SCARLET AND BLACK

Page Nins_

 

Friday, April l2, I‘ibBr

By BARRY ANCONA

l have noted that touring companies performances at Grin-
hell have always produced an inordinate amount of applause. 1
think I know why. The country kids are glad to have any expo«
sure to culture, and the City kids, socially starved out here, are
keen for any reminders of home.

This may seem a very Stucksup, better-than-thou attitude.
It is.

Wicked City is a touring company — a New York show on
the road. Maybe you got a glimpse oi it Visiting the big town, but
let me tell you: New York is a great place to live, but i wouldn’t
want [0 Visit.

To really appreciate the wicked city e any wicked city —
you have to live in it; feel it in you as you try to find whztt you're
about.

When you grow up in a small town, as you get older, you
get to know more and more people in the town. When you grow
up in a city, as you get older you get to know more and more
people, but you also meet thousands of people you don’t know.
This is the challenging thing about life in the city 7 the people
you meet every day that you don’t know, that you will never
see again.

It’s trighteiiing when you are knifed, a block from your home,
by someone you have never seen before. It’s a relief to know you
may never see him again. it’s exciting to meet some girl you’ve
never seen before. And depressing to think you may never see
her again.

But that's what Wicked City is all about. The high school
pals, and girls next door, and every smalHown way of life is
there, but it's threading the maze of indifference and coincidence,
the long subway ride home, that makes the city unique.

I'm going to talk about a certain subway line. i used it fre-
quently during my senior year in high school. Mostly between
midnight and 3 am.

it would be nice to think that l was travelling long distances
to sow my wild oats far from home, but it was just coincidence
that almost every girl i knew lived in the West Bronx, just off
the Jerome Avenue line (That meant a 45 minute subway ride
Ind a lo minute walk to get home),

Of course. these were Wicked City girls, They were my age
(15) or a bit younger. They did not go to my high school (it was
all boys). They were all bright. And pretty good-looking. And all
had some screwy hang-up. i mean screwy. Nothing ordinary in
hang-ups lar them.

One girl had a mother who was trying to act the age that the
girl was, and correspondingly tried to make the girl look and act
like a iive-yearcld. One girl had a Jewish father and a Catholic
mother who got divorced. The father then married a Protestant.
The girl also wanted to be a ballet dancer. But her build (about
five feet tall, and livmg proof that the cantilever principle works),
although quite appealing. was not cut out, so to speak, for ballet.
One girl had a great home life, and was happy in her work and
play, and could have passed tor Nancy Normal, if she hadn't been
a bit hungsup because she was raped when she was eleven.

My only hangsup was that I was hung on girls with hangrups.
A real social worker. With a few ulterior motives

But back to that subway. it would be possible, I imagine, to
have three such girls living on three blocks of Main Street, Grina
hell. But to come and go with each one without detection by the
others would require travelling through the sewer system and
popping out of secluded storm drains. That’s kind of what the
subway is.

The Jerome Avenue line is not a subway at all in the Bronx
— it is an elevated. The station plattorms Vibrate as trains pass.
You can look down between the ties to the street below, or, over
your shoulder, into Somebody’s apartment. Most of the plaliorm
is uncovered — you can wait twenty minutes in a blizzard for
a train.

When you ride a subway train at night, you ride in either the
first or the middle car. The motorman is in the first, and the
conductor in the middle. This was in the days beiore policemen
rode the trains. I was five [eat four inches in those days.

it's diiierent now. When i drive my car in the city, I feel I've
turned it. It's so safe and isolated in a car. But park the Car and
walk a block and the old feeling is back.

There is a challenge to walk a straight line, with unexpected
pleasure and pain lurking right and lett. And when you realize

that y’ou’must expect the unexpected, 'you have submitted to the ,

urst initiation rite oi the Wicked- City. Enjoyt

You M y Be Next

iii USTBlAL CIA STA S RADiCALS

By JEANNE VANDERVOORT
of the 5&E’s Chicago Bureau

The American Security Coun—
cil, not to he Conlused with the
National Security Council, has
its headquarters in an un-
marked gray building on North
Wacker Drive in Chicago.

There is no listing for the
first five floors on the elevator
directory; the sixth floor houses
the American Security Council
and the seventh ﬂoor, the l -
stitution lor the Study of Ameri-
can Strategy.

The Council was formed in
l955 as an organization through
which the private sector of the
society might help to meet the
Communist challenge in the
cold war. It is still Concerned
with meeting the Communist
challenge.

Explains John M. Fisher,
President of the ASC,:

“The A m e r i c a n Security
Council is a private organiza-
' n fact, now its a corpor-

Tlie organization in c l u d e 3
among its members companies,
foundations, universities and

college and private institutions
(working together to meet their
responsibilities in the interests
of national security, says some
of the literature of the organi.
Zatiun.)

Security checks, either on
employees or associates, are
run by the Council for its mem-
ber businesses.

“We‘re nonrp a r t l s a n, of
course," says Fisher. “We are
Interested only in a person’s
background; whether it. is [all
or right.”

Students who participate in
demonstrations or Sign petitions
or complicity statements get into
the organizations files.

According to Candace Mc-
Chesney, a Haines sophomore
who worked in the Council’s
otfices last year, several Grin.
uell students were on file.

Information and names are
obtained from magazine and
newspaper clippings.

These are stored in the re-
search center llbrary, a large
room with few windows.

