Wednesday, April 7, 1971
r17e
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Five
Movement: A
THE MOVEMENT TOWARD
A NEW AMERICA, Assembled
by Mitchell Goodman, Knopf,
$5.95.
By DANIEL ZWERDLING
"This is not a book at all,"
Mitchell Goodman writes. "It is
people making their own history
-not letting it just happen to
them. It is not 'explanation' or
description. It is making-an ac-
tion. It is representation. A 1 e-
representation. An acting . out.
The energy of this book comes
straight from the kinetic of the
Movement: . . . an intersection
of scenes, voices, statements,
stories, faces, meetings, demon-
strations, reflections, v i s i o n s,
comprehensions, confrontations."
It's an extraordinary source of
energy, this book, a monumental
effort by Mitchell Goodman,
member of the Spoek draft con-
spiracy, to snip, assemble, and
paste every conceivable article
from every conceivable under-
ground newspaper and movement
publication revealing in aiy
depth the progress, dynamics,
and meanings of the revolution
simmering in American society
since the freedom rides of 1961.
People with a detached interest
in history will find Mitchell's
compendium a stupendous l:alei-
doscope, a scrapbook of the civil
rights movement, the 1965 teach-
ins on the war, the Resistance
and draft card sit-ins, the demon-
strations, the riots, the San Fran-
cisco and Columb'a strike:, the
battle of People's Park; Huey
Newton arrested and convicted,
the spectacular growth of the
Panthers from Oakland to Al-
giers, the Chicano's struggle, and
the Indians ba-utle to regain their
plundered dignity; radical sim-
merings, then ecplosicns, in tine
high schools, the emergence of
woman's liberation and gay
power, ferment in the inilita'y,
and Kent State. From the society
pages of the New York Times,
we even remember how a Bar-
nard woman expelled for l
with her boy friend shocked
country when she said that
three or four but many wom
college lived with men: or
Abbie Hoffman let loose a
painted with "hippie'' on
David Susskind show.
People woho lived parts of G
man's movement, who will
themselves in the photos of r
sive demonstrations-if no
the barricades then just a f
tion of their faces--will sense
the book represents, or "re
resents," as Goodman says,
own life histories. It vill t
them deeper. It's fofr thepm
Goodman started on this Fffo
late 1968, struggled with a
profit printing company and
was forced to publish the
through Knopf-selling ou t
corporation his efforts ai
dismantle, but a necessary
porary sell-out to assure
book will reach th- right
ence. Goodman intends the
as a tool to serve the Move
matter o
iving not as a chionicle. Some may
I the read the "comprehensions" first,
not to gain a sense of perspective and
en in analysis, some sense of what has
hew happened to each of us since 1961
duck as we have passed through per-
' the sonal and collective crises, others
may start where they are now-
ood- "with that material (models, al-
see ternatives) that will reinforce
mas- them in their Movement work, or
t on suggest what they might be do-
frac- ing in the Movement. If you
how Want to begin with a specific
-rep- model of what to do and how o
their do it, it's there," writes Good-
touch man: strategy on rent strikes
that, (Ann Arbor's!), living off the
rt in land, or fighting an urban guer-
non- rilla war.
later Too much has happened in the
book past 10 years too soon for any-
o the body to really absorb and codify
m to it in some neat analytic scheme.
tem - I get the same nind-boggling
this feeling pouring througn 752 pages
audi- of clippings as I get looking at
book our history. Maybe the most im-
ment portant message of, t.e brok
f
books books books books
conscience
comes from its most conspicuous
omission, the goal of the move-
ment and the book itself--The
Revolution. It hasn't happened,
and isn't going to for years, may-
be never. "If you are trying to
tell me you know already what
The Revolution Itself will look
like, you are either a charlatan
or a fool," Oglesby writes. "We
have no scenario." That is in
1969, but it holds just as true for
1971. Instead of growing and de-
veloping in a neat linear model
toward some defineabie and
recognizable cataclysm or social
achievement, the events and
mind changes and processes in
The Movement take strange
turns. Some fizzle and fade, then
reappear in slightly altered form,
or some die.
The freedom rides became
acts of civil disobedience, then
riots which left great northern
cities charred like bombed-out
carcasses after World War II; the
Panthers developed the first
significant grassroots black pow-
er movement, won the ioyalties
or sympathies of a majority of
the ghetto population, t h e n
cracked, gasped, and now may
die. Vietnam sparked teach-ins
on the campuses, then draft card
burnings, the Resistance-
bred thousands of young legal
traitors and criminals-grew to
massive demonstrations a n d
bloody riots. Anti-war radicals
changed the attitudes of the en-
tire nation, but the war is wider
and kills more people than ever.
Middle class radicals joined
SNCC, then SDS, finally meta-
morphised i n t o Weatherman,
stopped roving the country in
peacevans and teaching tha self
defense fetal position, went un-
derground and started exploding
ROTC buildings, burning banks
and sabotaging power stations.
