Volume 6 - Issue 4

Volume six, number fourll\Jay 18, 1973

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My favorite is a film of 1903 called "Electrocuting the Elephant."

And that's exactly what happens, by God. They lead out this enormous elephant and there is a long shot of him, head on. And you look at this elephant and he's chained up and suddenly clouds of smo ke come up from his feet and this gr~at oeast collapses and twitches-it s ;ust an incredible piece of film. (see page 8)

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Volume six, number four May 18, 197312 .,

Contents Comment Eugene lonesco : Gorgeous laughter- -and after the coke machine, right Film is art is film 1be Accused

Photographs by Wayne Kraft

Comment "I would miss India."

In the street below, a bullock cart loaded with grain plods past the sugar cane crusher. The boys at the crusher feed the cane stalks through the press rapidly. turning out as much as they can. Dr. Khan and I are sitting at the table near the windows overlooking the street, prolonging breakfast tea, watching the people whose lives are not divided into weeks and who receive no benefit from the fact that today is Sunday. All day and all night every day, the street below this window is crowded, and thousands of lives flow past this window which frames a scene I have dubbed: the motion picture, "Bombay." Khanji and I are discussing, as always, our two different worlds.

"You mean there are no bullock carts at aU in New York, not even in the poorer sections?"

"It's just a different world. There's no real peasant culture. And god knows no domestic animals in the cities. You have to see it." "l would miss India," says Khanji, who is one of the few young Indian doctors l have met who does not dream of moving to the States. Sun bathes the tenements across the street, where people live close with little privacy. A young woman on a balcony is tossing and combing her long black hair in the morning.

We're off to Juju beach on "The magic bullock"-K.han's treacherous lambretta scooter that has had three flats in the past week. As a medical student on fellowship in India to learn about health-care systems, I am also learning about Indian hospitality and Indian transportation.

One guarantees me an unending supply of attentive hosts, and the other ...at least a chance to be philosophical. We roll north through the city, along the edge of the Arabian Sea. On the sea side we pass a white mosque like a giant carving in ivory, with minarets and scallops above the windows-then a cove sheltering old fashing boats with sails curved like gull wings. But on our right is the city, and " huttrnents" of cloth or thatch or wood are pushed together on every margin of

available land. When we pass a small pond where women are walloping wet clothes against the pavement, men are spangbathing in the sun, and little kids are defecating near the blooming lillies, I lean forward on the lambretta and shout above the wind into Khan's ear, "Bombay is the largest village in the world."

When at last we arrive at the beach, I fmd myself grasping for a hold. The suburbs through which we passed between the city and the beach, though new t<' me, seemed familiar: quiet streets, no huttments, small apartment buildings and private homes with Fiats parked in the driveways, palm trees towering above the mood of dust and comfort and silence.

India, after all, is a name for a different view of the same round world. But now we are accosted by a woman and a child as we reach the sand. The woman wears the red-checked sari thrown over her right shoulder that shows her to be from Gujarat-a migrant to the city. She has no eyebrows. There are erratic pigment spots on her face. She has that slight rounding to her face, that slight flattening of her nose, that slight puffiness of her eyes, described as "Leonine." She and her child are begging, and I take note that her fingers and toes still look normal.

Through the intended-to-embarrass din of her beggmg and her raucous charicature of humility , I have to remind myself over and over that the present sorrow is sometimes the best we can ever know. The woman has early leprosy.

It is Sunday. We came here to go swimming. The leprous woman is almost instantly joined by dusky children holding up their hands, by men with monkeys on strings, vying for our attention and our coins. Who do you give your money to? How much?

"Come on ," says Khan , and we march through the food stands selling ice cream and spicy vegetables to the open beach.

Warm sand worms intertoe. And we're in for a swim. I'm lucky. Salt water washes against me in rhythm, and the cold claws of the ocean wash away the heat and dust of our ride.

We walk the beach; there are only handfuls of people dispersed thinly.

Several monkey men wander aimlessly with no one to coUect coins from. Two bearded men catch my eye. One is young and dark; the other is ancient, and he carries a brass pitcher of oc~an water up the beach towards a pile of saffron cloth lying on the sand. Both men hunker down, naked except for loin cloths, warmed by the sun, muttering, tracing in the sand, sprinkling water. I would like to watch, but Khan clearly wants to leave them their privacy.

"Your hippies," I kid him.

"Not at all. How can you say that?"

"Well...They both follow a wandering life, with few dimands...They both place the ultimate values in their life on those experiences that transcend daily living."

"These sadhus are the opposite of hippies."

I am carried away, as if we are assessing something I own: "Hippies are consciously imitating Sadhus. They shake themselves awake from the dream. That's what the drugs are: an alarm clock. They want to sit up and see a reality that doesn't depend upon the rituals of convention, that exists independently from specific conditions. Hippies want to be the Sadhus of the West."

"That's the point, 'want to be.' These sadhus-or the real ones, anyway, not just the ganga addicts-are learned men. They don't disobey their parents; they don't take drugs and wander about with women; they go beyond the average men by discipline. And they are religious. This is their way of life. It is part of our country. They have not escaped from the rituals; they live them."

Half the hippies are in India for the ganga, anyway . l know that. And I've heard Khan kid around about the Sadhus who live on ganga. And Khan is a Muslim, not a Hindu. I point out the tiny holes that pock the beach. A star-like pattern of sand grains extends out from each one.

The mystery is solved when we see tiny sand crabs duck backwards into their holes as our shadows glide over them. I am thinking to myself: What can a hippie possibly say to the beggar woman whose toes will soon rot off? And what can they say to themselves?

Sun and breeze match each other. It is perfectly comfortable; I feel part of the beach. With sudden delight, Khan points down: two large crabs, eight inches in diameter, are locked together and struggling, claw on claw. Dr. Khan grabs each of them behind their front pinchers, and gently pulling, twisting, insisting, separates them, and places them back on the sand. Watching him, I am reminded of his gentle force in the operating room. Surprisingly, the two crabs neither scuttle away nor attack each other, but, with a strange swimming motion of their legs, they melt downward into the sand until only their sand-colored backs are uncovered-yet perfectly blended with the beach. " Imagine how many we must walk over without being aware of it."

As we look up, a flock of goats bobble past on their stick legs, ears flopping, ewes and kids led by the bearded. Two slender men in turbans walk behind. The scenario flows across the beach like a breeze. We watch, speechlessly, until goats and goatherds blend into the horizon. As if resuming our breakfast conversation, Khanji says, "This is what an Indian who settles in America would

Volume six, number four Editors: Ronald Roel Joel Krieger Associate Editor: Gary Friedman Photography Editor: James K.arageorge Design: Jim Uberman Consultant: John Kane Production: Andrew Elkind Nina Glickson Pam Gray Alan Strasser Advertising: Brian Raub Adam Meyerson Contributing Editors: George Kannar Jonathan Marks Steven Weisman Daniel Yergin Publisher: Stuart Rohrer Credits: James Karageorge: cover and page 8 Garry Trudeau: pages 5,6,7

The New Journal is published by The New Journal at Yale, Inc., 3432 Yale Station, New Haven, Conn. 06520, and is printed at TrumbuU Printing Co. in Trumbull, Conn. Published free to the Yale community. For all others, subscription rate $5.00 per year. CopyrightŠ 1973 by The New Journal at Yale, Inc., a non-profit corporation.

After four frustrating months, The New Journal at last appears again.

Anyone interested in writing or working for The New J o ttrnal should call 432-0419 or write in care of the above address.

1he New Journal expresses special thanks to Endicott Davison, David Kruidenier, Frederick P. Rose and Barry Zorthian [or making this issue possible.

miss."

Back at the beach house we have ice

creani. Children approach us and hold out their hands pleading. I give away my coins and then the Gujarati woman with leprosy returns, hands outstretched.

"This is what an Indian who settles in America would miss."

Paul R. Fleischman

Mr. Fleischman wrote this piece while in India on a Manealoff Travel Fellow-

ship from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

..

Eugene Ionesco: Gorgeous laughter -and after

by Jonathan Marks

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I arrived at 11 a.m. on the dot,just as we had arranged on the phone earlier in the week. Mustered up all the coffee-stoked courage I had, and pushed the bell. Long wait. No sound. I looked around. The top floor of a rather high~class Paris apartment-house. Sunlight. Under the doorbell, their nameplate: IONESCO. Then, finally, footsteps down the haiL The sound of the lock being opened from within. Then another lock. Two more.

Finally the door swung open, and a very smaJJ woman stood in front of me in her bedclothes, squinting from the light. She had just awakened.

"Madame lonesco?"

"Oui, Monsieur. " "I'm here to speak with your husband.

We have an appointment for 11 o'clock."

She looked puzzled. I tried to clear things up.

"Oh," she said , the light finally dawning, "you're the comedien! Weren' t you supposed to come next Tuesday?"

Damn, thought I. This was my last day in Europe; I couldn't have made it for Tuesday. She hovered for a minute between sending me away and inviting me in. Then : "Come in and sit down. I'll see if my husband¡ can speak with you."

A nondescript green armchair. The living room is filled with modern art: abstract, yet it is not itself a modern room. lonesco appears at one door, disappears through another. The maid walks through, looks around disapprovingly, and also disappears.

Then lonesco comes in to greet me.

His pajama top is white, his pajama bottoms are purple. His robe is yet another purple. We are friends from the start.

"So glad you were able to get hold of me," he said. "But weren't you supposed to come next Tuesday?"

We retired to the study and sat down to chat. The room was lined with books.

Not an "absurdist" library, I thought: too scholarly. The desk-top was full of rhinoceroses, of all sizes and textures.

"You must love rhinoceroses," I ventured.

"Not very much, no. It's just that since I wrote the play everyone thought that I loved them, and all my friends started sending them to me. The same thing happened with The Chairs. Now when I'm in a room full of people and somebody uses the word 'chair' or 'rhinoceros,' everyone looks at me as if I had invented the chair and the rhinoceros.

Won't you have a whiskey?"

We re-retired into the living room, where the maid had set up a tray. I had to help him pour out his fruit juice and mineral water (good for the liver), because his right hand was in a cast. He explained that it had happened during his summer vacation in the Midi, when he had tried to ski down a staircase.

There was a wild, contorted statue in the manner of dsar that seemed to be a man in a funny hat on a sway-backed horse. The man's face was featureless, his body was twisted and lumpy. "C'esr

moi, "he said. "The sculptor wanted to create the ultimate parody of the equestrian statue." I told him that the resemblances were striking--th~ eyes, the mouth, the arms, the bearing. We laughed.

Ionesco laughs with his eyes and with his entire mouth, from diaphragm to lips.

And the eyebrows--at once strikingly prominent yet seemingly lost in that great craggy plain of baldness-punctuating the laugh. Only the incredibly wide, flat nose anchors the other features down by staying still . All in aU, a gorgeous laugh.

It is late summer, 1967. In the spring I had played a leading role, Brother Tarabas, in the English-language world premiere of his Hunger and Thirst at the Yale Dramat. The Polish critic Jan Kott, at that time a teacher at the Drama School, had admired the production and written lonesco about it. When Kott heard that I would be in Paris on a Bates Fellowship he gave me the phone number and urged me to use it. I went to Paris and, needless to say, I didn't phone. You don't just calllonesco and tell him you want to see him, do you? I stayed a month in Paris, I went to A vignon, to Geneva, to London, and then back to Paris for the last-week before the return flight. And I still had the phone number.

Well, I reasoned, lonesco couldn't be all bad; when the Dramar had been making no discernible progress with his agents in the effort to get the rights to Hunger and Thirst, he had intervened personally on our behalf, for no fathomable reason.

Since he'd been interested in our doing the play, he might possibly be interested in the production photos I'd brought with me. That's it. So I called, and offered to bring pictures.

He stared hard at the photos. He quizzed me about all sorts of details...was there enough lighting for the brilliant fresh-air plateau in front of the museum in the second episode? ...where did allmale college get its actresses?...what were the monks doing in these photos of the "Good Inn" of the third episode?

I explained to him , somewhat timorously at first, how much we had cut the scene and changed the order of lines to give it more direction. Far from being offended, he seemed pleased and interested, most of all in the gestures he saw the monks doing. I explained to him that we had differed radically in this respect from the earUer production at the ComidieFran~ise. The monks were not mute mimes; they were given an active part in the interrogation-brainwashing-revival: prayers. imprecations, chants. black mass blasphemies. Nor were they rooted to the symmetrical Brechtian bleachers, as they had been in Paris; they swayed, they circled, they practically danced. lonesco thought it was wonderful. He thinks it wouJd have been better if the Comldie. Francaise had done it that way. He wishes he had written it that way. He goes to tell his wife.

The playwright wanted to know about the director, Leland Starnes, about the actors, and about the general setup of the Dramat. In passing, I mentioned the lack of rehearsal time and the physical punish· ment the cast and crew went through to get this particular play on the stage. I started onto another subject, but he stop· ped me.

"I am very touched," he said.

Later, he was admiring a marvelous photo of the ghost of mad Aunt Ade· laide, who was played by a woman who had worked with the Dramat and other local theatres for thirty years. He asked about her. I told him that she had died within a month after the final curtain. He stared hard at the picture for thirty seconds or so, then sat back, took off his glasses, and breathed.

Still later in the day, while Ionesco was in another room, his wife. in a totally different context, mentioned a closemess that both of them feel to the actors who create his characters. It all fits in. That was why I was there.

