Catalyst

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VolumeiX,Number 1 November 2, 1977 Published by the students of New College,Sarasota,Florida "It doesn't look like cream style corn; It doesn't smell like cream style corn; It doesn't taste like cream style corn; tR.en it must be journalism." -R.G. Collingwood, Unpublished Letters

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P_a_g_e __ Editorial Writing an editorial is no fun. (Especially after fighting for months to }X'oduce a magazine and then feeling compelled to apologize for publishing articles late. I apologize. Enough.) I suppose I cannot avoid outlining the Catalyst's objectives and goals and then making the obligatory grandeloquent point or two. So be it. The Catalyst is an old New College newspaper and a new, New College-U. s :F. journal. The Catalyst was New College's first third and seventh paper. I have Chosen the name Catalyst for two reasons. One, I have always liked Catalyst as a name for a paper; it has good connotations. TWo I have sold out, for advertising and for faculty and support. To attain the aims this is essential. Let's forget the name an proceed to what we hope to accomplish, Our goal is to provide a catalyst for the critical reexamination of our institution's goals and objectives, to point accusingly at the disparity between the real and the ideal. We can accomplish this by achieving three objectives: I. The will keep the community informed. Our fiDlction w e to nate and disparage encroachment on New College's integral structure and reveal our collective self-deceptions. 2. The Catalyst will initiate a dialogue between the diverse elements of the commiDlity. Dialogue means growth; and only through intellectual interaction and growth can New College remain "New College!' 3. The Catalyst provoke New College is innovative; 1mmanent m th1s concept 1s experi mentation and necessarily, some failure, but learning and progress evolve from innovation. New College iacreative because the community demands it. Our objective will be to change New College, to define an ideal and challenge the reality. If these objectives are realized, then the Catalyst could, as I stated in Cream, "reflect the diversity of our community and the comm\iiiltY 1.Dlderlying our diversity!' The Catalyst is a journal for an IDlCOnventional college. No matte--rli"OVI we bemoan the ossification of New College, it still attracts, in Ortega y Gasstt's words, the "ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training." The Catalyst will publish with this as our aim. Contents The Student CommiDlity Micheai Smith Page Three An Open Letter from George Mayer George Mayer -page Four CommiDlltr News and Comment Staff ge Five An. Interview With Mr. New College Glen Mcrzer -page-II'glit Portrait of the Gonzo as a Broke Man Kevin COle--Page Ten----Bert Who? Row'dYYates Page Thirteen "War Baby Co mix John Klopstpck Page Fourteen Ice on the Be ach }olln Bigge-rs--Page Sixteen "Short" Seth Goldwin Page Twenty One Goddard's Le Gai Savoir: The Politics of Meta-Cinema Peter Bynum--Page Twenty TWo Staff STAFF Editor: Hank Blumenthal Managing Editor: John Wilke Political Editor: Kevin Cole literary Editors: Glen Merzer, Mathew Klein, Seth Goldwin Layout Editor: Brent Miller Contributers: John Biggers, Peter Bynum, Gary Berkowitz, John Smiga, Debbie Serviss, Dan Kerman, Robert Hans, John Klopstock, George Mayer, Pat Hadley, Frank Morrone, Henry Smyth, Dave Kramer, Robert Masterson, Bob Pete Russel, Don Thieme, Maggie Hall, Ramon MUJlCa, Vicky Ferman Advertising: Seth Kaplan, Randi Shelton, Lenny Russo, Olga Rene, Arlana Young Other Good People:Bem adette Witham, Andrea Ginsky, Rob lincoln, Devor a Tulcensky, Karen Amett, Lisa Zehrung, Jenny Collins Bob Rush, Jean Robinson, Phil Lumsden, Rick Rever, Kim Gates, Kathryn Etchinso?, Brian Albritton, Cm'Olyn DP.Baldo, Monica MacGreggor, B1l1Swanson, Terry Smeaton, Herb Guggenheim Executive Chauffeur: Lois Brandwene Spiritual Advisors: Bob Schiffman, Dan Chambliss Angels: Bob Toll, Breadboard

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__ t_hr_e_e_ The tudent Communty Micheal Smith reprinted from: The Usual Bull, a New College Student Handbook. "Barbaric mystical, bored."-G .. Grass "You had to be there."-David Pini Everything I am going to tell you will be either literally or a lie or both. The three Division Chairmen have told you about the educational theories and opportunities of their varirus provinces; the analogous thing (and only fair thing) for me to do is try to tell you about the educational forces and circumstances of life in the student comnnu1ity of New College, and the sort of education one usually acquires from them. Impossible the task, and pr sumptuous to essay it, but you must know something about our neck of the Wood to know anything about 'ew College This college is not only an academic in stitu ion; it is also a sort of ghetto, a small, circumscribed, inbred and distinct cultural area, with an argot a worldview, an ethic and a sensibility of tis own. The entaing student usually experiences nothing less than culture shock--an experience which can be or not, depending on the person and how he contrives to react to it. Sing, Muse. Ours is a small community of fairly clever adolescents, brought here from various parts of the country, with only varying degrees of intellect, idealism, and alienation in common, and immediately exposed to great gobbets of abstraction(the question Why?) torrents of critical and speculative thought (the cold and fishy glare of the Widom of the Ages) and for all practical purposes the free dom to do what they will in their personal lives {their naked Pascalian selves). There are several paradigmatic responses. Some people party until their money gives out or the tedium of it all be comes insupporta blc: others sit in there rooms in moody resentment or autistic terror and skulk ;bout the campus only at night; and a few form small spiteful covins determined to resist all influence from their environment, and continue to do just what they did in high school. Some adjust well. almost immediately begin working and producmi, and enjoy a re ::sonable amount of ordinary human felicity; a few leave, arc dismissed, or drop slowly from sight. For most, there is an initial period.of over-reaction followed by or continuing a penod of intellectual paralysis, slec pl ssness (or somnam bulism), despair, Weltschmerz, hypochondria or acne which sooner or hlter g1ves way to a relatively pe ;ceful detente with the conditions of life here. Whrthcr by stoical Saxon endurance, or by fighting back. or bv most students survive thei. baptism under fire **** Having survived, w are as it were a group of arty literary, scientific, and history-conscious emigres marooned by the vast shipwreck of Western culture as we know it, seeking a way to be comfOI' table and resonably happy and trying to duplicate what we can of the small, familiar niceties of civ ilized life on a narrow stip of habitable land between the warm, shark-infested sea and the green and fervid jungles of the interior. We are perforce thrown into close continual, almost exclusive and often infuriating contact with each other's neuroses, foibles, and matched teams of hobbyhorses, and occasionally keen perceptions. We have, too, of the cultural quirks of emigre society: the sense that our isolation is at least partly self-imposed; tht! subtle sentimentality; the dilettantish .;olitical awareness; the gossip, and malice and the solidarity. The in-jokes. Novocollegians' speak a language full of arc :me allusion, prlvate humor of a rather abstract kind, and ellipsis. Unlike most of the Real World, which laughs at de aU, deformity, peTVersion, and we our humor on aphasia infinite regress1on, parano1a, Barth ian immobility, and the dSplacement of archetypes. This is the principle that what can be continued on page twenty

