Processed World Is a Project of the Bay Area TOUR OPERATORS, PW #25: Angela Socage

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010

http://www.archive.org/details/processedworld25proc GET AWAY DAIE!! PROCLSSED WORLD 25 Summer/Fall 1990 ISSN 0735-9381 41 Sutter St. #1829

San Francisco, CA 94 1 04 USA MENU OF WEEK'S ACTIVITIES MONDAY

9 a.m. TALKING HLADS WEDNESDAY hv Muhiul RolkuiiSaillrtln p. 2 lOa.m.: BILLBOARD UBLRATION 9 a.m.: THE HOT ONE FRIDAY FRONT MANUAL ,7,uM-r,rit; thilin, hy CJuu Bufe. p. 28 BLF, p. 23 1 a.m.: JOURNEY TO THE LAND 10 a.m.: THE FIRST-HAND LOOK

l"/r a/ Irairlin^loil 1 2 noon: TO WORK 2 HOURS A DAY OF "F" and other perceptual Friig, hjauhAte//-0p.8 u'vu'w hy p. 44 problems . . . tale of IravMng toilhyChtis Caihum. p. 18

I p.m.: THE RIGHT TO BE LAZY review hy Primilivo Morales, p. 36

TUESDAY THURSDAY 9 a.m.: VIOLENCE PROCESSING SAT/SUN Fighting Words and 9:30 a.m.: SIX KINDS OF DARKNESS South Africa Irav.llmlby excerptedJn lion byJohn I I a.m.: MICROFICTIONS Willintti Hrummrr, p. 10 Shirley, p. 47 hy Peter Bales, p. 27

1 2 noon: |UST TWO PRECIOUS 1 1 a.m.: THE OCCULT REVIVAL I 2 noon: POETRY featuring Bames, WEEKS?!! analyse hy Frimituo futiorihy Don U'ehh, p. 40 Corn/or,/. DelVill, Hershey, King Morales, p. 30 iM.tJiusl. SoUap. 32,38-9 2 p.m.: REFLECTIONS OF AN afternoon: FRONT COVER IMMIGRANT hy Malgorzala G hyJHSaan.on p. 35 BACK COVER hy Igor Cxniiwski

Processed World is a project of the Bay Area TOUR OPERATORS, PW #25: Angela Socage. This "tour" reflects the ideas and fantasies Center for Art &. Technology, a California Michael Botkin. Primitivo Morales. Frog, Clerk of the specific authors and artists, and non-profit, tax-exempt organization. BACAT Kent, Green Fuschia, Chris Carlsson, Glenn doesn't necessarily represent other contri-

can be written to at 1 095 Market Street. Caley Bachmann, Club Med-O, )R Swanson, butors, editors, or BACAT. Suite 109. San Francisco. CA 94103. or Chaz Bufe, D.S. Black, BeanHead. Emily Post- PW is collectively produced &. edited: only phoned at (4 I 5) 626-2979, or faxed at (4 I 5) It and others 626-2685. the printer gets paid. FELLOW TRAVELERS: |ay Stone, Margot Indexed in Alternate Press Index. Pepper, Dennis Hayes, Igor Gasowski, Malgorzata G., Poly Polaroid, Jesse D., Adam

Cornford. R.L. Tripp, |C |r. &. a host of others. Talking Heads

Bureaucracy? In East Germany a crowd uns ol iliou- lickL inliii ination- of "personzil" sands strong besieged and ultimately Pleasure and its pursuit have always been In many ways the onset stormed and trashed the headquarters of the viewed by repressive regimes as inherently computing has undermined the official con- through Stasi secret police, destroying all ot the radicalizing. If they can define all drug use trol of information. Hackers waltz the corpo- records. In the USA, the former head of our and sex as "criminal" and dangerous to the files of the governments and bulletin boards and secret police, George Bush, was elected society, then they can pass off their need to rations. Computer information networks president. monitor our bloodstreams and thought- modems have created officialdom. Recent dra- While peace threatens to break out in the patterns as benevolent protection instead of completely outside action against hackers rest of the world, the administration casts blatant repression. conian government take the threat. about anxiously for new enemies in new The eighties saw a dramatic ideological shows how seriously they always been primarily wars. With the tragic loss of the "Evil reaction to the radicalism of the sixties and Social control has cares a Empire," they must look for new bogies even the lukewarm liberalism of the seven- practiced by propaganda. Who what personal computeroids think if closer to home. Glued to their dramatiza- ties. It culminated with the implosion of few thousand millions believe what survey-certified tions and "real life" cop shows, the viewing communism which has swept away any the tell them is public waits for the criminals to be pointed lingering impact of the traditional (and "creditable" anchor-persons media drifts off further out. increasingly irrelevant) left. true? But as the mass religious, corpo- So the administration has declared War The War on Desire will be complicated by and further in republican, increasing numbers of people on Desire. Sex and Drugs are the current technological advances, but it is hard to say rate fairyland, experiencing informa- targets, given the attractive multiple man- who will benefit most from them. Will will fine! themselves personally experi- date this War gives to intervene in Latin advances in birth control techniques, like tion dualism. What we learn from our friends and ac- America, harass minorities, and to monitor RU 486, empower women or make it easier ence and simply doesn't jibe with the the bloodstreams and sex lives of federal to control them? Will the expansion of the quaintances — apparently unambiguous workers and citizens. But the targeted drugs information industry benefit the fringe irrelevant but the Mass Media. and sex are less significant than the battle- hackers looting government files — or the truths pandered by This period, when Official Reality becomes impossible for most people to believe,

is historically an uncomfortable one for THE VELVEETA REVOLUTION repressive regimes. In the "Communist" manipulation. Iiposuctional truth-in- Ingredients: partially hydrogenated press releases, subliminal bloc they have fallen. In China and the USA madvertising. procrustean linens and bed they are increasingly resorting to crude force accessories, cellulite screams of a hostage command economy, social ferment (hops, yeast. and censorship. malt, barley, potatoes, caffeine), candle-lit The War on Sex justifies the crusade dissonant diver- graffiti, barebacked resistance, against abortion rights and the refusal to ,' gence. nonvolatile cocktails, sure-footed street teach sex education to prevent AIDS. The savvy, telegenic crowds, and broad backdrops carriers off for broadcast by sympathetic media, backed by War on Drugs justifies aircraft ^ ^ smooth-talkin' Washingtoon jingo blues. the coast of Colombia, "military advisors" ^ ^ * Protract &. Fumble by (remember them?) in Peru, and quasi- military occupation of communities of color in the USA. And both justify the "need" for the administration to keep lists, limit the rights of others, and keep its own business strictly secret.