He worried about the reviews--much more than l would have thoU2ht. I ~ve him the Register's and the Providence Journal's. l helped him a little with the English. He actually reads it pretty well, though he doesn't speak it at all; the English lessons that led to The Bald So· prano apparently bore little fruit other than the play itself. He had been to A· merica several years before, visiting the cartoonist Saul Steinberg in New York.

There were always lots of people around, but few of them spoke French or Rumanian (his second language; though born in Rumania, he had lived in France until age 13), so after a couple of days he stopped trying to communicate and just drank a lot and smiled at everyone and enjoyed himself immensely.

We discussed Hunger and Thirst at length. Having worked so hard and lived so long with the play I felt reasonably confident, especially on the topic of the third episode, the black mass in which I had been the chief celebrant. He decided, on the evidence I gave him, that we had avoided the traps that German companies had f:.Llen into in their productions; we had made of the episode what he had intended : "an anti-Brechtian play in the style of Brecht."

He has written a new episode for the play. He'Ll keep on writing new ones, he says. If you want to produce the play, just pick your three favorites.

I described a recent Silliman College production of The Bald Scprano in which the director had done various violences to the play: in the ftrst scene the Smiths had read the lines directly from the Grove Press edition while watching The FBI on TV; the Fire Chief had masturbated during the maid's recitation of her poem '1'he Fire"; and so on. lonesco listened.

He questioned, he puzzled, and he laugh· ed. Surprisingly, he seemed disturbed about the television; twenty years ago, when the play was written, one would hardly have expected to fmd a TV in a typically English home. l pointed out

that one doesn't worry about anachro· nisms when one puts on lonesco. lonesco wa.c; content.

We talked. And talked. Without order sometimes. We leaned in to work out intricacies; we leaned back to laugh. I got drunk.

The question of literary influence came up. He feels that he is entirely with· in the historical line of French writers--especially jn that he revolts against all of them. While contemporary European playwrights do keep interested and in· formed about each other's work, he hard· ly feels their effect on him could properly he called an influence ; it's too superficial.

KafKa, for example. did influel'\ce him-but he didn't feel it until a dozen years after reading Kafka.

We spoke about the other playwrights of modern France, and the productions of their plays then appearing in Paris; we had seen many of the same plays. We had even been at Avignon at about the same time--but I had been attending the Festi· val (the most important summer event in French theatre) and Ionesco had just been walking around the town looking for the narrowest streets. He had been invited to the Fe-stival to act the part of the- father in Philippe Adrien's La Baye, but he had declined because of worry about his health. We touched on Beckett, Genet, Sartre, de Ghelderode, Arrabal, Adamov, and Obaldia, among others. He feels that the "absurdist" revolution of the early ftfties was the work of Beckett, Pinter and himself--but actually, he ad· mits, he is not really familiar with Pinter's plays; only a few of them have been translated, and still fewer have been pro· duced in Paris. He seems to feel much closer to Samuel Beckett, though. They don't see each ether t00 often, but seem to keep in touch. Ionesco admires him immensely.

He tells a story. Beckett has be-en working on a new play for a year. The curtain goes up, revealing what looks like a man half-submerfed in muck and gar· bage. He stares out toward the audience for a moment, then (and here lonesco demonstrates) heaves a great long sigh.

Curtain. But, says Ionesco, Beckett is not yet satisfied with the play; it's still too long.

Strange. I fmd myself talking about Ionesco in the third person while talking to him across his coffee table. He doesn't seem to mind. Sometimes he takes it up, more often he speaks of the theatre of Ionesco in the first person. Sometimes what he says would appear immodest or downright boastful, but something in his manner announces that matters of pride are fairly irrelevant with lonesco . At moments he may be touchy and defensive, at other moments self-denigrating, but finally he ends up dispersing the whole prob· lerr. with that laugh. In lonesco's Victims of Duty the poet Nicolas d'Eu announces, in effect, "No, I don't write at all, and I'm proud of it. It would be useless; we already have lonesco and lonesco. That's eno~h." The man asks to be laughed at, and with.

A couple of times my French breaks down. I try to ask him a complex question and he doesn't get what I'm driving at. I try again and he answers me in the most elementary terms. I change the subject ~nd feel foolish. Very sobering.

We talked a great deal about politics. I hadn't expected that a playwright so opposed to engage theatre should be so conscious of it--but it all fit into place, eventually. It seems that he has been haunted by the idea of totalitarianism.

World War II is never far from his thoughts, and its monoliths pervade his dreams. His writing is often a purgation of these nightmares, as it was for KafKa. Arrabal is similarly tortured by the father-figure of his native Spain, btlt Ionesco would have him give even freer rein than he does already to his va.rious panics. Through subjective theatre, lonesco feels, one can reach a high degree of universality.

He is soon to have an article published suggesting that Americans not be so sen· sitive to foreigrt criticism-especially Fren-ch. De Gaulle, he says, represents and leads that considerable faction of Frenchmen who resent the fact that the United States has twice saved France, and so ignore the fact and blame the U.S. for anything and everything. Such countries, as he sees it, not only force America to stand alone in defense of the entire free world against totalitarianism, but also are making Americans doubt that their stand is just. Vietnam, he readily admits, is bothersome to the extreme--but he doesn't know what else the U.S. could have done.

We touch on Yale, contemporary America, my life, my plans. My immedi· ate plan was a 4:00 flight back to the States. Two hours away.l would need lunch, n 'est-ce pas? And so came lunch·, in several quite agreeable courses. Just the three of us, me at the head of the table.

Ionesco worried about his diet, his liver, his medicine. He looked at his plate help· lessly; his wife noticed, got up and tod· dled around behind me, and cut his meat.

He put his broken hand on the table and grumbled disgustedly, "I'm just like an infant."

This and that were discussed. Mme Ionesco entered in a great deal. She's very pleasant. She keeps the files: reviews, letters, photos and such. Shr keeps things going. Her first language was Rumanian.

In a fit of astonishing largesse and bene· volence, I congratulated her on her practi· cally perfect French accent. Perhaps a fit of whiskey and red wine.

After the main course Mme lonesco stepped on a button she had plugged in Wlder the table before the meal, and a buzzer rang in the kitchen for the maid.

After a few minutes she buzzed again.

After a few more minutes she cleared the table herself and brought on the che"ese and yogurt. Around peach time the doctor came to give lonesco his daily shot.

It was over. I gulped down the peach and stood. lf I were a Pataphysician-a follower of the non-philosophy of the

'

By Ronald Roel

One nlaht In the aprlna of 1967, Carry Trudeau ut down to write a comic atrlp for Th1 R1cord, Yale 'a humor maa· azlne, whoae humor waale11 eluaJve Jn thoae daya. It wu a frlvoloua Idea. He had al~ya wanted to be a writer, not a cartoonlat. Yet he waalntrlaued with the drawlnp of Jules Peiffer, particularly with one character named 11Bernard," a little neb blah who apent a areat deal of hli time feelina-lnadequate. Trudeau waa a freahman; the battle crlea of Davenport mlxen were clear In hla mind.

Trudeau flnlahed the atrlp In four houra. It wu terrible. The charactera were 11atyllzed, the art waa bad." He put 1t away for a year. After a sophomore year marked by frustration and a acn10 of aelf·trapdy, Trudeau picked up hla aketchea apln. He boaan to develop the charactera of Mike "tho Man" Dooneabury and B.D., a football quarterback/myth ~:t.IDI~.., baaed on Brian Dowllna. Theae two qulnteaaentlal Yallea, Mike the Man and B.D., appeared the next fall In a Yalt Dtllly N1w1 comic atrlp called bull ta/11.

It waalmmedlatoly popular, and by the time the Dowllna·Hlll ora ended, the quarterback hlmaclf would write: "Jt aot to the point where J waa anxloua to aee what I had done the day before. I even became hesl,ant to ao on a road trip untU laaw what 'bullta/11 movea• to uae at one of our aliter achoola."

When Trudeau araduated and tranaformed bull ta/11 Into the lnttrnatlonally ayndlcated Doont~bury comic atrlp, many Yallea continued to claim him for Yale before Cod and Country. That Trudeau waa aood aa a ayndlcated cartoonlat waa never In queatlon; the point of contention . waa whether Trudeau had taken the edae orr hla humor by broadenlna the acope · of hla comlca to appeal to a mau audience.

It Ia a aubtle and aore point for many who jealoualy suard bulltfflll aa part of the Yale Experience. After all, who but a Yale man could r1ally appreciate the fruatratlona and fantaalea of Mike the Man Dooneabury? 1t waa too cloae to home.

He eontlnuea to draw on Yale for hls 11 material, but hla characters-even B.D.·· have loat their major tlca to Yale. Hla problem Ia no lonaer to expreu the aenalbllltlea of pre-coeducation Yale men, but to broaden atereotypea Into charaetera, to explore the posalbllltlea of Jan· auaae, and to defy momentary conaldera· tlon··to create a comlc atrlp that capturea the attention and lmaaJnatlon of the predominantly non-Yale readen who rip throuah the comlca section every day.

On the one hand, Trudeau doean't want to be a cartoonJat all hla life. Cartoonists are a very Jnarown aroup whote aole paaalon uaually la cartoonlna; that's why they don't object to obacenely lona contracta.

Trudeau wUI be dolna Doont~bury until he Ia at lout 34. That wu the ahorteat contract he could pt. On the other hand, he conaldera It a prlvlleae to be able to alt down at the drawlna board every day and work out hla fantaalea before 18 mlllJon readen.

"The conundrum of l~fe is how to grab it by the hanu'!e. Failing that, it's often nice to spena a sunny day just sitting 1n a puddle and thinking on my passton.r; Kool-Aid and model airplane glue.

Zonker Harri1

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Volume six, number four May 18, 197316

Garret B. Trudeau, as he is hardly ever thing like that? called, has always thrived on a strong Trudeau: Oh, l don't know, where did heritage of fantasy. His formative years you get the idea to play football? were spent on a farm in New York-- "it And that was about it. was a real Christopher Robin existence.

The critical point in Trudeau's career I was well schooled in fantasy and Beatrix seems to have been the summer before his Potter." He feels that his early experience junior year at Yale. He had spent most of instilled him with a profound respect for the previous year mourning the end of a romance; his confidence was low. Toward nature. One of his most poignant memories was the Faulknerian test of his the end of the Spring term, he got tomanhood: a caribou hunt in Newgether with three friends, one of whom foundland. began to mention casually the idea of · After four days of rain and misery, putting out a magazine during the sumTrudeau canoed into a cove, the skies mer, in say, Washington, D.C. Things got parted and a lone caribou walked out into serious. The idea was to start a tri-lingual the clearing. It was a God-sent vision. magazine (English-French-Spanish) for Trudeau killed it, only with a great deal the diplomatic corps in Washington. Sort of a New York magazine, pointing out of anguish. He has not hunted since. the positive aspects of Washington life for Trudeau has had endless fantasies conthose of foreign cultures. They split up cerning his own athletic prowess, and has played out a lot of these fantasies with the assignments. Then they took an AlBrian Dowling, although the two never legheny flight down to the Capital to were friends and neither has any real investigate the magazine's prospects, the impression of the other. Trudeau rememthree of them in jackets and ties and bers being amazed as he watched Dowling white shirts--Trudeau in a pink shirt; he one day weaving in and out of cars speedwas the art director. They researched in~ down Elm Street. Another day he their assignments, flew back to New spted on Dowling cashing a check at the Haven, typed up reports, and made final Co-op. The only time they actually met plans. was when Trudeau came to Dowling's That summer--while the Poor People's room to pick up the quarterback's introcampaign and Resurrection City scared duction to the ftrst collection of bull people away from Washington-the four tales. The conversation went something of them put out a 24-page bi-weekly like this: magazine. They slept three hours a night.

Dowling: I really enjoy your cartoons. Collectively, they lost 70 pounds. One Where did you get the idea to do somenight, when the publisher had decided to

take a short nap, he was awakened with, "Bruce, it's time for dinner ... " and promptly bolted up, saying "Dinner, dinner, file under D." Gra phicatly, the magazine wasn't great. But the four were caught up in the spirit and the process; by the end of the summer they had 85 volunteers working for them. Trudeau returned to Yale with confidence , despite the fact that one of his friends owed-and still owes-him $400.

The bull tales that began appearing the next fall were simple, formula- oriented: Doonesbury (at a mixer, dancing with a girl, smile on his face), thinking: Well, here I am at my first mixer, and quite obviously about to score. It won't be long before we start on up to my room.

(Tall upperclassman comes over.)

Upperclassman: Hey Frosh! What do you say you go take a look at the new Coke machine!

Doonesbury: Oh yeah, sure. That's rich ...the Coke machine·, right, the new Coke ~chine, that's a laugh, ha, ha.

Doonesbury (alone, on his knees, looking at the Coke machine): Actually, it's quite tricky the way it works.

(Actually, this was one of a few true incidents Trudeau adapted for his strips.

It happened to his freshman roommate, only it was a milk machine.)

The characters were archetypal. The women were merely props for Mike's frustrations. The quality of the draw"

iilg was only fair, sometimes inconsistent.

Often, he didn't draw in the mouths of characters and continued not to do so until one day he got a letter from a man in San Fransisco who enclosed a whole batch of Doonsbury cartoons with the mouths of characters drawn in. "You see how much better they are," he wrote.

But bull tales was entertaining--and at a sobering place like Yale, where selfflagellation occasionally hits peaks like Mayday, 1970--it was a welcome relief.

Some people may have criticized him for modelling his drawings after Feiffer and his reader-character interactions after Schultz's Peanuts, but the verdict remained: Trudeau was capturing the sensibility and mood of Yale with an incisive humor; people were waiting for The Yale Daily News, wondering if bull tales would be good today.