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page four AN OPEN LETTER FROM GEORGE MAYER The new academic year starts with every expectation that New College will flourish. Due to the unremitting efforts of students and faculty during the last two years, the University of South Florida has become genuinly proud of our institution. The same attitude also exists at Tallahassee with the re-sult that New College is no longer in danger of being treated like an orphan or stepchild. Admissions has also done its part, producing a far larger incoming class in 1 977 than a year ago, without a significant change in the quality of the student body. In effect, if all elements of the campus community continue to function as they have cone in the past, our unique status in the Florida State System is assured. Problems nevertheless remain. Some of them cannot be solved by students alone, but they are worthy of brief attention because, in many instances, students can provide substantial help. The most troublesome one is financial. The New College Foundation pays more than a third of the cost for keeping our distinctive institution alive. Since students are charged only standard state tuition, the Foundation actually is providing them a substantial, if indirect, scholarship. Generous as the Foundation has been, it finds the level of its contributions --which is over $700,000 this year --to be a greater sum than it can raise with comfort year. after year. Only three forms of relief are possible: (l) the creation of an endowrnaGt sufficiently large to produce a generous annual income; ( 2) the procurement of additional regular funding from the State of Florida; (3) further increases in enroll-ment, which likewise assure more state dollars. All three methods are being pursued, and there is every reason to believe that the partnership between the State and the Foundation will have a long life on terms mutually acceptable to both parties. Students can perform a valuable service by creating a climate of opinion that will encourage legislators and philanthropists to help us. A second and more irritating problem arrises out of the bureaucratic relationship between the State University System and the College. It is easy enough to absolve our superiors at the Univer sity of South Florida of responsibility because, like educators everywhere, they are subject to the tyranny of computers and the deadlines that the latter establish. The mischief is most accute when

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the computer remorselessly spews out penalties for tardy payment of fees. Moreover, the prospect for becoming a victim is increased by the number and variety of grants available to students, a hazard compounded by the fact that grants are paid at different times and in different ways. There is no cure for the malady save persistent attention to all deadlines involving the use of grants to pay educational bills. Boring as such responsibility is, it cannot be avoided except at great cost. Worse still, most NewCollege staff members who would like to help are powerless. Perhaps some of you will organize a world movement to abolish computers, but until that enterprise is consumated, the unhappy dialogue between students and machines seems destined to continue. As the College gets larger, the importance of maintaining close relations between students and staff members grows. I feel confident that I speak for the entire faculty in urging each of you to call on us -however frequently when we can be of help in solving academic problems or dealing with other frictions in our microcosm. Progress ... The University of South Florida and the Department of General Services in Tampa have commissioned a local archeitectural firm to develop a master plan for the the Sarasota Campus. The plan will provide the blueprint for construction and expansion in the coming years. The fifty-thousand dollar contract has been awarded to the Twitchell and Allen Group of Sarasota, and is to be completed within six to seven months. Described as a detailed and comprehensive plan, it is to include a "conceptual design" of the campus: a new library, office buildings, instructional facilities, parking and landscaping. The plan will encompass a ;fifteen to twenty year time frame, with implementation ex to begin soon after its completion. A representative of the architectural firm explained that the preliminary stages will consist of determining the demands that will be required of the Physical Plant as the campus grows toward the Board of Regent' ment authorization of 7,500 students. He stressed that they would make an effort to understand the needs of the New College concept in order to coordinate it effectively with the larger University program. Eraest Cumpe Associates of Palo Alto, California are educatioaal planning specialists and will act as consultants to Twitchell and Allen. The firm has invited members of the campus community to offer their input or suggestions. They met on campus October 20 with representatives of the faculty, staff, Foundation Trustees and students. Subsequent issues of the Catalyst will follow the University's plan as it develops. New College Alumnus Goes Straight Former New College student Jon Stafford is reported to be the leading contender in the race for City councilman in Cocoa Beach,Fla. Mr.Stafford is a candidate on the Young Republican ticket.He is said to be active in local political organizations,and is a Republican Precinct Chairman.

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In the "race" for SEC Chairthini Rick Rever had 74, Herb Guggenheim 39; write-ins Hilary Anthony and Elections Commissioner seem to have voted for themselves. Let us not forget Mike Alcoff, who was the recipient of 3 votes. Honest to God Election Results by Gary Berkowitz It was that time of year again, but it isn't anymore. Student elections eieher were or were not held, and the results are official unless they aren't. There seems to have been an election a month ago, and another a couple of weeks ago. As usual, in both alleged expressions of Vox Populi there were slight irregularities that would have either made a) Thomas Jefferson revolve in his grave, b) Landslide Lyndon Johnson chuckle, or c) respectable citizens everywhere throw up their hands in despair. None of the above actually occurred. Instead, choose d) the elections stand. Surprise? nab. Passing acquaintance with the commissioner of elections (will anyone admit to more?) has enabled me to get the results of these "votes" into my own slanderous, grubby mitts. Let history be the judge. For Humanities Representative it was Robert Hans 76, Elaine Goldenberg 3, Paul 'Cebar 1, Peter Bynum ,, 1, Herb Guggenheim 1, and the commissioner also voted for himself. The perspicacious reader will recall that only Robert Hans' name actually appeared on the ballot. Others were write-ins. For Campus Council at Large it was Ross Burnaman 43, Frank Morrone 36, Helen O'Brian 14, Bill Loiry 10, and, of the write-ins, Jim Bosy and Fred Golding 1 each. For tEPC (we all forget what these letters stand for; possibly not for anything) Andy Estes defeated Other 80 to 6, covering the point spread. Joanne Weisenford got 1 vote and Don Ellers, a New College legend in his own time, garnered 5 In the election for 3rd Year SEC -----_, where the top 3 win, Seth Goldwin got 39, Tom Sash 33, and Mark Humbert 32, electing them all. Dave Sassion had 21, Mike Lasche 17. There were no write-ins proving that, given 5 choices, everyone can find one person they can stand. As usual, pre-election publicity was nil. This may account for the low turnout. About 90 people voted in all, or about 15% of the student body. Last year there was comparatively heavy campaigning, and despite a significantly smaller student body, more votes were cast and more people ran for office. Assuming that all the votes for 3rd year SEC were cast by people in their third year (and this may not be a valid assumption) the third year turnout was -close to 50%. Unfortunately, the supervisors were lax in telling people not to vote for 3rd year SEC unless they were 3rd year people. Some people can't figure this out by themselves. Oh well. It has been said that a society gets the criminals it deserves. Society also gets the politicians it deserves. The moral of the story is if you want to get elected you should at least go to the trouble of getting your name putt on the ballot. As I perused the list of those who voted, I noticed very few 1st year students. That's their prerogative, but they shouldn't complain about the results. There are enough 1st year people here that, voting as a bloc, they could defeat or elect anyone they liked. They seem not to like. In case you m1ssed it, a gent named Carter defeated a man named Ford by about 2 million votes recently in an election for I forget what.

