| Summary: | October 3, 1969 THE CONCORDIAN Page 3 JUST RARRING Mark Bratlie My God, they kept reading names all night. I glanced over from the pic-ket line and saw that they had started. The band must have thought it was a circus, or a football game, or something. But they didn't know. They don't realize. But we knew. We knew why we were there. "Got of of Vietnam—NOW!" That one chant iold the theme of the story. Our message, I think, was clear. This country's screwed up, man, almost from top to bottom. We've forgotten the value of human life. We've forgotten what it is that really matters. You've heard it all before, but few seem to listen. The names kept coming. "Hell no, w e won't go . . . Hell no, we won't go . . . Hell no . . . " Yeh—and we meant it. I doubt that anyone there would have. Once in awhile I would stop along the fence and look at the fat cats strolling in to the $25- a-plate banquet. The men had on suits and ties; many of the women wore formals. They were on the other side of the fence. I rejoined the beautiful peo-ple in the picket line, and made a few more rounds. "All power to the people," we yelled. But after awhile it seemed to become ironically symbolic of our frustration. Not that we have fallen into a defeatist attitude, 'cause We Will Win. It just might take a little time. Yet, you see, many of us werp frustrated because we wanted to do something to stop that war right NOW. But we didn't have the power. The man who symbolized that power slipped in another door. He wouldn't even listen to us, the people. The names droned on. If I could, I would give you a warning right now, Spiro. I would warn you of a power which is much greater than any LETTER Letter to the Editor: Perhaps due to a last minute rush to meet copy deadlines, your interview concerning YAF (appearing in the last issue of The Concordian) contains inac-curacies stemming from a defin-ite lack of communication. 1. YAF does not presently re-ceive, nor has it ever received, financial contributions from the Buckley estate. It was, how-ever, founded on the Buckley estate, in Sharon, Conn. 2. Elsewhere it is evident that the article was not in true in-terview form, due to extensive revisions of sentence and para-graph structure. 3. It is customary for the per-son being interviewed to be told whether his remarks will be summarized in the form of an article, or quoted directly in the form of an interview. This pro-cedure was not followed 4. Not all of the remarks at-tributed to you in The Concor-dian, were said at the time of the interview. Again, this does not follow true interview form. 5. It is standard procedure, particularly if the issues covered are controversial, to present the interviewed person with a copy * proof of the interview write-up prior to its submission to the publisher. This was not done. Kevin Bjornson ED. NOTE: Thanks for the pointers, Kev. Any changes were executed solely for the sake of brevity and clarity. We'll be more careful next time. you and your military and busi-ness cohorts ever dreamed of. It's a power that cannot be crushed. It is a power which cannot be placated by any of your fancy maneuvering. We are that power—we, who are aware of the madness which is loose in this country—we, who are determined to stop this madness. Meanwhile, more names were read. "Oh Spi-i-i-i-ro, a r e you re-e-e-e-al? . . . " But he didn't show. The picket faded out and more of us joined in the memor-ial service. And the names kept coming—names of people who died needlessly. It was very cold, but I dozed off and on during the night. Whenever I woke, it was to the sound of those names. Then it was light again, and the names kept coming. Some of us went to church. It was a small church, and the people didn't seem to care what we looked like. Returning to the vigil, one girl told me that it was the first time a service had meant anything to her since she could remember. When we got back, our friends were still taking turns reading the names. Someone brought some food; we shared and ate together. Toward the end of the after noon, the guy with the head-band and the guitar left for home. I never talked with him, but I knew him well. And yet, you see, we were still not finished. More Ameri-cans have died since the list was put out. And we didn't have a Vietnamese list. A voice shrieks out from in-side me asking, "How much longer? For Christ's sake, how much longer . . ?'* OOVOU MtAN XT our or vovn VCAL curtfir Ar OI/WEft?" JUST SLEEPING PERSPECTIVE Manos Fourakis I have been asked to take a stand. The man was very serious and concerned. I have to make some sort of existential state-ment. Define my situation. De-lineate my predicament. He said I have to. He was not the first one. Dedi-cated people with good inten-tions and commitments have sometimes the missionary zeal. They have found meaning through their own particular commitment. So the argument goes, if one is to be happy—meaning brings fulfillment, if not happiness — then one has to make a commit-ment, preferably the same same one; but some commitment, af-ter all, is necessary. I remember thai I used to watch the big ships come into the harbor. In August the blue haze over the bay softened their outlines. Those were quiet af-ternoons. The ships would sail away in the morning, forgetting the little dark streets that wind up the hill from the sea at night. I was seventeen when I noticed those streets and the brown rust on the gray steel. I used to listen to the sea-wind that came from Africa. I loved its music. And the seagulls flew over the mountaintops search-ing for God. It was late one night. The sea was quiet. There was the lan-guage of the stars on the water. I stood up and danced on the beach. Then there was silence, again. I am alive. X heard the man say thai a commitment requires courage. That it involves the element of risk, the possibility of personal annihilation. And the chance that the commitment was made to something that does not real-ly exist. The rational decision to transcend the limits of the rational. He did not refer to the case of a commitment serving the purpose of a substitute for a partial vacuum. When a com-mitment is made so that a per-sonal sense of guilt or anxiety and insecurity can be evaded. That is not what he meant at all. There are times when one realizes that seagulls do not fly over the mountaintops. When even the dance on the beach, following the song of the stars and t h e corridors running through the millions of the