Bush's history in "intelligence" was a non-issue in his election campaign, but his presidential behavior has been more than a touch paranoid. He's considered a "secret"

Processed World #25 Page 2 president, and is known not to be above is frightening to contemplate what deliber- corrosives to Authority. lying to maintain secrecy, even for just an ate propaganda is producing right now. But the dictators of China may yet be extra day. He excels at doublespeak, for Processing is power. The revolution that felled by the Fax. Here they can censor example labeling himself "the environmental tumbled the Marcos regime in the Philip- Robert Mapplethorpe's sadomasochistic president." On the basis of general style pines began when the 20 keypunchers of the images in (Cincinnati, or the raunchy lyrics alone it's easy to see Bush as the likely national election results refused to fudge the of 2 Live Crew in Florida and Texas, but the mastermind of the Iran-Contra scam, most counts. The ability of a regime to impose its net result is predictably to promote rather of all in the way he avoided the slightest version of reality is the cause, and the than suppress the disturbing contents. taint of connection with it despite his official measure of its power. The nineties: TV will get more boring, role. China's government insists that there was and real life will get more interesting. While Reagan's "spin doctors" had their no massacre in Tianamen Square. The fact — Michael Botkin & the collective hands full just cleaning up his bloopers — as that it can even say this testifies to its In this issue PW flees the work-a-day testified to by his plummeting reputation continued grasp on power— just as the open world for greener pastures; we've gone on since he became dependent upon the servic- disbelief of this lie by the entire world, vacation! For some of us this has been es of a single commercial publicist— Bush is including most of the people of China, literally true — masquerading as the Anti- developing a machine of staggering propor- testifies to the weakness of that grasp. Economy League several of our ciew invad- tions. In the USA— after China the last bastion ed Central & Eastern Europe — while for In addition to refusing to let anyone know of conservatism in the world — the war is others the vacation has been a theoretical about what it's doing, the administration is heating up. Will the powers that be main- concept. We have accordingly dug into our showing insatiable curiosity about the do- tain their monopoly of processing, and keep singular & collective pasts to cast light on ings of the rest of us. The Wars "require" the the complacent masses quiet? Or will the "anti-work." federal apparatus to encroach on the elusive facade rip as the gap between the blissfully Med-O reflects on a journey through "right to privacy" more than at any time ignorant haves and the increasingly misera- Africa in "The Land of F," while William since the McCarthy era. ble have-nots grows? The Bush administra- Brummer focuses on South Africa and its

Pregnant teens, if they want an abortion, tion is counting on a preemptive strike at turbulent course in "Violence Processing." are increasingly being forced to get the desire, at sex and drugs, those venerable Chris Carlsson revisits Brazil (see also his permission of their biological parents. A host of legal and medical agencies insist they have the right to test people for AIDS — if necessary against their will, and perhaps to quarantine them as well. The federal government is insisting that all of its workers need to be drug tested and the courts, after ten years of Reaganistic packing, are back- ing them up. And the mainstream media slavishly broadcasts the straight party-line, which even the party newspapers in ex-communist

Europe aren't doing any more! The result is hsr X a view of the world so heavily processed that

it bears little meaningful relationship to reality. San Franciscans had an interesting taste of the fun-house mirror effect of the media in the aftermath of the Big Earthquake last nV

October. The actual earthquake, although it caused billions of dollars in damage (mostly knocking down structures that probably wouldn't make it through the next really big .V one anyway), was really not very deadly. But the media version, which was what the world outside San Francisco experienced as *#t the 'Quake, was a holocaust of raging fire, collapsing bridges, and "hundreds" of com- muters crushed to death in the cars.

Initially, many San Franciscans believed GENERAL SUBVERSIVE WARNING: Life this version, which they heard on transistor in the West promotes severe numbness, passivity, radios or by long-distance phone calls from banal culture, and brutal extremes of wealtti and horrified relatives watching dramatic foot- poverty. Greater personal liberty is accompanied by age on the evening news. For several days growing disinclination to act as a free tiuman being. most people believed that "hundreds" had died, as the embarrassed media hesitated to reveal how badly they'd exaggerated the

death toll in their lust for blood and ratings. Most people who experienced the actual earthquake now consider the national media's coverage of it a sham, but it remains nonpo6y| Beer! the official version, enshrined in glossy magazine photos. The truth is so easily ("Test the West") Au€hinder''BRD"erhaltrich. distorted just to produce fiashy copy that it

Processed World #25 Page} letter in issue #24) to explore other dimen- sions ol the tourist and the loured, (.leini

B.'s letters from Central Europe, nwd ,i Polish woman's reflections on life in the U.S. help round our view of mobility and culture. Primitivo Morales takes a more abstract view of leisure time in his essay "Just Two Precious Weeks?!!" and two related pieces on tourism and mass entertainment. The two bfjok reviews cover old — but not dated — books that explore the possibilities of having more leisure time. Frog reviews a French publication from the 70s, To Work Two Hours A Day, which contains a trench- ant analysis on work and the possibilities for

