94~r LrignDa Seventy-eight years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students of the University of Michigan booksbooksbooksbook, Kawaba ta:Mysterious am( 420'Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. News Phone: 764-0552, Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in oI reprints. SATURDAY, JULY 12, 1969I NIGHT EDITOR: MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN i . r.. .n.r. Harvey and the city government THE SMOLDERING dispute between Sheriff Douglas Harvey and the new city administration proves that "law and, order" may well have its way - and no* amount of Democratic liberalism will stop it., For as Harvey denounces the Mayor, threatens to move into city parks a n d provokes confrontations on city streets, Ann Arbor officials privately shake their heads in dismay. But they refuse to do anything to stop it. No amount of public rhetoric praising new "cooperation" between Harvey and' Harris will m a k e the inevtable show-+ down fade away. Because the mayor and the sheriff profess politics which are an- tithetical. Both have overlapping juris- dictions. -Both w a n t their policies to stick. And the, stakes in the struggle are nothing less than the future of govern-' ment and law enforcement in Washte- naw County and the city, Sometime, somewhere, the sheriff and mayor must decide once and for all who really runs Ann Arbor: Harris and the council, or Doug Harvey. So far, it looks like Harvey takes the credit. Look at the record. Sheriff Harvey call- ed the shots on South University, ignor- ing city pleas to restrain his' deputies. Harvey denounced the mayor for pre- venting proper law enforcement at West Park, and Harris' own police backed the sheriff all the way. When Harvey threatened to move into last Sunday's Gallup Park concert, the city called it off-claiming a threatened influx of motorcycle hoards endangered public safety./And now the city has .ob- liged the Sheriff by virtually prohibiting any rock concerts in any park--except in Gallup Park or the Fuller Flatlands along the Huron River. The city, of course, has pegged its con- cessions on technical issues to save face- police reports, for example, really did show rmotorcycle gangs would flood the city (40 cycles finally showed up). But In the background, like a spectral club, stands Harvey and his admiring public. Legally, the city points out, Harvey re- tains jurisdiction to move anywhere in Washtenaw County - that means city streets, and University land and build- ings, which are all public property. But Harvey's legal jurisdiction would mean nothing if it did not rest on enor-, mous political strength. County Sheriffs do not bust heads, threaten to break up public concerts, denounce mayors and curse university presidents simply be- cause the law gives them its blessings. ' THEIR SANCTION comes from the public, which acclaims them or dumps them as it pleases. And in Washtenaw County, the public has put its sheriff on a pedestal. ' Not everybody, however, loves Doug Harvey and his troopers. Backroom whis- pers in City Hall and the University will tell you that some very influential people in this city hate him and say Harvey has got to go. Why, then are they silent? The city helplessly isists it can neither muster a case for Harvey's removal by the governor, or an investigation of his conduct. Perhaps the city has neglected its homework: Harvey maintained a barbaric "incor- rigible cell" without lighting, furniture or toilet facilities until March, 1968 when the Department of Corrections finally responded to public outcries and ordered him to close it. Attorney General Frank Kelley asked the Washtenaw County Board of Super- visors last August to investigate charges Harvey was profiting from county funds. Harvey, for example, ran up large bills for alleged "extradition" trips to Cali- fornia (although his trips did not coin- cide with the extradition dates planned by California law officials but with the Rose Bowl). He took $500 for a convention trip to Las Vegas, allegedly to help pay for his wife's expenses (although records show she was in Ann Arbor during the jauht). THAT HAS become of the investiga- tion? Nothing. Even though a mem- ber of the supervisory board called Harvey's responses "totally evasive and absurd," the board dropped the investi- gation and a circuit court refused to order a grand jury to pick it up. But the list of Harvey's misconduct is not complete: Harvey was censured by the State La- bor Mediation Board when he fired several deputies for joining a union; Harvey eagerly hired several policemen after their own police ,forces fired them for misconduct; Harvey has been repeatedly charged with brutal treatment of prisoners and brutality in the streets; and Under saner circumstances, any one of these charges alone would justify-would require - a major investigation of the sheriff. The city has the power to request one, but refuses. Finally, the city refuses even to take a public stand against Harvey-because po- litical pundits say such a move would only hurt