Other Scenes

“In a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end” (Alexis de Tocqueville)...

In the north of England there’s been an outbreak of bow-and-arrow “sniping”...

If the war in Vietnam was suddenly ended, says a confidential banking letter called Intercom, most of the supposed savings in military expenditures would be grabbed for other “high priority military projects deferred because of the costs of the war”. So projected tax increases, budgetary cuts, etc. would still be needed. And, of course, the military could always start another little war somewhere (Haiti? Guatemala? Bolivia? Thailand?)...

Australian SDS is offering 1000 sticky labels, SUPPORT THE NLF, for $2 sent to P.O. Box 90, Brisbane University, Queensland...

Chicago designer Robert Lee Dickens forecasts that food will come in edible packages within 30 years, thereby disposing of the disposal...

And eggs may be laid by a machine installed in the home...

Biggest gimmick of the 1968–69 Christmas season will be 3-D Christmas cards. Millions of them are being printed right now...

Keeping abreast of the times Broadway comes up with a musical based on the life of Al Capone this fall...

“When the pupil is ready a teacher will appear”—Chinese proverb...

Fluxus has devised a line of flat, white plastic boxes that are combination artworks and jokes. Fluxfood, for example, contains interesting labels from a variety of packaged foods, some familiar; a Flux Corsage contains a packet of flower seeds; ESP Fluxkit is a series of different colored papers that you’re invited to identify by fingertips with your eyes blindfolded. I love Fluxus Cigarette papers, as headshop habitués well know, now’ come in a dozen different bright colors—mint green, strawberry red, banana yellow, chocolate, etc. It still seems like the most logical move for the big cigarette companies to start making cigarettes with bright-colored and patterned papers around them. At present it’s just a fad for a small, chic audience but if a major brand—Salem, say—suddenly manufactured mint green cigarettes at popular prices virtually every other company would follow suit...

Potato Brothers, a store in Madison, Wis., advertises (in Kaleidoscope): “Wars Fought, Revolutions Started, Assassinations Plotted, Governments Ruined, Uprisings Quelled; Tigers Tamed, Bars Emptied, Rooms Rented, Excuses Verified, Orgies Planned; Earrings, Land, Whiskey, Manure, Nails, Camel Bells, Fly Swatters, Racing Forms, Zipper Bags, Bear Traps, Butterfly Nets, Sweets, Antiques and Barrels”...

Send old books, records, art supplies to the Catholic Chaplain of Georgia State Prison (Reidsville, Ga. 30453), Father Del Holmes, a hipcat who reads underground papers and passes them onto the prisoners in his care...

Anthony (Clockwork Orange) Burgess has “probably the finest ear of our times” says a London reviewer discussing his latest novel, Enderby Outside...

Madalyn Murray O’Hair begins a series of atheist broadcasts over a Texas station in June—the first such talks on radio for 20 years...

EVO stole $300 from—of all gentle people—Tuli Kupferberg...

Vietnam GI, a newspaper that tells what is really going on over there (50 cents for a copy from P.O. Box 9273, Chicago, Ill. 60690) reports the trial of three GIs and an officer for killing a Vietnamese “suspect”. The men were all sentenced to several years in jail but the officer was acquitted; he only gave the order...

It’s worth joining the American Union of Students (55 West 42^nd St., NYC 10036) just to get the multilingual International Student Identity Card, which really saves money in Europe.