its reduction. In his review of The Right to he Lazy, Primitivo shows that such ideas are certainly not unique to this century. And lest you think we're all theory, we welcome the Billboard Liljeration Front back. If you're looking for a few hints about HIGH SCHOOL while the people are what to do this summer (or winter) you STUDENTS! young They intend to reinforce might consider their "Manual" for billboard their own views and spread The following is an open tetter from a 15 conservatism. this alteration. One of our friends, Art Tinnitus, Once is accomplished, year old high school student in Lexington, they will be has provided an accompanying essay on the able to slowly implement KY. to her fellow students. Its public controls on people, will prankster in modern society, and two uni- who not realize distribution was her last school activity. what is happening until dentified conspirators tell their tales ot we have a totali- We thought it heartening if somewhat urban propaganda. tarian nation. paranoid; it doesn't mean they're not out This plot has been remarkably successful Christopher Barnes' "This is My Lile, to get you. in the David" extends the exploration to '70s, '80s, and early '90s. Although Jonathan "Do you what the fascists are know TV compulsory while Adam Quest examines and education existed the factory, doing to our brain cells?" previously, the conservatives have what would happen "If the Weather Chan- recently If you read the tabloids, you are probably intensified their efforts. George Bush has nel Went Off the Air." The excellent poetry aware that the CIA is one of our leading already begun the includes Soldo, DeWitt, second stage of subtle section John Jim drug importers, and that the government King, Adam Cornford, Christopher restrictions of freedom I Janice has been known to implant narcotics in Hershey and Richard Wilinarth, fosiah Led To counteract this situation, we must major areas. It may come as a surprise, first be aware of it. must not takes us on a whirlwind tour of an exclusi\ c We succumb however, to learn that this is only the tip of to the brain-numbing effects of this evil club. the iceberg. Many more insidious menac- conspiracy. We must resist restrictions of sense of (gallows) humor is untar- Our es, seemingly harmless, have been placed freedom and infringements upon rights, nished, as Chaz Bufe's killer story, "The Hot as in our society by high-ranking Republican well as the dangers that have been im- One," vividly shows. Don Webb's "Ociult officials, including government leaders and planted in our society. It is reports on the rise of The Damna- necessary to Revival" even the president of the United States! encourage alternative lifestyles. tion Ariny in the Bowery. Peter Bales' The only One of these menaces is modern Top way to stop this is "Micro Fictions" shed a stroboscopic light on abomination to think, 40. Such music has proven to destroy brain feel, and rebel. It is up to us. modern life. We round out the issue with an cells and deaden emotions. Children of — Rozebud excerpt from Shirley's excellent i y- John Republican leaders pressure their friends trilogy, Song Called Youth. ber-punk A into buying recordings of mindless dance apologize for not including the results We music and synthesized pop. The Republi- Hi! I'm from the Senseless Bureau! the art survey (see issue #24), but we got of cans and their children popularize the carried away with other material, and we music, thus affecting millions of unsu- interesting pieces arrive at had a number of specting people. the last moment {Here And Now from Television is another way to destroy Scotland; the Institute for the Study of brain cells. The government promotes TV in Koln, Germany, etc.). Neo-ism programs that discourage thinking. Some- year's allow- We'll be back before end (| times subliminal messages are put in ad- to ing) with another issue. It will be bat k vertisements. Because of the fascists, work as we focus on non-profits, "hip television has become extremely prevalent capitalism" and other progressive aberra- and influential. to lot of good material tions. We had leave a The most subtle danger is compulsory we've got a running start on on the shelf— public education. Although it seemingly is both material and money. Won't you join used to teach people and encourage think-

ing, it in fact does the opposite. It forces students to conform rather than think for We urgently solicit your writing, jour art, themselves and live unconventionally. your participation in our collective process(ed Public education also emphasizes memo- world). rizing and regurgitating information. The

atmosphere in schools is not conducive to Processed World, 41 Sutter St. #1829, San free thinking. Francisco, CA 94104. Phone: (415) The fascists are doing this because they 626-2979. Fax: (415) 626-2685. want to destroy people's thinking ability

Page 4 Processed World #25 Dear People, To add further injury to slavery, insur- To be honest, I've pretty much lucked off out in the job market. Even the shitty I was absolutely delighted with the ance companies do not like to pay on choice and good taste of your presentation their policies. They have two ways to do restaurant jobs have been entertaining or brief. like of Bert Meyers' poetry [in issue 241. I this: the most common one is to raise mercifully But a middle-class realized that if my husband had seen such rates if they have to make a payoff, for revolutionary who's got no qualms about a magazine in his life-time, he would have instance when you have an auto accident. leading uprisings in the name of the chosen to submit poems to it and would The second is to simply refuse to pay, proletariat, I'll go on writing about corpo- have been proud to be published in it. which then often results in a court battle. rate scams even though they don't affect Although he was a marvelous teacher of That is the kind of carrion this law firm me. pnaetry and a number of his students have lives off. Instead of simply paying a worker Speaking of corporate scams, here is my since distinguished themselves as poets, or other victim compensation for an injury. version of an employee counseling bro- he found academia to be an unreal and State Farm, Aetna, Prudential or whoever chure. The Employee Assistance Program uncomfortable milieu and would have pays lawyers $150-$200 an hour to try to promotes "gatekeeper" plans to monitor much preferred remaining a craftsman in prove that the victim is faking pain or employee recovery from drug addiction, wood — a picture-framer and gilder — if caused the accident on purpose in order to alcoholism, and "emotional trauma." new materials and sprays had not been too collect on the insurance. Sure, it's better than being fired, but now hazardous to his health. He respected the It's amazing how much time the lawyers you're gonna help the company milk the experience of work but bemoaned the can waste on the cases, but then working insurance company for treatment of a straight jacket in which society kept the at $200 per hour is hard to resist. Even if "disease" (Pause for a moment to weep worker, snuffing out all his joy spontaneity the victim wins, there is the additional copiously). It's written in a corporate and creativity. In his work as a poet: taxation of having to pay the victim's "voice," that of a Dutch uncle who "really

"... he still dreamed of a style / so clear it lawyer about 1 /3 of the winnings. knows the lingo." The pictures and could wash a face, / or make a dry mouth Of course, from the lawyer's point of questions are genuine; the answers are sing." Not an ideal shared by most of his view they are hard working, honest, intelli- mine. peers in the world of poetry: "But they gent, productive people. Not like the Anyway, here's my $10 for the next 4

laughed, having found / themselves more person who is living on credit. issues. If you want, you can print the astonishing. / They would drive their B.M. San Diego, CA. brochure.

minds, / prismatic, strange, each wrapped Rev. Carl X ( The Black Humor Man)

/ in his own ecstatic wires, / over a cliff for People's Free Democratic World Mini-

language, / while he remained to raise / a stries, Inc. few birds from a blank page." from the Employee Resistance Program: Odette Meyers. Berkeley, CA. WhatisanERP? The Employee Resistance Program is a support "network" of disgruntled employ- Dear Processed World: ees like yourself. The ERP provides an

I started a new job, night shift word outlet for the frustrations of everyday processing at a law firm, and to my working life which, if allowed to build up, surprise found an excerpt from Processed can break one's spirit or even trigger a World up on the company refrigerator after psychotic episode.

