Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov An International Film Exchange Release Ko co st n y d a e m Iv n an ed ov a i s s a “ d R e u c s a s d ia e n n t p ” ia a n n i d s t t i h n e lo “m ve o w ns it t h ro A us m e p r r i o ca d n u c ja t z o z f n a o m bo a u t r te g r e o h i o s w s o st c r i o e n ty g . l ” y H it i ’s s heroic effort to launch the first Soviet jazz band in Odessa, 1928, is the subject of JAZZMAN. It is a cheerfully disrespectful and funny bit of nose-thumbing at the cultural commissars ft of the Soviet Union, a delightful surprise from a country that usually doesn’t either permit or export raspberries like this one. When Ivanov, a clean-cut, handsome lad, persists in tickling the piano keys with jazzy melodies, he is expelled from the conservatory by a group of sober-sided judges, despite 4 his spirited explanation of the social roots of jazz as coming “from the most oppressed people in the U.S.” No commissar can keep a good jazzman down. Ivanov recruits two street musicians to .. join his “first jazz band,” although they think he’s off his rocker. George, who has a look of perpetual astonishment on his long Buster Keaton-ish face; and Stefan, a dashing, droll J fellow with a gypSy-ish air, provide a humorous contrast to the intensely serious Ivanov. This fictional treatment — directed by Karen Shakhnazarov — of those early Russian devotees of swing, Dixieland and ragtime has the fragile look of a vintage movie and the ’ comic sense often found in films from Soviet Georgia. While it may not sound like real ; be-bop, its got a charm all its own. Judy Stone San Francisco Chronicle CARMEN (Spain) June 27 by Carlos Saura with ZOOT SUIT (U.S.) EL NORTE (U.S.) July 4 With BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ JAZZMAN (U S S R.)** July 11 a "musical comedy" from Russia MALOU (West Germany)** July 25 by Jeanine Meerapfel “a film about the longing of women" coming PORTLAND MONKEY GRIP (Australia)** PREMIERES** with STAR STRUCK BOAT PEOPLE (Hong Kong)** by Ann Hui THAT SINKING FEELING (Scotland)** by Bill Forsyth NATHAN D. SANDERS AND FRANK J. DIXON ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE MERGER OF THEIR PARTNERSHIP WITH SAMUEL J. NICHOLLS AND ARE ALSO PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT ROBERTA A. SIEGEL HAS BECOME A PARTNER IN THE FIRM SANDERS, DIXON, NICHOLLS & SIEGEL 1020 S. W. TAYLOR STREET SUITE 430 PORTLAND, OREGON 97205 (503) 242*7440 Parents have to sign a permission slip for their children to attend and class is held in the evening. Boys go on one night, girls on another. On the boys’ night, everyone files into the cafeteria for the lecture. The cafeteria smells of milk and disinfectant. The man who lectures uses the empty salad bar as a lectern. He peers over the cash register. It's a little like a doctor's examining room, all those empty stainless steel trays usually filled with vegetables and cheese, sunflower seeds and dressings. Only now they're empty. The teacher puts his notes and visual aids down. He’s got transparent models of different parts of the body — the head, the heart, the midsection, the genitalia. When he sets it down, the head rolls into the lettuce tray. The heart rests where tomorrow there will be ranch dressing. The midsection stands facing the students. It is very quiet in the room as the teacher picks up the transparent genitalia, a disembodied penis and testicles supported by a steel rod and mounted on a wooden base. There is a nylon string in the rod and a hinge on the penis. When the teacher pulls the string down, the penis lifts up on the hinge. The teacher begins to explain an erection. Like a tic, he pulls on the string so the penis goes up and down as he talks. That swinging penis looks like a railroad warning gate gone crazy. The teacher mentions sebaceous glands that secrete a substance of very peculiar odor. The students hear about the integument, the erectile tissue, the corpora cavernosa and the arteries, branches and capillary network. It's not very sexy. Matter of fact, it’s unpleasant. Some students say the teacher is a sicko, the plastic penis going up and down. Before discussing the testes, the teacher explains surgical anatomy of the region. He says the penis occasionally requires removal for malignant disease. If this becomes necessary, the operation can be performed by cutting off the whole of the anterior part with one sweep of the knife. The teacher makes the sweeping gesture with his left hand and in the next moment stands holding the severed penis like a cucumber in his right. In the room there is an audible gasp. The teacher laughs and reassembles his model. It’s a joke. He’s a jerk, some students think. The rest of the evening is uneventful. Riding home on his bicycle, it occurs to one student that though he's never thought of it before, his penis is in the way. And the narrow seat slices into his There is a nylon string in the rod and a hinge on the penis. When the teacher pulls the string down, the penis lifts up on the hinge. testicles like a dull knife. As the days go by it proves impossible to shake this feeling. Next week he rides to his second sex education class. This time he hears about the mons veneris, the labia majora and minora, the clitoris, the meatus urinarius and the orifice of the vagina. The teacher again shows transparent models but plays no tricks. Riding home the student notices the beam his bike light throws onto the road. There preceding him lies a pattern of light and dark that looks like a vagina, the light's hesitant rings around a narrow vertical opening. The student switches off the light and rides the dark familiar street home. Concerned not to fall in a pothole or hit a curb, he forgets the week-long discomfort in his crotch. • David Romtvedt is a Port Townsend writer whose book of short stories, Free and Compulsory for All, in which this story appears, was just published by Graywolf Press, Port Townsend. Moon, his first major book of poetry, was recently released by The Bieler Press, St. Paul, Minnesota. Steve Winkenwerder is a Portland artist. Clinton St. Quarterly 21
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