Fifth Estate 25, March 1-15, 1967 Add to the Bookbuilder

Violence in our society will be discussed in a day-long conference sponsored by Detroit Women for Peace on Saturday March 18. Beginning at 9:30 a.m. with luncheon at 12:30; the sessions will be held at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Woodward at King in Detroit. A registration fee of $3.00, $2.00 for students, includes coffee and the luncheon.

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The Conference on Drug Abuse at Oberlin College sponsored by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) came off not quite as planned. The weekend of Feb. 17, 18 and 19 found a gathering of the drug elite crowded into this tiny collegiate community with the purpose of presenting an objective view on the abuse of drugs.

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Editor’s note: The West Central Organization is a “poor people’s organization” founded in June of 1965. It is modeled after the militant community organizing projects of Saul David Alinsky, executive director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, who is retained by WCO as a consultant two days per month at $200.00 per day.

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EDITOR: Harvey Ovshinsky

MANAGING EDITOR: Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Cathy West

ART: Dave Carlin

CIRCULATION: Wilson Lindsey, Rita Cole

TRAVEL EDITOR: Sheil Salasnek

MUSIC & LITERARY EDITOR: John Sinclair

CALENDAR: Rhona Whipple

ADVERTISING: Leon Brenner

FILM EDITORS: Joe Fineman, Shirley Hamburg

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The DAILY COLLEGIAN (the school newspaper), was the subject of attack at the Wayne University campus this past month. The Wayne Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Students For a Democratic Society, Young Socialist Alliance, National Student Association, Young Democrats and the Wesley Foundation have published two issues of an 8-page paper, the Wayne Reply, to counter the ineffective and inaccurate coverage of campus political events by the DAILY COLLEGIAN.

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On Valentine’s Day at WSU a strange coalition was effected and the Student-Faculty Council ended up sponsoring a “Bitch-In” on campus, which was an honorable attempt to move from the usual “left-hippy” practice of simply haranguing everyone, to pointing out the similarities of concern and interest among all students and young people generally and making those similarities known by attempting to gather the different people together to “bitch” at the University for all its weird practices. The general purpose of the Bitch-In failed to make itself known or felt, but one or two beautiful things happened which made the attempt really worthwhile.

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The Arizona road dipped suddenly out of a high serpentine ridge and fell straight out like a great javelin dropping ever faster and deeper down, down until it was lost from sight in the blinding rays of a white-hot sun.

To all points stretched the desert. Off in the dim, shimmering distance were the brooding, purple peaks of the incongruously snowcapped Vulture Mountains.

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The effects of U.S. bombing on Vietnamese civilians will be the subject of a talk given by William F. Pepper, Sat., March 18, at 8 p.m., at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Woodward at Holbrook.

Mr. Pepper is the author of the recent article in RAMPARTS magazine on the same subject. He recently visited Vietnam and was accredited by the Military Assistance Command. His main concern was the effects of the war on women and children and he visited many hospitals, orphanages, and shelters. He is the executive director of the New Rochelle Commission of Human Rights and an instructor at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

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When Gene Clark left the Byrds sometime last year, an integral, a genuine and soulfully beautiful portion of their sound left also. Gene Clark is more or less on his own now, with a twosome called the Gosdin Brothers. His first album on Columbia (CL2618) is a beautiful experience. The L.P. is simply called GENE CLARK WITH THE GOSDIN BROTHERS. In one cut on the album called “Echoes,” his music is not only heard, but felt, a velvety smooth and pure sound.

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What has evolved from Rock, besides even better Rock, are magazines about the new music that are keeping up to the fast pace of their subject matter. CRAWDADDY magazine is fantastic. Best pop record reviews and news that I’ve ever read. Love it.

I can’t believe that there are that many people who love good R & R; after all these years of thinking of myself as a minority freak. Their criticism is sometimes Master Thesis heavy, but is worth it. I have to read hard sometimes, to understand HOW MUCH they really get ‘into’ music. They also have tipped me off to some good albums, and I’ve so far pretty much agreed with all their criticisms.

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Michelangelo Antonioni’s BLOWUP, to paraphrase Archibald MacLeish, is a film that means more than it is. Even if people are lost souls, as those in the film certainly are, their relationships to one another, to their surroundings, to the work of art in which they figure should be firmly apprehended and made convincing. Instead, the film’s meaning is wide-open, so much so that I wonder if the Detroit release did not have sections necessary to the development extracted.

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As is the woeful and morose custom, late February salutes George Washington, who reputedly fathered a nation of sheep, and the motion picture industry boosts itself despite its fathering a low grade of mutton in the disguise of art.

1966 proved the physics maxim that nature abhors a vacuum as the field raised some rather substantial fare to credit with this year’s Academy Awards. No lily white fields for shuffling Negroes to help make nuns in or out of, but rather what approaches an honest effort at resolving the elephantine puzzle of the year’s best performances by actresses, writers, cameramen and directors.

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JOHN COLTRANE LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD AGAIN! (Impulse 9124) just might be the greatest work of art ever produced in this country -not to mention the greatest selection of jazz music ever to get set down on wax.

