A nightmare ae

ra.
behind a corner of darkness,
the hurricane
creeps.
Treachery
hides in the high

Mr. Minister in your lookout,

1914,
Lee Enfield rifles

Pepper
thrown at angry dogs.
= Then—
S €
= Now

Hiroshima!

One blast—
The battlefields
Terror
circles in the air,
beneath the sea,
surrounds

But here—

These voices on the radio—
BS Lunatics

By coldly calculating.

* They say,

Snap off the lights!

Will madmen sit
in safety,
deep
inside their oxygen-fed den,
while we

in Canada

within a grave,

Honest rage
can reach such heat,

like briitling steel,

bursting

Then

_ Gigantic pyramids
will sound

heodore Bikel is coming to
Vancouver.

Co-star for two years with
Mary Martin in “The Sound
of Music”, and acclaimed art-
'St of stage, screen, television,

_ "ecords and radio, Bikel is
Also one of folk music’s treas-
ured artists.

Speaking seven languages
Seedy, Bikel’s repertoire
Neludes over 500 songs from

Wenty lands in their native
ee His tremendous ap-
ahs 8S a folk singer is dem-

Tated by the turnouts to

WORTH
_ __READING

ectterialism and the Dial-
al Method (Volume 1), by
$ Surice Cornforth. Price
150,
aanie is the first of three
eral Mes intended for the gen-
Teader who wants to
: vee what Dialectical Mater-
Diack Means in theory and
i Ctice. The ideas underly-
arxist philosophy are
ve Plained in non-technical
tion 28° and their applica-
is shown in a number of
amples.

Responsibility

(Warning to a.Canadian Parliament)

that breathe accusation,

keep watch!

made history at Mons—

violence multiplies.
supposed hostility—

“A hundred million lives—

must fill our little inch

: the Earth?

its pressure rising everywhere
will make our old convictions crack

their Spheric thunder
in this traitorous night.

winds

of time.

and round this shaking World,

from every dwelling place,

a shoui—

waves vibrate.

¢ ROGER PRENTICE

B ikel coming to city

his frequent one-man concerts
in New York’s Town Hall and
other concert halls through-
out the country, together with
his eleven best-selling Elektra
albums.

He will be appearing at the
Queen Elizabeth Theatre for
one night only — Thursday,
April 18 — and tickets are
available at the Hudson’s Bay
Box office. Phone number is

MU 1-3351,
Prices range from $1.75 to

$4.00.

THEODORE BIKEL e

Eyes in her finger tips

he sees with her finger tips,
this 22 - year-old young
Russian from the Urals, Rosa
Kuleshova. She can pick up
any playing card of colored
cotton reel blindfolded out of
a sack and describe photo-
graphs she has never seen
with her eyes.

Passing her fingertips light-
ly over a printed page she can
read the letters.

At first doctors thought she
had unusually sensitive touch
or that her fingertips could
detect the minute tempera:

In February she was invit-
ed to Moscow by the Soviet
Academy of Sciences’ Insti-
tute of Communcations Prob-
lems. A program of tests, pre-
pared by this institute togeth-
er with the academy’s Insti-
tute of Biophysics, ruled out
both the touch and heat sen-
sitivity theories.

ok * *

The touch theory was teste-
ed by projecting a light and
dark image onto a matt glass
screen of uniform surface.

Rosa unerringly described the _

Blindfolded, Rosa Kuleshova ‘’reads” a newspaper wiih

her finger tips.

ture variations of light and
dark. These were the views
held by psychiatrist Dr. I.
Goldberg, who last June re-
ported his observations of
Rosa’s extraordinary abilities.

At a Urals conference of
psychologists in November,
Rosa astounded delegates by
telling the color of unknown
objects placed in an opaque
paper bag. :

Dr. Goldberg found she
could describe pictures on
matchbox labels or packets of
cigarettes. Credence was lent
to the ‘“‘sensitive touch” view
by the fact that Rosa could
not see or read if a sheet of
cellophane or glass was plac-
ed over an object.

f

images, thereby proving that
her fingertips were in fact
sensitive to light.

For the next test a filter
was inserted near the light
source to cut out all the infra-
red heat rays. The resulting
light image of neutral temper-
atures was again clearly de-
tected.

As a cross check a purely
heat image with no visible
light and dark was cast on
the screen by infra red rays;
this time, Rosa’s finger tips
completely failed to pick out
anything.

