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a review of

Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheedah Phillips. AK Press, 2025

In a discussion during the early winter of 2024 with radical political scientist Richard Gilman-Opalsky facilitated through Incite Seminars, there arose the essential thread of imagination and its usefulness as a tool for decolonization, along with the reaffirmation of future potentialities hidden within playful and creative anti-capitalist exercises.

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All those charged by police in the January 4^th “Great Reefer Raid” have by now been arraigned and examined and, with one exception, bound over for trial in Detroit Recorder’s Court. The exception is Magdelene Sinclair, charged with possession of marijuana, whose March 14^th examination was continued until March 31^st.

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(Special to the FIFTH ESTATE) LONDON—From the suburban sprawls of America where the language of LSD and grass is used to sell cars and discotheque tickets, the appeal of the country that produced Tolkien, “Morgan!,” and George Harrison is strong and readily fulfilled.

Unfortunately after nearly six months in “Swinging London,” I am willing to face General Hershey and his clerks of conscription and the napalm aces of the USAF rather than stay another six.

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The second annual Detroit Jazz Conference will be held on Saturday, April 8 and Sunday, April 9 at Wayne State University’s McGregor Memorial Conference Center, the Community Arts Auditorium and the Music Wing.

More than 75 musicians and speakers will participate in the week-end program of live performances, discussions and lecture-demonstrations. Headliners include conference artist -in-residence pianist Cecil Taylor and his quartet, guitarist Kenny Burrell, critic-author A.B. Spellman, and Frank Kofsky, FIFTH ESTATE jazz columnist.

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Editors’ note: The following interview by FIFTH ESTATE film editor Joe Fineman took place at the recent Ann Arbor Film Festival. Participants in the interview were film judges Henri Chapier, critic for COMBAT magazine; Gerard Malanga, superstar; and Andrew Lugg, U of M Cinema Guild. The winners of the festival will be shown in late April by FNCC Lower DeRoy Aud. on the Wayne Campus.

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The Eastern Market is one of those places you must love. She is quite an old woman by now, and part of her (the Gratiot Central Market) was recently gutted by flames: But you love her, for she is very real and genuine—the Lotte Lenya of our local architecture.

She lives just east of the city’s newest “Ditch,” on Vernor near Russell. Confined mostly to bed, she sprawls over a five block area, languishing in meat-packing houses, vegetable stalls, and exotic wholesalers of olive oil, dried apricots, noodles, and wine. She is always vaguely reminiscing her halcyon days, when she was a young immigrant speaking Yiddish and Italian.

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Here’s the political line-up for 1967, so far: There will definitely be a special election in the City of Detroit, and probably the rest of Wayne County, in November. The primary will be held either in August or September.

One of the most interesting races will be for two Detroit Common Council vacancies. Possible candidates are: Walter Shamie, Mary Ball, Rev. James Chambers, State Rep. James Del Rio, Asst. Police Commissioner Hubert Locke, and State Sen. Coleman Young.

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Support The Spring Mobilization To End The War In Vietnam.

As members of the Detroit community we declare our opposition to the illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional war being waged against the people of Vietnam. We declare it particularly to the U.S. leaders who bear ultimate responsibility for the outrages being committed in our names. We indict them thusly:

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Violence in our society became real for over 400 people at a conference on that subject on March 18. Draft-age students came with their girl friends and young mothers listened as best they could while their children pulled at their skirts.

The conference at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church was opened by Olga Penn, Chairman of Detroit Women for Peace. She introduced Dr. Paul Lowinger who talked about the effect of violence on young people:

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EDITOR Harvey Ovshinsky

MANAGING EDITOR Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Cathy West

ART Dave Carlin, Gary Grimshaw

TRAVEL EDITOR Sheil Salasnek

MUSIC & LITERARY EDITOR John Sinclair

CALENDAR Rhona Whipple

ADVERTISING Leon Brenner

FILM EDITORS Joe Fineman, Shirley Hamburg

NEWS EDITOR Frank Joyce

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The other day an old friend and FIFTH ESTATE contributor staggered into our office fresh from the local Ft. Wayne induction center. Bruised and bleeding, with chains, jewelry, and iron crosses hanging from his black leathers, he told a gruesome tale of unprovoked assault (well, almost).

At the draft center, our hero had understandable difficulty following military regulations. After several “incidents,” the unwashed beardo was sent to lunch. Calmly reading his FIFTH ESTATE in the cafeteria, he was approached by several MPs who had apparently been called by distraught cafeteria personnel.