Then three of its own blew them-
selves to bits with their bombs,
and their movement retreated.
The movements leads, like the
pages of Goodman's book imply.
to a new strategy : the jab of
revolution is a much bigger task
than most people thought. Build-
ing the movement means mak-
ing friends, making contacts,
sharing ideas and lifestyles-re-
treating from aggressive tactics
against a monster we can't yet
fight and instead turning back
to the local level the grass roots,
to quiet talking and organizing
mass movements in small towns
and city neighborhoods. Bob Dy-
lan, our greatest musical pro-
phet has lived out the whole cul-
ture: he started in the early 60's
in folk, became more bitter and
aggressive, finally turned to rock
with electric guitars and now,
after the acid rock apocalypse,
he's back singing about the grass
roots, mellower and closer to
singing about people and living
than ever before.
Goodman's book is a process
-"only because it's a book does
it have to stop and be fixed in
black ink and set between cov-
ers"-and tells us that we must
understand ourselves and the
Movement as a process of living
and changing. Our politics, mean-
ing the Movement, are synony-
mous with our living, meaning
our lives. The more we commit
ourselves to a political fight. the
more politics becomes, inter-
twined with everyday living; the
more we throw ourselves into
living, the more we realize it is
politics. The movement now is
about reconciling theoretical and
rhetorical politics-what we say
we are-with lifestyles-what we
are. Communes, collectives,
coops, organic diets, all search
for a way, of living out of the
Movement. Daily acts, no mat-
ter how small, become political
issues and matters of conscience:
how can we walk into an A&P
when we understand how it op-
presses and exploits workers,
how it thrives off stolen resources
of other countries: how is serves
as a vehicle of the monopolistic,
giant food corporations? These
questions are easy to confront
when a recruiter comes to cam-
pus, because most of us don't
want to work for Aero-Jet Geni-
eral in the first place. When the
issue comes into our own lives,
we tend to overlook it.
Goodman's book :ives a mar-
velous sense of the history we've
made together. I'm used to un-
derstanding history as an ab-
stract social process defined by
wars institutions and epochs.
I've only felt a part of it when I
realize that my friends and I are
living out our own histories which
make a part of the whole.
If Goodman's book leaves you
with a static view of a decade,
you missed its message. The
Movement is a constant meta-
morphosis w h o s e ambiguity
would only be solved by its com-
ing to a halt-just as our own
lives and relationships will be
defined, free from contra dictions
and ambiguities, only when we've
died.
Anon
'71:
Universal
ANON1 1971, edited by Stephen
Bluestone, Ken Fifer, Warren
Jay Hecht, and Steve Schwartz,
Litho Crafters, $1.00
By STEVEN J. LAUTERMILCH
One year
I would have sworn
I wasn't getting anywhere
In college
I picked
Your story up
And vowed I would light out
soon
For a cell.
Like this poem "For Thomas
Merton,'; by Walter Clark, much
of this, year's issue , of Anon is
writing with a kind of cleanness,
with the sort of open and ines-
capable strength and force, that
Faulkner must have been mean-
ing when he spoke at Stockholm,
when he took the Nobel Prize.
... the young man or woman
writing today has forgotten the
problems of the human heart
in conflict with itself which
alone can make good writing
because only that is worth
writing about, worth the agony
and the sweat.
He must learn them again.
He must teach himself that the
basest of all things is to b:"
afraid; and, teaching himself
that, forget it forever, leaving
no room in his workshop, for
anything but the' old verities
and truths of the heart, the old
universal truths lacking which
any story is ephemeral and
doomed - love and honor and
pity and pride and compassion
and sacrifice. Until he does so
he labors under a curse. He
writes not of love but of'lust, of
defeats in which nobody loses
anything of value, of victories
without hope and worst of all
without pity or compassion. His
griefs grieve on no universal
bones, leaving no scars. He
writes not of the heart but of
the glands.
Like Clla r k 's poem "For
Thomas Merton," much of Anon
1971 seems to have learned "the
old universal truths lacking
which any story is ephemeral
and doomed . . ." I think Faulk-
ner would approve of work like
this.
I liked
The way you worked the soul
out
In fresh air.
It seemed
A whole lot clearer
Than our slog.
Of course I went
Another way.
The poetry of statement is, be
cause of its openness, its strong
cleanness, hard to write. Prob-
ably none of Anon 1971 gets as
close to it as Clark's poem does.
But what many of these poems
and one of these stories do at-
tain is the effect Faulkner is set
upon stressing.
I believe that man will not
merely endure; he will prevail.
He is immortal, not because
he alone among creatures has
About desire
Doubling on its track;
And of your brief
Astonishment,
Far out
And sudden
In that foreign place.
Not farther
From Gethsemane
Than I am now.
Peace, Louis
And all your will be harmony.