I had been there a few days. It was the short article on credit card scamming that had been reproduced in the Utne Reader [from PW 23]. A handwritten note was attached to it: "This person has intelligence but no honesty, courage but no honor." Obviously the work of a lawyer. Well, they say even fleas have fleas. This

law firm is in the honorable and honest (if not courageous) occupation of representing insurance companies. Many people don't realize that insurance companies have in many ways replaced Dear Processed World,

banks as the ultimate parasites in our This is great! I never knew there was a

system. They sell fear, though they try to magazine for pissed-off workers until I saw

make it appear they are selling safety. They your listing in the Whole Earth Signals have accumulated immense amounts of Catalogue. capital over the ages, capital with which Urine tests, company propaganda, and they now own a controlling interest in most overall degradation are only the tip of the major banks and industries. They would be iceberg of frozen concentrated corporate How does the ERP work?

highly profitable even if they did not make stupidity. It's rotten for everybody below It begins spontaneously, when one em-

a profit on selling insurance policies, simply the executive level (Well, stop the press- ployee has had his or her fill of the by their return on investments. They pro- es!). Let's look at the choices. White everyday "bullshit" he or she must submit

duce absolutely nothing of value. collar? Forget it. A tie ain't nothin' but a to just to stay alive. First come petty acts In many cases we are compelled to buy leash. Anybody can pick up the other end. of sabotage and theft of company resourc- their products. For instance, in California Blue collar? It's worse. Suck up to the es and time (for example, this brochure automobile owners must buy insurance manager AND the union boss. Pink collar? was created at the workplace, on company

according to state law, and banks require Lucky you! Every customer is your boss, time), and from there it escalates. Workers homeowners or anyone else who takes out including the one without a receipt, who are encouraged to add personal touches to a loan to buy various forms of insurance. wants a refund NOW, godammit! the ERP. Creativity is key. Many workers.

Processed World #25 Page 5 even without coordinating activities, can I read many magazines and publications, When you are in the midst of a national wreak major havoc, from which the com- even Vanity Fair and The New England problem, the closeness of it covers and pany may never recover. Methods vary Journal of Medicine. However, clouds the way in which we can look at it. from one employee to the next, so no I don't own a television. Looking back we see the way in which the discernable pattern emerges to tip off I don't own a microwave oven. selling and controlling of the television corporate troubleshooters. This system is I don't own a dish washing technology dominated us; the manner, virtually foolproof. machine. style and ways in which we lived. We

Why is a program like this needed? I don't own a clothes washer. became dependent upon it. We learned

it. The ERP is needed to help victimized I don't own a clothes dryer. from We set our standards against it. employees pass back to the employer the I don't own a garbage dispenser. The creation of a national consensus. We high psychic costs of enduring daily the I don't own a VCR. understood concepts via the national organized degradation that is work. Cor- I don't own a doorbell. information source, were sold the way in

it poration that fail to recognize this suffer I don't have electric heat. which is. What everyone else is thinking. from terminal rot and are destroyed by the I don't have gas heat. We waited for and received the results.

ERP, out of mercy. Thus, the ERP benefits I don't have a garage. Holding in sway many people, day after employee and employer alike. I don't owe for a car. day. Daily thousands pulled away, while

Provided by the Democratic Free Peo- I don't have life insurance. thousands more joined.

still ple's Artists and Writers Collective of I own the farm. Your magazine makes me think,

I Saturday the 14th, Inc., © 1989. All Game I live in the past. laugh, never get outraged. You have yet Preserved. The processed world is where and what to offend me, you can't. Now, what you most of us choose to be. Out of despera- write about, in other words, the facts of tion. Out of choice. We choose to do what life, that is what offends me. Processed World we do. We do what we are told to do. We Your graphics, cartoons, visual state- Enclosed is my check for $24.00 to stay caught in the web of employment, are ments, imagery, and all the photos, cap- renew my two year subscription to Pro- hirelings. We have vacant jobs and are tions, and drawings is a real collective, a cessed World. watching our lives become more vacant. visually stimulating mish mash. My favorite

I am a long time reader, and have with We don't want to have vacant lives. We part of the magazine. I would love to see interest and amazement watched the mag- buy and feed the things we use. We feed the graphics that you would not print. You azine's content stay at a high level of upon ourselves and feed those around us. must have some doozies. Funny. achievement. Your writing is "spotty ec- We feed upon each other. A rather severe Billboard Liberation Front. If we only lectic" but your values come through image; primordial, decayed fungi rotting, knew how. clearly. deliquescing, oozing smarmy melodies of I can't think of much more to tell you. I

I read PW when it arrives, it stays on the contentment and disdain. The fulsome cannot stand a reader pre-coded response table with other current "to read" stuff for blues. survey because I never know how to a couple of weeks before it goes into Extreme fixes come to the forefront: A condense and rationalize a canned re- storage. I read and look over PW cover to platform of objectivity; 1) legalize all drugs sponse. I want to say more. cover. 2) outlaw television T.A., Oregon tscmvTs FKOA\ EUROPE

Mosel River region, W. Germany 8-10-89 14-11-89 Before I left San Francisco last month, W. Berlin anything resembling the circus atmosphere several people were asking are on the west side of the Brandenburg Gate, me, "Why I'm in Berlin, and everything in the you going to Europe in the fall?" as if I'm carnival-like atmosphere by the Wall seems but the contrast could not be more stark crazy or something. I'd just tell it — the off them that to confirm that heady sense of being right whole place cordoned by police, feels like the right time to go, or else and pervaded by a tense, ghostly quiet in the center of the universe. So many

mention how I wish to avoid the onslaught with only a few scattered onlookers. I bright lights and television cameras; I of American tourists, being near thinking though a wonder are they just following a story, or wandered the streets, how un- U.S. Air Force base is annoying as hell usually quiet it was for a Friday night, when are they helping to create it just by being when those planes roar overhead about here? I suddenly encountered a large demonstra-

once every hour. tion. I joined the crowd, and though I 18-11-89 Autumn is a wonderful time to be understood little of the words, I liked one

here — the many trees are turning color, I finally made it to the other side of the particular banner picturing a can of Coca-

and grape picking season is in full swing. Wall yesterday. I'd planned to get there Cola, asking, "Is This All?" The timing was sometime in the afternoon, line-up Yesterday I was walking in the town and an but the particularly apt, for many East German older man invited me inside his ancient at Checkpoint Charlie was so thick that it aLCtivists are already beginning to fear that

wine cellar and siphoned me off a glass. It was dark before I actually got into the city. their revolutionary movement is being was about the best tasting stuff I'd ever Wandered around searching for a suitable diluted by the appeal of consumer items had, and even the fact that we could barely cafe in and around what's purported to be from the west. the East Bloc's fashionable speak a word to each other didn't take most shopping As the rally ended, I was invited to a

away from its magic. district. I was curious to see if there was party by some folks who told me it was the