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Another Roadside Attraction Despite bitter local opposition, developers are proceeding with plans to build a 12 million dollar multitheme amusement park, to be located across u.s. 41 from the SarasotaBradenton Airport. The site for the park extends along U.S. 41 from the Trail DriveIn south to the Ramada Inn, and westward to Sarasota Bay. Developers Wendell McCurdy and Torn Logan announced their plans last July 13, and were met with mixed reactions: Bradenton and Manatee County officials were "exuberant," but local residents have fought from the beginning and at least one group has initiated litigation against the venture. The 60 acre park will feature eight main themes, which will include a marineland, Biblical, children and animal attractions. An ultra-futuristic Spaceworld is also planned, with a large auditor-, ium for musical performances intended to provide the focal point for the park. McCurdy, who also happens to be vice-president and nP.neral manager of Jungle Gardens said that his attraction, along with Bellms Cars and Music of Yesterday and the Circus Hall of Fame, may relocate within the park boundaries. The park is expected to be able to handle some 5,000 visitors a day, and will have a 15 acre parking lot. Commentary j.w. Dr,Miller resigned as Chairperson of the Faculty admissions committee early this month,in protest of the recent decision of the Admissions Public Affairs Office to withold page seven certain information from the Faculty regarding special students.While not disagreeing with the policy of admit -ing special students on a probation -ary basis,the committee took issue with the new directive which prevent -ed sponsors from knowing which of their students fell in this category. In a memo to the Faculty dated Sept. 6,Dr.Miller explained:"This may seem a minor matter;but,once again,the faculty has been stripped of yet another way to individualize our student contacts,and yet another way to help assure that New College continues to admit students qualified for the program." This affair serves to underscore the more serious problem of organizational accountability within the New College-USF relationship.The administrative infrastructure of this campus insures University control of all aspects of campus operation:Adrnissions,Public Affairs, Administrative Services,Student Affairs,Records and Registration, etc.All these offices are directly accountable only to Dr,Les Tuttle, Dean of Regional Campuses.This leaves the New College Provost and Faculty responsible for only purely academic policy within the New College Program. These arrangements remain operable as long as consultative courtesy is extended the Provost or Faculty in policy decisions regarding Campus operations.This is not always the case,however,and with the increasing divergence of the interests of the New College Program with those of the University,tr.e problem is likely to grow more serious in the years to come. HIS EXCELLENCY Pfi-k HOWARD L. BUCKNER, Prop. 3333 N. Tra1l Plan (In Mall) Sarasota, Florida 3551292 $1 DISCOUNT FOR STUDENTS ON STYLES

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page eight An Interview With Mr. New College By Glen Merzer It is not without reason that Rick Rever is called Mr. New College. It is because he requests people to call him that, in return for the corrupt favors that are his to grant, owning as he does a position of awesome power. He re\axes on a swivel chair in the Student Affairs Office, his bare feet resting upon the secretary's cluttered desk {"Nobody was planning on processing those forms anyway"), a cigarette suspended between his teeth, a quizzical expression torting his face, a deep whining sound emanating from the very depths of his being: R.R: Whaaaa? Whaaaaa? Start over. Give me that first question again. G.M: I said that this is the first time I've ever interviewed anyone, and I wondered how you thought I was doing? R.R: Whaaaa? Whaaaaa? Skip to the second question. G.M: Okay, Rick, tell me yourNew College political background. R.R: I was on the EPC for a year, the SASC for a year, the Admissions Committee for a term, and I was an RA last year. Now I'm chairperson of the Student Executive Committee. G.M: How do you think the interview is going now, Rick? Picking up, is it? I for one sense an improvement. R.R: No, you're forcing it. The secret is to make it comfortable, to make the conversation go smooth-ly--you shouldn't always stare vacantly like that, that's why nobody likes you. G.M: Thanks for the tip, guy. By the way, casually speaking, so to speak, would you happen to know offhand how many people voted in the SEC election? R.R: About 150. Not many. G.M: Do you attribute the low turnout to weak political organization, the disillusionment of the electorate, or perhaps unfavorable weather conditions? B.R : No it s j us t that the e 1 e c tion was nothing to get excited about. The SEC is dead, defunct, it's no honor to be one of its members, most of what it does is trivial, it's boring, even its minutes aren't exciting anymore, it has no viable constitution, it has no structure, nothing, nothing, nothing ... G.M: What do you plan on doing about all that? R.R: Nothing. G.M: Is that so? R.R: No, I was finishing answering the last question; you've got to stop rushing me, Glen, you're always rushing people, that's why nobody likes you. I have two goals for the SEC: first, to have its constitution rewritten, not by me, but by an interested group of students, perhaps doing it as an ISP; second, and most importantly-G.M: --Last but not least, so

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1ht, page nine to speak? R.R: You're a living cliche, Glen, that's why nobody likes you. --Second, to set up a private Student Activities fund, derived from a voluntarily paid fee of $20 per student per term, which would give us approximately $30,000 more for the SEC to work with for the year. The current SEC budget is around $9000. G.M: Gosh, what in heavens could be done with $30,000? R.R: For one thing, we could have a full-time Student Chair position. [The Student Chair is a temporary appointment of a professor, selected by means of a vote of the student bodyJ That's vital; our faculty has been eroding. I think we've lost close to 21% of our faculty in the last three years. If we had a Student Chair now, for instance, we might have an Anthropologist or a German professor. Also, we could get a better grade of films instead of these $80 jobs. We might even set up scholarship aid for destitute continuing students. And the private account would be used to finance Palm Court Parties, which can't be paid for with public A&S money. Possibly the private fund could be used to advertise the school, perhaps concentrating on the experimental high schools. Public A&S money can't be spent to of course private money can be used however we wish. G.M: Speaking of advertising New College, it occurs to me that we have here probably the finest academic structure one could find at any undergraduate school in the land--I'm referring to the contract system, tutorials, independent study. I like your idea about advertising to alert the nation to New College's existence; but, failing that, is there anything the SEC can do to impart a consciousness of the New College essence to the New College student body? R.R: We can't inspire students who refuse to be inspired; we cant put students into the interrogative mood if they don't know what that is. We're not a special group of students anymore. We're a random group, and, like any random group we have a percentage who are motivated and a percentage who aren't. Still, it might be worthwhile, especially for new students, to set up a course or a group ISP on the nature and aims of education. Not just to philosophize about education, but with the end;of personalizing their philosophical beliefs. It might even be a good idea to suspend classes for a couple of days during the term and devote those days to seminars on the self-definitional task. A pause to look at what we are, and be, doing here. It would probably turn out to be either a celebration or a dirge. But either way in the end we'd still come up against the root economic problem. G.M: Ah, then you take a Marxist approach--R.R: You're a pedant, Glen, that's why nobody likes you. G.M: What are the practical prospects for the private activities fund? R.R: I have no idea. It would be a difficult thing to set up. The main problem is that it would be illegal to make the payment mandatory. Then again, I'm not sure that it's legal to have a mandatory meal plan, and we have that. G.M: Yes, but do two wrongs make a right? R.R: You're a moralist, Glen, that's why nobody likes you. G.M: So, uh, immorally speaking, so to speak, what else do you have to say about the SEC? R.R: The SEC has always been crisis-oriented, and for lack of crises we've slipped into a holding pattern. Our only responsibility is to dole out $9,000--a pittance--and in fact even that responsibility has been consigned to the Breadboard. The only event approaching the crisis level last year was the pets-on-campus hassle--G.M: Yes, I remember, I almost continued on page twenty-one