An index of over Six milllun
cards and stacks which Con—
tain hundreds of publications

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Book Review

DADA, ART AND ANTI-ART

By ROBIN STANDISH
LIBERATION News Service

Dada, Art and Anti-Art.
Hans Richter. lvlccraw i-iili.
53.95 paperback.

Dada represents an unfin-
ished revolution in art, one
that our movement artists to-
day are continuing. Dada was
a great era when art was an
organic part or the artist‘s
life; artists were not afraid to
make a statement, they wanted
to communicate on Vital lev-
els, and art gave meaning to
their lives. Arr, llle. and rev-
olution were united. The publi-
cation ol l-lans Richter's mag-
niiicent book. Dada, Art and
Anti-Art is an important event,
for Dada raises some vital
questions not only about art,
but about life and revolution.

We who are Movement peo-
ple, following the lead of tho
anarchists and other decentra—
lists and libertarians, are be-
coming more and more coit-
cerned to live our revolution.
We are seeking to build a life
which is regenerative before
(or at least at the same time
as) i! is revolutionary, a life
which creates the new, in our
own lives, while it destroys
the decay in society (and in
our own lives). Can this be
done? Or is a whole, regen-
erative life antithetical to a
struggle for massive social
Change?

We all know what happened
in prerNazi Germany. The Da-
daists did not prevent Hitler,
and neither did deeply anti-
Nazi people who withdrew from
the struggle both psychically
and physically to live regen»
ei'ative lives in rural intentionv
al communities such as the
Bruderhot. Yet both groups af-
ter us some clues.

some people are seeking
rural communities which will

maintain Itmnz ties with tho ‘

city, with a lot or movement
back and forth, as people work
in free universities, guerilla
theater, etc, Some will manage
to make their peace With the
city, finding regenerative lives
with or without community. For
some people, art offers its
own answer, Yea—saying Dada
was concerned with the rebirth
of society. Art of this nature
is revolutionary; it gets in
people’s guts. Art as the com—
munlcation of life, art as an
extension of self to others,—
art from community in the
form or guerilla theater, music,
painting, whatever—such art of-
fers a synthesis of a regener-
ative lite and revolutionary so-
cial change. When this hap-
pens, we are picking up on the
unﬁnished revolution of Dada.

Dada, Art and Anti-Art is a
loving account by one of Dada's
creators, hence its vitality and
spirit. This is nu mere scholar-
ly history, though it possesses
that element too. The book is
filled with pictures, some in
color. There is a good selec-
tion of drawings and posters,
and even some poetry and short
plays. in addition there are
pictures of the artists, and it
is a great delight to find that
Hans Arp looks like his work.
The $3.95 paperback is a ver-
sion of a gorgeous s50 hardr
back, an awesiuspiring book
that good public libraries should
have.

Richter, with Hugo Ball,
Tzara, lluelsenbeck, Arp and
several Others originated Dada
in about 1916. Cnaracteristicale
ly, they disagreed actively about
the origin at the word “dada.”
Richter’s explanation, the love-
liest one, i think, is that it
stems from Tazara and Janco’s
Rumanlau ‘da-da,‘ an approv-
ing expression that accented

DADA— -
- (Continued'on Page 12)

occupies the floor space of the
library.

The publications, magazines,
newspapers and newsletters are
a pretty comprehensive sam-
pling of both rightist and leftist
materials printed in the U.S.
claims a spokesman.

Several student newspapers
were apparent in the ﬁles as
were an abundance of SDS,
Dubois, Young Socialist and
various civil rights newsletters.

Rightist publications are not
us evident.

Workers in the library under—
line names found in the pub.
iicatlons for future reference.
For example, the name Alan
Jones, author of an article in
the Political Science Quarterly
was underlined.

(The Federal Bureau of In.
vestigation and the Central In-
telligence Agency have used
the libraries facilities, says Carr
dace.)

A pamphlet entitled: “Just
What is the American Security
Council?” describes the organ-
ization:

“Key leaders of commerce
and industry recognized that pri-
vate businesses have an es
pecially urgent need to rise to
the challenge of Communism,
which is dedicated to the
DESTRUCTION oi the tree
enterprise system."

“Accordingly, the American
Security Council was organized
as a non-proﬁt business as-
sociation to increase awareness
ofthe long term Communist
objectives and to develop new
and original approaches in
countering Communism’s war
to conquer the world."

iiiillitiilliiiiiitiiilliiiillliiilliiiiilliiilllliililiiiillililliiiilllliilliiiililn

FEDERAL AID
T0 PEACENIKS

IOWA CITY, lowa (LNS) —
Several groups of University of
loiva students are donating
part of their federally financed
scholarships to antiwar groups.

Twentyrsix graduate students
with teiiowships trim the Na-
tional Defense Education Act,
the National institute of Child
Health and Development, and
the National Science Founda-
tion have pledged up to halt of

'their monthly checks to “hu-

manitarian relief work in Viet-
nain" and “legitimate political
dissent in the United States.
They say they have collected
more than $500 and that an-
other $1,000 has been pledged.
Three graduate students attend-

‘ lng school on the 6! bill said

they would give at least one-
tenth of their monthly checks
and possibly more.

“The same government which
is paying for our education is
also financing the destructive
war in Vietnam,” the group of
graduate fellows said in a state.
ment, “and for us to remain
silent is implicitly to approve
this policy. in view of the re
sponsibility to the United States
to which we are all committed
as’ recipients of government
grants, we have decided that
the most meaningful action we
can take is to donate a portion

 

