Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 63

I Books F6 -J Fringe F7 1 1 TVF9 Sauna, 26 I96i Arts Entertainment EDITOR: Jeff Holubitsky, 429-5346 Two songs, then Ringo drummed Ringo Starr and Hit All-Starr BandMason Rutfner Northlands Coliseum 4 V. I i By HELEN METELLA Journal Staff Writer Most of us present at the Coliseum Friday night saw a Beatle in the flesh for the first time in our lives. But it was Ringo Starr's friends who made the trip worthwhile. The show kicked off predictably with the amiable, slightly-goofy ex-drummer for The Beatles bouncing on stage sporting a gawdy multi-tas-selled tuxedo jacket and Karl Lager-field ponytail, to sing possibly the flattest rendition ever of It Don't Come Easy. But with two keyboardists (New Orleans legend Dr.

John and Billy Preston), two guitarists (ex-James Gang and Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and Bruce Springsteen sideman Nils Lofgren) two drummers (Levon Helm of The Band and super session-man Jim Keltner), superstar saxophonist Clarence Clemons and the voice of The Band, Rick Danko, Ringo was able to retire to his own drum kit after just two songs and let his feeble vocals take back seat to an evening of other people's '70s FM radio hits. In fact the relatively small crowd of 7,000 (equally divided between those in their second decade and those in their third and fourth) probably received a bigger dose of nostalgia than they might havewished for. The evening began with a good percentage of the audience stumbling and groping in the dark looking for their seats the timetable was as precisely adhered to as Nassau countdown. The opening act stunk. Though occasionally interesting on record.

New Orleans guitarist Mason Ruff-ner delivered a turgid, cliche-ridden (guitar played behind his back, with his mouth) half -hour of vocally blah, melodically dull rock club blues, made remarkable only by his muscular drummer. And that's not all. The acoustics went from merely grainy and muffled to riddled with atrocious feedback as the headliners' two one-hour sets progressed. You'd think that a millionaire rock legend's tour, sponsored by a major soft-drink manufacturer, would do better than this. However, most of the first set was exciting enough to compensate.

Dr. John commenced with a party-hearty version of Iko Iko. Levon Helm received rapturous applause when he launched into The Weight. On Shine Silently, Nils Lofgren displayed the seamless grace that made him a teenage prodigy at the outset of his career. Rick Danko rekindled fond memories with his inimitable vocal on Shape I'm In.

And virtually everyone proved how much of a gas it was to be sharing the stage with each other when they executed a little dance on Billy Preston's Will It Go Round In Circles. But Joe Walsh scored the high- Milo the cat is kind and considerably more intelligent than some of the kids who'll watch him Hata's vie of the natural order of things is a trifle skewed Very young will love Milo Ringo Starr feeble vocals light of the first hour with a rousing rendition of The Eagles Life In The Fast Lane. For the record, he is said only to have co-written the guitar lead. But since it's the most distinctive part of the song, he's more than worthy of it. (He's on less solid ground singing a verse of Desperado in the second set.

Don Henley and Glen Frey wrote it years before Walsh joined their band.) But there's no need to dither over hose history is being revised in this show. The bottom line is the good-natured, unpretentious fun being had by all concerned. The palatable irony didn't seem to escape the group heavy with reformed alcoholics and drug abusers as they belted out the chorus to Ringo's The No No Song, an anti-substance-abuse ditty "No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door." Also delightfully infectious was the ensemble's rave-up of Gary US Bond's Quarter To Three. For the student of significant rock music events, however, there wasn't much to chisel in stone for posterity. Watching three such accomplished yet unalike drummers attack their instruments was one memorable sight; Keltner is langorous.

Helm is cool and contained, Starr is crisp. Also notable were the things you could observe in this crowd. It generously provided affectionate and serious responses to each of Ringo's utterances. Maybe there's not enough in the way of fun evenings for fans of classic rock. (As an aside, there was a lot more cigarette smoke at this gathering than at rock concerts aimed at younger audiences.) But my personal memory bank will cherish Joe Walsh's crescendo-creating Rocky Mountain Way and the entire group earnestly singing With A Little Help From My Friends.

It probably wasn't worth $28 a head. But then again neither Paul McCartney nor George Harrison is scheduled to play our town in the near future. And it's highly unlikely that nine such superstars will share the same stage again. would so blithely go for a swim. Milo even goes fishing, using his tail as a lure.

Otis is turned into an equally bright but no less kind creature. His concern for Milo is almost touching, I suppose, if it weren't that it was so unbelievable. This dog is the essence of canine patience and Milo crawls between his legs, nips his ears, scratches his nose. And when Milo tumbles into a pit, Otis rescues him by lowering a rope, figuring out a primitive pulley system and hauling him to safety. It reaches the point of absurdity when Milo, now grown up with a pregnant mate, coaches her through childbirth.

"Breathe, breathe," Milo says. What is this? Lamaze for cats? The locale of the film is hard to place, too. It looks like it could be a mid-west farm. And then Milo and Otis swim in the ocean. It looks like foothills and then Milo gets nipped on the nose by a crab and Otis gets a lobster bite on his bum.