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_Pa_g_e_te_n ________________ Portrait of the Gonzo as a Broke Man by Kevi n C ole Jaan Wizwang, Chief Hancho Rolling Joints Magazine 1361 Ramsnac.
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__ e_l_e_v_e_n_ mistake of giving me a tl:iree-hundred dollar advance. Since most of this had already been spent on the inc red i b 1 y dangerous paraf.bernalia we figured we'd need to endure both Milwaukee and the 800-mile trip out there, the car looked like a portable smorgasborg: We had two bags of Ida Reds, seventy-five marshmallows, five sheets of high-powered Weaver's Chicken Roll, a salt shaker half-full of salt, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored greens, reds, blues, amphetamines and also a loaf of cranberry nut bread, a quart of Hawiian Punch, a case of Dad's root beer, a pint of raw milk, and two d01.en eggs. But even though we had an enormous selec.tion of mind-altering apparatus in the car, only one thing really wonied me: the condoms. There is nothing in the world more depraved and irresponsible than a man caught in the depths of a vagina. And I had no doubt that we'd be getting into them soon--maybe at the next rest stop ga.s station. My attorney had a reputation for lust to begm w1th, and as our food supply dwindled his zeal grew He had been drooling heavily at the female hitch-hikers I'd refused to pick up, and now that he was behind the I felt sure. we'd have a woman in the carin a matter of mmutes. This wouldn't have bothered me normally, but as my attorney's lust had grown his discretion had all but disappeared. He was now hanging from the window whenever we passed anything vaguely resembling a female, from gnarled 78-yearold streetwalkers to fourteen-year-olds with flat chests, bubble gum, and braces. The thought of a statutory rape charge here in the conservative Midwest sent ash udder through my road-weary, unshaven carcas. But my attorney didn't seem worried. "G1ve me a slice of that cranberry bread, 11 he hollered over the ticking of the engine as we accelerated to highway speed. He drove. the car with his teeth shifting with his right hand and tm11ng the radio with his1left until he fo1md a station tO his liking. He turned it up full and began howling along with the song: Still the one That can scratch my itch; Still the one That I wouldn't switch I jammed a slice of bread into his mouth and a Fr. am pton tape into the eight-track machine. Peace and qwet at last, I thouJZht ... ani then. lookin!l at mv I said, "Be careful with that stuff. I want to get there in one piece. "We'll get more than one if I can help it," my attorney yelled back, ripping the bread in half and putting one chlmk into his mouth and the other up his right nostril. He took a big snort of air and swallowed at the same time, his eyes got wide, and then he leaned back in his seat. I hoped that he wouldn't have a reaction before we got to Chicago and switched cars. There is nothing in the world m ore de)Xaved and irresponsible than a man in the depths of a cranberry nut bread reaction We'd gone barely a mile when I sensed that the car was slowing down, A quick check of the speedometer confirmed my suspicions, Up ahead, two hitchhikers stood beside the road. We were still too far from them to determine their sexes, but my guess was that my attorney was slowing down just in case they were of the female persuasion. We closer, the car going still slower and my attorney drooling all over himself; but when we got within about ten feet of our prospective passengers I could see that they weren't the lascivious young lasses my attorney had no doubt i m a gin e d in his cranberry nut bread-addled reverie, but scwfy-looking kids wearingNittany lion jackets. My attorney muttered something l.Dlder his breath and started to shift back into second, but before he could I crippled him with a pl.Dlch to the groin. "Gosh, he sniveled, mashing the brakes. "Why'd you do that?" r.12cause," I said, watching the boys running toward us in the rear view mirror, "we're going to pick them up." I opened the door. "Maybe you'll be able to pay attention to the road with no more room for r:iiers. 11 The boys hopped into the back seat, not an easy task considering the $lze of the car and the volume of gear we were carrying. One of them was short and slightly chunky, with red hair that was just beginning to recede and inordinately smelly feet. The other was only slightly taller, had black hair, and wore a Fhiladelphia Flyers shirt beneath his jacket. The shorter kid spoke: "Gee, thanks. I thought we'd never get a ride, and it sure is getting cold." My attorney laughed. He still had his shirt off, and the Instant Breakfast had formed a brown, gooey plaster on his chest. "Sure is," I said. 11My name's Owe, Ralph Dooe, and this is my attorney, Dr. Gimzool. 11

