Most Recent Additions

When an economic system produces 32 million unemployed in the industrialized nations, it would almost seem unnecessary to inveigh against its profound inadequacies. But several factors make it worthwhile to look at the present state of disarray in which world capitalism is currently mired.

Although some wag (either a queen, Marx or the Bible) once said that the poor have always been with us, most people know by now that this is a culture-bound observation and no more than a justification for the privilege of society’s wealthy. However, the saying is nonetheless true for the modern world.

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this courtroom is a public urinal reeking

with the suicidal odor of protocol

the oily horror of boredom illuminates my nausea

on a never ending ride into the hinterlands

of the loneliest chaos I have ever known

does the defendant waive time?

my lawyer winks flirtatiously

yes, your honor

he learned his ABCs

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a review of

“Beggars Banquet”

The Rolling Stones

(London)

The Rolling Stones are in the same class as many other groups whose albums are beyond comment. There are people who like the Stones and those who don’t and I very much doubt if anyone ever changes sides.

The first cut on “Beggars Banquet” is set to what most glossy mags would call a “driving beat”—you know, the kind of rhythm you can make love to.

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After talking about it for a long time, there finally is someplace to go on Sunday Mornings, someplace to pick up the Times and read it over coffee and danish.

Your own Eat It girl is opening Alvin’s Finer Delicatessen (Cass at the expressway) on Sundays. We started a few weeks ago with danishes and donuts, my mother’s homemade apple pan dowdy, and a special for the day, Sandy Feldheim’s cheese blintzes. We had a nice crowd and everyone seemed to encourage us.

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* Asterisks mean this is a good place to sell FIFTH ESTATES. If you are going to the event anyway, stop by our office or the Green Grass House on Plum Street and pick up some papers. Make bread and spread the good word.

Fri., Nov. 15

THE MIRACLE WORKER, a play at Cass Tech. High School, 2421 Second. Curtain at 8:00 pm.

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We look at them, their fat, sagging bellies, hard faces, tight lips, and we despair. It is logical in our eyes that they should support Wallace, for they are ugly and Wallace is ugly and we are beautiful and gentle and want to do nothing more than love everyone in the rising of each sun. We look at them and the conclusion is quickly reached that they will never change. They will always be filled with resentments, fears and hates. And having so concluded, we end our examination and analysis of them and prepare to wait for more propitious times.

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NEW YORK (LNS) — A new press service especially for the growing network of high school underground papers has been established in New York City.

The High School Independent Press Service (HIPS) sends out news packets weekly to several hundred high school publications. HIPS works out of the LNS office at 160 Claremont Ave., New York, N.Y. 10027, phone: (212) 749–2200.

This letter was sent to the Editor of the Detroit Free Press.

About the arrogant note on page 7-C of the Free Press of Nov. 8 that “writer Richie Yorke of Toronto has supplied the Detroit Free Press with the first newspaper review in the United States of the Beatles’ new album, ‘The Beatles.’”

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Detroit’s friendly neighborhood rock and roll band, the MC5, recorded their first album under their new contract with Elektra Records at the Grande Ballroom last month, and it was a killer affair. The festivities took place on the First International Zenta New Year, October 30 and 31, and what went down was an all-American Dionysian stomp-down rock and roll religious experience in the best Zenta tradition.

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It would seem to me that the country, as a whole (you may eliminate the “w” from “whole” if you wish) is at last beginning to realize that you Cannot dictate from which area a certain style of music must come.

I realize that tradition dictates that blues should come from Chicago or the South, and that soul should come from Motown, but now at long last music is spreading. The MC-5 have spread into the bracket-of “national” groups, as did the SRC, but really that doesn’t mean much because all bands are local at some time.

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a review of

“The Battle of Algiers”

How surprised we were three years ago by the success of “To Die in Madrid,” Francisco Rosi’s remarkable compilation of old news films from the Spanish Civil War. The distinction of that film was the poetic way in which it shaped and explained the ironic progress and outcome of the struggle. And now we have a new film, though in much the same vein, which is historically more immediate.

