The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 61

Names Faces C2 Stages C3 Book Review CIO -Advice C13 VUUll The Music section C15 Movie Directory CI 0-11 Classified C18 TV and Radio D12-13 21 THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1998 Movie Review Art Review Liu Art bound only by imagination HBO BU takes in runaway historians ord arrives that Boston University will be the new home of the breakaway Historical Society, a 750-member group of historians protesting the "politicization and By Christine Temin GLOBE STAFF WORCESTER In the center of the otherwise pristine white wall is a narrow but deep red gash, like flesh sliced by a knife. On the other three walls of the room are 14th-century Italian paintings, their subjects including a crucifixion with blood spewing from Christ's wounds and St. Francis with his stigmata. The gash on the wall looks like an element from one of the paintings that has somehow escaped, asserting an independent identity. The gash is actually Anish Ka-poor's 1989 "Healing of St.

Thomas," named for the apostle who refused to believe in the resurrection until he put his hand in Christ's wound. The Ka-poor is part of the most valuable contemporary art show in the region just now, "Blurring the Boundaries; 25 Years of Installation Art," at the Worcester Art Museum. WORCESTER, Page C12 v. Ftf ill $hj 'St a fS. IV vf 7 I I 1 i 1 i.

'rsv Ttrrr-mmnn "Heaven and Earth" juxtaposes videos of Bill Viola's dying mother, newborn son. 'Trinity': dysfunction and little else PHOTO KEN REGAN Oprah Winfrey, as Sethe, comforts Thandie Newton, playing a stranger who appears at her door in "Beloved." By Matthew Gilbert GLOBE STAFF Heavy is the word for "Trinity," the new series from "ER" executive producer John Wells. "Trinity" is so crammed with dysfunction and drama that it makes other hourlong dramas like "NYPD Blue" and "Chicago Hope" appear lighthearted. It out-heavies even Wells's trivialization" of their discipline by the larger American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. The society thus becomes the second major academic liberal arts organization to find a home on the Silber side of the Charles.

The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, a stop-the-mad-ness group of academics disaffected with the faddish critical trends espoused by the larger Modern Language Association, is dominated by BU types. Could Boston University become the Yale of the new millennium, i.e., the premier liberal arts university of America? Anything is possible. The brainchild of Atlanta University historian Eugene Genovese and Yale classicist Donald Kagan, the five-month-old society was casting about for a home when BU stepped forward. President Jon Westling has offered the society office space and a faculty appointment for a historian to teach and work as executive director for the group. In May, BU will host the society's first national conference.

"The university has been extraordinarily generous," says Genovese. Local eminentos who have thrown in with the Historical Society include MIT's Pauline Maier, Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley, Morton Keller of Brand sorry Brandeis, BU's William Key-Jor, and Oscar Handlin, Richard Pipes, and John Womack of Harvard. The loved ones Boston's always whining that it can't lure big-time conventioneers to the Hub well, Katy bar the door! Here comes the National Fu- neral pirectors Association! My new best friend Kelly Smith, a spokesman for the group, says his members are real live wires and promises "everything from caskets to urns to embalming paraphernalia" when the Funereal Ones converge on the Hynes Auditorium Oct. 26, 27, and 28. There will be seven separate book signings, including one by Thomas Lynch, author of the well-received "The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade." But I'm going to opt for Myrtle Westmoreland promoting her tome, "I Married a Funeral Director." 'I But wait there's more! Seminars on "Hot Topic for Your Future: Installing a Crematory," All Your Eggs in one Casket: Under- stand Innovating Funeral Service Pricing," and Show Me the Money: Financing for Independents." An accompanying media guide urges hacks like me "to be respectful of the sensitive nature of death and funeral services." Jessica Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, please take note.

Chillin' with the C-people Does Alex Trebek know about this? A reader alerts me to the It's Cool to be Canadian Web site www.cool.ca. Hey, Tony Blair take your tawdry "Cool Brittania" promo and send it the way of Ginger Spice! It's the (former) colonies that are cool now! Most helpfully, the Web site tells you how to organize your own ICTBC "launch party," which seems to guarantee an upbeat write-up by the Canada Firsters. Here's an account of a recent hoedown in Manitoba: "People in Canada's heartland know what it is to be cool. Resourceful individuals from Winni-' peg and surrounding areas made it through a winter storm to attend the launch of Cool to be Canadian at the Winnipeg Winter Club. Decked out in their coolest shades, students, parents, business leaders, technology leaders, and cool jeople from all walks of life packed the room." Sounds fun! Let's have one at Peter Jennings's place, OK? Pseuds corner In the space often reserved for mocking me- dia "suck-ups," The New Republic prints this assessment of "Kaddish," a new book by its liter-', -ary editor Leon Wieseltien "WTien one reads nearly 600 pages of beautiful and rigorous writing steeped in such thick and vivid knowledge, it is hard not to come away a little breathless.

The reviews are rapturous: 'Kaddish' is already an event Not an event that will be forgotten next month, but an event that recurs," blah blah blah. r. Alex Beam's e-mail address is beamla globe. Icorn. Oprahslong walk to freedom own intubation-fixated "ER," presenting us with such a and spiritual and I Vyi criminal traumas that it verges on self-parody.

The themes in the pre By Jay Carr GLOBE STAFF eloved" is a strong, dark, tan- I gled powerhouse of a film that I 1 M-f comes to grips with the scars of slavery as no previous American film has. It isn't easy to sit through, not be 'Beloved' has flaws, but it is a rich, deep film translation of Morrison's haunting story of her past One of her daughters is psychically imprisoned in their small house on the outskirts of Cincinnati, never leaving it It's a haunted house, and director Jonathan Demme, maintaining a meticulous fidelity to its source, Toni Morrison's landmark novel, jolts us with effects that yank us into its agitated soul. "Beloved however, is anything but an FX extravaganza. It's a love story and a ghost story of tor- "BELOVED," Page C7 miere episode alone alcoholism, adultery, unwanted pregnancy, a failing marriage, sibling rivalry, union corruption, police intrigue, religious quandary, a gay husband read like a list of chapters in a book called "Modern Urban Life," or, more specifically, "TV Cliches of Modern Urban Life." All the heaviness of "Trinity," which debuts tonight at 9 on WHDH-Ch. 7, centers on the McCallister family, an Irish-Catholic clan in New York's Hell's Kitchen.

Each of the five adult children is a familiar TV type who offers enough turmoil for a show TRINITY," Page Cll cause it runs nearly three hours, but because the journey it takes is a slow and heavy and sad one as it traces an enduring woman's tremendous effort to put a lacerating and degrading past behind her eight years after emancipation. One could almost think of it as so-called emancipation, for Oprah Winfrey's aching matriarch named Sethe still is imprisoned by the pain The Music section The Mighty Mighty Boss-tones bring their hard-won fame home with a live CD. Page C15 The Afro-Cuban All Stars keep the sound of Cuba alive for today's listeners. Page C15 Movies "The Mighty" rides the sim-patico chemistry of its two young stars. Page Co "Modulations" elevates elec-tronica to its rightful place in the music pantheon.

Page C6 Comedy Jackie Mason brings his fifth Broadway show to town. Page C9 Television A "Wuthering Heights" with more chills, less romance. Page D12.