1 Good morning from a mirror's self -- or What to do if you have two By HOWARD KOHN TIME WAITS, certain that I can't clheat it, confident that I can't stay awake all night and still face it in the morning. Today has been routine, fraught with opan-ended tests and close- minded teachers. Everyday is rou- tine if you know the difference be- tween morning and afternoon classes, between adolescence and maturity. I haven't finished what I never started. If I'd taken the time ear- lier I could be spending the night reading the surefooted remarks of Time, puttir crowning touches on my bachelor's degree in fore- sight and insight. As it is I'm stuck in the library looking for the fractional parts of the forces which manipulate our unsuspecting public. If I can't find those forces, I'll flunk the course. (Poor public, there ought to be a law.) IT'S GETTING LATE. T h e library is about to close, and the sound of searching feet in the. re- ference room fades away. My mind thinks of knowing. My convictions are free, The darkness hides the cracks in the sidewalk and the silent pencils and impotent acorns lit- tered in the lawn. ' There should be peace here. But the shadows, smirking in their artificiality, jump about with false pretenses. It would be better to be home asleep, away from the dark hours of the night where you might find anything, even yourself. In the window of a shop sits a sign in handwritten letters, "What would you do if you had TWO?" Two what? Two chickens in every teflon pot? Two answers for every question? Two heavens for every hell? Two hands for every clock. There's still time to finish what I never started. MY ROOM IS CLUTTERED with its past, guarded by walls where windows should have been if my landlord hadn't been so cheap. Maybe I should rearrange the furniture, move the desk where the bed is now. But the creeking noise of wood against linoleum might awake the people downstairs. My minds thinks of cheating. My convictions are empty. If I go to sleep now, I'll have lost my chance. My room is too much around me. I can't get out of myself to get into what I'm do- ing. This is a cruel jest, fighting the sweat and nervousness when no- body woud care if I gave up. But I want to stay awake now. Not to finish what I never start- eb but to seek what I never found. Outside are the streets of the public, caught fast in the saving grace of unrepentance. (Damn public, there ought to be a law.) It is late. The illusions of the past seem to be the promises of the future. Soon the day will re- turn with its push-pull pomerade which is always distracting and which always takes so much time. I HAVE BEEN AWAKE a long time. I'm shaking and my eyes stare slightly in their wideopen- ness. It's strange because I'm not afraid. My mind thinks of hoping. My convictions are sure. At the end of town there is a stone bridge over a silent river. The sun is breaking across the far bank of the river as I stand in the middle of the bridge. My reflection is there in the water. Two of me? There can't be. I cross over the bridge. Looking back I can see my re- flection, crying in its nothingness. But I have crossed over and I have what I sought. The morning is here and we walk back togeth- er. Time hurries away. I 94C Airtdiljan adgil Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan under authority of Board in Control of Student Publications 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Doily exp ress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: RON LANDSMAN 1 On the seventh day., they fribbled --Daily-Jay Cassidy Lest we forget what is to come By NEAL BRUSS Tae Kwon Do, chicks and women, Eliza- T HAS BEEN a long exhausting year. We beth Kohn the baby,-Robert Tindall, Rev. learned many things; we will remember Robert Morrison, Robert Williams, Robert what was said. For sure, there was joy. the K., Robert Baines Johnson, Robert 4 wat aid sFrn sure thiwas isoy. haircuts, 3 mustaches and Robert, I am Also, great suffering. None of this is to allergic to penicillin. say that 1968 cannot end too soon. The year began with Leopold Bloom. It YES I CAN surely positively emphetical- ends with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and IV, polymorphously and perversely dig it, Norman 0. Brown. In between, Fannon, yes love is all you need, yes in diversity Cleaver, Mailer, Dryden, Kafka and Huiz- there is strength, and in banality, wisdom., inga and others. Next year, we hope, a bet- Like a paralysis, like a muscle cramp, ter assault on Sartre's Being and Nothing- a hernia, like a rolling stone all year we less- have, many of us, clenched teeth against But in 1968, also, Frank H. Joyce of the pigs, all the pigs, large and small, for People Against Racism, Eric Clapton of better or worse. An emotion. Cream, Frithjof Bergmann of the phil- And like a deer standing in the roadway, osophy department, John Wright of the eyes glued to the headlights coming com- English department, Dr.. Wyatt of the ing coming in the night, coming with psychological clinic, Lake Michigan, the bumpers and grill and horn too late, we house on East University, the apartment have watched ourselves be crushed, clob- on Wilmott, the Time Detroit Bureau, the bered, gassed, arrested, killed but not dis- Third World, Descartes' Dream Problem, heartened by the evil pigs we know full well cannot help but off us. (The above is for the friends in The Corrup O t- l Resistance.) Sometimes we wonder whether it is not unfair that politics draws on the time we c ctt r C OG , would like to experience the 15 individu- als each of us is/are, But still we have By MARTIN HIRSCHMAN been somewhat political a n d 15 people nonetheless. GUESS I WASN'T really such a bad That is how one can be Inextinguish- 11kid before I started school. Ta shwoecnb nxigih k eersineIthirgrde henIhad.able with the symphonist Carl Nielsen and But ever since third grade when I hadn't do the boogie with the Canned Heat on done any of the 54 pages of our arithmetic