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The great freak-rock New York band THE FUGS will be in Detroit the 6^th of April for a one-night only concert, under the auspices of the Friday Night Coordinating Committee (FNCC) of WSU. The Thursday night freak-out will take place twice that night at Wayne Comm. Arts Aud., with shows at 7 and 9 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the Fifth Estate and at Mixed Media, at $2 and $3.

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State Senator Roger Craig (D-Dearborn) has introduced a bill in the Michigan Senate that would exempt marijuana from the application of the general narcotics act.

Craig wants the judiciary committee to hold hearings to determine whether it’s appropriate to consider marijuana and opiate derivatives together.

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Twenty-three people stood silently at Grand Circus park on Saturday March 18 to indicate their support of the Phoenix, a peace ship sailing to North Vietnam.

The vigil was called by the American Friends Meeting (100 St. Aubin) to publicize the voyage of the Phoenix, which left Hiroshima under sail for Haiphong. Captained by Earle Roberts, the Phoenix is a fifty foot sailing ship which in 1958 was sailed into the Eniwetok nuclear test area by the captain and his family.

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The Marijuana Scare is getting weirder and weirder, with the grass police moving backwards faster every day, trying to bust everybody they can before the laws won’t let them do it any more. As far as I’m concerned the busts first in Detroit, and now at Grosse Pointe and Livonia high schools, are the best thing that could have happened at this time—short of legalizing grass altogether, of course. Because the only way the police have been able to keep up their screen of lies and fear is by keeping it all “under ground,” where no straight people could see what was happening. Now, with the silly narcotics police breaking in on their sons and daughters almost every day, the middle-class citizens of our time are beginning to wonder about marijuana prohibition—and it’s just about time.

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FILM

CINEMA GUILD PRESENTS: a series of films being shown on Thurs., Fri., Sat., and Sun. at 7 and 9:05 p.m. at the Architecture Auditorium in Ann Arbor. Adm. 50 cents.

March 16 & 17: Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows) 1959

March 18 & 19: Tirez sur Le Pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player) 1960

March 23 & 24: Nuit Et Brouilard (Night and Fog) 1955, and Let There Be Light 1946

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Students confront Dow representatives

A determined three-day demonstration against UCLA cooperation with the makers of napalm bombs blossomed out at the university’s Student Placement Center last Monday through Wednesday.

Groups of picketers numbering between 20 and 30 gathered each of the three days inside the building and in front of the office which a representative of the Dow Chemical Company was using for job interviews with students.

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Acknowledging the existence only of individuals and families, Margaret Thatcher declared, “There’s no such thing as society.”

Mustafa Khayati went a little deeper, in one of my favorite quotes: “The university teaches everything about society. Except what it is.” Similarly, Peter Sloterdijk wondered what kind of “proverbial stuff” societies are made of.

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I thank Mr. Kofsky for calling me a major critical figure [“The Jazz Scene,” FE #24, February 15–28, 1967].

I have the feeling that he has rarely read my Voice column because I have often written about the agonies of “abandoning my preconceptions and biases” about the new jazz. I have stated very clearly that I WAS biased but that I realized it and that I was trying to make contact with the new music.

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EDITOR Harvey Ovshinsky

MANAGING EDITOR Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Cathy West

ART Dave Carlin

TRAVEL EDITOR Sheil Salasnek

MUSIC & LITERARY EDITOR John Sinclair

CALENDAR Rhona Whipple

ADVERTISING Leon Brenner

FILM EDITORS: Joe Fineman, Shirley Hamburg

NEWS EDITOR, Frank Joyce

CIRCULATION, Rita Cole, Wilson Lindsey

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Reprinted from The Berkeley Barb (Underground Press Syndicate).

Did you ever have to

make up your mind?

Pick up on one and leave

the other behind.

It’s not often easy and not often kind.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide?

And say yes to one and

let the other one ride.

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On Jan. 1, 2024, the city of San Francisco sent New Year’s greetings to its beleaguered citizens with the cheery news that a suicide net had been installed under the Golden Gate Bridge thanks to funding from the California Mental Health Services Act.

Heralded as a “suicide deterrent system,” the supposedly solid rationale behind this marine grade stainless steel safety net, upon closer examination, turns out to be not so surprisingly full of holes. The erstwhile proponents of this costly $217 million bridge boondoggle have simplistically argued that if access to the material means of suicide are reduced, then deaths can be prevented. Just put up a net under the bridge to catch would-be suicides...presto, problem solved!

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Over 100 members of Detroit’s Negro population have banded together to form an Afro-American Museum.

Headed by Dr. Charles H. Wright, founder of the African Medical Education Fund, the group is united in a common interest of Black Men in history. The International Afro-American Museum (I.A.M.) hopes to demonstrate how a knowledge of Negro history will restore a sense of pride and dignity to all black Americans.

