The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 23

ENTERTAINMENT Friday, April 9, 197(5 1-prOVZnCC 23 lessons, vasectomies, and "I got half way to work when my zipper popped," if you run out of accumulated sick leave, birthday day off or Compensatory Alternate Statutory Holidays. All of them easier than rolling your eyeballs. And it's time to start preparing a list of acceptable reasons for not being behind that desk. Because the first day of spring sometimes only lasts half an hour, and you have to be feel, simultaneously, guilt, apprehension, insecurity, suspicion and hunger. That was guaranteed to get me out of almost all questioning but, on the odd occasion when things got tough, I had to resort to the ultimate in total copouts, a trick that cannot be too strongly recommended to anybody who gets into seemingly impossible situations.

You just rotate your eyeballs. Furious- tiaVLaui tames barber 1 If the weather is just too much for you, then there is the Sylvia, where you can sit with a beer and a sandwich (beer is beer, but the Sylvia sandwiches are extraordinarily ordinary and the French fries limp and tired enough to have run all the way from Paris). But I am unabashedly promoting the fish and chip cult this spring. On Denman, almost across from the Three Greenhorns, next to the Yangtze Kitchen, is the Pearly Kings, which is without any doubt the best fish and chips in the West End. Fat, real potatoes and a good sized slab of fish, nothing frozen (and there is a difference, no matter what people tell you).

Malt vinegar, a good sprinkling of salt, whip them quickly around the corner, find a beach, a log, a tree to put your back against, a wall down by the chang-. ing rooms, a piece of unoccupied grass right in the triangle between Denman and Beach. Nobody knows how aceommodat- ing his behind is until Spring comes. Don't bother with a camera, just take your eyes and your imagination. Let the people be the zoo.

They are none of them, the air-conditioned of fice peopleyou left in the IBM Tower, they are all being part of the Great Vancouver First Day of Spring and Lunch on the Beach Festival. PS: As far as I know, you can only use vasectomy once as an excuse. The biggest problem is getting the cork out, unless you are organized enough to carry a corkscrew. The easiest way is to push it in. Carefully, because it squirts out.

So just be careful. You can use almost anything to push with, like a chop-stick or a toothbrush (everybody has one or either of those somewhere about their person) or the letter-opener off your desk or even a common table knife from the cafeteria. If you go to a half-decent fish and chip-pery, they will doubtless push it in for you, or, if the sophistications of wine bother you, then remember that it is possible (and legal) to buy one single bottle of beer in the liquor store. But I am not suggesting a solitary lunch. If you can get a car pool together, or an excuse pool, six of you should be able to get into an ordinary car, or 47 (the last world's record) into a Volkswagen, and you don't haveto have fish and chips.

There are sandwich shops in the basements of the office towers, there are delicatessens all the way along Robson Street (a pleasant and obliging one called Gourmet near the Robson Street liquor store that makes sandwiches and things on crusty buns, at Denman near the beach just before you turn the corner to Morton (where the Souvlaki sells, surprisingly, souvlaki). My grandmother used to die a lot when I was a kid. At least once every three months. Every time I needed a day off. Funerals were the accepted lie for skipping work.

Particularly for boys between 14 and 16. We were an unrecognized, seriously underprivileged minority, with neither ran nor status. Not for us the ultimate weapon of tears, nor the lunar mysteries of womanhood. We were supposed to be there, at least 10 hours a day, and most of all we were supposed to look anxious. Not just ordinarily worried, but cliff- hanging, what-will-I-do-if-Mose-my-job frantic and, to accomplish this, we hurried everywhere, we were continually out of breath, and we learned quickly how to stand before all authority in round-eyed terror, like rabbits in the last stalks of a new-mown cornfield.

The only escape was a funeral, the invented rites of a near and preferably dear one and, unless one was so disorganized as to have the same member of the family die twice in the same month, they went unchallenged. The day after my stolen absence, I would turn up with a piece of black cloth pinned around my sleeve, and my carefully invented "something's dreadfully wrong with my personal life" expression which I achieved by attempting to Invitation to enter our own house All the President's men nothing short of great DonrjTOwrjin ly. Nobody can, or is prepared to, do anything to you while your eyeballs are going around like fluorescent yo-yos. Even looking at you is impossible. People are embarrassed, they turn away, they will write you a cheque, sign their lives away or give you their grandmother's secret recipe for apple chutney anything but face those terrible eyeballs.