successive afternoons. wdrkbook, or fourth grade when I justs couldn't get started on the Civil War re- AND LET US not forget to welcome to po parents had to come up to the school Ann Arbqr our brothers from Detroit, the and the whole bit, and I remember the MC5, and John Sinclair, who, we think, groaning pit .in my stomach and the gas was a beatnik in our late childhood. in my bowels that I couldn't release, I Andrea says: a beatnik is a romantic decided right then that academics must be fronting as a cynic: a hippie is a cynic the~ ultimate corruptor. fronting as a romantic. I didn't lie or cheat or anything like GET IT ON. Get it on. Get it on. Get that. It really was the flu I had, or the Geoffrey Hartman's "The Unmediated recurring stomach ache; really that's why Vision," get the gun, get bells, get f I couldn't do all those multiplications, Mrs. get yourself together, brother, get Brilo, Oakason, really,geyoreftgtebohgtBil, akason.nofabitchget a blood test, get it up down all around Oakason. Son of a bitch. like a seesaw, says the sublime and mag- BUT SCHOOL is a great teacher and ical lady soul Aretha Franklin, S i.s t e r now C know one all-nighter yields one dB' 'Reeth. I am searching for my mainline/ paper and can include all the studying I cannot hit it sideways, says the Velvet intend to do for a passing French quiz. Underground Sister Ray. In drastic situations, I think "Maybe he ANN ARBOR - When the Michigan won't mind if I hand the paper in a few Daily is good, it is very good. When it is days late." Weeks later, I consider "He bad, it is somewhat boring. The staff, how- might just give me an incomplete if I tell ever, is all right and some people have him about the time I've spent on the written some nice magazine pieces, which Daily. Maybe he'll even suggest an incom- Pete has locked. Howard has, with Anne's plete if I say it right." help, edited some columns and Fred, on Still, in the back of my mind, in my behalf of himself and the photo staff, has stomach, in my bowels, I worry. "Suppose, told some good thing. Each week, Sunday he doesn't take late papers or "What if he Morning reads like a prayer. Tops in in- doesn't give incompletes." vestigative reporting, clearly the best of all "I can tell him I did hand in that paper newspapers, and he must have lost it." Every day one should make sure that one The roots of my corruption have grown has a little fun. Otherwise one becomes deep. But in academia a separate, sub- tense, anxious, unable to rest in sleep. THE LAST CLASS is not so much dif- ferent from the first. History s t il l speaks its mind unintimidated by the claque of students at its door. Literature still suffers in silence unaffected by the polenics of professors who think they have unearthed its meaning. Maybe our evaluation of the world has changed. But it would be naive to simply footnote our formal education. Our per- ceptions are a function of many things, sometimes even what is really happening. And academia does often serve as only a self-fulfilling fountainhead. Yet its one redeeming virtue is that it can, in rare instances, not take itself seriously. In the spontaneity of class on the grass or watching a flick for a final there is still hope that formal education can liberate itself. (Academic reforms may be reassuring but they seem engineered by the same forces which built the present overburdening structures.) WHAT WE CAN salvage then from the morass of this semester, or any semester, is the lesson of appreciating frivolity. From politicians to professors to edi- tors we seem overcome by what we have decided is our role in shaping the destiny of man. We curse and fight and protest and worry ourselves to the point of frenzy. "SUNDAY MORNING" has tried, once a week, to shift the emphasis from the weighty problems of an overstuffed so- ciety to personal feelings and perspec- tives on our lives. There are few, if any, specific issues which all of us should feel compelled to consider as relevant. There are few im- personal standards which all of us should be force; to consider as correct. What should rather concern us is the immediate feelings and emotions of those who know and love us. Only then can we ultimately understand the dreams for a better mankind. To spend all of our time churning in the incidentals of a fetish society is fool- ish and sad. To argue about the relative merits of sitting in the front or back of a lecture is nonsense. So we sincerely wish all of us a merry vacation. (And if this "Sunday morning" is pub- lished on Saturday, what the hell?) -THE EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Proposition: Your teacher does e at peanuts too By FRED LaBOUR So whose fault was it, this wasted time? I T SEEMS as though there ought to be The kids? "Lazy bums," say the teachers. "Never want to talk in class." something good to say about our aca- demic progress this semester. I mean The teachers, "Can't empathize with everybody always says it washorrible, they us,' say the kids, "They just drift along didn't learn anything, they were bored to in their academic stupor and forget they're death, and the University stinks. But there really one of us." must have been something we liked. One of us. We think that makes sense. The problem is that the teachers aren't The readings, for example. There were human beings who just happen to be a some good things in those readings. But little older than us. They think they're not of course we didn't read them because we tudetan Thes think they're were too busy. And besides, if you hate the ' students and the students think they're class and the guy who teaches it has the not teachers so nobody makes contact. personality of a small-mouthed bass who The students allow all kinds of stupidity wants to read anyway. to go on in their classrooms because the teacher is a grad student or a professor Class discussions? Well, we never learned and he must know what is better for us the names of anybody in the class and