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At a 9 March meeting of Detroit LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana) Attorney William Segesta spoke to a mixed group of interested hippies, students and a middle-aged stenographer. Segesta discussed the validities and abuses of “Search-and-Seizure” statutes as interpreted by police and law enforcement agencies. Segesta outlined the two main types of arrests, the legal and illegal, describing what to do until the lawyer comes and basic constitutional rights that most citizens were unaware of, such as your right not to speak when arrested, not to sign papers and demand an attorney.

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Profits are the law and life. If survival carries with it struggling with one’s own values than a movie theater must frequently submit to fourth run showings and nudies. In fact, this vain grasp at subsistence usually takes a downward spiral as the drowning business first revives and then submits, meeting bankruptcy its final reward. Sympathetically the owner is on trial. Curiously his jury is likewise his lifeguard and his sentence often is the road of least respect.

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Early last week the Denver branch of the American Civil Liberties Union won a complete acquittal for the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Minstrel Show on charges of obscenity and lewd behavior dating from last November [see “Mime Troupe Busted,” FE #17, November 1–15, 1966].

Bill Linden, Peter Cohon and Earl Robertson were the three minstrels arrested last year when the show started a cross-country tour with performances in Denver. The group performed the same act in Detroit last September without incident. “It was a victory of free speech for all of Colorado,” said an ACLU attorney: “It showed that the vice squad cannot set the standards for free speech.”

“The highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought.”

—Emerson, in “Self-Reliance”

Now that the first stage of the Adam Clayton Powell fiasco is over, it is with great humility that I must point a reluctant finger at a young man of potential greatness and leadership who has faltered, not irreparably I hope, and succumbed to the “traditions” of other “men.”

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The Fifth Estate’s Pittsburgh correspondent, Frederick I (Hohenstaufen) reports that the narcotics raid that hit that city 10 February [see “Pitt Pot Bust,” FE #25, March 1–15, 1967] has had a happy conclusion.

All 55 persons arrested have had the charges against them dropped including those against Frank Goldsmith who had been charged with “possession of a dangerous drug.” The “drug” being 5 prescription cold tablets.

Editor’s note: Detroit poet John Sinclair talked about marijuana at Royal Oak’s Kimball High School, and Royal Oak hasn’t quite gotten over it yet. Below is a story reprinted from that city’s newspaper, the Royal Oak Tribune:

Royal Oak City Commissioners expressed concern Monday night about a speaker last Thursday at Kimball High School who advocated legalization of marijuana sales.

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Veterans Against the War (VAW) a local group of armed forces veterans formed to oppose the war in Vietnam have been carrying out a program to convince other veterans and those presently in the service of their views.

The group has written to over 500 GIs in Vietnam explaining their position on the war and why they as ex-soldiers oppose it. Nick Medvecky, VAW secretary, said he felt that this has been the group’s most successful activity. “We have found that from the replies we receive from Vietnam there is a substantial amount of opposition to the war among the troops doing the actual fighting.”

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The column, “You are a god, live like one” by Timothy Leary that appeared in the last issue of the FIFTH ESTATE [FE #25, March 1–15, 1967] was originally published in our sister underground paper, the EAST VILLAGE OTHER (EVO). The letter that follows is a letter written in response to that column by a New York based group of revolutionary poets calling themselves BLACK MASK.

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MACBIRD by Barbara Garson. The complete text, 75 cents

STUDIES ON THE LEFT. Panel from the Socialist Scholars Conference on The Roots of Slavery, $1

THE LOVE BOOK by Lenore Kandel. Banned in San Francisco, $1

HASHISH COOKBOOK by Panama Rose. Get high on the range, $1 65

ENTRAILS Magazine. Latest issue reads from right to left, comes complete with yamalka, $1

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(Underground Press Syndicate) An inspired madman whose bright blue eyes halt now and then in their rapid pantomime to beam upon you with benevolent love and pity, has rediscovered the ancient secret of the court jester.

General Hershey Bar (an absolute ringer for a great freak-out dancer named Calypso Joe) is the court jester to the War in Viet Nam. For a year and a half now he has appeared at every major protest meeting, on the streets, anywhere a crowd is on hand to listen. He has a strangely ingratiating way of telling the truth to people who would not listen to a serious presentation of the war horrors they would rather forget. And his mannerisms and costume allow you to pretend it’s all a joke. (But later that night, you begin to think, to wonder, and then...)

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The Jefferson Airplane arrived in New York for what is probably the beginning of the San Francisco music “explosion-exploitation.” I still can’t believe I heard them on the radio advertising some thing besides music; but since that was the only time I heard them via mass media I guess I shouldn’t put it all down. Its like color TV, the commercials are better than the shows themselves.