Since Trudeau first began writing about Michael J. Doonesbury, there has been a constant but unconscious evolution in the character of Mike the Man. Doonesbury still experiences many of the same anxieties, but no longer in hyperbolic ways. He is m\lch calmer, much more able to deal with the world. He has mellowed. "I've found whole new ways of being rejected," says Trudeau, "far less simplistic."

Trudeau's campus radical, (Megaphone) Mark Slackmeyer, has also mellowed. •1'he original Mark was my superficial reaction to going through Yale

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Universal Press Syndicat e © 1973 G . B. Trudeau

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Volume six. n umber four May 18. 19731 7

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Station and seeing men I knew saying 'power to the people; 'right on,'" says Trudeau. "It was self-serving, therapeutic rhetoric; it took on a whole life of its own ...and Mark became an unsympathetic stereotype in direct parody of what went on." But Mark no longer is the self-indulgent activist; he has become more honest with himself, more aware of where a thoughtful radical may go after he comes down from the initial rush of activism. Trudeau has dropped the • "megaphone" before Mark's name--he hasn't used it in two years.

Trudeau seems to feel that he himself has mellowed along with his characters.

He is no longer the "man of extraordinary inaction at mixers"; no longer just a member of the class of 1970: the class that threatened the stability of senior societies during Mayday; Inky · Oark's first class, the class that was told it would be "different from all the preceding classes." Trudeau seems to be a condensation of his characters, growing subtler, more complex, while still possessing an incisive understanding of what is on peoples' minds.

Perhaps some of the changes within Trudeau have been externalized in the character of Zonker Harris, one of the citizens of his Walden Commune who came into the strip two years ago as a tight end of the football team. "Zonker represents a very profound sense of character, a whole new sensitivity not in

Mike," says Trudeau. "He's very fragile, . by the possibiJities of dialogue within the in the country and they are all in direct but he doesn't take himself seriously." four-frame gag panel of conventional competition with each other-meaning that when your strip goes in a newspaper, comic strips.

Zonker seems unencumbered by social He recognizes that all he has is a fiveforces; he is concerned with the immedisomeone else's goes out. It tends to become a personal business rather quickly. ate environment. Very small things make second gag. Nevertheless, he constantly up his fantasy world and he is easily finds himself fighting against temptaFor another thing, American cartoon tions to be superficial, to be ethnic for bruised when someone takes them away. strips tend to be conservative, usually He feels a tremendous responsibility three years behind the major social forces the sake of "relevance" (the original toward the animals around Walden (last publicity for Doonesbury was "those in society. So a social satirist like Trudeau campus cutups and the campus capers").

Christmas he tried to convince a squirrel is bound to stir a great deal of anxiety to hibernate) but never with any eco"You just have to be as honest as you and emotions among newspaper editors. can"-he says. "As soon as you become logical sense of duty.

Occasionally, newspapers decide not to B.D. can yell at Zonker; it won't obsequious or 'relevant' you become disrun his cartoons: The Los Angeles Times faze him. When he drops B.D.'s pass in honest." Trudeau never takes out or dropped his series on President Nixon the championship game and the team changes the names in his satires on comvisiting Watts; the Akron papers would mercial products. At times, there are unloses, B.D. hunts him down but Zonker not run his series on Kent State. And finally meets him with a Christmas predictable benefits to this policy: Mack while Trudeau maintains that his cartoons trucks once sent him a gold-plated present. Trudeau thinks Zonker dropped are primarily of entertainment value, ' phone handle with a Mack bulldog the pass on purpose. regardless of how political people think on it after he used their brandname in For Trudeau, the comic strip has be he is, he defends the right of a paper to cc.me a study of communication and lack one comic strip. drop (but never edit) his cartoons when it of communication-among the characters feels the subject matter is too controAlthough Trudeau says he does not themselves as well as among the charversial. The most recent conflict for want to be a cartoonist all his life, he has acters, the cartoonist, and the readel's.

Trudeau rsulted from a series he wrote on managed to get his cartooning down to a Last year he wrote a series on Bernie, a former Presidential advisor John Ehrlichregular business schedule. He keeps six weird biology freak with a seven-year-old weeks ahead of his daily strip, working on man. The series (part of which appears on these pages of The New JoU17Ulf) was genius girlfriend who brings him egg salad his cartoons about fifteen hours a week written before the Watergate case had sandwiches to calm his nerves during · while being a freshman counselor and a blown apart, but was scheduled to appear nitroglycerin experiments. Trudeau had student in graphic design at the Yale Art the first week in May , after the preBernie walking around with an invisible •and Architecture School. Two syndicates ftle cabinet, the point being that Bernie viously almost unheard of Ehrlichman promote his strip at horne and abroad: it deals with everything on an empirical became a well-known public figure . .now runs in about 200 papers in nine Trudeau had to scrap the entire series, level; he thinks everything can be fated. different countries. although some of the strips will appear But working for the syndicates reTrudeau's editor sent the strips back and later in revised forms. With the Watergate told Trudeau that he just couldn't share mains a more volatile business for Trudeau than one might suspect. For one those ideas with the rest of America. proceedings still going on. Trudeau's But Trudeau continues to be intrigued pung, there are 350 syndicated cartoons subject is just too hot to handle right now-especially on top of his coming series about Zonker getting basted in Texas. e

Film is art ia fUm An Interview by Andrew Elkind

Standish 1Awd1r's btlurrNntls altort of m1tmlnf[111 switches, wilt1 and ustltu mtcltanlcal dtv/~1. /tis alw the work· 1hop of a hlthl)l lnvtntlvt Independent ft/mmak~r, and hidden amo fll the wilts and fGdttts art full projection facllltlll, thou~t~nds of feet of film and a hom~ madt optical prlnttr capable of tnflnttr1111 a vast ran11 of visual tl/tctl. /Awder 's actlvlt/11 rtpnstnt a hlfh•ntrl)l co lla~ o//llm theory and practlct. A s a/lim theorist, ht lnltlattd tht ltudy o//llm at Yale, whtrt ht tautht popular Introductory COUI'Itl In film hlllory and txf)frlmtntalfllm. Ht Is curnntly 0 11 leave from his position as A11oclatt Pro/tSior of History of Art, and durltttthl past y1ar has strvtd flltht /lm Luc• Pro/11sor of Film Stud/11 at Harvard. As a /llmmaktr, Lawdtr has rt· etlvtd wldllprtad ncotn/tlon and nu· mtr0u1 prlz11 and awards /or his films, amon1 tlwm Nec:rolol)' , Dan,Una Partl· dple, Corridor and Raindance . With tht aid of th1 GUfl'lnhtlm Foundation and llw AmlfiCiln Film lnstltutl, ht wllltx· ptrl,.nt n1xt ytar with 70 mm sttrto· ICOp/C c/nlmtllOI'flphy.

AI WI bfpn our convlfltltlon, Lawdtr luncd btlck In h/1 chair and 1/t up a Gau· lol1e. Surrounded by wlrts, ,adptl and a host of eltctromechiJnlcal 1trvant1,· At 1pok1 of the film process and the proctll of his own film-making.

IJ

>)

When you first pt Into fllm you have aaencral "man-on-the-street" worklna definition of what film Is, and It cor· respond• pretty c:loaoly to "The Movlea."

Tho more you pt Into lt, you find that eo me of the moat extraordinary, exc:ltlna, powerful fllma are not movtea at aU. They're recorda, doc:umentaand expcrl· menta. Anythina and everythlna c:an ao on a ntm and It needn't be pac:lcaaed Ilona tho llnea of a dram:atlc: structure of 90 to 160 minutes.

Ftlm arrived before anybody knew what to do with lt. There were no rules and it waan't neceaaarUy dramatic: or comedy, or adventure or Western. It wu jult thJa maatcal rec:ordtna devlc:e, and anythtna that waa lntereatlna, mysterious or ~enaatlonal waa fit subject matter.

What you have, In fac:t, Ia experimental fllm . Pllmmaken experimentlna, trytna to flnd altuatlona that come aUve moat vtvldly on fllm. That flnt decade Ia full of fantaatlc: atuff.

My favorite Ia a fllm of 1903 ca11ed "Eiectroc:uttna the Elephant ... And that'• oxac:tly what happen•, by God . It'• about a minute lona, terrible photoaraphlc: qual· lty, very af\oatly and aray, and the rt• lfatratlon ia 10 bad It jlaJea all over the ac:reen . But what happen• la thJa: they lead out thJa ennrmoua elephant and there Ia a lonaahot or hlm, head on. And you look at th.l1 elephant and he's chained up and auddenly c:louda of smoke come up from hla feet and thla areat bent col· lap1e1 and twltc:he•··lt'a juat an lnc:redlble ptece or fllm .

Volume six, number fourj May 18, l973j9

In your own film-making, you've made explicit use of some of these remarkable pieces of found footage I shots and scenes taken directly from other films]. I'm thinking particularly of Dangling Participle and Construction Job, which you constructed without using a camera at all. Film, more than any other art, seems to offer this opportunity for incorporating portions of pre-existing works into new products.

Well,_found footage ftlm-making is roughly analagous to a process of collage · or the art of assemblage, where the artist regards the entire visual information environment of secondary images: newspapers, video, film and so forth. We're totally surrounded by images which refer to the real Y<Orld but in themselves constitute a kind of secondary and purely illusionistic arsenal. And they are as much a part of the environment as nature is.

The use of this material, it seems to me, is perfectly valid. It's what a lot of artists in static media have done-selecting, arranging, editing, composing and so forth. All an artist does, it seems to me, is make decisions about what is in and what is out and at a very stupid, basic level this is the nature of his activit)C-though it doesn't explain why or what comes out of it. When I'm working with images, I don't make a distinction between a piece of ftlm I've shot, somebody else has shot, somebody has shot for an entirely different purpose, a piece of footage I shot a long time ago and am now using for another purpose or an image that can be absolutely reworked by any number of systems. But of course I don't make fLlms like most ftlmrnakers. I don't go out into the real world with a camera, gather a lot of images, and then assemble them to tell a story about what was out there. That's just not my avenue.

I've been working with ftlm for a long time and in the process have accumulated an enormous stash of junk footage.

People lay it on me all the time. They see my ftlms and later come"to me with a stack of ftlms that came out of their grandparents' attic. I just tend to accumulate that stuff.

I see two pretty distinct tendencies in your work. To a large extent your collage films function in terms of their information content. But films like Corridor and Raindance work in an entirely different way.

Yes, fLlms such as Cc"idor or Raindance operate in terms of energy. They also deal with information but it is information in the communication engineer's sense of it, that is, items of sensory input, data, binary bit patterns, signal-value ratios. Which is another way of saying energy, right? And that has just been a large concern of mine for a long time-the way the eye and the mind can be stimulated by forcing them into a situation of high-speed information processing, by implanting patterns of energy as powerfully and rapidly as possibly.

Haven't you been involved in a number of experiments which have explored aspects of the visual process?

triggered by ftlm.

They were attempting to identify precisely what takes place in the body, in the mind, when we experience fear, depression, anxiety and so forth. They went In 1960 I had just gotten out of through the entire system of monitors Army, I was studying art history in Muthat medicine has .developed-nich, and I met a remarkable, brilliant .electroencephalograms, analysis of blood man named Dr. Max Knoll. He's been chemistry, simple things like respiration, recognized by many people as being one beat, galvanic skin response ... heart of the most extraordinary creative minds Anyway, they called me up and asked of science in the twentieth century. me for suggestions on films that would Among his accomplishments was the trigger emotions. I started working with invention, by and large, of the electron them on this project and I was fascinated microscope. He did that way back in the 20's and 30's, and then wandered off into by it, because it conformed pretty closely to a view of film that I have. I see a film other things. He was a physicist but also as a phenomenon that really gets inside very interested in psychiatry, art, and a your mind, inside your body, and does lot of other activities-- he was a very things to you. That's what is interesting Faustian character. He was also very about fLlm. Why is it we react with demuch a Jungian, and during the last ten light, fear, apprehension, fascination, years of his life was concerned with the whatever, by looking at this pattern of concept of formal patterning, that is, light and objects and images? images corresponding to archetypal conWhen I was working on Co"idor I got figurations inherent in some mental pro· interested a lot in the potential interface cess or structure of the brain. He investi· between ftlm as an energy system and the gated enormous quantities of art of varcentral nervous system and particularly ious sorts--folk art, primitive art, child· reo's art, art of the insane, art of dreams-- the way in which-or the extent to which·fllm as a system of pulses of energy could in an attempt to categorize them accordinterlock and could drive the brain into ing to Jungian archetypal configurations an alpha wave mode. of form. He began working with neuroThat brought me back full circle to physiologists at the Munich Mental Health Institute and discovered that when those experiments I had been working on a decade ago. I saw their laboratory as a you passed carefully controlled, very low check-out station for some of these ideas. ~ltage pulses of electricity through the I gave them a print of Raindance and brain, it would excite visual patterns worked with subjects, wiring them up and involuntarily. With your eyes closed, in a reading from the polygraph which came dark room, with black goggles on, with out of the electroencephalogram.l found this electrical stimulation you could very it quite amazing that here is a system clearly perceive patterns of light. And which gives you a kind of instant readout, they took various forms according toa graph, a chart, of exactly what is hapwell that was the question-according to pening. It records very directly what is what? According certainly to measurable happening very immediately. factors like voltage control and wave One very specific goal in Raindance configurations, amplitudes, but also was the exploration of illusionary colorapparently according to some sort of the way the eye will perceive colors that interface between that pulse and some are not on the screen, colors that come characteristic of the circuitry of the about through after-images or through brain, which varied according to retinal mixing. And to check out the different individuals. energy level of the brain as it accomoThere's an issue here that really fascidates and processes that information at nates me and is very close to film. It you that precise moment, just seems to me regard film as a process, film starts with really interesting. the real world, then, it's put on celluloid The funny thing about those experi· and processed through various machines ments is that they simply confirmed my and ftnaUy ends up on a strip that goes intuitions in the making of the ftlm. I, through a projector. But it doesn't stop frankly, did not find them very helpful as there-it goes onto the screen and comes a source of information which informed back into your eye. So there is a total my decisions--they simply told me I was circuit of connections. It has to do with on the right track and when l thought how the eye thinks, and how the brain interesting things were happening, damn sees, and how you accomodate images it, they were. and how you process that visual information.