Harris instead of help him. But these are political gymnastics-both the mayor and, the sherrif are irrevocably past the game of political niceties and saving face. The battle lines are drawn: either Harvey controls law enforcement in this city, or the Harris administration does.', NO, WE DID not elect the new adminis- tration to compromise its promises of humanitarian government with billy club repression. The city has ,a moral and po- litical obligation to do everything in its power to oust Harvey. Nothing less will do. Because when lives and liberty are at stake, silence condones the crime. -DANIEL ZWERDLING Adding a By R. A. PERRY Contributing Editor House of Sleeping Beauties, by Yasunari Kawabata. Kodansha International Ltd., $4.50. Translated by Prof. Edward Sciden- sticker. Yasunari Kawabata, born in Osaka in 1899, won the 1968 Nobel Prize in liter- ature "for his narrative mastership, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind." W h a t, judging from Kawabata's new book of short stories, House of Sleeping Beauties, are the qual- ities of the Japanese sensibility that Kaw- abata portrays? Certainly there is the sense of the ma- cabre that stretches from the Kamakura tgeli scrolls to the Poe-emulating stories of kutagawa. Kawabata's story called, "One Arm," included in this present collection, begins with the lines: "I can let you have one of my arms for the night," said the girl. She took off her right arm at the shoulder and, with 'her left hand, laid it on my knee." In the eroticism which is bas- ic to Kawabata's fiction there is also an undeniable androgynous turn. The haunted hero of "One Arm" exchanges the loaned arm of the girl - "plump and round" - for his own, and as he carresses his new appendage, he imagines the nubile breasts of the girl. This slightly hermaphroditic neurasthenia stretches from Genji to Mis- hima. Kawabata's penchant for detail is not in itself exclusively Japanese;tthe demands that detail makes upon the reader, how- ever, is perhaps a Japanese trait. One can too easily consider, as in painting, details as decorative, as filling up the page or can- vas, but detail in Japanese art at its best - as in Kawabata - should resonate to the core of the artist's subject and the au- dience's sympathy. When we read in Kaw- abata "I rested her little finger on the in- dex finger of my free hand, gazing at the long, narrow nail as I rubbed it with my thumb" we must recall that in Japanese old men, only old men, can lie with them for a night of anguished bliss. The "rules of the house" are special, and are pro- claimed in what must be one of the most erotic opening lines in all literature: He was not to do anything in bad taste, the woman of the inn warned old Eguchi. He was not to put his finger into the mouth of the sleeping girl, or try anything else of that sort. Each time Eguchi comes to the inn, a different girl awaits him, silently and pas- sively. Each time, Eguchi f i n d s himself forced, by the touch of a nipple or the scent ofmoist breath or the color of lips, to recall previous affairs of his youth, to recall not only his lost potency but also his forgotten failures. Each time, Eguchi feels the ambivalence of passion and of distaste, the desire either to mount or to murder his sleeping partner. The nue women indeed serve m a n y purposes. On one hand they bring a sense of rejuvenation. "There could be for an old man worn to the point of death no time of greater oblivion than when he lay enveloped in the skin of, a young girl." On the other hand, the futility is overwhelm- ing and painful: "And around the old men, new flesh, young flesh, beautiful flesh was forever being born.' To #accentuate that futility, it is tantamount to Eguchi, and to Kawabata, that the females be virgins. The strongest flashback that comes to the old man is that of his first love: "The clean- ness of the girl's secret parts came before him and would not leave." Filled with such sensual dreams a n d strange present realities, Eguchi suddenly faces the spaces in Time; a reminiscence "comes through the opening left by a sud- den emptiness in his heart." In the juxta- positions between himself and the sleeping virgins and between his present and his past, Eguchi wavers between rage and res- ignation, and Kawabata expands 'the mir- ror images of death and eroticism far be- yond the Elizabethan conceit. I think Yeats provides the perfect em- Ipote blem for this story. Yeats wrote: "Desire dies because every, touch consumes the myth and yet, a myth that cannot be con- sumed becomes a spectre." As intimated, the story "One Arm" is a surrealistic fantasy with descriptive prose as powerful, as Magritte's paintings. Many of the themnes which concern Kawabata in House of the Sleeping Beauties form the obsession in "One Arm." To be young is to be clean, to never have been touched by a man. When the "hero" dons the girl's arm. his "dirty male blood" flows through it and kills it. "Her own cleanness would leave be- hind a drop of tragic dew, there under the long shadow of the