Page 6 Processed World #25 table before we'd think to open our permitted to travel more freely, so of mouths), the next table was erupting course Vienna is literally swarming with

between about 8 shitfaced guys still deliri- them, although personally I don't know ous over Jakes' resignation the previous why any of them would want to leave day. A while later most of them attached Czechoslovakia at such an exciting time as themselves to our table, boisterous and this. eager to try out their English on us. And What a comedown it is to go straight that's how we found out where the next from Prague, where the streets are filled day's demonstration was. with young people demanding freedom, to Vienna where the streets are filled with 28-11-89 middle-aged matrons in full-fur coats out Yesterday was the General Strike. At doing their Xmas shopping! noon, the whole long promenade in Wen- Even the architecture is different — in ceslas Square was jammed so thick with Prague centrum the buildings seem to be

people that you could hardly move. And it built on a human scale, whereas here the buildings are so much more imposing, like wasn't just the students; I got the over- whelming sensation that the whole city of they're designed to make you feel small, less sure of yourself (even if they're Prague was right there. I was particularly moved by how many old people were roughly similar architectural styles from present, who never thought they'd see a similar periods). Even the statues in Prague — day like this! Remarkable to be in such a seem so much more alive and sensual here of stone. DDR's first-ever big student demonstration mass of people, where nearly every face they just seem to be made

I would have stayed in Prague longer but where students had gathered from ail over has the look of having changed so dramat-

I only had a transit visa this time, and I did the country. Some of them had come all ically in just one week. stretch it; stayed an extra day or so beyond the way from Rostock to be here. The in the evening I was fortunate to walk party was very joyous and simple; sort of into a place called Laterna Magicka (Magic what I was supposed to, and they did look Theater), Obcanske at me kind of funny at the border, and like an urban barn dance. I feel a kinship Lantern where the and respect for the East Germans who Forum (Civic Forum) holds its daily En- made a cursory glance through my pack, questions. choose to stay rather than flee. At least 3 glish-translated press conference, which but they didn't ask me any It interesting this to note different people offered me a place to stay, was just convening. Even though it was was week some

(I visual changes in Prague after a week and but alas, my day visa required me to be packed, I had no trouble getting in. told

It a half away; the store windows and back in West Berlin by midnight. them I left my press pass in Berlin.) was amazing to see some of the questions subways are still just as plastered with Prague 26-11-89 these Western journalists ask: "What will posters and all kinds of stuff, but more of them are printed now, and look a little I rolled into Prague yesterday evening; you do if the government rejects your slicker, gallery alone with a language that offered me no demands?" As if anything in these circum- not as homemade. The clues. On the platform, while wondering stances can possibly be figured out that far space now has a name, N.T.S. (roughly, an acronym for "Independent Press Cen- how to get situated, I saw a pair with big in advance! After the press conference, I backpacks speaking what sounded like wandered around, and was drawn by ter"). They now have 2 computers instead English! They were a couple of Australians chance to a banner-covered building. The of one, and also a huge photocopy machine which is constantly in use. looking just as confused as I felt, so we door was open, so I climbed the stairs and teamed up and found accommodations went inside. Many of the art galleries and Most inspiring is to see and feel the together. theaters that are on strike are now being sensual splendor of that ancient city, and Jubilant pandemonium has surrounded used as headquarters and workshops for realizing that this is now that moment us from the moment the subway sped us to the Movement. This was one of those when the people themselves are coming alive enough to match the splendor of the Wenceslas Square. Every subway wall, places — it seemed to be a clearinghouse and many a store window is practically for the underground press, a makeshift yet city. Sometimes I think that I live just to see Prague again. I particularly loved all wallpapered with typewritten manifestos, efficient operation. — petitions, homemade posters and political the slightly incongruous elements; a vault- Glenn Caley Bachmann cartoons, stickers, tricolor flags; and such ed ceiling with a delicate fresco on it that's a profusion of candles and flowers that 200 years old, a computer in the next practically every corner is a shrine. It's hard room, along with a fleet of manual type-

to believe we're in a subway station. I wish writers, including a couple of those black

I could understand Czech! Most of the "iron horse" varieties from the 1920s. manifestos are dated, and though I can't Everybody here puts in such long days read them there's still this obvious sense (and nights)! When I showed up last night, that things are moving so fast that if they thought 1 was a journalist wanting to something is more that 2 days old it's interview them, and they were apologetic pretty much ancient history. This is the that they were finally ending their work day

spontaneous free press, and a plethora of just as I showed up. But actually it was posters are announcing tomorrow's Gen- perfect, for they were just beginning to eral Strike (Generaini Stavka) from noon to party and unwind. two. "Sorry we can't help you, but would you Ascending into Wenceslas Square, we like a beer?" said one. gawked at the enormity and fervor of a "Prague is such a beautiful city; you chanting crowd surrounding the monu- should come back and visit sometime ment. Somebody clued us in that this when we're not busy having a revolution!" wasn't the big demonstration; the big one said another. had taken place hours earlier. Later, during Vienna 10-12-89 dinner at a pub (with a psychic waiter who kept slamming full mugs of beer on our This is the first weekend that Czechs are

Processed World #25 Page? JooRHeV 15 THe laHp of T*

Photo from II \f btcDinc oljsesst'd witli ihc I'-word BERLIN WALL ART bv Mi'-h '^ ^* "^""g^ser*. Heinz). these days. Like every healthy, sentient places and different cultures. This desire to Kuzdas

creature I want to be F'ed fully and visit an exotic people distinct from your own most places. Sometimes I have posed as a frequently. Indeed, without F there could be culture is a particularly American (Western) student, once as an anthropologist, and both

no life. And everyone truly alive strongly phenomenon. Foremost, we have finan- seemed to open doors that would otherwise identifies with the pursuit of F in all its cial/political opportunities very few have. be closed.

peculiar forms the world over. But an awful But it is more than that, we also have a Over the years I'xe moved away irom the

disease is killing our desire to F and be F'ed. singular cultural flexibility and ambiguity. "working holiday" approach toward the

AIDS is clearly one manifestation but not During a year stay in Africa, I'll never forget "political holiday." We're not talkin' work

the disease itself. The disease is really the how "Wye" Katende, a seventeen year old brigades to Nicaragua here — which are long fear of F and our willingness to settle for Ugandan living in a remote village in the on work and short on holiday. By "political something less than the complete, oceanic, foothills of the Ruwenzori mountains, inno- holiday" I mean partly a vacation and partly

full body F we all deserve. cently questioned the notion of freedom an opportunity to observe and participate in I've always been an outspoken advocate ol through travel: "Mr. Mike, why did you a time of radical social change. For me this free-love including the freedom to (some- come here? You are so far from your home. includes learning about customs and social times) be love-free. Now everyone seems to You must cry at night for your family." interests that aren't (overtly) political as well laugh nostalgic at that and misuse the For better or worse, family and other ties as the radical culture in contention with the