While I was working on Raindance, I Raindance is a very demanding film. became involved with an experiment that The first time I saw it I was bored and got was being developed over at Connecticut a headache. But I found it extraordinarily Mental Health Center by two psychiainteresting~nd much more enjoyabletrists, Dr. George Henniger and Dr. Walt on second viewing.

Brown, who are interested in the use of film to generate emotions within a conPart of that problem is that we think trolled clinical (experimental) situation. so little about how we are thinking when we watch a fllm that we react to the ftlm The experiment was, primarilv tn monitor the physiological respon tornatically according to a backlog of nditioned experience. company emotion which is, in this case,

Now in a film like Raindance,questions-like where are we going? how is this going to end?-very often blanket out a perception of the fundamental experience of the film itself. Not where is it going or what is going to happen but rather--what is happening. Most ftlms engage the mind primarily through suspense. We wonder about how they're going to turn out, how this character is going to develop, how the plot will work out, how the loose ends are coming together. We are actively engaged in the film by speculating on its resolution.

That conditioned experience which we caU "The Movies" has for so long been defmed in terms of this fundamental question: what is going to happen? Instead of what is happening. But there are other fLlms, like Raindance , that you can only get the barest glimpse of the first time through. In the first screening you're wondering about what is going to happen instead of being able to pay attention to what is happening.

"Movies" are intended to function primarily within an entertainment situation. Film, as movies, are defmed primarily as one-shot situations. They exhaust themselves the first time through, they're expendable commercial commodities. Now I don't think that need be, or at least that doesn't particularly interest me. I'm interested very much in a lot of fllms that I want to look at again and again and again. You see more and more each time, you learn more and more each time, you learn more about _your own process and pattern of perception each time. This seems to me a fairly fundamental redefinition of mm and of course it is closer to a tradition of painting, a much more serious tradition of art. That is, something that renews itself each time, reveals more of itself each time, and is in fact a matrix, a layer of information, sensations, evocations and ideas that cannot be perceived the fust time.

lsn 't there a problem getting people to see a film more than once?

It seems to me that's a problem of ftlm distribution, a problem that's built into a tradition of fllm exhibition, rather than being a fundamental fact of the medium itself. I think a more important fact of fLlm is the extraordinary richness of the medium itself. After all, it can be worked with in a way that the experience quite literally becomes new on second and third and fourth viewing. A fJ.lm that is rich enough, or strong enough, doesn't exhaust itself the flfSt time.

I really liked the short anifnlltion sequence at the beginning of Raindance.

Where did you get that footage?

It's from a British animation itlm, caJled, I think kind of appropriately, "The History of Cinema," a little cartoon of a classroom or instructional ftlm on the history of cinema. I was looking at it

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Volume six, number four May 18, 1973110

one night--Ilook at a Jot of fJ.Jms like that with the sound off, because the sound gets in the way if you're interested in the image. I liked that one sheet of rain that came down, I liked its pattern, I liked its gesture, I liked the counterpoint of the busy activity of the raind!ops with that rather beautiful sweep of the wipe. So when I first saw 1t I jumped up and stopped the projector and took that film and printed out that one little piece. Then I looped it and started playing with it, printing it on high contra_st and adding color and alternating negative and positive frames and doing all those things that went into the making of Raindance.

I worked on Raindance for a year.

First of all I didn't know where I was going. Quite literally , I would work in that film by taking a piece of footage, inspecting it, speculating on what was interesting about that particular segment and asking myself now if that's good, what's next? And then I would combine it with something else or add some color or change something. I'd make decisions -like a painter does when he's got this picture in front of him--he keeps changing and adding and subtracting and reworking. And after so many decisions of lhis sort I finally decided that eventually it was finished. I had spent a Jot of money, and in the end, had absolutely no idea if anybody was interest in looking at it. But happily that film has been very good to me. In one year it has paid for itself in festival prizes alone.

Are you working on any more energy films like Rain dance and Corridor ?

No, I'm not doing things like that now.

I was very glad I got into that film, but I'm not interested right now in those problems or in working in that style. I'm shifting back more to film as information , film as a process of inspection.

What projects are you working on now?

It's hard to say what I'm working on.

There are a good dozen films that I don't know whether I'm working on or whether they're abandoned. If they never get done, then I guess they're abandoned.

I work primarily with ideas and the only way for me to t1nd out if an idea really works is to check it out-to shoot it. That room and cabinets there and in the back room are piled high with footage that I never made into a fmished film. I'm just cluttered up with dead-end projects.

Some !...!''- - ~;d finish . Some are good and I just haven' t gotten around to them. All this is very expensive, but I regard it as absolutely fundamental as a kind of

research and development. In order to keep thinking about what works on film and what doesn't , I've got to keep workirlg and when I get a good idea I've got to stop all the other ideas and just chase that one and check it out.

I'm working on a couple of films that are ideas that have been suggested by what my optical printer is capable of doing. I'm doing animated streak optical zooms. That means that the camera, mounted on a motor-driven platform, will physically move toward the image with the shutter open. Each frame is going to be blurred through the movement of the camera towards the image and it will be like zooming-- you'll have these streaks of light converging or radiating out from central points. It creates very interesting spacial distortions of the image. Very controlled, carefully set-up situations usirlg that piece of machinery . That's generally how I work, anyway. First I build the machirle and then I decide what to do with it.

There are a couple of very large projects that may or may not ever get done.

They really should get done because I've invested a lot of money in them and a Jot )f footage. I've got a number of docunentaries that represent several thousand reet of color that just need to be cut and maybe I'U do that next year.

I didn't know you had any interest in doing a documentary.

Well, I decided at one point that I wanted to make a doc umentary and I started thinking about what a documentary film is and what we look at and what we enjoy and what makes good documentaries good. Obviously it's a matter not only of the treatment but also the selection of the topic. So I started thinkirlg about that and came up with a near perfect solution which, as curious as it sounds, is baton twirling.

I discovered that there is a massive sub-culture in this country of batontwirlers. All across the country in back yards, in little towns, there are thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of little girls who dedicate their lives to baton twirling. 1 had had a mistaken understanding of what baton twirling was, seeirlg it only at its J'TIOre public displays such as Memorial Day paraaes and football halftime intermissions. That's not the business at aiL Baton twirlirlg is a highly organized, highly competitive activity . There are on any given weekend , all over the country , local and state and regional competitions. And this is the real stimulus and it 's the coordirlating structure of the activity . The National Baton Twirling Association is' the second

largest girl"s youth organization in the country, after Girl Scouts, and they take this business very, very seriously.

Once I discovered this, it became very clear that here is absolutely the ideal subject for a documentary film. Check it out.

It's got color, it's got spectacle, it's got human interest, it's grassroots Americana.

It is this enormous cultural phenomenon that nobody knows anything about. It's got grace and beauty and movement that on film are even more so.

I got some money for this from the Kaltenborn Foundation and I went with a crew and filmed 2500 feet at the National Baton Twirling Competition out irl St. Paul, Minnesota four vears ago . I had :-.nother 2000 feet shot at the Rose Bowl that year. I also shot a lot of local twirlers and teachers of twirling.

This twiriirlg footage I have is just out of sight,just extraordinary. It represents an infinitely complex folk art, somewhere between gymnastics, dance, and athletic activity. It requires the kind of fanatical dedication which is part of the reason why children are so good at swimming, because they haven't learned that there's more to life than swimming non-stop for four hours a day. But, unlike swimming which is purely an athletic activity, this isn't an issue of a matter of talent, it's a matter of dexterity. What they do with that glistening chrome dildo ...

This material is such a joy to look at on film. I have a lot of sync-sound interviews with mothers and twirling coaches and executive officers of the twirling organizations, and of course they take it all very seriously. At first, I was thinking irl terms of how ridiculous this is and how wide open it is for satire, but I came around a good deal. I really got very fond of the people, knowing and seeing how much it meant to them. I mean, it is ultimately a frivolous activity, but, on the other hand, somebody who is that dedicated and can focus attention that precisely and work that hard on something-there's something to be said for it.

Well that's one film that I ought to just sit down and finish, the material is so good. That's the biggest block of material I have on documentary film. There are a couple of other documentary films that someday I ought to finish up. One is on the Oldenberg lipstick given to the University in the spring of '69 .

I understand tho' you've been awarded some grants. What sort of filmmaking do you plan to be doing?

Well, it's a big block of time-it' s fifteen months free of teaching and free from any other academic entanglements at either Harvard or Yale. I've got a

Guggenheim grant for the year, and just recently I landed another $10,000 grant from the American Film Institute to help with production expenses. I've been tooling up for the project and I've done my homework in theory and practice.

It's going to be devoted to experiments in 70 mm stereoscopic cinematography.

I've been aware of this phenomenonthat of stereo film--for a long time, and have been shooting in it and playing with it since 1967 or so, when I bought a crude stereo rig for my 8olex. And that 16 mm SJStem was enough to convince me that here, at last, is a virgin art enormously rich in expressive potential that literally nobody has seriously looked at or played with or explored.

What I'll be doing are the kinds of things in films that I think I'm good at.

I'm good at thinkirlg up and designing machinery to handle the process. I'm pretty good at thinking through the machinery towards those ideas that are best expressed with it. This is a kind of film-making that requires very close attention to the frame and to composition and to the image. Indeed, stereo really works only that way. If you just shoot normal situations and events in stereo there are all sorts of problems which in regular film are ordinary conventions of seeing. But in stereo they become problems. For example, in film the movie screen is always seen as a flat surface with "'> an illusion of depth behind it, like a window. ln stereo you're not looking at a flat photographic image. You're looking literally at objects. let me give you an example of the sort of problems I'm talkirlg about. If you sit in the front row, to the side , m a movie theater , you'll get an enormously distorted image, and if there's a large close-up of a head on the screen, the head will be onion-shaped, it will stretch out towards you. You don't see it as onion-shaped, you see it as a head and you make those corrections. Now, if you take that same shot in stereo you will look at a man whose head is, in fact , shaped like an onion.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to be doing, but there are a number of situations that I'm thinking of, that I want to explore. What I come up with will not necessarily be narrative but more situational. Since what you see is physically there, the meaning is going to come from why it's there. There are a lot of l films that stereo simply will not help, and its overwhelming sensation of the physical presence will exhaust itself pretty quickly. But if you involve events and people in some sort of compelling situation that has its own inner logic and structure, it can be pretty excitin~. continued on page 15

The Accused ·A Story by Joel Krieger

"No doubt you are each aware of the documents placed before us for scrutiny in this case. which though not above the ordinary. are not wholly beyond our interest. I suspect we are close to determining the guilt of the Accused , by profession an Historian, of the name N- - -·. this closenes~ giving us all. and I grant not the least myself, a certain tendency to undervalue the remaining details of our inspection. Of course, not everyone would, under any reasonable circumstances, desire particularly to review three rather lengthy documents before we may engage ourselves more pleasurably by interrupting our responsibilities here for dinner which, if I'm not mistaken, will be quite pleasant. Nonetheless. if I may ask, perhaps ... " As the gentleman spoke, I alone among the jurors gathered around the table even pretended to an air of attention. His face, an overstuffed armchair with cushions fluffed carelessly, puffed up as an unexpected thought settled itself.

"In an hour, very well, before dinner. we shall resolve the matter. If some one of you will do me the honor of indicating his desire to examine the documents, he may report his conclusions to the rest of us upon the hour. and if we may trust his judgment , our business chall be concluded."

The gentleman folded his hands with a perfect geniality, preparing to await our response. My peers displayed complete indifference.

"Very well. I shall read them over."

And so I took them. My fellow jurors. bothering only intermittently to venture out from behind their disinterest. sat uneasily around the table. Its very substance seemed to strain under the arduous task of remaining inert during the folly of our deliberations.

I was handed the documents. The first , l noted immediately, contained a narrative of a courtroom scene itself. I must say my preliminary disinclination toward undertaking their study was little jeopardized as I began.

wondered whether it would be proper for someone in my position to undo the collar button. These affairs were trying for everyone. I felt the pen in my breast pocket and relaxed a bit. There was no reason for anyone to fe.el uneasy. The voice finally came: THE COURT IS APPROACHING. PLEASE RISE. Wondering how long the spectacle would take, and fearing for the worst, I swayed to my f~et as the President and Judges passed close in front and assumed their positions. ·· THE PRESIDENT: Be seated. I declare this session of the Supreme Collegium of the Final Court open. Mr. Accused Confessor, have you received a copy of the indictment?

THE ACCUSED: Yes. THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Do you desire to have Counsel for Defense?

THE ACCUSED: No, I do not need Counsel, I do not intend to defend myself. I am here to bear full responsibility for my crimes.