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a film review of

“The Bride Wore Black”

Francois Truffaut’s “The Bride Wore Black” is terrific. Infused with his patented brand of gentle humor, the film is a modern horror story in which lovely Jeanne Moreau goes about methodically murdering five gentlemen with an iron calm and comic sunniness. Essentially an entertainment movie, a minor effort for Truffaut, other films of similar genre pale beside it.

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Have you who are reading this article expecting to be told how good or how bad whatever record I have chosen to review really is, ever stopped to analyze what you personally think is good music? Have you ever tried to think of music (Rock music) outside of the context of an immediately occurring pleasure-displeasure-boredom reaction?

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An interesting omen—a few days ago, barely preceding the Nixonian “renaissance” I received in the mail a strange newly-issued artifact of the Eisenhower-Nixon era. It was a pamphlet titled HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD, published by- none other than The Planetary Council, reminding me that not only is Dick Nixon still unfortunately alive (in a primitive biochemical sense) but so are FLYING SAUCERS, the favorite after-dinner conversation-topic of the former Eisenhower-Nixon era.

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UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line. ALL UNCLASSIFIEDS MUST BE PAID FOR IN ADVANCE.

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Marilyn Olson is a pretty, blue-eyed blonde from Stockholm, Sweden. She and her husband, Bertil, operate the Cafe Marx in Stockholm.

She is a warm and friendly woman who talks easily. And she tells stories. She speaks of “a lot of CIA agents around” her and her co-workers. She tells the story of “one fellow who was hiding in a closet for three months” in Japan.

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Detroit police arrested 11 neighborhood street brothers and sisters over Nov. 10^th and 11^th and charged them with “conspiracy to place explosives with intent to cause damage,” a bullshit rap that carries a 25-year maximum prison sentence.

Snatched up were David Valler, who was already in the Wayne County Jail in lieu of $10,000 bond on two phony marijuana sales beefs; Joseph Clever; Antoine Daghuyt; Gary. Miltemore; Ronald Pierce; John Schmittroth; William Ladd; James Moscara; Sandra Rousseau; Benjamin Parks; and Diedre Flowers.

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Police mass for attack on peaceful demonstrators / Photo: Ken Hamblin

“I really got this one guy who called me a fascist pig. I beat him to a pulp.”

— A Detroit Policeman (Detroit Scope Magazine, November 9, 1968)

The October 29 rally for George Wallace at Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit ended in what can only be called a full scale police riot. Events inside the Arena set the stage for what later occurred after the rally when 350 club-swinging Detroit pigs attacked a group of about 1,000 demonstrators who had assembled to express their opposition to Wallace’s candidacy.

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The Detroit Police are out of control. They have completely slipped out from under the authority of the Mayor and his Police Commissioner and now comprise a vigilante force dedicated to maintenance of the status quo.

They have resorted to criminal methods and produced a string of murders, mass assaults, and severe injuries to citizens engaged in lawful conduct. Their connection with the Mafia and right-wing groups is well known and documented.

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America’s election farce is over and proved to be one of the dullest in years reminiscent of the Eisenhower years as Hank Malone points out in this issue. The only pleasant surprise was the small number of Americans willing to vote for George Wallace’s militant brand of racism. They obviously prefer the more subtle and effective variety advocated by the other two creeps. Wallace pulled only 7.8 per cent of the vote outside of the South and this isn’t a hell of a lot given the amount of money he spent on his campaign.

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Liberation News Service — Paul Krassner once had an article in The Realist about the death of actress Louise Beavers, who used to play the part of Beulah on the television series of the same name. Beulah was a fat, dumb but lovable, black woman who shuffled around the suburban home of a benevolent white family, frequently saying, “Yes. Mister Harry,” to the head of the family she worked for.

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WASHINGTON, Oct. 29—The U.S. Treasury Department ordered the confiscation of perhaps the most unusual piece of campaign literature in use as the electoral farce drew near its completion.

Treasury agents broke into the New York Dick Gregory for President headquarters and seized all the Gregory campaign “dollar bills” they could find. Agents were reported scouring Chicago for the contraband material.