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page twelve "Pleased to meet you," the short kid said."My-name's Rich Clark, but all of my friends call me Hormone And this is K L. II for?" "K. L ?"my attorney blurted. "What's that stand "No one knows, "Rich said. "He doesn't talk." ''Oh, I said. "Where are you headed?" "Milwaukee, Clark said. I We're going to see the game." "You're in 1uck, I said. "So are we. The car started moving and I looked at K. L. He was staring out the window and humming. I listened for a second before recognizing the tune. I joined in with the words: Though I know that evening's empire Has returned into the sand, Vanished from my hand, Left me blindly here to stand But still not sleeping! ... The kid smiled, but my attol"ney, who had been rummaging through our rider'S' backpacks during the singalong turned around in his seat in a frenzy and almost put us into the guard rail. "What the hell are you doing, kid?" he screamed. "Holding out on us?" He held up a tiny bottle, and K.L. ;a;\bbed for it. "Oh"' p.o you don't; 11 my_ at>rney screeched, l:fiting the toP. off 01 the bottle anu swallowmg the contents in one gulp. "There," he said. "That'll teaCh you to fuck aro1md with us I looked at K. L. He had gone pale and was clutching the back of my seat. Clark looked up;et, too. I picked up the emiX bottle and looked at the label: 10 cc NFH UETm iso!Dane insulin suspension I looked at Clark. He pointed to his friend and started to speak. I stopped him. "Don't worry," I said. "I've got connections in Chicago. We'll get SO'Il'e more. 11 My attorney turned to me, natrowly missing a bridge abutment. "Don't bother," he said. "It tastes lousy." end chapter one Sniper Thomson Box 4 Woody Owl Creek, Colorado Dear Sniper: Jaan Wnwang, Editor Joints 14 Respectat>e Place New York, NY As you can see, we've moved our offices to New York. We didn't inform you of the change because, quite frankly we never expected to hear from you again. Moral: never underestimate the power of gall. As you might expect, we took quite a bit of flak for publishing Fear and Loafing -in Las Vegas. Everything would have been fine, Hunter, if oilly you hadn't gone on all of those damned talk shows and admitted that you'd never even been to Las Vegas (or Nevada, for that matter). And we lost a hell of a lot of readers when you said that drug dealer'S should be chopped into little squares and fed to pirranah But did we hold a grudge against you, Sniper? No. You claimed that you had been forced to act that way by some high-powered syndicate figure, and we believed you. We sent you out on the campaign trail as a second chance, something that almost no other publication would have done, and what cid you do? You left--went back to your trailer in the woods and wrote your reports from the news papers and your imagination. Which would have been fine, if you hadn't told the Sen ate subcommittee. And the whole time we called it journalism. My God! So, Sniper even though we didn't send you our new address, we kept a close watch on you. Just in case. And I guess it paid off. Our detectives tell us that on the day of the State-Marquette game you were so narcotized on Venezualan jim-job bean that you didn't even get out of bed. In Woody Owl Creek. Fool me once--shame on you. Fool me twice--shame on me. Fool me three times and I'm an abalone, I'm not an abalone, Sniper. I have returned your Milwaukee piece. I'm also returning your article on killer plankton. I hope you'll up and fly right, Sniper. It would be terrible for a person with your ability to waste his life aw
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________________________ P_a_g_e ___ t_h_i_r_t_e_e_n BERT WHO? It was a slow month. Congress had recessed, the IRS had released a longer short form Gary Mark Gilmore had died, and Son of Sam, with no in sight, had been captured. Karen Anne Quinlan was stable. Richard Nixon was tmstable. Seatle Slew was in a stable. America was not at war, Laetrile had tmdergone spontaneous remission, and the coastal towns of California still hadn't been invaded by killer bees. The Hite Report had come out in favor of m ast\U'bation. Dick and Liz hadn't retied the knot. And the anti-busing riots were still foW' weeks away. Yes, it was a slow month. But a good one. A good month to sit by the pool, to sip white rum, to think about Rim baud. A good month to go for a ride in the country. A good month for just about anything. But a bad month for selling newspapers. And then came Bert Lance. Actually, it wasn't Bert's first arrival-he'd already come to Washington for his confirmation hearings from a little town in Georgia named Calhotm. Bert's long-time friend, Jimmy Carter had invited Bert. Jimmy had been elected President of the United States, proving that the American Dream is alive and well, that any millionaire peanut farmer/nuclear t:nysicist can pull himself up by the golf shoes to become the leader of the greatest cotmtry in the whole goddamn world, can aspire to the Supreme Office of the Land, can meet Barbara Walters in person, Really. But Jimmy wasn't about to let his sudden good fortune change him. Deep down he was just a good ole country boy. He knew he'd been helped along the way, and now he was in the position to pay back some of those debts. He called Bert Lance. "Bert, how'd you like to be head of the O.M.B. ?" "Sounds {I'etty good Jimmy. What is it?" "Damned if I know. Come on up and we'll try to find out." And so Bert came, And Bert saw. And Bert was confirmed. The Senators were impressed. Bert had been interviewed. Bert had been investigated. And in the end, Bert had been acclaimed as a man of intelligence, perseverance, and competance. Competance! Could the system survive? Bert went to work, and for awhile everything was fme. Bert was doing a good job, a competant job, a jr he would later say he was JrOud of. People complained about Andrew Yotmg. But they never complained about Bert Lance. But vrlile the intelligent, persevering, competent Burt had been toiling in the deep, dark recesses of the Office of Management and Budget, the other Burt had been skulking in the background, and in the realm of moral turpitude, overdrawing his personel checking account and hiding in small bathroom safes. When the other got out of the closet, the press went to and the cartoons appeared. Burt Lance vanishing mto a cookie jar in foW' panels. Burt Lance going to McDonald's and getting change back from his $450.000, by Rowdy Yates Burt's blind trust, as one columnist said, had developed 20/20 vision He'd sold his plane to his bank at a sizable JrOfit, And he'd used the same collateral for two different loans. Burt was in trouble. His personal debts were larger than his chins, he'd used his bank's airplane (the same one he sold) to go to football games, and a convicted embezzler was trying to split the blame with him, And to top it off, politicians and editorialists across the country had been calling for his resignation, not because he'd been convicted of any crime (he hadn't even been charged), but because his ability to function as the head if the O.M.B. had been "irreparably damaged" by the slew of accusations against him. But Burt refused to rool-polly over and play dead. His turn came to testify before the Senate committee and he defended himself He went down the list of charges against him and explained each one. Overdrafts were a "common practice" in Calhoun, noone was ever charged interest on them, and he'd paid back every cent he'd ever overdrawn. The football games were part of his job, an attempt to drum up business for the bank. He had. no. idea tqat a repprt about him had been hidden in a Jrivate safe for months, and he certainly hadn't asked to have it done. Anai so on Then Burt went on the offensive. He accused the Sen ators and the JreSS of denying him his basic human rights, an action in the eyes of this administration as heinous as hunting newborn puppies with chain saws. And at least one Senator agreed with him-Tom Eagleton, the self destructive vice -presidential candidate in l'n7, Citing MClCarthyism, Eagleton warned against convicting Lance by "accumulation" and urged that the Big Boy be given a fair trial. But the trial degenerated into a circus. bickered among themselves, and the question and answer sequence became increasingly predictable: Percy: "Mr. Lance, is it not true that you beat your wife periodically with an axe handle?" Lance: (after consultation with his attorney)"Senator Percy, beating wives with axe handles is a common practice in Calhoun'! When it was over, Burt had come out on top, but the Question was "at what cost?" Sure, he defended himself, but the method of his defense-to blame the JreSS and the committee for his troubles-had made doubtful whether Burt would ever be able to deal effectively with the media and Congress again And despite Lance's detailed accotmt of hiS activities, an accotmt that had convinced many that Burt had, indeed!:, violated no law, the calls for his resignation persisted. And so, on Sept. 21st, Burt Lance told Jimmy Carter that he W3$ going back to CalhOtm. But Lance's resignation lacked the finality it should have had, It left too many questions unanswered: If Burt Lance hadn't broken any laws, why should he have had to resign? Is there (or should there be) a separate for those in