THE PRESIDENT: I must explain that in the case of an accused who has declined Counsel for the Defense that, in addition to his last plea, he has the privilege to make speeches in defense.

His arrogant humility was shameful. A bore as well. Beyond that, his deceit would no doubt receive strict notice from the Court. I certainly noticed it. In the final analysis that would be enough. His attitude on the stand was almost a disappointment. One might actually have · listened to his responses--as a debater he was usually competent if humorless-and almost wish him innocent. For a moment, just before the Court entered, I myself entertained certain thoughts in this direction. But one could see through his pose of contrition so easily. I hoped that would affect the length of the trial. Be.sides. I couldn't be sure how quickly they would need the record for the public.

THE PRESIDENT: We shall now proceed to interrogation of the Accused Confessor.

THE ACCUSED: I have a request to make to the Court. I would like the opPRELIMINARY REPORT SUBMITTED

BY ACCUSED HISTORIAN N- - - SUB- portunity of freely presenting my case to the Court, and request permission at the MITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT beginning of my statement to dwell more OF HIS RESPONSIBILITY IN THE or less, as far as time will permit , on an CASE OF P--- .

The Accused sat at the docket rubbing analysis of the ideological and political stand of the criminal "Bloc of Leftists his mustache horizontally along the and Terrorists", because comparatively upper lip with the bent knuckle of his little will otherwise be said about it in the thumb. He seemed to level the full intencourse of the trial and because it has a sity of his attention on the gesture. I felt certain public interest and the public myself rubbing my bare upper lip in rhyopinion will determine its historical posithm. Evidently , The Accused had only this gesture with which to keep himself in tion. I feel my request is not unreasoncheck. He was waiting, I suppose a bit less able since Citizen the Procurator put the question at the preliminary session, if I eagerly than I. for the start of the trial.

They had quite a while ago sent around a am not mistaken.

THE PROCURATOR: If the Accused boy to forewarn me that the proceedings intends in any way to restrict the right of were to begin immediately. Consequently, I had taken my seat earlier than neces- the State Procurator to put him questions in the course of his explanations, I think sary , a move most unfortunate. The seat that Citizen the President should explain was hard and badly shaped. As well, my to the Accused Confessor that the right tie was auite tidtt around the neck. I

of the Procurator to put questions is based on law. I therefore ask that this request should be denied, as provided in the Code of Criminal Procedure.

THE ACCUSED: That is not what I meant by the request.

I suffered with the tedium of these formalities. Legal trickeries would not save him, even if they were played out. I had once considered proposing to the Court that I be called only when necessary. Naturally {I say it only for form's sake), I would not suffer in myself any tendency to shirk civil responsibility. My meaning here is no doubt clear. Any mind would dull if it were consigned to unnecessary tedium. But I had feared the authorities might misunderstand. There was the slight chance they might see antisocial rationalization behind what, I might argue objectively. was a perfectly proper evaluation of the circumstances.

So I had discreetly allowed the matter to drop. I wondered now whether to reconsider such a proposal. Luckily, guilt was guilt. I decided to leave the collar closed.

Soon enough I could open it outside. But I was getting rather annoyed.

THE PROCURATOR: Allow me to begin the interrogation of the Accused Confessor. Formulate briefly what exactly it is you plead guilty to.

THE ACCUSED: Firstly, to belonging to the revolutionary '~Bloc of Leftists and Terrorists".

THE PROCURATOR: Since what year?

THE ACCUSED: From the moment the bloc was formed. I plead guilty to being one of the outstanding leaders of this "Bloc of Leftists and Terrorists".

Consequently. I plead guilty to what directly follows from this, the sum total of crimes committed by this revolutionary organization irrespective of whether or not I took direct part in any particular act. Because I was responsible as one of the leaders and not as a cog of this revolutionary organization.

THE PROCURATOR: What direct aims were pursued by this revolutionary organization?

THE ACCUSED: This revolutionary organization, to formulate it briefly ...

THE PROCURATOR: Yes. briefly. for the present.

THE ACCUSED: The principle aim it pursued, although, so to speak , it did not fully realize it , and did not dot all the "i's"-was essentially the aim of eliminating unfettered private competition through speedy public and direct appropriation of the means...

THE PROCURATOR: Briefly and directly you were asked to state the aims of your revolutionary bloc. Now then, as a group did you aim to overthrow the national power?

THE ACCUSED: The overthrow of the national power was a means to our end.

THE PROCURATOR: In what manner. ..

THE ACCUSED: As is known. a:mrinued on page 16

Photographs

by Wayne Kraft

I

Volume six, number four May 18, 1973114

proto-Absurdist dramatist Jarry-1 would have had to take my leave of him bowing, walking backwards, and calling him "your transcendency," because ot his high rank in the cult. I decided it would be better not to. They thanked me much for coming. I tried my best to say the right things.

I went out the multi-locked door, took the lift down. and ran for a cab to Orly.

first theatrical acts had been radical, revolutionary, his credentials lapsed. He saw himself as anti-totalitarian, antipolitical; he was seen as reactionary. His place in the history of the drama was assured, but he continued to live and write, and what he wrote often embarrassed people for his sake, and even endangered the esteem he had won years before. Ionesco seems to be constantly aware of this current, as if his silence, his death, would be accepted by the world as an act of discretion. Yet he seems to That )WS 196 7. Since then I have prefer a life of writing to eternal ftxity in appeared in two other lonesco plays, and a pantheon , and so he continues. directed still another. I wrote an earlier And then I phone him again, and he's version of this article for The New Journal ebullient. "How are things at Yale? Have that managed to get quoted and refe"ed to in other publications, and an Australian they turned it into a shoe factory yet? I hear from Harvard that it'll happen any professor, Richard N. Coe, has seen fit to day now." He has only half an hour, but publish a picture of me as a nearly-nude he invites me over and stretches it to two. rhinoceros in the British edition of his I return to Yale, to the Drama School. study of lonesco. As a result of all this, I Here in the States Ionesco is taught-far too now have a steadily -growing collecmore than he is in France--and his earlier tion of miniature rhinoceroses. plays are produced, but he hardly seems Before /left his apartment six Augusts to be a contemporary playwright. There ago, lonesco told me to keep in touch. I hasn't been a major New York produchave, but sparingly; I don't want to push tion for years. it. I write him infrequently and hereIn 1970 I hear he has written a new sponds promptly. I spent a year in France, but only took up the oft-repeated play ,Jeux de massacre. I ask about it, he sends me an autographed copy, and I try open invitation to visit a couple of tjmes. to get Dean Brustein interested in it. I don't get far. After a while it gets produced in Washington, to no great acclaim.

Ionesco thrives on contradictions. No When I first heard of Macbett , well interview with him , no pronouncement over a year ago, I didn't even bother oy him :.hould be laken too seriously; he mentioning it. But Alvin Epstein, who will take pains to gainsay it the next time was beginning to assume his duties as around. The second time I saw him he Acting Artistic Director of the Yale Replooked thinner, he sounded sadder, and ertory Theatre, heard about it and was he didn't laugh. A new black rhino had excited by what he heard. Brustein was found its way into the living room, and enthusiastic about the idea of premiering squatted staring at us from the floor.

Edward Bond's Lear at the Rep, so MacFrom his balcony he had watched the bell sounded like a good companionriots of 1968 bring France to a standstill, piece. Very softly, very gently, I leaped yet de Gaulle, ..an inadvertent Pataphysician," had squeaked his way out of in. I wrote lonesco for information, I got reports on the Paris production, I got it. Vietnam and the world's reaction to it hold of a script, wrote up a scene-bywere tearing everything apart, and he wanted to know about it. Beckett had scene synopsis, and made a rough transwritten the play lonesco had joked lation of a couple of scenes. Epstein and about-Breath, which Kenneth Tynan (an literary Manager Michael Feingold read arch-enemy of lonesco) had perverted the French text and loved it. I just hoped, into the prologue for Oh, Calcutta. Hunbut didn't push. (I couldn't be objective ger and Thirst.had played at a professional about it anyway). Ionesco, however, summer theatre in Massachusetts (an hadn't answered my inquiries, so in early â&#x20AC;˘â&#x20AC;˘ American Premiere ," according to their May we decided to phone him . The top brass of th~ Repertory Company gathered publicity) with the new fowth episode in in the Dean's office as we waited for the place of the old second, and nobody transatlantic connection to be made. I much liked any of it. He has written no couldn't resist;just as lonesco was about new episodes. Grotowski is now the rage.

Mme Ionesco has seen him, but he hasn't. to get on the line I covered the mouthpiece and said to Brusteirt " Quick! How I tell him all I know-their new approach do you say â&#x20AC;˘Hello' in French?" A pall fell to the physical training of the actor, and over the room . the new approach to the text : the playlonesco was as friendly and helpful as wright is unimportant, the words are he could be, but the news was not enintoned, not spoken with regard to their literal meaning. He puzzles, he questions, couraging; he had just sold all Englishlanguage rights to a producer in London. and then he stops: "But, still and all, it's He would see what he could do. Before ...ery difficult to write a text for the thesaying goodbye he startled me: atre."

"Thanks," he said, .. for being interested For many critics, Ionesco's frrst plays were his best. They shocked the theatre in me."

Through the summer and fall we dealt world and then, after a while, they were with London , trying to get the rights. All understood, and stayed that way. But he went on writing, and changed. Though his Ionesco knew of the Rep was what I told

him, but he wrote that he would insist out of the play. Besides, the populace in that if the Londoners didn't take up their lonesco's version was showing an uncharacteristic discernment ; throughout option to premiere the play they should the play they had enthusiastically emlet us do it. braced every tyrant who came along, so For months there was no word. We why should they now withhold their put Macbett as late in the season as posfavors from Macol? sible, in the seventh slot, right before A new idea was hammered out; the Lear. As the months of silence wore on populace would cheer Macol toward the and hope wore out we looked for a play ings and then freeze. Two of the aU-butto fill the slot: something small, preferably a four- character play, as Lear was an faceless peasants would detach themselves from the crowd and repeat a fragment of enormous undertaking that would need the railing-against-the-tyrant dialogue that extra weeks of rehearsal (overlapping the Glamiss and Cander and then Macbett weeks reserved for Production 7) and and Banco had spoken. They then rejoin would require the full energies of the Company. Just days before we were going the mob, which unfreezes and cheers to announce another play for the seventh Macol's coronation off the stage.

The directors worried about the new slot a telegram came from London. It was ending. They asked me if it wasn't doing ours.

Macbett was a strairt on the Company, violence to the playwright's intentions. but they seemed to love it. Weeks before But I liked it; it completed the circle it went into rehearsal there was already already suggested by the text, it preserved enormous effort to re-focus the script in the sense of a steadily deepening evil-a the places where it would be meaningless downward spiral, really, rather than a to American"audiences (or where the circle--yet it kept alive the absurd spirit of directors--Epstein, Bill Peters, and John hope--through laughter, if nothing else. I McAndrew-thought it was weak) and to remembered lonesco's appreciation of the Dramat's rewrite of the last episode of plan in detail the set, costumes, and action.

Hunger and Thirst , and I advised them to During the weeks of rehearsal I had go ahead. virtually nothing to do with the producLater I remembered something else. lhe last time I saw lonesco was in Aution; I had to pass my doctoral orals. I gust, 1969, at his apartment. After we felt--unreasonably, no doubt--as if I had had chatted for a while he got ready to go been separated from my baby. But when out for an appoirttment. As his wife I finished my orals and got back to rehelped him put on his jacket, I caught a hearsals-the week before opening-1 was glimpse of a button on the underside of delighted. The Company's Jove and work his lapel. I asked him to show it to me. It and directors' feeling for the play were said: H H H in '68; I asked him if he had already stamped upon the production. been for Humphrey.

There were still problems, though, "No," he said, ..1 didn't really like esi'Ccially with the ending. The directors either of them. One is as bad, as ugly as had felt that Ionesco's ending was cold the other." He laughed, said goodbye, and flat , but they knew that theirs had and headed for the lift. e the same problem. So we examined the script.

The play deals with the continual circularity of evil. It posits a state in which the ruler, no matter who he is, Jonathan Marks, Assistant Literary will do evil. Glamiss and Cander fulManager of The Yale Repertory Theatre, minate against the tyranny of Archduke is working on a doctorate in dramatic Duncan but, though their rebellion fails, literature and criticism. it is obvious that their rule would have been no better than his. Macbett and Banco, the generals who have commanded the archducal armies in the suppression of the rebellion, change their minds and rail against Duncan by repeating Glamiss' and <..:ander's accusations word tor word.

Their rebellion succeeds, but the state is no better off for it ; in place of one murderer on the throne, the state now has a committee of mwderers. Nor does Macbett's murder of Banco help things in any way. An avenger appears--Macol-but at the end of the play he announces quite clearly that his rule will be the worst yet.

In Ionesco's ending the populace one by one leave the stage during Macol's last speech. A fog covers the stage and a butterfly-chaser-a figure of absurd, detached hope- crosses the stage, as he had done irt the first act. But in the Yale production the butterfly- chaser was out of the question; the directors hadn't like him from the start, so they had cut him

I

Volume six, number four May 18, 19731 15

Contact

COHEN & POWELL, INC. AGENT OF 'ALLIED'

Him continued from page 10 It is also wide open to optical marupulations that I think I can engineer through optical printing of the stereo image that will permit fantastic transformations.

Just to start with: double exposures, layers, several images stacked in space, each operating differently, sometimes . floating in and out of each other, sometimes separating--that kind of thing.

Very simple to do. It's not at all simple, but I can do it.

