Fifth Estate 19, December 1-15, 1966 Add to the Bookbuilder

OUTRAGED! That’s what we are. Consider it. Think of what it means.

London Bridge. The Eifel Tower. The Arch d’ Triumph, the Vatican; even that monument to hypocracy, the Statue of Liberty. What does Detroit have?

A fifty-five foot spark plug at the intersection of Woodward and Eight Mile Rd.; gateway to the suburbs. The World’s largest and ugliest stove gracing the State Fair grounds. A giant grinning cow’s head on the Edsel Ford Freeway. A forty-foot bow tie, badge of a losing politician. The symbol of the city; THE SPIRIT OF DETROIT, in front of the City-County Building; a joke off a can of peas contorted in pain perhaps by something he ate—or something he saw.

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Editor & publisher

Harvey Ovshinsky

Managing Editor

Peter Werbe

News and Political Editors

R. Fleck & F. Joyce

Art & Layout

Gary Grimshaw

Editorial assistant:

Cathy West

Circulation

Wilson Lindsey

Photography

E. Bacilla, Willson Lindsey, Magdaline Sinclair

Travel editor

Sheil Salasnek

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The American Civil Liberties Union has called on 900 college and university presidents throughout the nation to deny the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) information concerning the makeup of anti- Viet groups on their campuses.

The civil liberties group’s plea came in the wake of subpoenas of membership lists of anti-war groups at the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley last summer. The ACLU called this “one of the most serious breaches of student academic freedom in recent decades, including the McCarthy era.”

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Progress Report: The first reorganizational meeting of the Artists’ Workshop Society took place as scheduled on November 22, with encouraging results. That is to say, enough people expressed working interest in continuing the work of the Society that the Artists’ Workshop will endure—and, hopefully, keep growing.

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When Cecil Taylor spoke at a panel discussion at the University of Pittsburgh prior to his concert there, it apparently came as a shock to his collegiate audience that he and his fellow musicians no longer wish to undergo the demoralizing experience of presenting their music in nightclubs. How could the musicians not want to play in nightclubs? the students wanted to know. What was going to happen to jazz then?

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From the “Action Line” column, Detroit Free Press, Wednesday, November 23, 1966:

I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read: “Stamp Out Reality.” Any idea where I could get one?

—M.R., Ferndale.

Fifth Estate Book Store on Plum Street is sending you one. They’ve got the most off-beat selection, about 100 messages to choose from. Caution: Some folks might find a few of ‘em offensive. Proceeds go to a left-wing publication. Most popular stickers are anti-Johnson and anti-Vietnam: “God is Alive—He’s in the White House,” “Draft Beer, Not Students.” Other big sellers: “Support Your Local Batman,” “If You Drive, Don’t Drink (You Might Hit a Bump and Spill Some).” For the uncommitted, there’s one that says, “Bumper Sticker ”

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Andy Warhol, slightly built with frosted blond on his hair and perpetually with shades, doesn’t grind out the pop culture he’s noted for.

It flits forth from his head instead.

Warhol, the man who started the whole pop art movement with his painting of a Campbell’s soup can, who filmed the epic kiss, who swathed the under-round in velvet, and brought the nation’s first wedding in a happening to this midwestern town, is thinking of following Leary into the Village Theater in New York with his own religion.

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Mod came to the Midwest Nov. 20^th as two young Detroiters were united in the bonds of holy matrimony in the nation’s first mod wedding ceremony.

A capacity crowd of Teeny-boppers in miniskirts and bell-bottom trousers jammed the Michigan State Fairgrounds Coliseum to watch Randy Rossi, 19, a go-go girl and Gary Norris, 25, a free-lance artist, take their traditional vows. However, that was about the only link with tradition in this free — wheeling improvisional ceremony.

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The Image was there, the sacrifices and the paid assassin, the screaming mobs of idiot droolers, the expressionless expressions passing for cool, the magic gimmicks and trickery, the grey recorders and their cynicism who will later let everyone know what “really” happened via the tube; all there in a building that once flourished better when it was full of cows. The midwest may never learn.

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Rainbow

Can you float through the universe of

your body and not lose your way?

Can you lie quietly

engulfed

in the slippery union

of male and female?

Warm wet dance of generation?

Endless ecstasies of couples?

Can you offer your stamen trembling in

the meadow for the electric penetration of pollen

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American heoroes, the Fort Hood Three: (l. to rt.) Mora, Samas, Johnson

PFC James Johnson, Pvt. David Samas, and Pvt. Dennis Mora, three antiwar GIs court-martialed two months ago refusing to go to Vietnam have been transferred from Ft. Meade, Md., to the federal military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

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a review of

Vietnam! Vietnam! by Felix Greene, Fulton Publishing Co Hardcover $5.50, Softcover $2.95.

“Whatever the military outcome of the war in Vietnam, its moral outcome has already been decided...America has the ignominious role, whether she wins or loses.”

—Arnold Toynbee

In war-time, it is easy to forget about human beings. In the case of the war in Vietnam, this seems to be especially true. For those who sympathize with the war, pictures of torture and cruelty become commonplace (after all, war is hell). For those involved in opposing the war, heated arguments about slogans and feverish planning for mechanical demonstrations too often take precedence. We have all forgotten the Vietnamese and their humanity.

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The best advice I can give anyone about the ARMY and the U.S. GOV’T in general is not to get involved with these maniacs in the first place. This however is becoming increasingly difficult to do unless you leave the country altogether.

Chances are that you’ll get a letter as I did saying “Y’all come on down for a physical.” This was particularly traumatic for me as I had successfully avoided these people for 27 years.

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I concluded last issue by saying that, whereas in previous ages, nonconformists were able to “escape” society by taking refuge in an agrarian life, etc.; nonconformists in the interdependent society cannot escape. They can only rebel. And their rebellion demonstrates the absolute contradiction between the Social System and the Human Id (as a symbol of human freedom and satisfaction).

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That Artists’ Workshop Public Notice in your last issue — Public Notice for more members — I found somewhat amusing [see FE #18, November 15–30, 1966]. Especially where it said “There is no hierarchy, no exclusiveness, no formal structure ...”

Reminds me of the Holy Roman Empire — which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.

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Special to the Fifth Estate from Satyrday Publications, Toronto

Toronto—as well as most large Canadian cities—is becoming a haven for youthful Americans who, for reasons of their own, don’t want any part of U.S. President Johnson’s war on the Vietnamese people.

“It’s not that I’m scared to fight... I just don’t believe in killing people for the phony cause that our leaders tell us we’re fighting for,” one U.S. draft-dodger told Satyrday magazine recently. He preferred to remain anonymous because Federal Bureau of Investigation officers, hand-in-hand with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Canada’s FBI), are trying to keep tabs on draft-dodgers.

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The calendar will be a regular FIFTH ESTATE feature. We know that there is more happening in the Detroit and Ann Arbor areas than what we have listed, so we need your help. Send us information about what your group is doing or just anything you hear about. We think the items listed below disprove the contention that “nothing ever happens in Detroit.” The deadlines for the calendar are the 8^th and 23^rd of each month.

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