than we do. And the teacher looks at his the others were all pretty stupid anyway. Ph. D. and thinks he must be different But the three things we did say over the than the kids, sort of divinely inspired, and three months were so incredibly, bright that he will err significantly fewer times we could service on their wisdoms without with significantly less serious consequences listening to anybody else. than the students. Papers? We must have learned some- thing from papers. Like how long we could THAT IS WRONG. He is like the stu- stay up at night and remain coherent, and dent as the student is like him and it Is what kind of drivel we could pass off as the job of the student to let the teacher relevant to the course. We recall vowing know what his boundaries of power are to start the next one early but we always going to be, how far the student will be seemed to start three days late. pushed before he has had enough. Exams? Hardly. Exams seemed to follow So 'in order to let the teachers know the pattern of papers in terms of prepa- they are just like us, human and all, I pro- ration. "You won't be able to cram for pose that during every class period of every this one," the guy would say triumphantly. day next semester, every student physical- "Idiot," we'd say to ourselves, "there has ly touch his professor at least once. I mean yet to be an exam that we can't get a 'B' walk up to the front of the room and play- on with three hours of studying. ful jab him in the ribs and say, "Oh, come on," or at least shake.his hand or IT LOOKS LIKE maybe there wasn't pat his head, anything good to say about it after all. The teachers will realize, as will the Maybe we learned from the people we students, that they are not dealing with connected with as a result of the courses. a vaporous apparition but a real guy who Except we didn't get to know them, re- eats peanuts and everything. The class will member? And we didn't care either, be- relax, people will talk to each other when cause we're doing all right in our own they don't have to, and life will be rough- lives. ly 25 times more pleasant. ft 4 Sunday morning He and she in the search for times lost By JIM NEUBACHER ' SAT DOWN in the Mug with my tray and my newspaper and started to eat. My old girlfriend walked by. Now that's something that doesn't happen everyday, and I wasn't in the least prepared for it. This beautiful girl, this girl I was still madly in love with and hadn't seen for four months was right here. I had a moral crisis, or rather, an ego crisis. I choked out a greeting, and sat waiting for the judgment to fall upon me. I didn't know what she'd do. She turned and looked. She was looking good. She sat down at my table and I got that feeling of S t w superiority that every man gets when a girl Look at me. HE Well, uh, how's it going? Well, some better than others. I'll come out okay in the end. I just hope I pass French. I know what you mean about getting behind. I've been putting in a lot of time at the Daily and it's. Yeah, I've been working about 35-50 hours a week over at the Daily. I really love it though. It's almost like my sec- ond home. You mean you don't subscribe?! (Mock outrage is one of my specialities). You missed all my pulitizer-winning efforts? You rat! I'm just kidding, really. I love working there. I'm sorta planning on majoring in journalism, I signed up for 201 next semester. I guess I wouldn't like going away for a whole semester. I don't even like going home for the summer. I really like it here. I guess the Daily is the place I'd rather be. like that deigns to sit at his table. WOW! SHE HI! Ohwow! really busy. How're your class- es going? Me too. I got behind in psych but otherwise, I'm all set. I really can't wait for this semester to end. The reason I got behind in psych is because the depart- ment chairman gave me special permis- sion to take an individual studies reading course. I don't have time to do anything but read psych it seems. I read one of your articles in the Daily the other day. The girl down the hall showed it to me. I, uh, haven't had the chance to get a subscription. I . . . where do you get them anyways? Well, I .. . Ohwow! I don't know what to do. I got the chance to spend next semester in Germany, in Munich. I could stay with my uncle and go to school there. I think I'm going . ON RE-CREATIVITY The last She was enjoying life. It annoyed me. I almost felt a perverse wish to see her lost and unsure. I wanted to see her admit she had decided wrong when she left me. It wasn't a strong wish, just a little point of resentment tucked in the back of my mind. Have you seen any of the kids from home? Hamburg? Oh, he's in good shape. Did I tell you he pledged a fraternity? He really likes it there. Oh, he's a Chi Phi. Its a nice house. I went over to see him yesterday. Oh, I saw Lynn the other day. I see her a lot. That's about all though. How's Mike? Mike!? Joined a fraternity? I don't be- lieve it. I didn't think he was the frater- nity type. Which fraternity? By MICHAEL THORYN THE TIME HAS COME the walrus said. Or as one junior sagged at the end of a night of memorizing: "I'm 15 hours closer to getting out." The best thing most students can say now about classes is that after ten weeks of going, three weeks of skipping, and time out for va- cations and national days of strike, e i g h t o'clocks can wait until after the Bowl games. But finals must first be weathered. (Fresh- men note: exam time is not fun time.) It isn't 100 day the faculty's earnest correcting comes home to roost. Wise students who don't hand in post- cards with their Christmastime address may not find out their marks until mid-January. Of course, finding out your trimesters' grades too early may ruin most of the end of Decem- ber. But other things can ruin a vacation: Par- ents who are good for love and money, t, deadly quest for a summer job, the girl back home who already has a date for New Year's because you are a fitful writer. I I