Or, for example, working with traveling matts. If I shoot in stereo, say a man ·against a totally black background, what you see is this man walking, or singing, or dancing, or whatever, and his figure is brilliantly lit and is totally white, so you have this figure of white light moving and walking in front of you, right? Okay. If you take that piece of film , which is a white cut-out, in space, and print it together with let's say footage of a pan shot moving along a brick wall and combine those two together, what you'll have is this improbable but tangibly real image of a figure in space moving with gestures--very clearly a figure, but the image formed out of a brick wall.

And then to print that with animatedstreak optical zooms, and to have him disappear down into himself. Magritte is the closest in painting to the kinds of ideas that I'm speculating on and ca£1 happen in stereo, I think.

Wlu!· I'll end up with is not something that is distributable. It will be very much a kind of concert situation where I have to adjust the entire viewing, screening situation. I 'm thinking most of aJI rear screen which imparts a very different quality to the image. Another even more important aspect of my stereo work involves an adjustable inter-ocular separation of the images. That is one part of the whole process that nobody has worked with at all. The assumption has been that stereo is a rendering of the three-dimensional world according to clues in space that are determined by binocular vision.

The eyes are about 2~ inches apart, so if you put lenses that far apart, you read in space. But if you design the cameras so that those eyes can be moved farther out, what that does is enormously magnify it, stretching space. Then, by rephotography on the optical printer, you can do all sorts of miniturization effects.

You can have little , tiny people hanging in space, moving way out and way back and things like that. I think it's a very rich, wide open, and fascinating art.

I've got a whole notebook of ideas. But most of the ideas will come from the process and checking out ideas and seeing what works and what doesn't and just following my nose.

e

Andrew Elkind is a senior in Yale Colle~ Interested in film history and criticism.

He has been awarded a Murray Fellowship and a Bates Senior Grant to study film ne:ct year in Paris and London.

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Volume six, number four I May 18. 19731 16

Such dilatory ideological foolishness.

To what end I could only wonder. I knew the prosecution. It would not be fuddled.

I noted carefully, I might say conscientiously, the evasiveness and callow lack of respect the Accused paid to the Court.

Such squirming. The chair was intolerable. Perhaps the messenger could be induced to procwe me a pillow-- just a sm~ll one, perfectly unsatisfactory, like the kind one used while driving. As a Cowt official I was entitled to certain courtesies. The oversight was appalling, and not without consequences. My perception should not be allowed to suffer through unfortunate external conditions that would quite naturally in any human being create certain ... psychological ... distractions and unpleasant conditions in the mind that might affect both observations and conclusions. I shifted my weight.

THE PROCURATOR: By means of a forcible overthrow?

THE ACCUSED: Yes, by means of the forcible overthrow of state power.

THE PROCURATOR: With the help of?

THE ACCUSED: With the help of all the difficulties which could be encounter ed by this power. In particular with the help of a war which prognostically was in prospect.

THE PROCURATOR: Which was prognostically in prospect with whose help?

THE ACCUSED: With the help of foreign states.

THE PROCURATOR: On condition?

THE ACCUSED: On the condition, to put it concretely, of a number of concessions.

THE PROCURATOR: To the extent of...

THE ACCUSED: To the extent of the cession of territory.

THE PROCURATOR: That is ...?

THE ACCUSED: If all the "i's" are dotted-on condition of the dismemberment of the State.

THE PROCURATOR: The severance of whole regions and republics from the State?

THE ACCUSED: Yes. THE PROCURATOR: In whose favor?

THE ACCUSED: In favor of the corresponding states, whose geographical and political...

THE PROCURATOR: And also by means of weakening the defensive power?

THE ACCUSED: You see, tl1is question was not discussed, at least not in my presence.

THE PROCURATOR: And what was the position in regard to wrecking?

THE ACCUSED: The position in regard to wrecking was that in the end, especially under pressure of the Terrorist part of the so-called contact center, despite a number of internal differences, which I take are of no interest to the investigation, after various vicissitudes, disputes and so on, the orientation on wrecking was adopted.

At this point there occurred an interruption of the part of the person directly to my left. Scratching his stomach with untold pleaswe as if in anticipation of th~ bulge that would develop there once my task had seen its completion, he interrupted me needlessly (as there was an unoccupied man seated to his left idly fingering a silver case): "Pardon me, have a cigarette extra?"

"They are never extra. But you may have one if you wish. Incidentally, would you care to scan the portion I've concluded?"

"Actually, I suspect you are in the better position to judge them. I was rather careless this morning and failed to digest some of the earlier details. I was about to a:;k you. How do you consider these writings? I would guess they are pretty dry reading at this point , with the deliberations we have carried on."

"He's a bit off, actually. It is more a curiosity than legally germane. I am not clear as to what he is intending. As I say, perhaps you would like to take a look for the sake of your own satisfaction."

"Well perhaps one of us will. Yes. Very likely one of us may-" The man on my left, to whom I had just spoken, turned slowly to his own left, carefully swiveling the trunk of his body in the chair, indicating that for him such action was a physical feat offering an unusual challenge. The man on his side immediately began to shake his head disappointedly, as if some imperious force prevented his accepting the fellow's offer to take up the documents.

THE PROCURATOR: Did it tend to weaken the defensive power of the country?

THE ACCUSED: Natwally.

THE PROCURATOR: Consequently, there was an orientation on the weakening, the undermining of defensive power.

THE ACCUSED: Not formally, not as a matter of ideology, but essentially it was so.

THE PROCURATOR: But the actions and activity in this direction were clear?

THE ACCUSED: Yes. THE PROCURATOR: Can you say the same about subversive acts?

Detail followed trivial detail, as if the events were the key to the verdict. A pimple on my forehead needed attention, it made me tense. Who would notice if I placed a clean index finger unobtrusively of course, even carelessly--on either side and pressed down with no obvious concern. Such deliberation was certainly not frivolous. I had to concentrate unbothered. Yet I could imagine the regrettable distraction if the President chanced to peer up ...

The President: You, Citizen Historian, rather than conscientiously procuring notes as your duty prescribes, you have involved yourself quite independently in personal endeavor generally unbefitting the solemnity of this court. What briefly, is your explanation of this?

Me: Mr. aa~en

Your Excellence the Presidt>nt,l

Volume lix, number four I May 18, 1973 1 17

had mtant no pttt)l intt"uption In this of obvious grand fraud and anti·statt trtJachtr)l of the highest order. I offer apolol)l, but when tht pressure builds up, I am compelled to sa,y, It Is m)l habit lon1 held, a philosoph)! of persontJI h)llit ne of the highest standards... / hlld never rtcelved an)linklinl of public dlsapprov· at... I rtCOfnlzc ...

TN! PrcsldetJt: Mr. Citizen Hlstorilm, )lOur pll'sonal philosoph)! of h)lflene as )IOU put It Is bt)lond our concern. The particular motivation, mQ)II sa)ll'tltional· izatlon, for en anti·soc/Ql act such as that )IOU have just perform«/ in total and complete abnelfltlon of civil respomlbil· it)l and trust...

Sufferina for my restraint, I bepn to feel nauseated . With an effort I fo cused my attention on the proceedinaa.

THE PROCURATOR: I repeat, Ac· c:used Confenor, can you say the same about subversive acts?

THE ACCUSED: With reprd to sub· ventve ac:tl··by virtue of the division of labor and my definite functions, of which you know-1 mainly occupied myself with the problematlc:a of aeneralleaderahlp and with the ideoloaJcal aide. This, of course , did not exclude either my belna aware of the prac:tlc:al alde of the matter, or the adoption of a number of practical steps on my part .

THE PROCURATOR: But the actions and activities In this direction were clea r?

THE ACCUSED: In Heael'a "Logic" the word "this" Ia c:onaldered to be the most difficult word ...

THE PROCURATOR: I ask the Court to explain to the Accused Confeasor that he Ia here not In the capacity of a phllo· aopher, but a criminal, and he would do · better to refrain from talklna about Heael'a phllo10phy, It would be better, flnt of all for Heael'a phUosophy ...

THE ACCUSED: A phlloaopher may be a c:rlminal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yea, that Ia to say, those who imaalne themselves to be phil· osophers turn out to be spies. Phlloaophy ls out of place here, Mr. Cltlzen Proc·· THE PROCURATOR: Yes, the bloc: which you headed set Itself the aim of orpnlzlna subversive acts which were dealaned to overthrow then diamemeber for forelan nations this areat and aover· elan state.

THE ACCUSED: Yea, as I have continuously held myself reaponalble for . There Ia nothlna for you to an· tlculate about .

THE PRESIDENT: Accused Con/tr· sor,do not foraet apln where you are now .

• THE ACCUSED: I am speaklna aa I have done at the preliminary hearlna. The Ideological referents that determined motivation and intent 1n my anti-State treachery are of criticallmportance. Be· fore the pubUc: I admit the momentary errors that led me to traitorous ac:tlonA. thouah remalnlna loyal. Incorrect juda· ment ...

THE PROCURATOR: The Court Is not concerned with Intent and ldeoloay . I wUJ be compelled to cut the lnterroptlon lhort because you are apparently follow· nlte tac:tlc:s and do not want to CfiSI

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Volume six, number four! May 18, 1973j

words, pettifogging, making dJgressu~ns into the sphere of psychology. of philosophy. theory and so forth-which you might as well forget about once and for all because you are charged with espionage and. according to all the material of the investigation , you are obviously the spy ot an intelligence service. Therefore stop pettifogging. If this is the way you want to defend yourself, I shall cut the investigation short.

THE ACCUSED: I am answering your questions. I have meant only to do so. In order to fully answer, certain factors, exigencies, have to present themselves...

THE PROCURATOR: You have spoken in vague nebulous formulas. These should have been reserved for arguments .among your fellow conspirators at leisure. ' THE ACCUSED: I am afraid there will be no leisure .

THE PRESIDENT: That is for the Court to decide.

It served him just so. This Accused, a confessor, and yet with no respect. I hoped for a moment they would take away his final plea, even though such a hope would be , so to say, cutting my nose to spite my face. Not that I was a shirker. In fact, I rather enjoyed my work. But a patriot could take so much.

He made me almost ill. Traitor. Guilty.

Guilty. Perhaps the words actually escaped my lips. I gesticulated, I don't deny it. I may even have touched my face. At any rate the bothersome thing burst.

Quite spontaneously . I looked around cautiously.

But who can blame the Historian for his momentary display of heightened :tttention. He, who alone must step out of history to ascribe direction to the swirling backwaters of the historical flow. Of course history develops according to definite laws. The ultimate object of aiminal action does not remain unknown. Needless to say the trial does not determine guilt. It is merely an inconvenience to all parties. An anachronism.

The historian alone must discover the objective consequences of the criminal activity, as it must be laid bare from the deceptive appearances, the cloakings of individual patterns of behavior, and so on. In cases now and then this is problematical. There are subtleties. The objective position may momentarily be hidden.

History can, so to say, play leap frog. The immediate effect of the more progressive force appearing reactionary, or the other way around. The Historian may suffer a distorted vision correctable only by the application of more precise scientific laws.

Of course the case of P- - - is straightforward. I see it all. I have been carefully trained. There, I calmed myself. Who would have noted my momentary excess-if that is what it may be called. Not even that. I wiped my forehead , and returned the handkerchief tomy breast pocket. But that would not do. Casually,

I shifted the offensive linen to the back pocket of my trousers. There, I am already completely at ease.

THE PRESIDENT: The session is resumed. Accused Confessor, you may make your last plea.

THE ACCUSED: Citizen President and Citizen Judges. I fully agree with Citizen the Procurator regarding the significance of the trial at which were exposed the crimes committed by the "Bloc of Leftists and Terrorists", one of whose leaders I was, and for all the activities of which I bear responsibility .

The extreme gravity of the crime is obvious, the political responsibility immense, the legal responsibility such that it will justify the severest sentence. A man deserves to be hanged ten times over for such crimes. This I admit without hesitation.

I want briefly to explain the facts regarding my criminal activities and my repentance for my misdeeds. The misdeeds that accrue to a misreading of history as it sometimes deceptively unfolds.

It was not the naked logic of the struggle that drove me, a servant: of the State, into the underground life which has been exposed at the trial. This naked logic of the struggle was accompanied by a degeneration of idea, a degeneration of psychology . a degeneration <>f myself. I suffered from a peculiar duality of mind , an incomplete faith in the cause of State progress. And this was due not to the

absence of consistent thought, but to a distorted view of capitalist production, and the great success of its government forms.

I shall now speak of myself, and explain, so that the reasons for my repen1 ance may be understood. Of course, it must be admitted that incriminating evidence plays a very important part. F three months I refused to say anything Then I began to testify. Why? Because while in prison I made a revelation of r entire past. For when you ask yourself "If 1 must die, what am I dying for?"~ absolutely black vacuity suddenly rises before you. There was nothing to die for if one wanted to die unrepentant.

The point of course, is not this repel ance. The Court can pass its verdict wit out. The confession of the accused is a medieval principle of jurisprudence.

It is in the consciousness of this that await the verdict. What matters is not 1 personal feelings of a repentant enemy. but the flourishing progress of the Statâ&#x20AC;˘ and its international importance in the sphere of...

What pettifogging. Exactly, pettifog ging. Naturally, he was quite properly allowed perfect freedom in the details â&#x20AC;˘ his fmal word. Still, talk of philosophy and a re-evaluation of the past was goir a bit beyond the usual. If he had only I the decency to come out and ask for mercy directly. But that remark about medieval principles was gross misunder

'olume six, number fourl May 18, 19731 19

anding and ingratitude. His plea, his rhole testimony, was completely uncceptable. With relief I loosened my 1>llar and fe lt for my pen.