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Two months ago Detroit LEMAR started planning a Law Day (Law Day is May 1^st) Puff-in for Love. The group has written various LEMAR groups in both the East and West coast suggesting that this could be coordinated on a national level with Puffins taking place in love centers across the country.

Rather than limiting the puff-ins to one area, i.e. marijuana, LEMAR will expand it to human be-ins all across the country taking place on April 30^th, the Sunday preceding Law Day. This would bring the local tribes together and still allow the Detroit Community to share the total love-consciousness of all groups across the country.

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London will be the scene for an International Congress known as the Dialectics of Liberation this coming July 15–30. The purpose of the congress, sponsored by London’s Institute of Phenomenological Studies, is to examine societal influence, conditioning, and control of man and the resulting alienation of his true self within that system.

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Detroit is a killer city. It is a city in which radicals and reformers of various political stripes have found it nearly impossible to survive.

Internal difficulties of personnel and finance along with external pressure from the police and other elements of the establishment have combined time after time to murder grass roots community organizations, peace groups, civil rights forces and radical religious organizations.

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Robert Buckeye, Wayne State University English instructor, falsely arrested along with his wife, Nancy, during the January 24 “narcotics” raid while visiting the home of one of his ex-students, is filing suit against the City of Detroit, Ray Girardin and six policemen.

The suit, based on personal damages suffered by Buckeye both to his person as well as his academic career, was filed last week by Attorney Albert Best, and asks for $350,000 damages.

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Detroit has been a stubborn place and does not want to be changed, but as I write now and the sun is shining through my window and the spring is with us, the snow is melting, people are getting together, and there are positive forces at work here that will not be denied. Yes. We can not be stopped, no we can’t, and the sooner the people in power realize our strength the better off they’ll be. Change is in the air, the beautiful people are swarming the streets, travelers are coming home at last, flowers will be blooming everywhere, and all who have eyes to see will tell you it will be beautiful. Yes. And you will believe it when you see it.

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Probably no sector of American capitalism displays more cutthroat competitiveness than the recording industry. Entry into the field is, unlike the case in basic industries such as auto and steel, still relatively unrestricted. Any adventurer with a couple of thousand dollars can get an LP produced (even less for a 45 rpm single) and—who knows?—if he is lucky can make it supremely big. Such is the story of Barry Gordy of Motown Records and, on a much reduced scale, of Bernard Stollman of ESP, for whose label the surprisingly red-hot Fugs record.

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A campus-wide referendum on the war in Vietnam will be held at Wayne State University on April 6 as part of Student Vietnam Week in Detroit. Student Vietnam Week, April 3–14, will culminate in a mass mobilization against the war on April 15 in New York.

In the elections last November, 40% of the voters in Dearborn voted in favor of withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam. The final vote was 20,667 against withdrawal and 14,124 in favor of it. The high percentage of those voting for withdrawal prompted the Wayne Committee to End the War in Vietnam to decide to hold a campus referendum and compare students’ attitudes toward the war with those of the Dearborn citizens.

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In the 1971 movie, Harold and Maude, a boy-man sewn into an upper class lineage headed by a satirically tyrannical matriarch stages his own suicide again and again. The first scene depicts his fake self-hanging, “OH HARRROLD!” His mother’s admonishment is delivered with all the horror-shock Harold meant for her, but also cloying authority, the absolute order Harold cannot escape.

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Sidney Peck, one of the National vice-chairmen of the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam and coordinator of the Western Reserve University Circle Teach-in Committee in Cleveland, spoke to a group of over 80 people, Sunday, March 5, at Wayne State University.

Dr. Peck was gathering further support for the April 15^th effort to mass hundreds of thousands of people protesting the war in New York and San Francisco. He made a special plea for unity around the April 15^th action and to broaden support for the mobilization.

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On Feb. 26 a holy celebration was held here in Detroit. The stark grey coldness of the Administrative Services Building at Wayne State University was transformed for a few hours into a magic theater and the secret price of admission was your mind.

People came for many reasons that night. Some were there out of curiosity and some, despite the unfortunate lack of advance publicity, came because they heard that the poet Allen Ginsberg was going to be there. Some came with hope and some with contempt.

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A review of

Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse 1960–1990, Editors: Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan. PM Press, 2024

“Leftist terrorism and state terrorism, even if their motivations cannot be compared, are two jaws of the same mug’s game. The state hates terrorism, but prefers it to revolution.” So says Buenaventura Diaz in the 1974 French/Italian co-production Nada, one of the dozens of films profiled in Revolution in 35mm, edited by Andrew Nette and Samm Deighan.

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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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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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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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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.