nail." Again, virginity versus death, passion versus futility are the themes in a story of mysterous ambig- uity and symbolism t h a t only becomes more potent and strange for the precise details employed. S o m e of Kawabata's writing is most beautiful,'for example: , She would carry her legs lightly, like a small bird, or a butterfly moving from flower to flower. There would be the same subtle melody in the tip of her tongue when she' kissed. Like an early Resnais film, meaning changes with each viewing. The third story in the collection. Of Birds and Beasts, was written in the thir- ties. It concerns a lonely man who fills his time with the raising, breeding, and dis- posal of birds and dogs. Here Kawabata's described neuroses seem more stylish than symbolic of mythical import, and his writ- ing more discursive and repetitive. As in the c a s e of Kawabata's novels Snow Country and Thousand Cranes, Ed- ward Seidensticker, Professor of Japanese Literature here at the University, is the sensitive translator. That Kawabata won a Nobel Prize certainly casts honor on Seid- ensticker, since most foreign translations are made from his English version. Kodan- sha, the publisher of some of the most beautiful books on Japanese art, has pro- vided an exemplary format. 4 prints, the exposure of a flexed toe can represent sexual excitement. Another characteristic of Kawabata's stories that expresses a typically Japanese artistic prerogative is the dependence upon nature for images and metaphors which expand and enrich meaning. The breaking off of magnolia stamens mirrors the sex- ual synecdoche of the woman's limb In "One Arm." In a wonderful passage on a fog which sealed windows "like a toad's belly," Kawabata writes. "T h e pressing dampness invaded my ears, to give a wet sound like the wriggling of myriads of dis- tant earthworms." "One Arm" is a mo- mento mori of the m o s t claustrophobic sort. The title story in this colleption. "HOuse of the Sleeping Beauties," is a masterfully controlled narrative that wastes not one word. It concerns old Eguchi, who comes to a very special brothel. At this place young girls lie in' a drugged deep sleep so that Stanley Sweetheart, normal young pervert By KEITH R. WOOD The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart, by Robert Westbrook. Crown Publishers, $5.95. In his first novel, Robert West- brook treats an o I d theme in a contemporary manner. Westbrook attempts to answer the question, "What is the price of freedom?" by portraying his hero, Stanley Sweetheart, as a young student caught up in the problems a n d confusion that are a normal con- sequence of university life. Stanley Sweetheart is, -more or less, a modern Man from Under- ground. He is basically very inse- cure, and his. search for security leads him only further into his own personal shell, toward inevi- table self-destruction. Stanley is a student at Colum- bia University. He is, intelligent, but undisciplined. His main prob- lem is simply that he just doesn't know what to do with himself. He is bored w it h school, disgusted with the American political sys- tem, oppressed by the ugliness of New York. In this sense, he is per- fectly normal. Stanley wants to break a w a y from the confinements of con- temporary society. He likes to write, and he enjoys making un- derground films, but just isn't sta- ble enough to be successful. There is one thing that points in Stanley's favor, his ability to charm members of the opposite sex. But it isn't really c h a r m, more it is a matter of luck. He has a friend named Shayne who went astray many years before. N o w she, is inescapably trapped in-her own mystical world of sex a n d drugs. Stanley steps briefly i n t o Shayne's world but finds it utter- ly repulsive because he realizes he isn't needed to satisfy the orgias- tic drives of Shayne. Shayne would just as soon play with her roommate Andrea, and when she's high she doesn't need anybody. Cathy Wellington is a very dif- ferent sort of girl. She is a fresh- man from Grosse Pointe; v e r y' rich, very studious, very mannerly, very good-looking, and very vir- gin. She is, of course, very im- pressed by Stanley's q u e s t for freedom. Being tediously nurtured by her parents, she is anxious to join Stanley's mythical world of excitement. Stanley has complete- ly snowed the innocent freshman into believing everything he says is right. Love, however, is a different matter. Stanley does not love Cathy, he is not Capable of love; and Cathy has never experienced anyone other than Stanley so her infatuation is not real. Cathy has visions of Stanley being very suc- cessful and hence, a life of mat- rimonial comfort. But Stanley is' undisciplined and lazy. He with- draws from university life, pre- ferring to stay in the confines of his small apartment living on the nightly love supplied by Cathy. Sex has become an integral part of Stanley's life. Stanley'sattempts at construc- tive work a r e dissatisfying. He tries to make an underground film called Masturbation s t a r r i n g Cathy's