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page fourteen 1h.t ...::__::_ ____________ But Burt didn't bring the subject up--he was contron;'the. public eye? And how public should the hves of pu lC And the basic difference between confession, which is people be? good for the soul, and confrontation, which is good for Burt Lance as far as has been determmed, broke selling newspapers, is that the latter implies that someone laws. Granted, he used his positions at the has been caught in a cover-up. And with America's lllO\th National Bank and the National Bank of Georg1a to h1S still sour from Watergate, cover-ups are bad things to be own advantage while still making bushels of mon_ey associated with. his banks' Bli: isn't that what Amenca .15 Burt Lance is gone, but the spectre of his "trial by all about, making the most of If Burt _didn't accumulation" Private people will be hes-violate the law then how can we blame h1m for h1S itant about becommg public people; but from those who success? do make the switch, we will hear the most excruciatingly We did find a way to blame Burt has complete confessions ever made. And who knows? After no one to blame for his but If all the politicians have and !orgiven, may-raised all of the questions at h1s confumatiOn hearmgs be other people who deal Wlth the public will do the same. that the press raised during the summer--even though _he And then, to fill their pages, maybe newspapers will be thought them to be insignificant, Burt Lance would still forced to scrutinize everyone, even their own, in search be the director of the Office of and_ Budget. of a tiny drop of scandal, a hint of quasi-wrongdoing He would have each deta1l of past ln the that can be parlayed into a Confrontation. same manner he did to the Senate comm1ttee last month, In closing, let me say that I have lusted after women been cleared of any wrongdoing, aneen commenaea ror in my heart, -but that this is a common practice where 1 his honesty. come from. STPI PIHEPJ[] SH[]P 1549 Main Street, THEY LAST \ -"l"fJ --PALM PIPE-:Jr Jr --PACK PAPERS-fl STASH BAG--$1 .:. YER RECORDS ............................ ... TRAIL NEXT TO TFATRO

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__ f_i_f_t_e_e __ n I LITTLE BA 2257 Ringling Blvd. AcrQ.fS From Ringling Shopping Center Beer Sandwiches Wine STINGER'S 101 Central Av Beer' Wine Dancing FLORIDA's LARGEST SELECTION USED PAPERBACKS WE BUY SELL -TRADE 1531 MAIN ST.-955-2989SARASOTA, F 33577 Old Fa.lllon Hot Dog Stand 1777 North Tamiami Trail Sarasota, Fl. 33580 Telephone: 365-1777 HOT DOGS BURGERS FRENCH FRIES & SODA BUDWEISER On Tap OPEN FROM 10:30 A.M.-8:00P.M. EVERY DAY fo:r BOOGJCS announces the Grand Opening Nov. 15th of our new Bookstore. Over 6000 square feet all BOOKS with a complete paperback room SNELLING PLAZA 4000 s. Tamiami Trail 924-1144 2831 North Trail Sarasota (Across from Burger King)

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page sixteen ICE ON THE EACH BY JOHN BIGGERS Garrett is one of the three or four fishermen of Hatteras who has lived here long enough to remember the year the oil-fed beacon of the lighthouse was changed to an electric one. He is the only one of these who, during the calm of late spring, still rows out onto the waters of Pamlico Soundthe waters between the coast and the outer-banks, which had been his domain for four decades and the waters which are now the source ot his meagre sustenance. Garrett has watched the state-owned trucks-which come on odd-numbered years for therepainting of the beacon tower--grow from the skeletal vehicles of his younger years into the portly and bulbous shaues of the late Forties and early Fifties and has seen them growing slowly boxier and harder as the years wash along. He remembers the year they changed from black to yellow. His house is the Hatteras fisherman's house: two rooms, built of boards, grey and so long washed with sand and salt that they won't hold any paint. His boat, too, had been the Hatteras fisherman's boat. Above water, it was much like the houses, but sprinkled with patches of boilerpalte; below the water it was mahogany, or at least black oak, rubbed smooth as polished obsidian and coated with layers of varnish like a black bug in amber. Daily he makes the journey from his house, passing over the dunes into the sight of the lighthouse; passing the pa.rti ally buried staves and beams that still hold the form of an inverted boat but lack their planking; passing over the hard, damp, grey sand out to the wooden jetty and fishes with casting gear. When Garrett has enough fish for dinner, he retraces the step; to hlS house and passes with a slight chill the hulk standing cage-like above the sand. And, as he is one of a few who remembers the long-ago electrification of the light-house Garrett is one of a very few who ever knew of the night, two years after his arrival here, when this vessel foundered. And he is the only one of these who is still able to tell of the moming a few days later when it was cast up on his shore. * Garrett was 24 when he first saw the beacon of the Hatteras lighthouse. He watched it at from the deck of a freighter passing the cape; it swept toward him, then away from him, then back again, over the barren shores of the outer-banks. The lighthouse, like most, was for navi_ gation, b u t not for into safe port; it was meant to warn ships of the treacherous currents and rocks of the cape. To Garrett, it seemed to offer a warm invitation to the deserted shore. Within a year, he came to Hatteras, secured a boat on credit, located a merchant who would buy his catch, and found a land agent un scrupulous enough to offer him the house and jetty he eventually bought It was much farther north of Manteo than most of the other fishermens houses and fronted on water somewhat poorer for fishing than the waters south, closer to the town. He would, occasionally take his boat as far so.uth as Manteo, but only he needed supplies. H1s usual southern terminus was the dock of Thomas & Co., the small and slightly disreputable firm about two-and -a-baH miles north of the town that bought his fish. Garrett would make his voyage out into the channel of the sound early in the day and pass back and forth across it with his nets until nearly dusk. When satisfied with his catch, he would stoP the boat and stuff the fish into burlap sacks. Frequently would sit by the wheel, as the boat bobbed slowly m the middle of the sound and look across the grey-green water to the behind his house. Allowing just enough time to journey and return before dark, Barrett would set out south for the doek of Thomas & Co., to deliver his fish. He seldom stopped at this dock of which he all 1 hIS vutu Y the sole patron; be would simply s ow boat and toss the sacks of fish into the dock. Then, almost past the end of the dock he would retrieve