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Dear Dr. Schoenfeld:

Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

In a recent column you printed the letter of a girl whose “problem” was a boyfriend who had an almost continuous erection and made her sore with continuous and lengthy intercourse. I think you missed the obvious solution. Let her share her good fortune with a girl friend. God knows there are many sexually frustrated girls who would be happy to get half of such a good thing.

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Reprinted from Detroit Scope

“Detroit is controlled 100% by the Mafia,” says a man close to Mafia kingpins. Many Detroit police officers admit there is a great deal of truth in that statement because of the extent to which the Mafia influences police department activities.

These officers say the department has been so infiltrated by men in the power of the Mafia that Detroit police cannot be effective against organized crime. The Central Intelligence Bureau (CIB) has been denied authority to investigate killings and other activities associated with the Mafia even though it was originally created for the purpose of combating organized crime. Some officers say the orders to “lay off’ the Mafia come from the highest levels.

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Fifth Estate

A Newspaper of Detroit

EDITORS

Harvey Ovshinsky

Peter Werbe

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Cathy West

CIRCULATION

Tommye Wiese

NEWS EDITOR

Alan Gotkin

MUSIC EDITOR

John Sinclair

PHOTO EDITOR

Mike Tyre

ART DIRECTION

Blalien

ADVERTISING

Gunnar Lewis

CALENDAR

Resa Jannett

IDEOLOGUE

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Gradually the Kennedy legend is being demolished and there’s hope that one day both JFK and Bobby will be seen in less idolatrous terms. To the rest of the world, JFK will always be a superhero but Americans are obsessive about the “White Knight” syndrome—the myth of the untarnished pure prince who will ride out of nowhere to save us all from everything. It’s the favorite myth, oddly enough, of what rednecks describe as the pseudo-intellectual: the thinker with intellect but no intelligence, no depth or genuine humanity. The White Knight syndrome is a cop-out theory that somewhere is somebody who will solve all the problems that beset society. He will take power and sweep away inequities, injustice, greed, colonialism etc., etc. And, of course, once he’s in power we won’t have to bother about it any more ourselves will we? We can go on being vicious, greedy, rapacious, unfair to our fellow men, knowing that we already did our bit. Well, Kennedy (neither of them) was a White Knight. He was an ambitious, compromising, timid aristocrat who achieved power first and foremost through money and retained popularity largely through shrewd publicity. He was, admittedly, a cut above most of the disgusting illiterates who masquerade as our “leaders” but just by definition that’s not saying very much.

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The Detroit Police are out of control. From the Algiers Motel to Cobo Hall they have left a trail of broken heads, illegal arrests and even murders.

The most recent example of this state of affairs followed right on the heels of the Wallace demonstration [see “Cobo Hall Creep Scene” in this issue] and found drunken off-duty pigs beating and terrorizing black high school students at a church dance.

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First I must say that this statement, like all statements is bullshit without an active program to back it up. We have a program which is on-going and total and which must not be confused with anything that is said or written about it.

Our program is cultural revolution through a total assault on the culture, which makes use of every tool, every energy and every media we can get our collective hands on. We take our program with us everywhere we go and use any means necessary to expose people to it.

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LONDON (LNS)—Beatle John Lennon and his girlfriend, avant-garde filmmaker Yoko Ono, were busted in London recently for possession of marijuana. The pair were arrested when police raided Lennon’s fashionable apartment at Montague Square in the Marylebone district of the city. Both were charged with illegal possession of drugs and released on bail of 200 pounds each (the equivalent of $480) pending a court appearance November 28. [Editors’ note: Come the revolution there ain’t gonna be no more pot laws. How’s that for a “plan,” John baby?]

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I made a delicious beef stew the other day, a real one pot delight, filled with all kinds of vegetables and served over noodles. Pick up on it.

The meat to use in a beef stew is usually packaged as “stewing beef.” Actually it is sirloin tip or top round steak. Buy it when it’s called stew beef because it usually costs less and is easier to cut into cubes.