roommate, Fran. Fran is somewhat less than attractive, be- ing overweight and not the least bit pretty. But by this time Stan- ley has almost totally withdrawn and easily succumbs to any desire, he might have. Being only a freshman, Cathy has hours, so Stanley must find something to do after midnight. Although continuous affairs with two women may be tiring, they are not exhausting for a man who does nothing else, so Stanley be- gins to haunt the local bar where Shayne and her friends hang out. One of her friends is Danny, a musician who has his own pys- chedelic pad set up in the up- stairs of an old theatre. Danny is extremely intelligent, being born with a remarkable gift of aesthe- tics. He is an, artist in the truest sense. But he is also hung up. His parents had forced him to play piano since early age so that by the time he left home he was quite fed up with it. So he took up hard rock, acid music, and straight acid. Quite E;>y chance, Cathy meets Danny and she realizes in Danny a sense of constructiveness that is not present in Stanley. She be- gins to see more and more of Dan- ny until one day she learns of Stanley's affair with Fran. Then it's good-bye Stanley and resi- dence with Danny. Stanley is unable to cope with this. He has lost his only bit of security, the assuredness of having sex with regularity. Fran has also abandoned him because she can- not put up with Stanley's unpre- dictable behavior. All Stanley has left is himself, along with his lust for carnal sat- isfaction. He returns to Shayne and enters his magic garden of exotic drugs and erotic sex. Along with Andrea, Shayne's roommate, he and Shayne begin a life of con- tinual flight coupled with almost unbelievable perversion. Although h i s whole existence has become a shambles, the crushing blow comes w h e n he. learnsthat Danny has committed suicide. Danny has paid the full price for freedom. Only now does Stanley realize he is well on his way to his own self-destruction. In his effort to become free, to escape everything that he cannot understand, Stanley h a s totally distorted reality. He has learned Today's riters . . KEITH WOOD is 'the Daily's newlywed proletarian. T h e sometime janitor is also a graduate in philosophy. R. A. PERRY, Daily contribut- ing editor and chief music critic, would rather have gone to sleep than write this book review.'' what life is and the price of being free. Although Westbrook's novel is a timely one it is slightly over- done. One has a difficult time be- lieving all that is 'happening to Stanley or understanding why. The loose ends are not tied to- gether and he does not delve deep- ly enough into Stanley's con- sciousness to give a reasonable ex- planation of Stanley's behavior. Mr. Westbrook also fails to give the reader the full descriptions that he might desire. One c a n never form a good mental picture of what is taking place or what the isurroundings are. His descrip- tions are nebulous, lacking in the detail that is needed to make the effect of the circumstances come across. Heis particularly guilty of this with personal descriptions. His accounts of Stanley's sexual exploits become almost boring. Although he endeavors to explain what is going on, he becomes rep- etitious. It is true that Stanley's erotic adventures are not supposed to be aesthetically pleasing, but Westbrook's repetition fails to bring across the true orgiastic pic- ture I think he wanted to portray. Undoubtedly this book is des- tined to be a best-seller because of its sexual abundance, b u t as good literature I think it leaves quite a bit to be .desired. I must admit that it isn't all that bad, especially for a first attempt. More than likely The Magic Gar- den Of Stanley Sweetheart will be a better movie than it is a novel. 1%. wV Letter (Editor's Note: The following letter is a copy of the statement Councilman Robert Faber (D-second Ward) made to council during its special session Thursday on con- certs in the parks.) To the Editor: MOST OF THE middle age-plus citi- zens of Ann Arbor have by now roughly determined{ who they are and where they are going. They may or, may not be satisfied with their eco- nomic or social condition, but they are at least familiar with their routine and comfortable in its repitition. Even if the house or the -income is inade- quate or the job not very satisfying. the familiarity of the situation is somehow comforting. With all the un- happy uncertainities of- life - illness,. accident, war, job insecurity - a very large premium is placed on the status quo almost regardless of the quality of the status. For a variety of reasons - ascribed new dimension, to our community' because of a common, fear of change and because the apostles of change so frequently assume a similarity of ap- pearance and performance that is un-. appealing an antagonism has built up within the community that beclouds truth and befuddles reason. We react emotionally and irrationally when we confront long hair, bare feet and pos- tures of aggressive disdain. When we behold large accumulations of this new