Taking a day off today is a lot easier. There's always the doctor, ICBC, guitar fed in both official languages at the Centre's two bookstores, bodily nourishment can be had at either the exclusive l'Opera Restaurant or the more modest Cafe and spirits can be raised or sorrows drowned at any one of the nine bars that grace the Centre. There is also the wood-panelled Salon intended mainly for formal receptions and, everywhere, displays of visual art ranging from bronze sculpture to mammoth murals. What is the purpose of all this? In Southam's own words, "to make Ottawa a worthier capital of a great country. It is surely in the country's interest that our capital city should not be merely the grey beehive of an industrious bureaucracy, but, as well, a lively and polished mirror of the best work being done anywhere (in Canada) in the fields of music, theatre and dance.

It really is a national showcase. We have a resident orchestra, resident English and French theatre companies, but the fact remains that visiting Canadian orchestras, opera, dance and theatre companies perform more often in the Centre than our own artists. We calculated recently that in our first six seasons, visiting Canadian groups turned in 1,545 performances as against only 928 by our own orchestra and theatre companies." As to the Canadian content question, statistics are again trotted out. Southam points out that the orchestra commissions two new Canadian works each year and now has 11 of them in a Canadian repertoire of 50 works. Of the 271 works staged by the theatre wing, 134 were written by Canadians and the staff includes both a writer-in-residence, William Whitehead, whose job is reading and assessing scripts from across the country and a succession of playwrights-in-residence paid to write with the possibility of production of their works if the merit is there.

It has been announced that G. Hamilton Southam is entering his last year of directorship of the National Arts Centre, a position he has held since 1967. As to the Centre's progression over the years, he refers to the quote on a monument in Voltaire's house that reads, "His spirit is everywhere and his heart is here." That, claims Southam, describes the National Art Centre's relationship to the rest of Canada. It has a nice ring, but it will likely take a few more years before the accuracy of that assessment can be judged. ready to enjoy it immediately, before the color goes back to black and white.

So. Stanley Park. I spent my first summer lunchtime there this week, a simple number of fish and chips, half a bottle of wine, crows, squirrels, seagulls, pigeons, old ladies, bicycles, joggers, policemen on horses, kite fliers, golfers, cameras, baby carriages, grandfathers, daffodils, mallards, chicadees and all of them totally stoned. Because it is springtime. An enigma played last night By RAY CHATELIN When pianist Philippe Entremont made his New York debut in 1953, he was hailed a sure success with the opportunity to become a great keyboard artist.

Certainly, he did then and still has a tremendous command of his art with much technical skills and an abundance sensitivity. Yet, with all of his success and popularity, Entremont remains at age 40 somewhat of an enigma, an acknowledged favorite of concert audiences for securely musical reasons though still not recognized as being in the company of Gilels, Richter, Malcuzynski or Horowitz. Entremont performed in recital Thursday evening at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. His program included Mozart's popular A Major Sonata, K. 331; two works by Chopin, Ballade No.

4 in Minor, Opus 52 and the Sonata in Flat Minor, Opus 35; Five Preludes by Debussy; and the Prokofieff Sonata No. 2 in Minor, Opus 14. While there was an element of ineon-sistancy in the program, particularly in the Chopin, we heard moving lyricism and dramatic brilliance. Both musically and in terms of drama the second half of the program held command with the Debussy and the Prokofieff. The Debussy was a series of caricature impressions, miniature musical paintings that Entremont so obviously understood.

We could visualize the moods and the pictures that swept out from the piano. And in the Prokofieff Sonata that followed and closed the program there was a youthful zest. Composed in 1913, the work radiates "With pianistic brilliance, a combination of bravura with sweeping lyricism. These qualities were clearly defined by Entremont. In the opening Mozart, he resisted the temptation to overindulge the familiarity of the music.

It was steady and somewhat bouncy and I felt he brought a neatly developed fluidity to the work. It was with the Chopin that Entremont became somewhat unstuck. For some reason he gave the Minor Sonata a distinct Lisztian flavor. The result was a far too speedy Scherzo that lost much of its warmth. It became blurred, awash with a fuzzyness.