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Fri. Nov. 1

JEFF BECK GROUP back at the Grande to do some heavy blues (English style) along with the Toad and Pavement. Check out the hippy bullshit counter run by Barry Kramer and Bob Stark, they have some real trippy groovies on sale just in case you get bored. You gotta be 17. Grand River & Beverly

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WABX strikes again. The Phantoms of Underground Radio deliver yet another coup d’etat with their broadcasting of nine cuts from the new Beatles album.

I really don’t believe anybody would name an album “Sexy Sadie.” Now there’s several old ladies in Bloomfield Hills who are gonna have to buy this for somebody. And are they going to say the word “s-e-x-y” in a public record shop? No way!

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In response to the election fraud being perpetrated on the American people by the U.S. ruling class, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is coordinating a nation wide Student Strike on Election Day, November 5. The slogan is “No class today, no ruling class tomorrow.”

Locally, Wayne State SDS is participating by endorsing the Strike at Wayne and holding a freak-out rally on the Mall at 12:30 pm. This will be followed by a teach-in on the electoral system and the bankruptcy of American liberalism. The proceeding evening, November 4, People Against Racism will sponsor a pre-election rally at Community Arts Auditorium at 8 pm. Rennie Davis, of the National Mobilization Committee will be the featured speaker.

UNCLASSIFIEDS cost 50 cents per line per issue. Figure four words per line. (A word is a word including one and two letter words. A phone number is a word. Street numbers are words. Abbreviations should be sensible. DISCOUNT RATES: Five runs cost 35 cents per line.

Get “High on Mt. Rushmore”

Self-employed bachelor wants uninhibited women for exotic fun and games Phone Charlie at 867–9218, 10am to 10pm.

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As Tony Reay says [FE #65, October 31-November 13] “WABX strikes again.” And they did, with ripples from the blow coming all the way back to Detroit from England. The WABX audience was the first, anywhere in the world, to hear the new Beatles” double record album, “Sexy Sadie,” on tapes of the new release that came “from a source close to the Beatles,” according to station manager John Detz.

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Editors’ Note: Larry Miller, known to his longtime listeners in the Detroit area as the man who invented “underground radio,” has returned to Detroit after two years as “Midnight Miller” on KMPX-FM in San Francisco and is presently partying on at WABX on Saturdays and Sundays.

His radio programming is probably the most tasteful in the country, and his influence has spread to stations and disk jockeys all over the U.S.A. Miller’s Saturday afternoon shows on WDTM in Detroit in 1965 and 1966 introduced contemporary rock and roll music (Beatles, Stones, Bob Dylan and the Byrds at that time) into the FM radio scene, and his midnight-to-6 am show on KMPX in San Francisco set the scene for the current FM-rock revolution.

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Sometimes we are the victims of our own words. At best, words are poor conveyors of information. They are imprecise and must be used with the utmost care if they are to do what we want them to do. When they are used imprecisely, improperly and without regard for the many dangers inherent in them, they can turn upon the user, confounding and confusing him and eventually, be the cause of the user’s destruction.

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Over 100 persons picketed the Chrysler main headquarters in Highland Park on October 25 to protest the auto company’s role in the production of war material and its support of the racist government of South Africa. The marchers also were supporting the demands of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) against the Chrysler Hamtramck assembly plant. The demonstration was sponsored by the Black Panther Party and Students for a Democratic Society.

NEW YORK, N Y. (LNS)—Two groovy suburbanites have been growing grass in the gardens of the local police station, country club, American Legion, and Catholic church. The growers, Bill and Frank, are brothers and hale from Westchester County, where they own their own homes and belong to a country club. “We are only interested in decorating symbols of hypocrisy. We’d never do it to a high school or library,” but they hint that the U.N. may be a target.

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highThere is virtually no aspect of life in America today that is not concerned in one way or another with the drug scene. Hippies and politicians, students, parents, teachers. police and revolutionaries all contribute their harsh or thoughtful or inconsistent opinions. Their voices range from the educated, flat and clinical sermons of the AMA, to the educated, maniacal sermons of Timothy Leary.

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a review of

S.C.U.M. Manifesto by Valerie Solanas. Olympia Press, 1968, Paperback 75 cents.