F-word so that it means the opposite of what d(j not bind us, especially the traveling powers-that-be. The latter has usually been

it should. I say it's high time to get the types, as strongly as elsewhere. This was my primary interest. This means mostly F-word out of the closet and proclaim loudly strikingly expressed by a young Masai watching what's shaking down; it's also

and passionately: "FREE mel Yes, FREE cattleherder I became friends with in Tan- important to exercise a critical eye and me baby, FREE me good! FREE me, over zania. By using Swahili we could converse express your own opinions rather than just

and over again!!" fairly well, and one day I asked him if he following the "correct" revolutionary party

I know this sounds lull of acne and would like to travel. He let me know he or mass movement. adolescence, but I'm seriously concerned would never consider traveling any further This has some qualifications, however. how the word freedom has been fucked with. than he could walk with his cattle. He then During a 6 month stay in South Africa in It has been seriously victimized in a asked me who was taking care of my cattle 1988 just after their second state of emer-

[jattcrn of continuous abuse. In preparing back home. When I replied I had no cattle gency (the inversion, "emergency of the for a trip to Eastern Europe in April, 1990, he was incredulous. This was unimaginable. state" is the more accurate phrase) I quite

every second word one hears is "free" Since I was an American he probably willingly chose to work uncritically with the

markets or "free" elections. What an abso- imagined I had dozens. At first, he thought I AN(>. I even temporarily became an Angli- lutely vulgar, retrograde use of language; was joking; he really didn't believe my story. can missionary, despite 32 years of devout

what an absurd vicious joke. Please tell me When I convinced him it was the truth, he anti-C>hristianity, since working with their

one thing that is free in the capitalist started crying he felt so sorry for me. material aid programs (food, health care, marketplace. Toilets used to be but even I've always put great effort into finding education) was the only way I could gain

that costs now. Has any U.S. senatorial ways to avoid being the casual tourist who access to the townships. While I was (and campaign been waged for less that $1 blitzes the local highlights while replicating am) critical of the ANC, such criticisms

million in the last two decades:* This kind ot the lifestyle of home. I try to fit in and be up made no sense within the context of ruthless

trcc-dom is precisely that — dumb— just an- front that I'm an American visitor. I've often state repression. This is the usual problem;

other word for "fuck you sucker," made my trips "working holidays," partly for it is only after a resistance movement has

It's curious, but I stumbled upon this the money but mostly as the best way to gain toppled the existing regime that there is a thorny doublespeak around freedom real contact in people's everyday life. Get- space to make useful criticisms. For this is through reflection on one of my most valued ting a job certainly immerses you in the fray the true point of departure in which real personal freedoms. Something unavailable instead of the role of culture vulture sca- differences between oppositional groups to probably 90% of the world's population. venging on local prime rib. But working is concretely emerges.

That is the freedom to tra\el to distant impractical many tiriies and inidesirable in r\e been taken to task for being that

Pages Processed World #25 too-critical- radical- from-afar more than work and sacrifice. Not exactly the stuff real One fruit of all this planning has been the once. The usual banter "How can you as an freedom is made from. response received even before leaving. A American, troni a position ol privilege, not The flip side of this, one felt by the vast radical from Szcecin, Poland, not only support the call by the homegrown opposi- majority of Americans, simply says: "Have a extended a warm invitation ("We could tion? They know the situation best — if you good time! Forget all that political shit. Just arrange meetings for you with greens, trade .") don't uncritically support them you are relax. Get a nice tan. And by the way, bub, unions, anarchists. . but also apprised us of aiding their oppressors." There is some truth you might come back and entertain us with what to expect: "I don't know how much to this criticism about being too critical. I an exotic slide show of natives spearing you know about Poland, but let me warn am (globally, though not nationally) privi- colored fish in a pristine coral reel." Besides you that even among so-called radicals or leged by the very fact I can choose to travel the goldfish bowl syndrome (you are the alternatives you can find strange minds." to such places and situations. I am also goldfish looking out of the bowl at the Concerning popular Polish attitudes to the neither directly a victim nor a natural surrounding world, while the locals gather west and western leaders, he warns that outgrowth of resistance there. Indeed, it is round to stare in, and each inhabits an most people see George Bush and Margaret tremendous fortune to be an international- environment the other can't breathe in) I Thatcher as "great politicians," explaining ist, not just theoretically, but practically, by find it exceedingly alienating and boring to that "the slogan 'F^nemy of my enemy is iny directly experiencing social ruptures and be isolated from the political forces at hand. friend' suits very well here." 1 also got a change the world over. This is precisely why 1 am looking for full enjoyniciil and radiial sense of the ennui people must feel there a "privileged" outsider might have a fresh, deployment. wlun he quipped, "So do not wait, friends, useful view regarding what's coming down. This trip to Eastern Europe will be my because we are waiting." loo This will be tested in a few days when 1 se(()nd "political holiday." I've never We are waiting but in a different way. leave for a two month stay in Eastern planned a trip so much as this one. Two In the U.S., it's not only history but the

Europe. Besides simply appreciating and other PWcrs and I sent letters and copies of present that's a nightmare we have yet to learning from the different people and PW to scores of independent radical groups awaken from. The speed and degree of cultures I am (and will be) disturbed about and individuals throughout Poland, East recent changes in Eastern Europe is incon- simply replacing authoritarian communism Ciermany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. ceivable here today. There is little fire, with an equally (but less transparent, more We have also made our own personal much fear and stability. A few on the try diffuse) authoritarian capitalism. As I tell Aiiti- Business cards for each language to margins to starde the sleepy inmates. So friends and acquaintances, my desire to make ties with indigenous corporate insult- while we wait, there is time to share and warn Eastern Europeans about the sham ol ants. We al.so made similarly confrontation- learn from each other's struggles. This we do free markets, free elections and capitalism in al T-shirts to give away while there; boxes of not ha\e to wait for. - general, m.any let me know this is incor- stuff have been shipped ahead. C:iub Med-O rect/inappropriate. For instance, "They have materially/politically suffered for so long they just want to make life better — (they) want the good things of the West and wrong for you to tell them that desire is wrong." (There is nothing wrong with the desire for a better, materially richer life.