THE PRESIDENT: ·On the basis of the ~stimony the Supreme Collegium o! the inal Court sentences the Accused Conssor P-~- to the extreme penalty-to ~ hanged until death with the confiscal>n of all personal property. The Prelimary Record of Proceedings is hereby aced in possession of the Honorable itizen Historian for the purpose of preIring corrections and additions in the .se of unacceptable testimony. ·

DOCUMENTS CONFISCATED R.OM THE RESIDENCE OF ACCUSED lSTORIAN N-- -

Thursday The Procurator called today. He is acting quite odd. From over-exertion, no doubt. I could almost hear him rubbing his eyes as he spoke. He did seem a bit wall-eyed at the trial. I must speak to him about his rest. But his conversation ·doesn't speak well for a man of his position. I reproduce it-Procurator: c·itizen Historian, regarding the document you supplied the Court...

Historian: Yes, Most Respected Citizen Procurator, the case was quite without particular concern. You needn't even have called, a man with your schedule.

May I say, I understand the nature of my responsibilities, and willingly under--

Procurator: .. .a record of courtroon1 proceedings provides no place for socially useless parody. Your small responsibility to cprrect errors within the body of the transcript, one may grant, provides little opportunity for the creative attention of a man of your ...that is with such grandiose pretensions. It was, on a certain level, almost ~tertaining, but I must remind you, the matters you discuss in the fmal report, must be strictly pertinent to the case placed in your trust. Your task must be seriously concluded at the earliest possible convenience.

The talk of parody was inconceivable.

I do not for a moment understand his remarks. Certainly the Accused had acted in a manner unbefittin~ the seriousness of

the proceedings; I simply noted the indecorous behavior. I cannot even surmise.

Monday 1 am beginning today to piece together the days directly following the trial, to shed some sense upon the inexplicable remarks.

Directly upon the conclusion of the trial, I walked out the Collegium building, and stood for a moment between the columns, enjoying the outdoor air. Some youngsters grouped together peered up at me, pointing. I immediately closed the collar and pulled the tie into position. I understood the emotion-as a youth I felt a certain delirium mixed with envy and ambition for service when I saw some

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Volume ahc, number four! May 18, 19731 20

the desk. 1 made ready. The case was without merit . 1 recognized that, but considered it beside the point. The final report would be useful and historically responsible. The watch ticked unnecessar· Uy. I recall that. 1 fixed myself at the desk and began my work on the case.

1 acted routinely to perform my work.

1 worked slowly at first . There were many details. This phrase "socially useless parody" is without reference . Yet I am troubled. As you must understand. 1 have dutifully tollowed the dictates of my profession. When I look at my Ufe, to find a unifying theme, the desire for state service and the ultimate consummation of my desire, immediately rises before me to take its central place. If I have lived a suitable and useful life, it has been for this. The joys of family have In a literal sense by-passed me. The soft touch of Ufe has been spared me. No chUd has sat upon my knee to distract me from my work, from the readina of periodicals and historical journals. My name has not been passed on. There Ia no fellow who mi&ht speak of me to his schoolmates in sucn manner: "You ask of my father, my dear friend. He is an historian . I too shall be an historian . Such will be my socially useful labor." No child who miahl come home from school to his mother in the after· noon, to take a confection In his hand, to ask when Father would be home from Court. But this has not been my path. My We had risen and the Accus~d refu~d tervlce to the State has universally con· Counsel, then immediately demanded sumed my eneray. And now there Is a (against legal and historical prece~ent) to curious manifestation of official censure gabble about ideology and philosophy. I weighing on my proaress. Yet the nature sat lon~r than necessary. The whole of my misdeed eludes me. proceedings were most Indecorous. The I recall the very beginnina of my work Accused began at once without regard for on the case. My rooming companion propriety and the very legitimacy of the served me dinner, soon after 1 had beaun trial to speak in Illogical and contradictreconstructtna the arauments in the case. ing sequence, admit to most heinous The patterns of hiatory were clearly alminal activity, employing perf~ctly sketched In my mind . The laws would be Inexact patterns of speech, rubbing his applied in due course. Guilt would be face incessantly, and attempting to ascribed clearly and scientifically within muddle with discursive detail every State the rigors of my disciplined deductions. I attempt to outline and delineate the . was thinking, as 1 considered it, object· specific nature and extent of his proven lvely. I was confident. Let us not belabor the point. After dinner, as he cleared the culpabillt~. dishes, he stopped to pick at me reprdina Unfortunately, I had little time my work. May I remind whoever may be to continue my thoughts. Without notice my roomin~ companion was upon me-· reading this-for this is the belief that underlies its writing·· thllt en historian at a stenographer. He began to speak the start of an historical correction Is with his attempt at congeniality. Why obliged by law to refrain from any unoffl· was it so hot, why the Accused so artless, clal discuuion of case particulars. There why the left side of my face "just a bit had recently been a case In the news· more red" than the rest. It was hot out paper. A young historian had taken lt of meteorological factors alone. The felupon himself to suspend this regulation. It was a well known matter, his entire re· low distracted from my serious atten· cord was called Into doubt. Perhaps you tions. We approached the apartment. recall It yourself. My roomlna companion 1 felt eager despite his presence.

Indulged In aossip apinst my unfortunate My desk was In the alcove and I colleague. I am certain, in any case··thllls approached it, I tell you, with eagerne&s, my point-that the man wu not without to place my work by the typewriter , to knowledge of this reaulation . I can only fix my coat on the back of the chair, to hypothesize his reasons at this time. He lay the pens out onto the desk . expected extralegal favors because of his At this point, I thought nothing of the personal position In relation to me. I problems of the historian in ascribing objectivity. These problems will doubtless would offer him none. He must have known this, yet troubled himself to malce become familiar to you. They are not minor . Yet I was eager as I set to the task. the Inquiries. Do you understand what I am sugestlng?

The Procurator is spiteful. I cannot The distraction wu serious. My con· understand him . We went to the Universcentratlon was broken. I admit a ity together. I have always considered momentary dialocation of my mental him a friend. How many times we have discipline out of anger. 1 recall that the drunk a glass together to his health, to my work. But I have allowed a digression . stiffness I felt in the courtroom returned.

I may say accurately, with no undue I found new linen and flXed myself at

personage of rank emerge from a State building. I could not entirely see their faces for the distance as I began to de· scend from the Court. But 1 could hear the level of sound and imagine the conversation . I wish the expressions on those boys' faces were more visible. 1! was hot outside and 1 had nothing with mf! 1 perspired and my palm nearly smudged the Court record. 1lifted It to my left hand and faced the Square. A hundred yards across past a group of children, and 1 would occ~py a room in which I could work without discomfort .

1 remember each detail distinctly. I began to thematically reconstruct the details of the courtroom argument . I was of the habit, harmless though not without useful application, to amuse myself on the way home from the Court by organi· zing the data 1 had absorbed during the preliminary decision. Years of training of course had made the task really quite effortless and less rewardlng··l consumed the details in Court as they showed themselves, In perfect order'· and needed little organization to transcnbe the facts completely with their original historical accuracy. Nonetheless for a harmle~s rroment of sport with myself, I revtewed In some detail the day's proceedings.

Occasionally 1 would juxtapose my own measured eviluatlol' that would later determine the substance of the historical record.

telt on the courtroon steps. I recalled Immediately the details that .,eeted the ~ensatlon In the earlier event. Those children In 1 aroup displaylna that lnclpi· ent respect for the State in my person that would expand beyond fledallnl The fellow at my elbow was at me inexactitude, perhap1, to pnulne under· once more. I should have offered him a ltandlna of socially useful labor and real detlre for Mrvlce. The 1treet sound• of clpr. pubUc transportation distracted my r "Yes!' "Dinner ts approachlna as you know." concentration. At least the cloyln& room· Ina companion would have been off to "Yes." "Ah, youth. Believe me, I admire your work. But there were voice• outside the window. Some chUdlsh chant. It Mtmed .:ommitment. But If as you say, N--they had picked out one of their peers to was a bit off, after all, half the hour is jeer at. This is not unusualamona youths. llllt\ne and-" .I l did not note the sequence of the lnaults, "As you say. Half Is remainIna." but the volume of sound forced my Whatever their purpose, the dUatory attention outside. This was the second Interruptions served to allow me the manner and Incidence of Interruption. I necessary time to formulate In clear wondered why they were not at school. I thouahu the rearet that lay brewlna tried to force my attention to my work. within me as 1 read. 1 did not doubt that the Historian was culpable for h!s fallures The chair leaned Itself back on two lea• at of responsibility. The Idle wanderinas of an anale similar to that of a pen t_n writlna his lncreasinalY Infirm mind were juri· position within the hand. This was a dically Inconsequential. lf the juron momentarily comfortable position for feared some conclusion on my part that me. A child ahouted. I ttarted,ln apite of would dislocate their Intentions of an myself, and faced the window, the chair immediate judaement of N- - - , they lllppina out from under me. Already I need not have concerned themselves. But was sufferina from a chronic stiffness in I was determined to continue, if for no the Achilles tendon that forced a flat· additional reason, then at least to avoid footed lrreaularlty in my walk as I would the knowlna expressions of the Jurors, the approach ttie deak In the mornina. To this noddina amillna faces, that would areet waa added a stlffentnaln the neck. Now premature resl&nation on my part. my difficulty of concentration had Its phyalcal manifeatatlon as well.

1 must bore the reader··l delude my· ...their effect on my back and, as the self··with the dJscurslve detail. I must not time when this may be read Is distant, I be afraid to face the observable facts of may admit, on my abilities to direct my thoM days followtna the trial. attentions as well. That useless intrusion Tomorrow. disrupted me. As I sat 1 beaan feellna nauseated. It is universally susrected that Saturdav such is the dilatory lmpersona response of the body to fatlaue from overexertion Still I keel) speakina of stlffneu and throuah mental or physical activity. The distrllctlons. But this caMot be the limit conditions 1 worked under were close and of our concem. Why could I not finish stuffy. the document? This ls the main queation.

1 checked over my completed sections. Thouah I have not foraotten the convers· My clarity of thoupt and quality of atlon . The objectivity of history eluded work 1 knew must not be allowed to my paap. What may flow by desian in a suffer because of these aubjectlve factors. circle or an eUpse seemed to take a dlffer· Tomorrow 1 miaht reject the copy. Per· ent pometrlc form . Oh. I realize this is 10nal indulaence of eagerness was not too vaaue. History occun. That Is, by aU proper in a person of responsibility . I riJhu, history flows forward. One may reread my notes and decided to continue rise another, commensurately, or more the next day. or 1~11 commensurately, wUl fall. There Ia As1 do now. I shall pick it up soon. no aphere quite independent. This Is Important. I am uyina not to be too technical. 'I'he historian ls aakea as sub· Wednesday ject to independently, that ls objectlvely, 1 continue precisely where 1left off. view the ultimate object of history, and We are back to the description of my record tt as such. This Is clear for you? work after the trial. The followlna morn· There are definite laws. This is the matter ina t noted carefully the particulars of of science. But the broad flow is one my' condition-the viaor of the body when thina, the particular another. What ts the the llpments of the lea are stiff not from direction of a vortex. Can one cross a overextensive use but from the nlaht's river without lnfluenclna, however sttaht· , recline, when the back aches from aMOY· )y the direction and maanitude of the ance at havina been deprived of Its hori· cu'rrent . The foot itself forcea water on zontal position and not from over· both its sides, wtth Uttle ripples, to rise attention and fatiaue. and spread apart, to form riVulets. I must I must malce some sense of the tele· make you understand . There is no object· phone conversation. 1 recall this all as It lve position outside. In 'ftte of auUt. has been Indelibly etched on my mind, What Is criminal activity P- - read last night, many times, each niaht as 1 history In a certain manner. PerhJps you recall the horrlfylna words. 1 recall the do not realize, P--- himself was tralrted detaUs,personaUy ,as I have been trained In the hiltortcalsclences. That is, the laws historicauy . tiul 1 must return to the were not unavailable to him. Of course narrative . his auUt is not ln doubt . But objective That mornina, the very first, actually, hiltory is elullve. 1 muat be clear. I am an after the trial, the clearness of my ~enaes Induced that same keeness of mind I had historian.

Reader. before you . I must l)'stem· vindictive intention , that he who lived with me in a sinale suite of rooms knew quite well that the years at achool, and those at the desk-'

Volume six, number four! May 18, 19731 21

atically prel>ent my ~se. This all shall be I speak with no disrespect to the May I assure you my dear friend, that your decision. It was difficult to remain Procurator-regardless of his momentary every effort on my part shall be made, in seated there. I do not understand the full accordance with my official and esta- indisposition-but the letter itself beprocess that began within me as I faced trays, I fear , a certain instability, and that blished record of State service, to speeddirectly the prospect of my labor. I did alone.

I have heard that his family life is ily conclude my study of the case prenot question the importance of my work. not quite fulfilling ... sented before us.

I shall then immediately My qualifications are public record. embark upon a comprehensive and historIdeological misgivings, inconstancy of 1 almost wished to be distracted once ically accurate account of the proceed; commitment--only in theoretical musing again. I felt obliged by the disinterest of ings. are these of interest. Yet, it is true, I sat the others to continue, but remained only With all good wishes, etc. at the desk. I became absorbed in the partially attentive to the embarrassing process and all the palpability of history Now I trust you understand the phrase proliferation of prose under my scrutiny. was lost to me. I sat at my alcove study..particular considerations." That is for The conversation around the table gained ing the testimony. I shall place a docuthe best. You see, my anxiety at this date my attention, though I continued to ment before you. . was not small. Yet my receipt of the appear intent at my reading.

