\s mYevtew ELECTRONIC ADDITION - University of British Columbia

BOOKS IN REVIEWencounter for the "unsuspecting" musicologist.Referring to many things, heconcludes wryly if not paradoxically:"Encore un texte d'inachevé."Jacques Julien's essay "Le Maniérismevocal ou la voix porteuse," studying thesignificant and self-conscious parody of aCharlebois or the insistence of a "bad"voice such as that of a Tom Waits,opposes these to the fetishism of voice inthe institution of opera, arguing for improvisationand a direct interaction betweenthe author/performer and hisaudience. Equally compelling and knowledgeablein music history and voicetheory, it joins Giroux's essay in spirit ifnot in style. Renée-Berthe Drapeau'sessay, less theoretically rigorous but historicallyand bibliographically sound,seems to summarize the unevenness ofthis nonetheless valuable collection in itssurvey of "yé-yé" or televised hit-paradetranslations of top ten American tunesprior to the emergence of native composer-performersin 1975. Her lists ofshort-lived combos on the music show"Jeunnesse d'aujourd'hui" triggered anaural memory of my childhood in the1960's, a mental sound archive (TheClassels!) which I had forgotten I possessed.At their best, each of these importantbooks strikes a balance betweenBarthes and life.MICHELE LACOMBETWO DIMENSIONSА. к. DEWDNEY, The Planiverse. McClelland& Stewart, $12.95.The Planiverse is A lot of fun. At thevery least it is an entertaining combinationof science fiction and two-dimensionalphysics. At most it is a thoughtprovokingessay on creativity and the linebetween physics and metaphysics. ThePlaniverse opens in the computer lab ofa university that one can not help butassume is the University of WesternOntario. A computer simulation into atwo-dimensional world is absorbing thewriter, a professor of computer science,and his brightest students. The project isgrowing, semester after semester, gettingmore sophisticated and more fantastical.Suddenly, something totally unexpectedhappens. Something that, from a computerscience point of view is impossible.A strange character appears on thescreen. Communicating with the studentsby means of their printer, he tells themthat his name is Yendred, and that he isabout to begin a quest for a deepermeaning, for the Presence.Yendred's quest takes the readerthrough the universe of Arde, and showshim everything from two-dimensionaltravel, through two-dimensional sport, totwo-dimensional romance. The ideas ofhow this all might work are mindstretching.The students and their professorare at first astounded and fascinated,then, eventually obsessed. Theytry to remain detached from Yendredand his search, but their capacity to seethe "third dimension," invisible to Yendred,gives them God-like powers in hisuniverse. They feel a moral responsibilityto help Yendred, and at the same time,a moral responsibility not to interfere.Meanwhile, outside pressures have causedthe fictional professor Dewdney and hisstudents to conceal what is going on inthe computer science lab. If word gotout, they fear they would be the laughingstock of the university — and theirlarger world. As Yendred gets closer andcloser to finding the Presence, the observersare under increasing pressurefrom the chairman of the department,and the president of the university, todiscontinue their communications withthe world they have discovered. Thestudents' project has run away withthem, and no one is sure how it will end.149