What is wrong is believing the false promises that western capitalism actually fulfills these desires.) This complaint goes hand in glove with another common criticism: "Well if you're really so damn radical stay home and help change the U.S. After all, it is your turf and truly the world's worst enemy." True enough. I'd be deceiving myself if I didn't acknowledge my initial attraction to Eastern Europe was the speed and quality of change there is a helluva lot more inspiring than the bleak vortex of social change in America.

Even though I was born and continue to reside in the U.S., I've never identified with being an American but rather a world citizen first. Admittedly, the U.S. plays a dominant role in world aggression and deserves special attention from radicals. So I definitely do a lot to try to change the planetary work/war machine here — alter all, this is where I live most of the time. But I feel no special duty to entrench myself exclusively in the American theater. This seems to be a peculiar kind ol nationalism, just as twisted and bigoted as the religious, ethnic, or statist varieties — if you believe you must completely tidy up your own cave before stepping out into the light of the world. It is one half of a common guilt trip for radicals. Either stay home or martyr yourself in some type of work brigade. Both are based on heaps of guilt,

Processed World #25 Page 9 Violente Processing: FightingjWords ^nd ^outh Afric^

What makesjou suddenly so interested in South Africa? killed in the crossfire in the last three years. Does the stench ofour corpses start to botheryou? The bantustans, or so-called independent homelands are — Sipho Sepamla convulsed by coups (in Transkei, Ciskei, and now Venda); four of the six main homeland leaders refuse to meet with de Oouth Africa is once again on the tube, in the flashbulb Klerk. These homelands were a costly mistake, a segregation- afterburn of Nelson Mandela's release from jail after twenty- ist effort to create cheap labor reserves on an unmatched scale. seven years out of the public eye. He walked through the gates 17 million people, out of the total South African population of of Victor Verster Prison in early February. During his last 30 million people live in the homelands — 3 1/2 million are year of captivity, he was a "faceless man with a fax machine,"' there as the result of forced relocations.

negotiating the shots with the lameduck though ironfisted Nowhere else has a government sought to denationalize its government as they prepared for "talks about talks." racial majority — stripping them of South African citizenship Mandela came to light in the edenic wine country near — then renationalizing them along forced tribal lines. Ulti- Paarl. It was a short drive to Cape Town, where in a speech mately, they are going to have to be reincorporated with he reaffirmed his dedication to the principles for which he had South Africa, in bizarre contrast to the independence been sentenced to life imprisonment. A few days later, a quick movements of the Baltic states and the myriad popular fronts flight north took him home to Soweto, a couple dozen emerging in the southern Soviet republics, seeking deannexa- kilometers from Johannesburg. At one to two million people tion. (precise figures, due to the exigencies of apartheid, are Some are quick to paint de Klerk, the white President impossible to produce), Soweto is the most populous urban (representing South Africa's National Party), a reformist a la area in Southern Africa, an acronymic concentration city — Gorbachev. While there may not be much risk of de

SOuthWEst TOwnship. Klerkomania sweeping the world, it would be well to take It has been a long haul, but the struggle isn't over yet. In an "Pretoriastroika" with a word of caution from de Tocqueville:

historic moment, the ANC held its first talks with the The most dangerous timefor a bad government is when it starts to reform

government in May. The genie of change, once loosed, is itself. awfully hard to coax back into the bottle. Mandela has journeyed to Lusaka, Zambia, where he was The African National Congress (ANC), established in appointed Deputy President of the exiled African National

1912, is Africa's oldest liberation movement. With Namibia Congress. This is a short-term position, from which he can attaining independence in March, South Africa will be last on soon be expected to become President of "the new South the continent to shake off the racist vestiges of colonialism, Africa." palefaced minority rule. His release marks a southern symmetry with the freeing of The dry white "season of violence" is supposed to be over, Vaclav Havel, whose accession to President of Czechoslovak-

according to President F.W. de Klerk's surprisingly concilia- ia shows what a short walk it can be from prison to tory speech opening Parliament in Cape Town, on February leadership.

2nd of this year. Yet "unrest" continues, as the tortured skein And, just as impressive, is the well of human^;«

around the Valley of the Thousand Hills, outside Pietermar- "An eye for an eye and the nation is blind," says one Civic itzburg. The United Democratic Front (UDF), a coalition Forum slogan — a pithy and persuasive argument opposing aligned with the ANC, is in conflict with Inkatha, a vengeance against the ousted morally bankrupt Czechoslovak chauvinistic Zulu tribal organization. Thousands have been Communist authorities.

Page 10 Processed World #25 1

of Mittel- and Nelson Mandela has shown himself to Books were part of my displacement, from the realignments Osteuropa, to the liberation of Southern be a rare and self-effacing man of great for it was reading that took me beyond nationalism. I Africa. As long as South Africa can give subtlety, patience and power. He is very the pettiness of narrow collections for a sense of good tube, it has the guaranteed G spot much in contrast with the whites, par- plundered the in our circuit of consciousness. The ticularly the ruling tribe. In stereotypi- history, to fill out the outlines of what I web. sight of Mandela free is certainly one of cal fashion, many of the older Afrikan- knew from the all-pervasive media pain that convulsed the great images of our day, although ers rail at length about their many To ease the infernal fifteen of fame cannot begin to grievances, enmities that can be dated those early days of estrangement from minutes Life, I turned to the cover this story. generations, if not centuries: the Love of My the Velvet Revolu- "Remember that Queen Victoria? A videocool inner climes of TV, with all its People Power and that is I tion were more than just flickers on the bigger mass murderer than Adolf HitlerT says basic peripherals — at least how us to a new level of Frank de Klerk, an elderly legal clerk got through the first hellish days and cave wall, they took broadcast, a tube beyond its traditional living in Pretoria. In many ways, he is a nights alone. The tube punched a hole illuso- role as electronic phenothiazine. It's no classic example of the verkrampte (hard- through distance — an amazing if longer "news from nowhere" that we line) Afrikaner. He speaks with a thick, ry form of armchair travel. shores, it ap- almost German, Transvaal accent that One can only trek so far in a reading see — from the American After a pears that history is happen- rolls his rrrs. room, or as a couch potato.

