wars. On one side is Sara Davidson, author of the new authorized biography of the late Rock Hudson, Rock Hudson: His Story. She sized up her competition, the authors of the new unauthorized version of Hudson's life, Idol: Rock Hudson, this way. "There is nothing they got that I didn't get.

It's quite the opposite. There were 10 or 12 nuggets I had that I checked through the index to see if they got, and they didn't. "But mainly, they didn't get any of the names. They didn't reach any of the main people in Hudson's life. I spoke to virtually everyone who was close to Rock and I think I was able to get these incredibly intimate, poignant moments that nobody else could have gotten." On the other side is Jerry Oppen-heimer, veteran newspaperman, senior reporter for the National En A "mystical action-adventure-comedy-kung-fu-monster-ghost story about the imaginary world under Chinatown" is how a press release describes the film, but that doesn't begin to do justice to its peculiarities.

This is one weird picture. Set mainly in and beneath San Francisco's Chinatown, the story centers on Jack Burton (Kurt Russell), an all-American truck driver who calls his machine the Pork Chop Express. For most of the film, Jack tries to rescue a young woman named Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) from the clutches of a magician who plans to force her to marry him. The sinister wizard, one Lo Pan (James Hong), believes that a marriage to Miao Yin will, by virtue of her "dragon-green eyes," somehow make him young again. Also opposing Lo Pan and his minions are a restaurateur (Dennis Dun) who's engaged to Miao Yin, a plucky attorney (Kim Cat-trail), an eager-beaver reporter (Kate Burton) and an enigmatic tour-bus driver (Victor Wong).

Along the way, there is much Rock Hudson his story sparks battle. however, both books por- sources, tray Hudson as a man simple in some ways, infi kung fu action, as well as a smattering of, as Joe Bob Briggs might put it, monster fu, ghost fu, knife fu, machine-gun fu and hallucinogen fu. Sounds sort of fu-lish, doesn't it? Actually, any accurate description would make Little China seem a little stupid, but that's Please see CHINA. C-2 quirer and co-author of Idol with free-lance writer Jack Vitek. He compared the books: "Our book paints a broader picture of the man.

We didn't justdwell on his sex life. I think the other book is the gospel of Rock Hudson, according to Miller and Nader," he said, referring to Mark Miller and Ge6rge Nader, Hudson confidants of years nitely complex in others. He was charming, engaging and funny, able to reduce friends and co-workers to uncontrollable giggles that often brought filming to a halt. But while he would shower friends and acquaintances with Please see ROCK, 0-2 'club member Eugene Barre after at (305) 656-H80..