1997_10 The Daily Collegian October 1997

              THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Monday, October 6,1997
News
Playing their parts
Courtesy of USU Productions
"The Hunchback of Notre Dame" will be performed at 1:00 and 7:00 p.m. in the SSU.
National touring company opens
production of 'Hunchback'
By Stephanie Williams
The Daily Collegian
University Student Union
Productions presents its first of
many musical and theatrical
productions for-the 1997-98
school year beginning with the
live stage production of "The
Hunchback of Notre Dame."
The production will be pre¬
formed today at the Satellite
Student Union at 1:00 and 7:00
p.m. Each show will run for one
hour and is put on by the
Children's Storybook Theater, a
national touring company.
This production is not the
same as the Disney version seen
this past summer in theaters.
USU Productions L' Art du Jour
Coordinator Tommy Martinez
says'The production will be
from the Victor Hugo classic."/
It's sure to be a crowd pleaser
with "several local schools' drama
departments scheduled to attend.
Among them is Kastner Intermedi¬
ate School. Kastner's drama in¬
structor. Leslie Ramos, plans to take
all of her students within the Cul¬
tural Arts Club at the school to "Ex¬
pose the students to a variety of the
arts." Ramos says she is hoping that
this exposure will show her students,
that "The theater is much different
than Disney's version and they can
learn where the story really came
from."
Also Fresno States's Early Edu¬
cation Center will send approxi¬
mately 40 to 50 children from the
center. Center staff member Bertha
Lo/ano thinks it will be a good ex¬
perience for the,children. "It rein¬
forces the center's focus on
drama as part of their curricu¬
lum."
USU Productions upcom¬
ing productions include: Ava/
International Dance Theater, a
play titled "Our Young Black
Men Are Dying and No One
Seems to Care," Poncho
Sanchez Latin Jazz Band,
Alvin Ailey Repertory En¬
semble and San Jose Taiko.
Tickets for "The Hunch¬
back of Notre Dame" can be
purchased in advance at the
USU information center, 2nd
floor. Tickets are $5 in advance
and $7 at the door for Fresno
State students with a valid
identification, and $10 in ad¬
vance and $ 12 at door for the
general public.
Aiello
Continued from page 3.
rejecting the actor, who also serves
as. :hc series' co-executive pro¬
ducer? "That's 100 percent cor¬
rect," he responds. "If
'Dellaventura' fails, it's me. no one
else. My fingers are in every part
of it, from the music to the editing
to the casting. It's all on me. I tell
my people. Understand that the
buck stops here"
Suddenly, there's a knock at
Aiello's door. He's needed on set.
The break leaves time for a tour of
the area. The main set is a cavern¬
ous restaurant, called Trattoria
Spaghetto, where Dcllaventura and
his team — Aiello's son Ricky,
former "Mad About You" co-star
Ramsay and Minns — meet to dis¬
cuss cases and strategy. Right be¬
hind the restaurant sits an outside
cafe set and beyond that there's a
huge cage filled with electronic
equipment, a space from which
Minn's character, a surveillance
whiz, operates. The "Dellaventura"
production team works on these sets
once a week, shooting the rest of
the time on locations across the
New York area.
Moments later, Aiello's back on
his couch. "OK honey," he says
excitedly into a cell phone. "OK,
kiddo." He's chatting with his son,
Danny Aiello III, another of the
show's executive producers. Upon
hanging up, Aiello says, "I wanted
someone I trust impliciUy doing this
with me, and* trust Danny implic¬
itly. I like having my familyaround.
It's great to work with Ricky, too. I
know what people think about him
being on the show, but you know
what?-He more than holds his own.
Ask anyone."
A month has passed since the set
visit and audiences are embracing
"Dellaventura." Aiello has a mod¬
est hit on his hands. With the show
on the air and three independent
films — "Brooklyn State of Mind,"
"Bring Me the Head of Mavis
Davis" and "Renata of Wilbur
Falls" — ready for release early
next year, the actor couldn't be any
happier.
"Are you kidding?" he enthuses.
"It's more fun now than ever be¬
fore. Watch me on the set. I'm 14
years old. Look at my life, I get up
in the morning and the most I have
to do is say some words, try to be
real and play a character wfio's as.
close to me as any I'll ever play.
I'm making more money than I ever
imagined, doing what I love. I've
gota great family. I'm blessed. I'm
blessed.