It was somewhat surprising after the warmth of the Ballade, with Entremont virtually caressing the lovely melodic structures. disorganized. White's attempts to co-ordinate himself by advanccing his kingside pawns only weakened them, and given Black's local superiority on that side of the board, they could hardly be defended after 29 h5. When Black won back her pawn and secured the two bishops, there was no doubt as to the outcome. Nava played the Black position well, although I imagine there might be some improvements for White to be found.

Even so, Black clearly had real compensation for the sacrificed pawn. In her game against Jack Patty, Nava judged the situation well and went straight for the attack. 6 0-0 may be a slight error (6 for White is able to castle and fortify her centre. Certainly the advance 7 a5 and 8 a4 is optimistic. White must have wondered if the idea of centralization, as formulated six or seven decades ago, had reached the colonies.

By the simple developing moves 10.Nf3 and 12.Qe4, White gained the initiative, for the opening of the a file in itself meant noth lortte par ton Canadian Habitat Secretariat in Vancouver has announced a program of Habitat neighborhood inventory walks, aimed at increasing peoples' awareness of the resources available to them in their own community. news release. Being of sedentary inclination, I decided to act on Habitat's advice, but to take my stroll through my memory, rather than through the district in which I now live. Aside from laziness, the other motive is that I shouldn't like to make waves in my own block, for someone with a grudge can make life very miserable for his neighbor. So these, then, are data gathered from other neighborhoods in which I have lived for the past two decades or more: Stella Stoolie: Her one reason for existence in this wretched world is to make sure that no one else has fun.

She has an amazing knowledge of the most arcane laws in her own town. If she were a cop, she'd bust people for spitting on the sidewalk even where there is no sidewalk. Not being an official policeman, she has appointed herself block deputy and sits by the window, her crow-bright eyes taking in everything that goes on. When she spots an infraction, she quickly dials the memorized number and complains. She knows the police have to act on the complaint, and she realizes the justification of her existence when the black-and-white car pulls into the neighbor's driveway.

Green-thumb George: The favorite target of Stella Stoolie, he lives only for his garden and his lawn. He doesn't let municipal sprinkling laws interfere with his avocation. If this is not one of his "days" for watering the lawns, he waits patiently until nightfall and surreptitiously turns on his soaking hoses those silent green pipes with myriads of tiny holes in them that allow water to trickle into the ground and surround the thirsty roots of his beloved plants. However, Stella is on to him, and when she hears a passing car swish through a water puddle on the road when it hasn't been raining, she immediately wakes up and puts through The Call. Dog-lover Douglas: He takes his pet poodle, Defecating Daniel, out for his evening constitutional, and the poor animal, which must be suffering from some kind of gastro-intestinal distress, uses every green lawn in the neighborhood as a comfort station, and every lamp-post and power pole as a urinal.

Douglas becomes outraged when a homeowner tells him to get that manure-machine to hellandgone out of there. Douglas writes letters to the editor about cruelty to animals. Single-cylinder Cyrus: When he's not giving his lawn its bi-weekly crew-cut, he's churning up his garden with a roto-tiller, scarifying the sod with a power rake or trimming his trees with a chain saw, he's tuning his dirt bike in the garage, which forms a natural echo chamber. Nosy Norman: Related, in a way, to Stella, Norman never misses anything. You get a new chesterfield? Norman just happens to be strolling by as the men carry it out of the truck.

Walk with a limp? Norman appears with a bowl of solicitation instead of chicken soup. Nothing is too' trivial for his attention. Ms. Anthrope: Hates everybody, especially kids and dogs; a modern day version of W.C. Fields, with no endearing qualities.

Makes everybody else in the neighborhood look bad by keeping her place spic and span a job made easier by the fact she has no dogs or kids. Mo Musclecar: Ah, you know this one. His only visible means of support are the constantly-spinning tires of his Detroit monster, and his only aim in life is to drive around and around the block, burning rubber and our ears. D. Tremens: Has been in the bag for four straight years.

Has parties every Saturday night and insists on escorting his guests to their cars (see above) at four a.m., there to conduct one final loud conversation before the doors slam, the horns honk, the motors roar and silence returns to the neighborhood. The Nice Guy. That's you and of course, and our friends. The ninety minutes of Whatzisname, cont. As you may recall, the last time we met, we were talking about the experimental program CBC will be presenting soon in the time slot following the National News.