breed we panic. And we have had large accumulations of these people in the parks since the ban on electronic mu- sic was lifted. And we have panicked. The time is hard upon, us for a more thoughtful and studied reevaluation of just what we have unleashed and just what has transpired since hard-rock has come to the park. The concerts have turned out be- tween 1000-2000 fans e a c h Sunday since they have begun. They have been extremely well and happily received by the fans indicating at least a satis- faction with the quality. The noise lev- quiet appreciation of the whole scene. If the gross and objectionable prob- lems of the microphone abuse can be controlled, if instead the microphone can occasionally be used to advise the crowd to a reasonable and legal be- havior, the concerts can be a v e r y meaningful event fulfilling a real and evident need for a sizable portion of a new generation and adding an excit- ing new dimension to our community. IN ANY DISCUSSION, however, on the advisability of allowing continua- tion of the rock concerts one'must re- flect on the alternative considerations. There is very little question about the demand for the concerts and as long as that demand exists it is virtually certain an effort will be made to sat- isfy it. The evidence of so many other university communities should indicate that the efforts, when made and abort- ed, will lead to a violent and bloody confrontation that will not quickly be resolved. The law will be upheld, but REAL AND OVERBLOWN stories of obscene and lawless behavior hasi deeply disturbed and frightened ai large part of the community. Unfor-t tunately and inevitably this has deep- ened the split and heightened the ten- sions between two, already widely di-i vergent sectors. The problem, however,t now that we have arrived at this point,z is the resolution in,-terms of justice andz tranquility. The memory and examples1 of other university communities is too< distressing to rely solely and casually1 on repressive force. Minority justiceI and majority consideration are deli-t cate forces to keep in balance in the framework of an orderly society, but we must recognize the task and try tot approach it wisely. Yielding to right-t eous indignation and repression risks1 destroying t h e thin gauze of sanity1 that separates us from the jungle. -Robert G. Fabert Councilman, 2nd Wardi July 10t Unfortunately the article, as it ap- peared, was more in the nature of an interview with me than a synopsis of the report. Also, oversimplification and sensationalism in the reporting some- what distorted the collective v i e w- point which we hoped to express and the tenor of the report as well. Argu- ments concerning the ABM system are rather tricky and if oversimplified can be easily rebutted. In the hope of shed- ding more light on the subject I would like to insert some sections of our re- port relevant to certain points con- tained in the July 9 article. Concerning the offensive nature of Safeguard:". . It may be claimed that although the Safeguard area de- fense is neither technically nor theo- retically sound, we have nothing to lose by developing the system as a full-scale experiment. The danger in this delusion is that if the Soviet Un- ion believes, or if certain elements in the Soviet Union could effectively ar- gue, that this useless system might defense is both ineffective and at the same time stimulates the arms race." HERE AREA DEFENSE refers to the ability of Safeguard to detect and de- stroy missiles at distances of up to several hundred miles. It therefore protects large areas and as proposed would in fact provide a light defense for 97% of the continental U.S. In contrast, pointdefense works at dis- tances'of up to 25 miles and therefore cannot effectively protect cities. Point defense would not escalate the arms rade to the same degree as area de- fense since our cities would still be vulnerable to a Soviet second strike. In our cost analysis we drop all costs associated with area defense both. be- cause it is unworkable against a first s t r i k e and because of its offensive] characteristics. We assume that it will eventually be dropped from the Safe- guard program pending further re- search. expansion of Safeguard into a Revised ABM with some credibility, is $40 bil- lion compared to some $5 billion for superhardening." Finally on superhardening: "If we assume that all Russian missiles will'. carry a 25 megaton .warhead and will have a Circular Error of Probability (CEP) of 2,000.feet, then four missiles would have to be detonated per Min- uteman. In order to destroy 95% of our 1,000 Minutemen they would have to launch about 6,000 missiles (as- . suming 67% probability of successful launch and detonation). This is to be compared with Secretary Laird's estimate that the Soviets would have about 500 such missiles in the mid- 'seventies." TiE CEP is the radius of an ima- ginary circle drawn around the target in which 50% of t;e delivered war- heads will fall. Let me close by quoting the lead paragraph of our conclusions: "Pro-