This sure isn't Kansas, Toto. It's somehow fitting, though, that its sense of place is a skewed as Hata's view of the natural order of things. Hata doesn't know when to stop, in fact and it becomes increasingly irritating to those of us who think cats belong tearing up other peoples' flower gardens and dogs should be tethered in other peoples' yards. Please don't get me wrong. I don't hate cats and dogs.

I don't like 'cm much, either, because cats tend to be sneaky, vicious, untrustworthy, indifferent and irritating and dogs are snuffling, smelly and drool too much. And Hata would have us believe that Milo, the cat in this effort, is more intelligent than a lot of kids I know. Most un-catlike, he's a kind little fellow, too. Given the task of guarding a newly-lain egg in the farmyard where he was bom, Milo watches with fascination as a little chick pecks its way into existence. Most real cats would regard the helpless chick as a tasty little appetizer and snap it up Ike it was a gourmet delight.

Not Milo, though. His eyes open in wonder and his mouth stays resolutely shut In the same vein. Hata has Milo take to the water like a duck. No cat of my acquaintance The Adventures of Milo and Otis Eaton Centra, West Mall 8 MARC HORTON Journal Staff riler If you're under age 6 and are smart enough to be reading this review, you won't like Milo and Otis. You're too grown up.

Younger kids, however, will probably be enthralled by the adventures of a cat and a dog who overcome penis in the countryside. It' harmless stuff for the very young Adults, on the other hand, will find them-Jselve rubbing their facet, yawning, wandering nt for popcorn and, very likely, nodding off. There arc no people in this film, probably because author-director Man anon Hata has endowed his animals with every imaginable human quality and emotion. They speak, they love, they laugh. They are the most un anirrul of animals in Hata't upside-down view of nature.

Milo and Otis are obviously so suberbly trained that they've lost whatever it is that makes them a real cat and dog. They are something else, having lost most of their natural animal ness. Art imitates life in Ann Grant's photo objects v4 1 if iv Ann Grant Photo Objects Ksenlz Aroneti Recent Drawings and Paintings Latitude S3 Gallery Through September 23 By ELIZABETH BEAICHAMP Through the magic of photography we finally have a practical answer to an annoying little problem that is doubtless causing misery for young urban professionals everywhere. Unfortunately, it's too late for those who went to the expense of outfitting their kitchens with the latest in spiffy, high-tech gadgets only to eat out every night But you younger members of the future'fo-cused crowd, take heart, because the photo object by Vancouver's (where else) Ann Grant is here. What at first glance seems to be a coffee pot china bowl or typewriter actually turns out after a closer look, to be a much more interesting 'photo object, a visual duplicate of the real McCoy, all show and do guts.

Very technically fine photographs of everyday things have been cut out and attached precisely to silhouettes of the actual objects which the artist has fabricated out of stainless steel, ood or something porcelain. The results are sophisticated, graceful ohjets (Tart that dwU in a netherworld some here between reality and illusion or appear- Last Tango in Kiev, left, is the best of Kseniz Aronetz's paintings; Ann Grant takes an interesting look at school photos with Honey the Kids are Tilting, right simplicity of dramatic colors makes Arooetz's painting work visually, while in Grant's show, objects that appear to be photographs are actually "photo objects," duplicates of the real thing not as it seems, in photography as in life. The second part of this two person show is a group of very big acrylic paintings and some smaller works on paper by local artist Kseniz Aronetz. Known for ber large-scale abstract landscapes or "inner landscapes of the mind," this exhibition marks a departure which unfortunately doesn't come off too The best painting is Last Tango in Kiev. Here, a bare green light bulb focuses our attention on a pair of black-stockinged female legs which emerge from a blood-red bar-table.

A male power dresser with no face to speak of casually smokes a cigarette and lounges in a matching blood-red chair. What makes this painting work visually is the clear simplicity of the dramatic colors and composition. ances and truth. And as visual puns, they are the kind of fun rarely seen on the avant-garde art scene that as often as not takes itself oh so seriously. There's something for everyone here, including a wooden chess set from above or the side, which glows with a warm caramel patina gained through years of friendly games in front of a comfy fire.

But my personal favorites would have to be the Honey the Kids are Ultimately, these paintings, with their appropriately Christian symbolism, shed nothing new on the age-old theme of humanity's inability to learn from its mistakes. If it were only that simple, Samuel Beckett wouldn't have had to say that "the only possibility of renewal lies in opening your eyes and seeing the present-day disaster, a disaster which can't be understood but, which must be permitted to come in because it is the truth." Tilting, photos. They're a new slant shall we say, on the ubiquitously mediocre school photograph that tells you nothing more about your kid than the color of her hair and that she must have been suffering through a nose cold on picture day. How else to explain that unfortunate slack-jawed look captured for posterity. This fascinating series of visual puns also serves to remind us in a vibrantly new ay that all is definitely 1.