The program will feature Peter Gzowski and guests. Muttered a Torontophobe, and it will be nothing but the usual Ontario-is-everything programming." I said tish, and maybe even tosh. Then Thursday, James Barber, The Province's resident expert on restaurants, got a phone call from the program. There would be a section on one program about the city's restaurants, and did James think he could provide a list of the best for the use of the program 's guest, Craig Claiborne, writer for the New York Times. Barber's reply was lost as the diaphragm of my phone exploded.

So much for the allegation that it would be a bunch of Torontonians exploring the Ontario navel. They're bringing in help from the States. Chuck Berry, too, is slated to be a guest. By BOB ALLEN The National Arts Centre may be located in Ottawa, but director-general G. Hamilton Southam does not talk about Ottawa's National Arts Centre.

Instead, it is "your" National Arts Centre, regardless of your place of residence. That is the pitch he has given in both Winnipeg and Edmonton in the last week. Thursday was Vancouver's turn as Southam was the featured speaker at a meeting of the Women's Canadian Club convened in the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse. The National Arts Centre Joseph Papp of New York's Shakespeare Festival has called it a "lousy" space, a national magazine recently referred to it as "an institution which has come to stand for the official (or non-Canadian) culture in this country," and its $46 million construction cost has raised both questions and eyebrows in the past. Its relevance to the average Canadian's life is probably best described by the title of Southam's address.

If people need convincing that the NAC is theirs, then its impact has not been terribly obvious. But then it can also be argued that a country as regionalized as ours has trouble relating to things "national." Certainly, the statistical facts bear out Southam's claim that people make good use of the Centre. Its three stages present an average total of 860 performances each season, paid attendance averages 80 capacity and total attendance for this season will hit the three-quarter million mark. As to Papp's criticisms of the architectural structuring of the performance spaces, it must be remembered that "culture palaces" are not in vogue these days. It is now artistically fashionable to sneer at them and, instead, extol the virtues of simpler, smaller quarters.

But for many, shrines should have an attendant show of pomp and, as the slide show that accompanied Southam's address displayed, the National Arts Centre is certainly a showy place: Decor is plush, the 2100-seat opera house features one of the continent's largest stages with a massive, hand-woven curtain designed by a Canadian but actually constructed in Japan, the 900-seat theatre is comfortably intimate with an adaptable thrust stage and the studio is a flexible space that can seat anywhere from 280 to 400 people. The mind can be CHESS yx I bruce harper i Dustin Hoffman, left, and Robert Redford get their heads together in All the President's Men. The two play Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. at the movies michael walsh story, a breathless thriller and a thoroughly satisfying entertainment. In short, it is great.

A true story, it began (and the film begins) on June 17; 1972. Bob Woodward, a Post metropolitan reporter, was assigned to cover the arraignment of five men arrested in the early hours of the morning in an attempted burglary of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington's Watergate office complex. The story was bigger than anybody imagined. Teamed with reporter Carl Bernstein and backed to the hilt by their newspaper's executive editor, Ben Brad-lee, Woodward pieced together a dramatic and shocking story that ultimately led to the resignation of Nixon and the succession of Representative Gerald R. Ford to the presidency.

A great story, it was chronicled by Woodward and Bernstein in their book, All the President's Men. Actor Redford thought that it would make a great picture. He was right. In the group art that is motion pictures, it is rare for absolutely everything to come together perfectly. Here it does.

Redford, fresh from such socially conscious projects as The Candidate and Three Days of the Condor, signed on to play the cautious Woodward. Dustin Hoffman, who sought purpose as The Graduate and freedom for the word as Lenny, was just right for the chain-smoking Bernstein. Director Pakula, responsible for the atmospheric mystery, Klute, recently completed The Parallax View, the tense story of an investigative reporter who runs afoul of a deadly political conspiracy. With Redford and William Goldman, the writer who saw to it that Butch Cassi-dy and the Sundance Kid had something to say, he plotted a successful strategy for the most challenging assignment of any of their careers. The film, like the-investigation itself, has to deal with a mountain of material and an ever-expanding cast of characters.