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page seventeen with the hook of his gaff the burlap sacl
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page eighteen ll. "H I vessel, keeping parallel to Garrett, ca mg, ey. Goddamn fisherman Hey there! You crazy or what?" He leaned over the stern, at Garrett's back, "Son of a bitch, what 1s th1s? Then in a moment of desperate logic born of panic', "You got no tow rope, right? You got go and get some rope right? Hey, Goddamm1t. d"' I got all the goddamn rope you nee Garrett scarcely heard these last words; they blended with the soft splashings beneath his bow. The sacks of fish thunked wetly onto Thorn as dock; the gaff hooked the sacks, and Garrett turned north. d l'ghtl On his homeward trip, Garrett passe s 1 Y farther off the lower side of the listing white craft; the man said nothing; he stared out at Garrett, un as if Garret and his boat some sort of marine mirage. The white man's eyes met Garrett's soft grey gaze Pleadingly, desperately, he made afinalcntreaty, "Idon'tunderstand this, but please, for the ... He stopped short, startled by a sound. Garrett, too, heard the sound, now just behind him The jagged black mouth in the boat's side would wait no longer. It sipped the brine and belched out moldy, sepulchral fumes from therecesses of the bilge. The one sip of salty water seemed to in ere ase its thirst; controlled by the black mouth the entire craftleanedits body nearerthesurface. The mouth gulped and filled the boat's belly with the Garrett then heard the mast softly slap the surface behind him. Then then splashing, and finally the soft wet plopping sounds these last, those of fatigued or intoxicated swimming. Two days passed in fishing and in trip; to Thomas' dock without thought of the white vessel. An hour after dawn on the third day, Garrett rose and dressed himself for work as usual. Walking from his door, Garrett crossed the dunes; the lighthouse and the shore burst uoon his siR;ht. A cluster of sandpipers darted back and forth, avoiding the traces of foam from spent waves; the toes of Garrett's boots dug into the sand, absorbing the inertia of his just-frozen forward motion. Ahead, dePOsited on the shore by the stronger waves and higher tides--the sound's manifestations of the Atlantic storm--lay inverted a white hull draped with beards of green. The black mouth opened toward Garrett; the mast was gone, thecabin splintered. Garrett knew the currents of the Pamlico; he knew where the boat had been for two days: carried north slowly, up the channel by the weak cur-rent of the sound, then inland and south, steered by the the vartex of fresh water entering salt a few miles up the shore. He thought, "Why am I standing here? I can just go out past that hull." He had never be en repulsed by any inanimate object before, especially by one so familiar as a boat. Why now? Garrett turned and walked to his house again, letting the shore and the hull and the lillhthouse vanish behind the dunes The burlap sacks containinsz t w 0 and a half dollars in silver hung unclaimed on dock for three days longer than usual. Evening slipped west As if tearing down a wall between his outer jetty and himself Garret began splintering away the outer planking of the white hull. He carried it by arm1oads to his it by armloads to his fireplace he arth, filling his fire p1 h h ace 1s earth, filling Being and varnished on one side, and thoroughly tarred -against water on the other, the planks burned quickly and with profuse smoke. The fire would have been an overabundant sou.::e of he at in midwinter in these days just past midsummer it crea t d unbearable heat in his rooms He worked on on into the night, re-entering the two-roomed inferno only long enough to feed the fire, then Garret went back out side to wrench the rem a in de r of the planks from the skeleton of the craft Garret worked under a furtive moon and the sweeping glance of gold light from the lighthouse. Dawn saw the shadow of eighteen large buckets of ashes dispersing on the water near the shore, stirred by the wake of Garrett's boat. He moved into the sound to begin his day's work; behind him on the beach was the skeleton of the craft. The ease with which the skin of the hulk had burned was matched by the difficulty Garrett had encountered in cutting the main timbers of 0e wreck. Exceedinly well-seasoned and hard With age, they had dulled edge after edge of his axe. It had been a very fine boat. After sacking up his day's catch, Garrett sat by the wheel and rested, studying his shore, His eyes scanned the beach. He thought, "If that thing were a man I'd have no trouble getting rid of him." A construction of wood, like his house; yet he found it as imposing as someone who wished to converse. More so. Daily, Garrett crossed the dunes and the chill of the sea breeze as he descended to his nightly he trudged from the jetty, ov_er the_ dunes, the loomings of the lighthouse sweepmg famtly through the sawgrass. Garrett later thought that had he not 1D such haste to strip and incinerate the plankmg of the hull the next storm-driven tide might have been high enough to carry it away, depositing it on some other shore. Now, each high tide only to wash supporting sand from beneath the timbers, planting it more firmly in his beach, Thought Garrett, "I'll simply burn them where they stand," That night, he torched the The water proofing tar blazed up, creating f1ery crossbars on the beach. Garrett left the tarry beams sizzling in flames and retired to a sound sleep, confident that the next morning, he would have only ashes to pass as he went down to the jetty. Soon after dawn Garrett crossed the dunes to go down to his boat the ocean's breath was colder than he had and before him stood thed hulk, thoroughly charred but still intact, It ha been a very fine boat indeed. f And so it endured, Rains washed away some 0 the charcoal and wind-driven sand carved the th smooth beams into more irregular shapes. But_ e hulk t Ined ItS pegged joints held, and the mama w cage-like shape above the sand. The wood gre grey, lined, and wizened; so did Garrett, * ** The day's held their routine for Garrett; held left his house, crossed the dunes, faced the cok d wind of the sound cast and drew his nets, sac. e the fish, returned' over the dunes as the sweeping