When I was ready to submit the first response of the Procurator, whom at the ..Gentlemen. Our young friend, as you part of my work I composed a letter to time I regarded most highly, naturally set see. is dutifully absorbed. I realize the the Procurator, to this effect: somewhat awry the task before me. He Most Respected Procurator, please remarked as I record below (the remaind- desire the rest of you quite naturally feel at this time to expedite, what must accept a preliminary draft of a portion of er I withdraw from view as irrelevant and appear, the obvious resolution to our the edited historical record in the case of simply discourteous for the, unbalanced, responsibilities. But you must agree, some it portrays of the author): picture Accused Confessor P---. I trust you ten or twenty minutes cannot inconven.. ./ warn you to conclude immediately will find the work adequate and conience us too severely." whatever minor alterations on the stenoscientiou.~.

"Very well. Very well. The curiousity It is presently my unhappy responsiof the young. Let him read." grapher's report you fmd essential and bility to inform you, however, that partiThe conversation was unbearable. I complete the task immediately. cular considerations within the lengthy decided to omit some pages. N- - -'s As to our "friendship" that you and confused testimony of the Accused, culpability would soon receive its due allege in your....[correspond~ncel may I attention. who most recently came before our joint indicate that between yourself and I scrutiny, have unavoidably delayed me in there exists the gravest (it goes on at some But there are difficulties. A man is the full resolution of my responsibilities length)... in the case.

convicted irrelevant of his intentions. The objectively viewed prospective results of this activity condemn him. One is asked to leap outside history. There is only the black .vacuity in the fa~e pf such a task~. even tor the man ot trammg who possesses a clear view of his responsibility.

Consider an example in the concrete.

At the close of the trial I walked out the Collegium building. I have mentioned the children. But their voices were inaudible, their gestures inarticulate. That is, the details of the history of that moment are unavailable. Perhpas they pointed at the column beyond me, and thought nothing of the State. Perhaps out of boyish mischief-that is, the objectivity of their situation eludes the most careful observer, as well the predictive capacity. ¡They seemed somewhat self-absorbed, curiously idle for school children. Why were they standing about, not playing as,. you surely agree, children habitually occupy themselves. What accounts for this priggishness. I myself studied in the afternoons. remaininR somewhat separate from my schooltime companions. It would be my habit to return home directly, to study my lessons. This would bring scorn upon the elder, who would occupy himself more idly. He would turn against

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Volume six, number fourl May 18, 19731 22

recalled for use later. So I, as a matter of me. For many years I could not unhabit, but one that has served well--place derstand why, on my birthday one year, my personal notes (subjective, I grant he remained in bed and refused to join that, but one recalls the other to which it the celebration. You see, one cannot is inextricably linked, mediated, you see, know to suspect such things. Such a fact mediated by my writing). I place the one could not be predicted by State officials by the other. Never before has there been from testimony. this confusion. Now I have submitted Of course, one can depend on the both. How could I? This is impossible. I callous nature of children. They jeer at am betrayed. I cannot explain. I have you incessantly. Let your hat be crooked committed suicide. How many times have or let you have a bandage upon your I thought of it. Never directly. Never with cheek from a hurried shave in the morn- an instrument. But this is beyond ing that disfigured an uneven sector of mistake. I have never done this before. the face, that is by the side of the mouth Do you understand. I meant no parothere are certain areas whichdy. It was a mistake. My intention must The pimple, on my cheek, needed be considered. I have never done this attention .. .l recall it. But the Procurator before. My record is clear. I have served has misinterpreted. The preliminary conscientiously ... report was rushed. I neglected to disDOCUMENTS COJI.IriSCATED tinguish, that, the redness, a natural FROM CELL OF ACCUSED HISTOmatter of complexion , you understand.

RIANN- - Exactly so.

NOTe:~KA~MENTSARRANGED The indiscretion, you realize--was IN PROBABLE CORRECT ORDER BY unintentional. I take the task seriously.

COURT Habit. A curious phenomenon both in tht A I have always studied in cramped general and specific. I keep the trial records, in actual transcript form.l place quarters. This is nothing. Heretofore space to me has been temporal: In my them beside me as I begin my historical theoretical studies. I have constdered record, naturally. Perhaps I mentioned world historical sequence. But the work above-during the trial for my own perhas been taken. There is barely time to sonal use, I note the circumstances read. They turn off the lights directly around me. Of the following sort-after the meal. Do not misunderstand. / entered the courtroom, witnessing The quality of the foc;>d is the leas~ conthe fami/iJlr positioning of the officials, sideration. I work to 1gnore the ammal my peers, who appeared in Court year by functions alone. But I have changed. I year-and so on...:Only one man remains have lost the scrubbed pink of the civil apart accomodating himself with diffiservant. Tht: nails grow and shape themculty to the su"oundings-and so on¡selves. The hair begins to retain the oils.

You see, I take a sort of diary. I write There are blank spaces on the scalp, it for myself, though I speak as if to furrows, where the scalp peeks through another. Harmless impressions I note. If covered with a scummy rind. It is not one recalls the impressions, you see, the balding. Forgive me, this is inconselogic and detail of the moment are better quential. I fight the idle mind.

shall be allowed to bathe. Why am I I write now, given the chance for a moment. I display talents long hidden by si>eaking of these things. There will be a strict limit of water. (You see. prisons are the specific form of labor. The desk drawer (have I mentioned they have left most gratuitous in the terms they imme a desk and a broken typewriter, I pose). ) c~u)d per_!laps wash once lightly. soon shall know each part if I remain)-it But it is in certain areas that the cloth closes unevenly, only with extreme rubs most annoyingly. 1 don't know pressure. I examined it minutely. A thin whether the skin is too dry or too oily. wood-like plank of board has splintered Soap dries it, I know that. This has not and reaches, now, unevenly above the been my privilege. The water will not be groove through which it was origninally at all plentiful. If it is hot or warm it intended to slide. I am referring to the might be best to hurl it directly over the bottom of the desk drawer. Do you know head. I could dry the scalp and scratch it these accordian shaped blades of steel at my leisure. A white crustiness has which when wedged between two separformed (not alarmingly, this is not really ated splinter sections of wood, join them unusual) under the mails upon scratching, together. This is what I require. You see I which is more frequent. But if the water have become less abstract .This is a lower is very cold, it would be best used around level of abstraction. I am concerned now the arms and legs. The feet are beyond within a specific historical formation. the present interest. Where can they take Why have I again waited for the last me? (Always, you may note, I inject the hours of lildlt to take up the pen in hand theory). They have begun to crack be (I speak figuratively, I employ the rna- ¡ tween the toes. Of course this cannot interest you. I am idle. This is clear to chine). Trembling, I have removed and you, no doubt. I must concentrate, and folded the plain grey cover that has encased it. The yellow light forces the leave the details within this space to your plain grey cover that has encased it. The conjecture. You are interested in broader yellow light forces the dust to appear relationships. There lies the explanation. with special clarity. I tap the left side key B for raising the keyboard. It refuses to They have taken the typewnter, the hold the upper case. I placed a scrap of a . writing paper, I have always ~own. napkin, folded, in the ribbon guide to Luckily I was able to hide agamst my skin force the carriage to raise up when neea few sheets I had filled. The ink may essary. I beat at it with my pen in hand. I have smeared against the sweat. I can have rolled the ribbon counter-clockwise check later. There is no imprimatur, now. with my finger so I will not fmd myself at I write what I know. You may ask how a critical moment uselessly striking keys. they have taken the typewriter with the That is, through certain details, I have report expected by the day. And the prepared the instrument and am typing. writing paper. I cannot say. I will not see And so I am sitting again at a typewriter. it again. I have begged for a newspaper. A They have promised that tonight I party paper, even a journal. For the

Volume six, number four! May 18, 19731 23

thickness, who can read it and discover. Is it not my due? A fair recompense for the expropriated portion of my labor. But we are too advanced for simple commodity exchange.

I have always read. As a child , even.

Instead of such a life that, in a certain sense, one might admit, that is instead of a life of this nature. I have not known the way of others. Do I drink or sit at gossip.

They play bridge until the morning. Have I a friend of the kind- Ptitochka, shall we go to the ballet, how her cheeks flame , her bare neck reddens itself a bit as I gaze, she places her hand, just the elegant tips of her fmgers, in my palm. Let us walk on the prospect. Let us stroll through the park. You are poetry to me.

Here is the laurel for your hair. No indeed, my little sweet, it is you. Not I. I am blessed with you, my pigeon, without aU is barren ...

But I am distracted from my work .¡ Allow me. It is very hard to read, now.

There is but one dusty shaft from the window. Of course, this is best. The street noises cannot distract me. I concentrate on the proof of my innocence. It shall immediately be laid before you. You must understand, the children plotted against me. They pointed, jeering at me, a trusted official. I did not mention this offlcially. As I left the court a group of juvenile felons ch~se !11~ out. Where were

their books, as a child, I was never separa ted, lessons had to be copied. They chased me to my apartment.

D It is really very clever, on their part, I admit. They have not returned the typewriter. It has been two weeks now. They say the case must be completed. My Was it the last I broke off. I had not testimony. that is the official document. noticed the light. It is all the same when is complete : For a time there was only the eyes are accustomed. No more the pen. But that was better. I am closer chances. That was thirteen days ago. A to the instruments of my labor. They week later I could write again. It means serve at my will. Do you understand? Of nothing to you, the days, I might argue. oourse this is as under early historic Here time is different. A tile on the wall formations. I was glad to have a pen, so for each minute, a fly per second. The that I may continue my pleas. Why have I walls crawl with them . You understand oomplicated the matter so? But they will they have not infected me yet. This is take the pen soon. The chances do not why I scratch the scalp, to check. The escape me. I must have it down. Finally, nails come ~P clean-that is, cl<_>gged with they have told me to write a final plea. A my organic matter alone . Of course there final statement. They ask me to summaris dust. But the living garbage is removed. ize my life. Naturally ,little is necessary, I am slipping from myself again. I must my case is clear. But, you see, I grab at explain my disagreement regarding the the chance to have a pen. I write lighter, nature of history that placed me here. It superimposed three times, and so have is not the dialectic that escapes me. But more left for the nights. This strains my who can supply the term. You memorize eyes, but it cannot be helped. I think the as taught. One extrapolates only within. fever has begun. I feel hotter. The room is First it is the teacher, a party organ, the oolder, the soup, the window is clouded. newspaper, the party itself. History can My face seems flushed . It remains sweaty be understood- that is, the progression all the time now. It is red, needs attenrecalled. In dreams, for the exam it is all tion. But they give me no linen. Only clear. But there is no mechanism. It is the they have shown by their faces, they will rule of history. That is, the distinction take the pen. I must conclude. lies in relation of subject to object. There You know what has become of me. is no knowing subject. This is clear for You realize I do not. I cannot say. You you. It is the historian. The historian see the point. It is a matter of history, now. alone.

c

¡1he children keep shouting. I carry books, walking down the stairs. I loosen my tie. They do not like me. They are laughing at the size of my head. Moilll'rul says it's just because we are new in the neighborhood. They won't eat lunch 'Vith me. I'll study. I have to, what if the exam is a day early. I can't go. It's a bad teacher. He makes everyone nervous. I can't go. I can't go. It will be summer soon. I can study at home.

Very well. I am sufficiently in sight of the end. My allowance of time will be strictly adhered to. ..Fellow jurors, very well. I have concluded my study."

The gentleman who addressed us nearly an hour before spoke again. Eager for their release, my peers on this occasion displayed perfect attention. ..If there are no objections, I shall inform the Court of our decision. Sir, perhaps you should like to offer a few words ..."

He hesitated a moment, offering with this gesture the formal acknowledgement of the duty I had taken upon myself. ..Thank you. No. There is nothing." ..Very well. I shall inform the Court of the results of our deliberation. As for dinner, who shall order ftrst? I believe that honor is yours ... "

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THE FIRST BREAKTHROUGH IN LOUDSPEAKERS IN 50 YEARS

A LOUDSPEAKER BETTER THAN MOST AMPLIFIERS !

When we talk about distortion ratio on the order of 1/10 of 1% or less, most people assume we are talking about the best of the newly designed direct coupled amplifiers. Not so now ... THERE ACTUALLY IS A LOUDSPEAKER WITH AS LOW A DIS· TORTION RATIO AS THE BEST AMPLIF I ER! The new ESS Heil Air Motion Transformer, developed by the noted physicist, Dr. Oskar Heil, and manufactured under exclusive license by ESS, is a revolutionary transducer design that does not generate sound waves by pushing air with a piston "plunger." Instead, the ESS Heil Air Motion Transformer harnesses the tremendous power of a pneumatic "lever" which, by small squeezing movements over a large surface area directly produces air movements FIVE T IMES GREATER than a conventional flat surface with one-fifth the motion. As a result of the completely new principles by which it operates, the ESS Heil Air Motion Transformer has near instantaneous acceleration, exhibits distortion figures as fine as modern electronics, and achieves a level of performance that finally approaches theoretical perfection.

HEAR THIS FANTASTIC LOUDSPEAKER I

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EXCLUSIVELY AT FRED LOCKE STEREO!

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1533 State St., New Haven 136 Park St. (Annex) , New Haven

787-0183 776·5600

216 W est M ain St., Avco 1071 Burn side Ave., East Ha rtford

678 -1797 528 -9479