gal-axies to the stillipoint, becomes absurd because there is no still point. There is a story about an In-dian who went rowing in a boat on the Ganges one morning. When suddenly he heard the sound of the falls, he was start-led. He fought the stream, and the sweat fell in drops of blood over his eyes, but still, with every moment, the sound be-came more distinct, the falls came closer. He let the oars go, stood up and sang. The story says the Indian was free. I said to the man, "I have taken my stand." He asked, "What have you done? What are you going to do? Are you joining the Peace Corps?" And I said again, "Look, the sea is warm. A girl smiles quiet-ly with her eyes. In the morn-ing the seagulls return from the mountaintops over the sun sing-ing of God. He answered, "Don't be ab-surd." I am alive. Aulbert Winespar This morning, as usual, I en-thusiastically fell out of bed to the unhappily cheerful clatter of my roommate's electric port-able, self-winding, luminous-dial Japanese alarm clock. Stumbling frantically through the maze of crumpled peanut bags, assorted pop cans and three-week-old newspapers, I assertively made my way past the littered coffee table to my only means of communication with the outside world at the ungodly hour of 8:00 a.m. Panicking now, I desperately foughl the cowardly urge to jump back in bed with my elec-tric, portable, self-heating, lum-inous- dial electric blanket. I grasped the button on the here-to- fore black oracle of truth and consequent 8:00 a.m. wisdom. I turned the button. The room was filled with the uncannily mystical sound of eerie electric silence as the tubes of the electric portable, self-tuning, luminous-screen, Japan-ese electric tube began to vi-brate. "Merkin" Flunks Funk Test Don Ferguson "Can Hieronymus Merkin ever forget Mercy Humppe and find true happiness?" It takes approximately five seconds to read the title of this movie. And approximately five seconds into the movie one real-izes that it isn't worth the time it takes to read the title. The plot consists of a movie being made of an actor who is watching a movie which he has made about himself. All of this confusion is set in a surrealistic landscape inhabited by surrealis-tically costumed people. The playmate of the yea*. Miss Connie Kreski, plays the part of Mercy Humppe. We see a great deal of Miss Kreski in the movie and the ineptness of her acting is only exceeded by the convenlionalily of her body a prerequisite, by the way, for the title of "Playmate of the Year." Miss Kreski's debut in "Heirony-mus Merkin" establishes three things about her acting ability. She can appear to be a sixteen year old nympet riding a merry-go-round, she can open her mouth and roll her eyes while fornicating, and she can gush dialogue which must have been taken straight out of "True Confessions Magazine." At opportune moments George Jessel appears on the scene as "The Presence." Dressed in white and heavily made up to look like George Jessel, he delivers a series of stand-up jokes, the punch lines of which are supposed to convey the moral of Heirony-mus Merkin's latest sexual acrobatics. Anthony Newley, who plays Heironymus Merkin, finds time to sing in between "making it" with an array of females one at a time and in groups. In the idiom of George Jessel, have you ever heard the one about the milque-toast cowboy who is about to make love to the titillated soiled dove and at the moment of most unbearable arousal says, "but first I'd like to sing a little song." Or the one about the milque-toast cowboy who is about to burst into a song but says, "first I'd like to soil a little dove." The film is rated X and it is the only X rated film that I have seen which I wouldn't let my children see. In fact, I wouldn't let my father see it. The reason that Heironymus Merkin is rated X, according to the advertisements, is that "The scenes are uncensored. They may shock you. Embarrass you." None of the so-called uncensored scenes in this movie are either shocking or embarrassing, they are simply boring. At no times does the sexuality of the film meet the minimal standards and conventions of even a decent grade of pornography. Standing erect atop the coffee table, I nervously lit a cancer stick as I anxiously awaited my favorite morning wake-up bud-dies, the nice people on the "To-day Show." You can imagine my confus-ion and surprise when they did not appear on my grey reverse-process "big-brother" plaything. You can't? Who instead but Captain Kangaroo and his com-panion, Bunny Rabbit. My foggy mind reeled at the possible consequences of my next action. I was paralyzed win fear and indecision. Dare I miss what had happened in this fast-paced world since sign-off news last night? More important, could I de-pend on the sly Captain and his animal buddies to really give it to me straight? I mean . . . I mean . . . I mean . . . from the hip, and all that. I'm extremely vulnerable at 8:04. Mentally, I mean. But by this time, something had already begun to happen as the cogs slowly began to turn. I was seeing something I had never seen before. And I saw that it was good. I can see you now, people. "What was it?" you are asking yourself. "What was it that Aul-bert learned watching Captain this morning?" Forsooth, in truth, it was not what I did learn, but what rather, I did not learn, that is of value to you. I did not learn who died. I did not learn about the movie stars who were getting divorced. And I did not learn about air-craft hijackings. I missed the increases in the body count in Vietnam. And I did not miss learning the things that I did not know I was not learning about , . . at all. Instead, I had fun with Cap-tain and his funny friends. Mr. Clock told me what time it was. Bunny Rabbit amused me with his sneaky tricks. And Mr. Green jeans told me about a certain kind of cat. And, of course, we played games. Captain read a story, Mr. Artist drew a picture, and Dancing Bear did his funny hop. But that's not all! Captain was nice to me. He gave me lots of hints on how to start the day: "Smile," he said. "If it's rain-ing, don't forget your umbrella! Did you remember to wash be-hind the ears? Be careful if you're walking to school today." It was absolutely fantastic. It was raining, and I was walking. I have found a new friend. He can be your friend too! And if your roommates give you a bad time, shove them in the kitchen with the newspaper. And remind them to take an
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