When Thomas Merton left the
world of Columbia, The New
Yorker, and World War II, and
joined the Trappist Monastery at
Gethsemane, Kentucky, he took
Brother, Reported Missing in Ac-
tion, 1943." Its ending:
For in the wreckage of your
April Christ lies slain,
And Christ weeps in the ruins
of my spring:
The money of Whose tears shall
fall
Into your weak and friendless
hand
And buy you back to your own
land:
The silence of Whose tears
shall fall
Like bells upon your alien
tomb.r
Hear them and come: they call
you home.
Fruths'
numbered Zen sayings: the point
of the review, I recall, was made
very precisely. 1. It. 2. Does take
not. 3. Non. 4. Weird sense up
mixed. 5. To a reader tell. 6.
Naught. 7. T say you have. "A
Method Not Unlike Leonardo's
and Other Sketches"? Perhaps.
At any rate, I must repeat the
ending lines of the seventh of
these seven sketches.
it struck me that it did not
particularly matter if the dowel
was turned clockwise or coun-
ter-clockwise. Since that time
I sign in reverse even the let-
ters are reversed-so in order
to see whom it is who has writ-
ten, one must hold . . . no,
John must hold the page up to
a mirror.
I keep wondering whether that
applies to typewriters.
There is another story in Anon
1971, one that may be the most
accomplished work in the issue.
Max Apple titles it "A Literary
Experience," then subtitles that
"A Short Story." The work illus-
trates, I think, the point that
Faulkner was trying to make
about the difference between
merely speaking and speaking for
a point, for something to say: in.
Faulkner's words, between "an
inexhaustible voice," and "a
spirit capable of compassion and
sacrifice and endurance." Like
the poem "For Thomas Merton,"
the ten pages titled "A Literary
Experience" demonstrate the
control and responsibility of a
man who has a point, and wants
it understood. For example:
"When my grandfather returned
from Detroit," writes the I of this
self - conscious narrative, "he
claimed there was a restroom
on his bus!"
"Buses ain't got no toilets,"
The Chief replied.
"You're telling me, when I
just rode on one, what they've
got?"
"Nowhere in the world i
there a bus with a toilet," The
Chief repeated. "I rode on
buses before you knew what
they were. Remember that,
'pastooch."' The Chief re-
minded whenever he could that
he had arrived in America five
years earlier than his friend.
"I'm telling you, last Tues-
day I went to the toilet on the
bus."
"That," said The Chief, "I
believe. But buses ain't got
toilets."
The humor is real. Faulkner
would no doubt acclaim it as
"universal," and go on to "veri-
ties." Both he and Apple-and
maybe Bluestone, Fifer, Hecht,
and Schwartz-would know why.
"The Chief died last night.
He had a heart attack at the
wedding." It came out as a
whisper, though I expended all
my strength. I could not even
think of Raskolnikov's confes-
sion, only of my grandfather's
surprisingly bright eyes looking
up from the ancient book.
If you're a reader of Dostoev-
sky, Flaubert, and reasonably
Jewish, you'll probably find "A
Literary Experience" simply
magnificent. If you're not, you
may find you are.
Passover Is Almost Here!t
The First Seder-This Friday night, April 9
Reservations for seders, luncheon and dinner
meals MAY STILL BE MADE at the Hillel
Foundation, 1429 Hill St. thru this Wednes-
day afternoon, April 7. No reservations
thereafter.
HAPPY PASSOVER!
'U
'
Ir
Miss sJ's black satin short-cut
to big evenings is the briefest
pant of all in the slinkiest
coverall around. With an
eggshell satin shirt, its the
short, shimmery way to outshine
everyone. Sizes 5 to 13.
Short-cut acetate coverall, $12.
Long-cuff acetate shirt, $12.
_,#:
">
?:.
O <?:
:: .
:
3 li
' ::< .
..:;..
f: st.
~ti
A
'1
l
/
the name "Father Louis" upon
his ordination to the priesthood.
Before he died, he had gone to
India to study Eastern religious;
there, in India, he died, electro-
cuted, alone, in a house. What
Clark is saying-
Peace, Louis
And all your will be harmony
-he is saying quite openly,
simply, strongly, clearly. Merton
may have died no farther from
Gethsemane, a Monastery and a
Garden than his still living coun-
terpart.
Not farther
From Gethsemane
Than I am now.
-Anon photographs by vernon Shibla
Faulkner, I think, once mere
would have found the parallel
strong, and appropriate.
The poet's, the writer's duty
is to write about these things.,
It is his privilege to help man
endure by lifting his heart,
by reminding him of the cour-
age and honor and hope and
pride and compassion and pity
and sacrifice which have been
the glory of his past. The poet's
voice need not merely be the
record of man, it can be one
of the props, the pillars to help
him endure and prevail.
Much of Anon 1971 does, as a
publication of its character may,
"write about these things" that
M4twSJ4
Vi