Regardless of what you have read, regardless of what anyone has told you, you must give this new music a chance to speak for itself; only you will be the loser if you fail to do so. The place to begin is with this album. Not a day has gone by since I first heard it that I don’t play it at least once, and sometimes twice or even three times. If I were in charge at Impulse, I would sell the record on a money-back-if-not-satisfied basis—it’s simply that good, and that policy would insure that it was heard as widely as it deserves to be.

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A minor illustration of the contemporary disappearance of chivalry is the extensive use of a new rifle by United States forces in Vietnam: the M-16. It shoots a tiny, .223 calibre, 55 grain bullet at the very high muzzle velocity of 3,185 feet per second. Its power to inflict wounds is of the magnitude usually associated with the soft-nose and exploding bullets outlawed by the Hague Conventions.

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(This column discusses basic “tune in” methods. The next installment suggests harmonious “dropout” methods.)

Psychedelic drugs make it possible to reach a wide range of consciousness. The experienced psychedelic religionist can move consciousness from one level to another, just like focusing a microscope or telescope.

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Bulldozers for all of Michigan? This was the fear of liberal delegates to the recent Democratic state convention in Grand Rapids as Patti Knox, wife of “Bulldozin’ Bob” Knox—Detroit Housing Director, was elected vice-chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

The Cavanagh “Irish Mafia” was in full evidence on behalf of the candidacy of Mrs. Knox as the “old guard” Democratic leadership of Staebler, Williams, and Scholle left open a big vacuum into which the well-oiled “Jerry-boys” could easily move.

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“No man knows what vibrations he sets in motion in his lifetime.” —Loren Eisley

So too, it is too early to judge completely the effects of the General Strike for Unity called in support of Adam Clayton Powell for last February 13.

That the city failed to grind to a halt as a result of the strike is certain. Most of Detroit’s Negro community admittedly did not participate. In the absence of any apparently unified sentiment on the part of the nation’s black people the Congress is moving toward a severe punishment of Rep. Adam Powell.

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The 24^th of January Movement met February 20^th to discuss the possibility of bringing suit against the Detroit Police Department for the illegal arrest of the 43 persons who were seized in the raid and released without charges.

Attorney Dennis James addressed the group, clarifying legal procedures and explaining what is necessary to collect damages in such a suit. He felt that the suffering experienced by those detained was slight, at least in a legal sense, and that a weak case at best could be brought by individuals against the police.

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Hey Breakthrough! We don’t want him!

Breakthrough has been on this kick ever since Mayor Cavanagh ordered the police to crack down on the rightist group. They’ve been trying to make the mayor out to be some kind of leftist.

In an invective issued earlier this month the parapatriots called Mayor Cavanagh a puppet dancing to the tune of the leftists. They implied he is a toady to such organizations as the Dubois Clubs, the National Lawyers Guild, Students for a Democratic Society, for the various peace groups around Detroit. They linked him with such men as Dr. Tracy Pullman, Fr. Maurice Geary, Ernest Goldman and Rev. David Gracie.

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LEMAR has its first publication out—The Case For the Relegalization of Marijuana. It is available at the FIFTH ESTATE Bookstore and Mixed Media for 25 cents. This group’s next major printing project will be the LaGuardia Report. Speakers are available to high schools, colleges, and any interested private groups. John Sinclair spoke before an assembly at Royal Oak Kimball High School on Feb. 16^th to a very receptive audience. If you are interested in a speaker from LEMAR call or write the group at the address below.

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Chuck Larson, chairman of the WSU Student-Faculty Council (S-FC) was attacked for his participation in the newly formed Detroit Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (DSM) last week. Larson was elected honorary chairman of the anti-war group.

Dr. Richard F. Ward, Vice-Chairman of the SFC felt that “this was a clear conflict of interest and agreement over Larson’s loyalties,” and called for his resignation from either the S-FC or the anti-Vietnam war group.

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University of Florida co-ed Pamme Brewer was found “guilty,” Feb. 11^th, of “indiscreet and inappropriate behavior” by a Faculty Discipline Committee after the above photo appeared in an off-campus humor magazine, The Charlatan. The Committee’s finding’s triggered student protests with calls for “nude power.” Miss Brewer said she consented to be photographed nude and felt that she had not committed any indiscretion. —photo courtesy The Charlatan and Underground Press Service.

“There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear.

There’s a man with a gun over there.

Telling me I’d better beware.

It’s time to Stop! Children,

What’s that sound?

Everybody look what’s goin’ down.”

(Special to the Fifth Estate) The Pittsburgh police’s premature Valentine to the left came in the form of a monster pot (marrywhana) raid on the night of Friday, 10 Feb., that netted a total of 55 arrestees. The bust took place at a reception for the noted anti-war speaker David Dellinger, following a report on his trip to North and South Vietnam delivered earlier at the University of Pittsburgh.

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FILM

FILM. “Nothing But A Man,” with Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, Benefit for SNCC & People Against Racism (PAR). Central Methodist Church (Woodward at Adams), March 4 8 p.m. Advance tickets $1.25 available at 5^th ESTATE Bookstore; $1.50 at the door; $5 patron, $7.50 couple. Also in Birmingham. Northminster Presbyterian Church (Big Beaver, east of Adams Road), March 3, 8 p.m.

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