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light vanished, and retired. __ e __ n_i_n_e __ t_e_e __ n The wind of his shore became an independant entity; it renounced its kin up and down the beaches. The other winds flew inland by day, seaward by night, turning at whim. On Garrett's shore, it blew steadily from the so ut:h, past the hulk and across his path. It chilled his right shoulder in the morning as he walked to his boat. His left shoulder in the evening as he returned from the jetty to his house. In later years, Garrett felt no breeze at all, just a chill. Right shoulder mornings and left shoulder evenings. It was as if some ill science had given the wind a new expedient: no need to cool the skin, chill the muscles and pierce the joints; cold, directly into the center of his shoulder. No wind, just cold, emanating from the greyblack ice embedded in his beach. And still he wondered. He had known this cold in sidewalk crowds, in city wnters but why from these timbers? Even the ever-present beams from the lightbouse, the warm J
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page twenty ---la_u_gh_e_d_a_t_is_s_o_m_eh_o_w_l_es_s_t_e_r-:rif:-::y-m:-. most students would have agreed, though they verbal or most of us are and we Wlll slmmlsh ner-might perhaps have thought that any attempt to about at the periphery of a like _linpresent the place even as as I have done guistic onanists to avoid confronting tlmeconstituted a betrayal of content by form. Even las less Wl.Conditioned and inalterable reahty which last year(I968-69), most of us would have agreed lies' concealed at the center. that New College is "like that" at least in the **** sense in which a poor and wroxfg-heade representa So we live and move in our intricate, involuted way, now heartlessly exposed to Heaven, or immur ed behind the poured-concrete walls and German bank-vault doors of the pure, rectilinear, seve1e! : intellectual Pe i dormitories--with their rhetorical vistas of palmetto, swamp, plastic, chrome, and tourists: Florida vignettes. By contrast in our own souls we resemble rather more the Ringling mansion across the road, now, frighteningly enough, a sterile, empty museum; our sensibility a sort of ruinous, but picturesque, Gothic pile(from w?i-ch occasionally a grotesque or madman peers m an appropriately eighteenth century-way) full of hetero= genous mental furnitUie gathered from remote and exotic (and occasionally near and banal) localities to please the eclectic and slightly decadent taste of a leisurely aesthetic glutton. What else is there to do for a reasonable clever and sensible individual unwilling to associate himself with any eschatology, save in a purely aesthetic sot of way? He is forced to the sybaritic life by mere taste. He must, to survive, carve impertinEDt riddles amphibolies, and paradoxes on the huge, stony, reproachfully linear images of his Calvinistic fathers; and by irony, subtlety, style (even without content, if necessary) and personal audacity resist the grav itational drag of the maternal darkness. One cannot surrender identity j but neither is one wi!ling to maintain it by heading back into the post -lapsarian Wood like a legate of the Wor
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short I'm a short person I'm living a short life my linguistics are short and my words are mono-syllabic my ideas mono-conceptual my lines are short I take short breaths I write short poems Seth Goldwin continued from page nine got kicked off campus myself. whole bureaucratic tangle over the distinction between 11 animal 11 and "student'! Gran ted, I had fleas, but like I said then, that's hardly decisive--for example, you can find some animals that don't have fleas ... R.R: The pet crisis was out of the hands of the SEC from the start. People went straight to Dale Hartman. The point is that the SEC has been eclipsed. It should be the focal point of all interests, political and otherwise, of the student body. It should even serve as the focal body of student grievances against faculty and staff--! don't mean any time a single student has any problem with a teacher, but we all know that in the past there have been very widely held grievsaces against certain individuals without any action being taken for a long time. The SEC should be a voice in those cases. And we should be supportive of reopening B-dorm. The trend toward this school becoming a commuter school is disastrous. Also, mention in your article that I'll be in the student Affairs office from 7 to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday. I' 11 be holding court during those hours if anyone wants to speaR: to me. G,M: Last but not least, do you think I have a future in journalism? R .R: No, not if journalism has a future. page twenty-three ... Nov. 6: "Alphaville" -directed by Jean Luc-Godard, starring Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff & Laszlo Szabo. Black & White, 1965, 100 minutes -French with English Subtitles Nov. 13: "Dodes' KA.-DEN11produced, directed & written by Akira Kurosawa, starring Yoshitaka Zushi & Junzaburo Ban. Color (His first!), 1970, 140 minutes L Japanese with English subtitles Nov. 18-20: The Man Who Fell to Earth" -directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring David Bowie, Buck Henry, & Candy Clark. Color, 1976, 118 minutes

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most students would have agreed, though they page twenty laughed at is somehow less terrifying. We are very verbal or most of us are and we will skirmish ner ---1...1 .... ,....... H,.,_ Godard's Le Gai Sa voir: "There are times when the class otruggle is the struggle of an image against an image and of a sound against a sound In a film, it is the struggle of an image against a sound and a sound against an image." --Jean-Luc Godard, "British S unds" "See You At Mao" Towards the end of Godard's "Les Laraomiers" (1962-63), Michelange, one of the main characters in this modern Iliad wanders into a movie to see his first film. On the screen appears the image of a woman undressing .and st>at ing herself in the high-sided bathtub where she provocatively laves he:<: If. Fascinated by the illusive nudity, 1 lich.:: :.tnge first change seats hoping to find a more revealing line of vision. Finding none he walks to the iront of tJte theatre climbs to the and begins to jump at the .screen hoping to peer over the edge of the obtrusive bathtub. Frustrated, deciding to climb in 'l'lrith her, he knocks down the entire screen only to find that a few feet in front of him --now projected on a dirty brick wall with fading posters-is the same image equally oblivious to to his insisted presence. In many ways this scene is a tour de force: a meta-cinematic commentary on a society living so totally within its media signification systems that desire as an expression of the subject is everywhere redefined and redirected through a confusion of referent and repre en tation. The sign no longer designates or refers back to any subjective or objective "reality". but to its own internal logic. The representation becomes its own referent and the use-value of the sign disappears to the profit only of its commutation and exchange -value. Following a phenomenological line of thou<>ht propounded by theorists from Brecht through Robbe-Grillet, Godard thus proposes in "Le Gai Sa voir" to counter the pernic-ious effects of passivity and assimilation (what Brecht called "digestion") ruptme: there must be an opportunity for the spectator to break the "fascination" exercised by the film in order for him/her to think the film, rather than be absorbed by it. Only then can the film return to its dialectical function (a dialogue that opposes as it links both spectator and statement): "to see a film is to create the images that are missing from it." "Le Gai Savoir" (a direct product of the May 1968 student -worker demonstration in France) may, thent be taken to represent a radical break in bOth goaard's career as a film-maker, and iJ; the of political cmema. D1sowmng all his films made prior to 1968, declaring his pmpose to be destruc tion of cinema and the autemial consciousness, substituting a rigorously collective central group for the director's privileged position, Godard's politicized aesthetics centers here on just what might perhaps have thought that any attempt to ..,.,_,..,... ..,... ..... eta"What do people really understand by knowledge' ... 'otltlng more than the apparent need t trace what is strong back to something known. The known, that is to say, what ve are accustomed to so that 'ce no longer m arvel at it : is our need of knowing anything more than this need of the kno.,.,'D?' --'ietzsche, I.e Gai Savoir and b'ow cinema can mean an
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Pe B u

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WE AFFIRM: That freedom of inquiry is the cornerstone of education. That each student must generate his own vital questions and program his own education, free from central control by administrative bureaucracies and disciplinary oligarchies That the class character of age in our society subverts education, and that theyoung are not too young to teach, nor the old too old to learn. That education is not a commodity, and should not be measured out in u.nits, grade' points, and degrees. That education is a process involving the whole environment, which can only occur in a total community, in which each individual participates equally in making the decisions which importantly affect life. That education aims at generality rather than specialization, and should supply the glue which cements together our fragmented lives. That education which has no consequences for social action or personal growth is empty. That action which does not raise our level of consciousness is futile. That the ultimate politics will be based on Knowledge, liberty, and community rather than on hate, fear, or guilt. That th.e most revolutionary thing we can do is th1nk for ourselves, and regain contact with our vital centers. That the most important questions which confront us must be asked again and again and answered again and again, until themillenium comes. That the natural state of man is ecstatic wonder! That we should not settle for less! Rep:inted from the Special Groveling Issue of #9, aNew College p).lblication .. .. :. ...