“yes” in her fingertips? The

' theory seemed preposterous

to the two young eye special-
ists, Bongard and Smirnov, in

charge of tests. In consulta-
tion with Prof. Neuberg they
conducted further ex peri-
ments normally used for test-
ing human sight.

They found that Rosa’s fin-
gertips in fact possessed many
of the properties of the hu-
man eye. °

The eye detects light with
millions of light-sensitive ele-
ments in the retina. The more
elements there are the sharp-
er is vision.

Using special charts with
lines of dots at varying inter-
vals, the researchers were
able to calculate that Rosa
has ten light-sensitive ele-
ments in every square milli-
meter of fingertip.

SCIENCE

How could she distinguish’
color? Tests showed that her
fingertips functioned in ex-
actly the same way as human
eyes. All colors are perceived
as a combination of blue, red
‘and green, detected by triple
clusters of “receivers” each
especially sensitive to one of
the three basic colors.
Experiments showed that
Rosa’s fingers, too, had clus-
ters of red, blue and green
“receivers” and their spec-
trum sensitivity exactly cor-
responds to that of the human
eye. .
If a red light we are watch-

ing suddenly changes to grey,

we s€e blue. So did Rosa with
her fingers.

They also displayed the
well-known phenomenon of
light interia. Her fingertips,
like the human eye, must be
in constant motion in order to
see; if they are stationary,
they see nothing.

Rosa developed her ability
by constant blindfold practice
while teaching at a school for
blind children in Nizhny Ta-
gil.

Scientific observers expect
that study of her case will
throw light on the evolution
of vision in man ang on the
development of the human
eye. ‘

Soviet scientists are sure
that Rosa is not the only per-
son in the world with such
powers at her fingertips—and
they are looking for others.

How about you?

—PETER TEMPEST

Variet
ivorce Italian Style (cur-
D rqntly at Vancouver’s
Studio Theatre) is what the
French term a “comedie
noire” (black comedy). How-

ever, in the socially conscious
treatment of director Pietro

Germi, there is nothing idle in|

Divorce’s dallying with death.
Its theme is satirical condem-
nation of Italian law and Sic-
ilian honor which treat di-
vorce (prohibited in Catholic
Italy) as a greater misdemean-
our than murder.

Divorce Italian Style (dub-
bed into English in this ver-
sion) is the sort of film which
keeps you chuckling constant-
ly, much of it attributable to
Marcello Mastroianni’s hand-
ling of the husband. This
handsome and very popular
romantic lead (seen in La
Dolce Vita and The Night) is
a most intelligent actor who
simply refuses to be. typed as
a stock romantic lead.

* * *

Divorce gives full play to

Mastroianni’s abilities as, in.

in film viewing

sensitive response to Germi’s
direction, he creates a seedy

gigolo of a southern noble-

man. Beginning with a per-
fectly calculated slicked-down
hair and moustache, Mastroi-
anni pads out the characteri-
zation with carefully observ-

ed detail from life — his cig- _

arette holder, a facial mann2r-
ism, his suavity and male ar-
rogrance. The result is a real
aristocrat who, typical of his
class, hasn’t the moral values
of a snake. This aristocratic
decadence is an important
sub-theme as, inevitably,
the unequal status of women.

Although one cannot be too
appreciative of Mastroiannj’s
characterization nor of the
able and varied cast around
him, the real strength of any
worthwhile film stems from
script and direction — and
these are by Pietro Germi
(himself an actor at times). A
strong story line, the biting
satire of situation, have been
filmed with imaginative de-

tail and perfect timing. Eng-.

is _

lish. dubbing is as good as can
be expected (I prefer sub-
titles), but the parts of the
sound track which survive
from the original arouse re-
gret for what we may have
missed. Use of natural sounds
and music brilliantly enhances
this most satisfying film.
* aes es
The Flute And The Arrow
Was Made several years ago
by Sweden’s famous docu-
mentarist Arne (Great Adven-
ture) Sucksdorf during a year
and a half spent with the

-Murias, one of India’s aborig- _

inal peoples. Beautiful color
photography and much per-
ceptive detail make this well
worth seeing, but the final
effect is of promise unreal-
ized.

Period of Adjustment, bas-
ed on a Tennessee Williams
comedy (yes, comedy!), takes
a number of perceptive swipes
at American status symbols
and sacred cows before the
“happy” ending.

‘ _—N. E. STORY

April 5, 1963-LPACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5