"My biggest worry is hoping
that my luck holds out."
Companies adjust to
Generation-X workers
By Stephen Franklin
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News
Services
CHICAGO—The overhead mu¬
sic is bouncy, dance-like. Maybe a
little too dance-like, you knov., for
so early in the morning. But that
could change, depending on How
the day's work goes, so the CD rack
is primed for mood swings: tradi¬
tional rock, grunge, heavy metal,
blues and on and on.
Cooling in the fridge in the front
of the long, brick-lined office are
some choice microbrews — for af¬
ter hours, of course. A few Nerf
footballs rest beside a large, comfy
couch in the front of the office.
They are on hand for when folks
need to blow off steam.
You know this work can get re¬
ally, really tense. But nobody seems
in need of a break at the offices of
Digital Knowledge Assets, a year-
old, 13-worker technology firm on
a newly gentrified street near the
Loop.
The workers, who could have
stepped out of a 20-somcthing
sitcom, are dressed in jeans and
sweatshirts. They arc plugging
away at their computers: whomping
out more progress for the Internet,
for their ambitious little company,
but also very much for their fresh,
bright careers.
You might say this is a classic
Generation X workpjacc — person¬
ally laid back, career-foe used, goal-
driven, independent-minded. But if
you did, Dick Costolo, 34, one of
the workers who design systems
that let people send data over the
Internet, would scowl.
Once, wrTeti he was a minion at
a giant firm, Costolo sat in a large
auditorium, listening to i: business
guru babble on about the 20 ways
to*care and feed Gen Xers in the
workplace, and it truly upset him.
"Here was a guy pigeonholing a
whole generation," he grumbles.
I But he allows that workers in their
early 30s and under often are.dif¬
ferent.
What is Corporate America to
do?
Does it heed the sayings of the
army of Gen X translators and
mend its ways to get the most out
of these latter-day latchkey kids? Or
does it take the flood of advice with
a grain of salt, retool its thinking a
bit. but basically adhere to the time¬
less dictum that a job is a job and
workers will adjust or get out?
There are plc,nty of people at
opposite ends of this issue. But a
growing number of corporate ex¬
ecutives and management experts
take the middle road, trying to put
the jargon-charged debate aside.
Learn the differences and adjust
your company accordingly, they
say. It's common sense.
"Times have changed and so you
expect generational differences. I
am 60 years old and I have to pay a
lot of attention to our younger
workers." says Curt Plott. president
of the American Society for Train¬
ing and Development, an indepen¬
dent research group near Washing¬
ton. DC. t
"Younger workers are asking for
exactly the right things. I think it fs
a healthy trend." he says. They want
honesty, feedback, greater flexibil¬
ity on the job, less micro-manage¬
ment, a lot of visual training and
work components, and continued
training, he says — the things most
workers want, regardless of age.
What makes the contact in the
workplace between generations
more complex nowadays, he adds,
is that the business world is chang¬
ing, and changing more rapidly than
before. \
Researchers studying
effects of binge drinking
Reuter
LONDON — Beer binging can
cause more than a painful hangover,
a team of Finnish doctors said. It
can kill.
After studying the drinking hab¬
its of more than 1,640 men, re¬
searchers at the University of
Kuopio in Finland discovered that
how a person drinks is as much of
a health risk as the amount con¬
sumed.
Binging, which the study de¬
fined as consuming more than six
bottles or more of beer in a session,
increased the risk of injury, poison¬
ing, violence and heart attacks, par¬
ticularly among middle-aged men,
they said.
"The risk of death was substan¬
tially increased in men whose usual
dose of beer was six or more bottles
per session compared with men
who usually consumed less than
three bottles, after adjustment for
age and total alcohol consump¬
tion," Jussi Kauhanen said in the
British Medical Journal.
"The pattern of beer binging is
associated with increased risk of
death, independently of the total
average consumption of alcoholic
drinks."
Kauhanen said the results of the
study suggest that a heavy intake
of beer could increase heart attacks
by triggering irregular heart beats
or blood clots.
Most health advisories suggest
weekly limits on alcohol. Kauhanen
called for more studies examining
how people reach, exceed or keep
within those limits.
"Our findings show that it is
equally important to examine care¬
fully the relation between drinking
patterns — especially heavy intake
— and health outcome," he added.
The article did not quantify the
volume of bottles used in the study.