Miss Solanas, best known for trying to cut up Andy Warhol with a .38, presents a “rationale and program of action for SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) which will eliminate through sabotage all aspects of society not relevant to women (everything). It will bring about a complete female take-over, eliminate the male sex and begin to create a swinging, groovy, out-of-sight female world.”

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Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld,

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I got loaded and were making love. She told me that she wanted to show me something new that would be a real thrill to me. She said that one of her old boy friends liked to have her do it to him often, so without knowing what it was, I agreed to let her try it.

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A little over a year ago I was a bit disturbed by the slight attention given the 12 victims of “Bonnie and Clyde’s” career. When I suggested that the movie should have given equal time to the victim’s point of view, a fan shot back, “What the hell kind of a picture would that be?”

Well, now, thanks to Francois Truffaut (who directed “400 Blows,” “Jules and Jim,” etc.) the question has been answered. “The Bride Wore Black” is a detailed account of how a woman kills five men to avenge her husband’s death, but the main focus of the film (interestingly enough) Is on the victims, rather than on the murderess.

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Shit, man! I despise philosophical cretins like letter writer A.M. Holton [Letters, FE #64, October 17–30, 1968]. His archaic mind nurtures an imagination that’s 2,000 years behind the times. No wonder he got all shook up after reading Ayn Rand’s bullshit concerning the “mindless masses.” His idiotic outcry against us, reflects his despair at the thought of being a mediocrity. He says he’ll destroy us! There is no need to destroy him, cause he’s a self-destructive motherfucker.

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Hostility to the Beatles is building up in the underground press, exacerbated by the release of their recent record “Revolution,” whose lyrics (comments Rolling Stone) “really swing in that brand of political naivete for which the Beatles have long been known and castigated.”

Contrasted with the current Rolling Stones single, “Street Fighting Man,” and the celebrated battle over its album cover, the Beatles’ entry really seems to be an Establishment-oriented message. Rolling Stone’s Catherine Manfredi adds. “Conservatism is a British trend; they have been responsible for bringing back Jazz which they called ‘trad’; jug bands which they called ‘skiffle;’ and rock and roll which they call the Beatles.

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Liberation News Service—The American election itself is the candidate, and millions of Americans are going to vote against it. On election day, the streets, parks and voting booths will belong to the people.

Everyone who sees through the fraud will be doing his human thing—showing up the election for the fake it is.

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from LNS and the Guardian

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 12 — Over 10,000 marchers turned out on a drizzly, overcast morning to show their solidarity with the largest anti-war march ever organized by active-duty GIs and veterans.

There were at least 500 soldiers and sailors present wearing white caps lettered “GIs for Peace.” Several attended in uniform. The soldiers came despite weeks of intimidation from military officials. Military brass tried to ship Lt. Hugh Smith (USAF), one of the chief organizers, to Taiwan on Sept. 30 in hopes of quashing the demonstration. Two other march organizers, A1-C Michael Locks and A1-C John Bright, got orders to ship out to Utah, but the brass backed down after the two sought a court injunction prohibiting the move.

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Liberation News Service) A dynamite bomb blasted open the Institute of Science and Technology Building on the University of Michigan campus on Oct. 15. It was the latest in a series of 13 bombings to hit the Detroit area in recent months, and followed by two weeks the destruction of a semi-secret CIA recruiting office in downtown Ann Arbor.

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“Sooner or later in each historic epoch, as objective conditions ripen, consciousness is acquired, organization achieved, leadership arises, and revolution is produced. Whether this takes place peacefully or comes to the world after painful labor does not depend on the revolutionaries; it depends on the reactionary forces of the old society: it depends on their resistance against allowing the new society to be born, a society produced by the contradictions of the old society.”

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FLASH! The Ann Arbor Free School and in particular John Sinclair’s class “Total Assault on the Culture” have been doing some truly revolutionary things. Total Assault Class meets every Monday night and takes its assault to the street, where the class hands out free poetry books, newspapers and information. This is a class of about 10 to 20 who sweep down S. University yelling and screaming, handing out all sorts of great shit, then on to the Diag, where the class shows free movies on the side of the library.

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