It shows us how the reporters assembled the first pieces and sits with them as they try to assemble them into a story. Soon it becomes apparent that they have set the fuse on a political time-bomb. Constantly against the deadline, continually surprised by the dimensions of the case, Woodward and Bernstein are powered by a combination of adrenalin, professional pride and something metropolitan editor Harry Rosenfeld (Jack Warden) calls "hunger." Luck, tenacity and the confidential guidance of a source known only as "Deep Throat" (Hal Holbrook), sets them on the right track. As the story unfolds, a dozen mini-dramas work themselves out. On the managerial level, Bradlee (Jason Robards) comes under increasing pressure to end an investigation that has generated little public interest but has been deepening the animosity between the press and the administrarion.

On a personal level, reporter Sally Aiken (Penny Fuller) must tear open old emotional wounds to add vital pieces to the puzzle. In playing the role, Fuller suggests that Aiken instinctively understands the importance of the story. Bradlee put is more colorfully: "Nothing's riding on this except the First Amendment, freedom of the press and the future of the country." Watergate challenged the free press and produced one of journalism's finest hours. All the President's Men insures that its lessons will be understood and remembered. ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.

Starring Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards and Martin Balsam. Written by William Goldman. Based on the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Directed by Alan J. Pakula.

Classifier's warning: occasional coarse language. Mature entertainment at the Downtown. Riddle: What's the difference between a newspaper reporter and the president of the United States? Answer: The president is required to take an oath. Twice in his life, Richard Milhous Nixon has stood before the chief justice of the Supreme Court and spoken the 35 words prescribed by Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution.

Richard Nixon, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States." In the concluding minutes of All the President's Men, the former president is seen repeating those words, a florid face on a portable television sitting in the newsroom of The Washington Post. In the background, ignoring him in his moment of triumph, are two reporters. They are furiously hammering away at their typewriters and, to anyone who hasn't been shut away in a Tibetan monestary for the last five years, the meaning of director Alan J. Pakula's penultimate image is perfectly clear. As a film, All the President's Men is the five-star final.

It is a civics lesson, an historical chronicle, an incredible adventure Toronto Black's determined efforts to attack, even though there was no justification for it, led predictably to his early defeat. When the White attack arrived, there wasn't much Black coulJ do, since he didn't have an attack at all. Nava missed a chance to get home early with 22.Ba3! Ra3 23.Ne6!, threatening mate on h7 as well as 24.Rd8. Black didn't repeat the position to see if she would do it next time. There was no saving the Black position, though, since a fatal check on a3 couldn't be prevented.

The moral of this game must be that even 2.b3, although it is unusual, must be met carefully, for Black had the worse position after only a few moves, and was never given a chance to recover. On April 24 and 25, there will be another tournament in Victoria. One more person will qualify for the B.C. Closed from this event, and since most of the top players are in already, any hopeful should take a shot at it. The site is the Gordon Head Recreation Centre, on F.eltham Road in Saan-ich.

The tournament is a five-round Swiss, and players can enter either a rated or an unrated section. Registration is 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at the site. For further information, contact Ray Kerr, 206-666 Cook Victoria, V8V 3Y7.

Woman places third in The Toronto Closed chess tournament ended last month in confusion and disarray. An exciting race developed between Peter Nurmi and Bryon Nickoloff, and they were due to play in the final round. Nickoloff was half a point ahead, and thus only needed a draw to win the tournament. It seems, however, that Bryon wanted to attend another tournament in the U.S. just when the big game was to be played, and he asked for a postponement.

This request was refused, he went anyway, and forfeited the game. For waiting patiently, Peter got a free point, and won first place. Everyone knew Nurmi and Nickoloff were the favorites anyway, so all this isn't really news. What was interesting about this year's Toronto Closed was the participation of a woman master from the Soviet Union, Mrs. Nava Shterenberg.

The Shterenbergs (her husband is also a master) recently moved to the Toronto area from Russia, where she was one of the top woman players. She has only recently started playing against male oppo-' nents, and in Canada it was the Toronto group that had the honor of being crushed by the latest addition to Canada's chess strength. Mrs. Shterenberg finished just behind the leaders in the Toronto tournament. As Black against Dave MacLeod, Nava employed the complex Schliemann variations against White's Ruy Lopez.

Since Black is playing a Vienna game a tempo down, she must be careful, and White must also be exact. The continuation 9.Qh5 leads only to equality, according to theory, but White must play 14.Bf4 and 15.0-0-0 to develop his pieces. Throughout the game, White was unable to find a harmonious distribution for his pieces. For example, look at the pathetic White bishops after 21.Ba3. Compared to Black's centralized pieces, the White army was ing.

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