. Reactions were none "My grandfather fought in 14 kaftir while, even trips to the kitchen get old, ing. .elsewhere. encouraging when I announced to wars," he continued. My aunt and to say nothing of Richard Attenbor- too colleagues that I was going cousin both winced, having heard this ough, or, however well-intentioned, my Berkeley six months of to South Africa. spleen ad nauseam. "And I can tell you, Public Television. After it time to "But you're not supposed to go there." before I'm ruled by a black, I'll shoot heavy tubal stimulation, was take a bulletproof vest." every bloody black bastard in sight." broaden other horizons. "Better Family was no more supportive. In 1900, three of the de Klerk family The South African Question had a My understand why I'd farms were burned by the British, (de particularly strong resonance. There father couldn't motivations that made bother; he wasn't close to his many Klerk is a common Boer name; Frank is were personal relatives there, was a bit uneasy not directly related to the current Presi- this an especially important point for and them, or perhaps dent, F.W.) Afrikaner women and chil- departure. When my wife abandoned about my meeting seven think dren—mostly of the rebel Boer repub- our marriage with the cliched concerned at what they might left to meeting me. My brother viewed this lics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free years' itch, there wasn't much plan as further proof of my death wish: State — were put in concentration moor me except dread routine. Our — " I camps, where 26,000 died. Relatively breakup was due I'm sure in part to my "They'll kill you meaning, suppose, tempting target for few — 7,000 — of the Boer fighters died, native stubbornness, a self-defeating that I could be a I might commit while British casualties numbered about obstinacy that I could easily relate to my whatever transgressions errand. 22,000. Through force of Empire, and paternalistic Afrikaner family back- on this existential I willing to risk it. What did I "a bumper crop of burnt farms,"' Britain ground. was eventually wore the Boer guerrillas My father left South Africa in the have to lose? I'd never been one to toe a not noted for down, and peace was negotiated. early fifties. After working many years party line, and was correctness it would be a - After "a century of wrong" at the in the Copper Belt (Zambia), he emi- political — pleasure commit this sin of a mission. hands of the British, many of the Boer grated to pursue his education with a to in Although I believed in divestment and bitteretnders wanted to fight to the abso- doctorate at McGill University Mon- sanctions, I also thought information lute end. As Frank de Klerk made clear treal. His peripatetic career has in- largely un- was essential to a peaceful transition. to me over dinner — at least for those volved exploration of the first vacation in many who could remember oppression when tapped mineral wealth of Canada. It was my I looked at it, strangely, as a they were on the receiving end — there Without understanding why, I've al- years. to get from job, even can be no overestimating the depths ot ways felt a strong identification with liberation away my always been if that meant going to a garrison state to Afrikaner rage. I listened, for that is him, though we have not friends. of chief search for myself in a distant fatherland. why I went to South Africa: to hear the best of One my the romance of embarking on South Africans talk about what possess- parental imperatives was to attain bilin- Beyond South Africa drew me in es them, as they grope their way to the gualism in French and English, but this telemachiad, I with the Spanish Civil end of a nationalist nightmare. Afrikaans remained a secret language a wav associated my father used in moments of rare War of the Thirties, or, I suppose, the And as you see at night, Jar in the Bay mellowness or intimacy. It wasn't till I internationalism of the sandalista bri- reflections of the stan and city lamps, was nearing teens that I even realized he gades of the Eighties trooping down to so in the dark depths of our people sway are Nicaragua to work in the coffee fields images oj the concentration camps. spoke with an accent. My own feet itchy to match his. After a decade in the and take flak from the contras. These It was more than just a holiday in — revolution- U.S., I still feel far from "home" new crusades are by nature Pretoria. Partly I went because of an wherever that is. ary, to offset the imperialist adventures irresistable need to step beyond the As the "no fault" divorce shunted its Westerners are better known for. narrow confines of my life as an infor- way through the legal bureaucracy of People with antiapartheid inclinations mation worker. From 8 to 5, I work credentials the state of California, I was rarin' to were expected to show their groves of aca- cloistered in the desert by jumping on the boycott bandwagon. go. . .somewhere. deme, a sanctum sanctorum, the very Obstacles abound to our understand- I agree that performers should not play rarefied atmosphere of a special collec- ing of what goes on in the world today, Sun Citv, but when Paul Simon brought tions library.

Page 1 Processed World #25 '

out Graceland, I was delighted by the experienced a quiet military "this mythical concept in modern-day White coup when fruitful and ear-opening collaboration. the Minister of Defense, Botha, South African awareness. . . Not so modern after P.W. It saddened me to see a man like all. The history of the Afrikaner has been one oj became Prime Minister. He retained Conor Cruise O'Brien — someone I don't borders, of the enemy lurking just over the the Defense Minister portfolio until he necessarily agree with— shouted down horizon, of buffer states used against the world was able to install his handpicked head by angry demonstrators when he gave a wanting to take over the lands their ancestors of the Defense Force, General Magnus series of guest lectures at the University conquered. They were proud their periods on of Malan, as the new Defense Minister. of Cape Town in 1986. They protested border, the hunts they participated in. the of Together, these two "securocrats"

his breaking the boycott. . .yet in the In recent years, particularly under de dominated South African politics for the case of an academic and educator, is it Klerk's pugnacious predecessor, next decade. They presided over a right to limit the free flow of ideas? Isn't P.W.Botha, these hunts have gone far tremendous build-up of the military — the banning oi people and ideas a sanction beyond South Africa's borders, "the today South Africa is one of the top ten employed by the South African govern- rogue elephant of Southern Africa."' Yet arms exporters in the world — and ment? Botha was regarded as a moderate! The adopted the concept of the "total strate- The same inflexible dogmatism is verkrampte (hardliners) were actually gy" for a long term counterinsurgency. evident on the right, as exemplified by concerned that South Africa might be This "triumvirate of 'totality': total the Afrikaner Resistance Movement afflicted by a "psychosis of peace"* in the strategy, total onslaught, total involve- leader Eugene Terre- Blanche. The early eighties. ment" were the keywords of this era.' AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging) Newspeak — the deliberate simplifica- The totalitarian blueprint for the mili- is infamous for the swastika-like emblem tion of vocabulary and linguistic com- tarization of society was conducted with on its flag, often seen at rallies, of the plexity as a means of limiting crimes in characteristic, even absurd attention to three interlocking sevens, reputed to be thought and speech — is alive and well, detail. It included a "Leisure Time a millenarian solution to the 666 Beast both at home and abroad. Words can be Utilization Unit" to promote "spiritual of the Apocalypse. Terre-Blanche and made to betray their meanings without defensibility" in the ranks."* his boerjes tarred and feathered the having to pass through Room 101 of The "total strategy" of P.W. Botha historian, Floors van Jaarsveld during a 1984. "Words tossed around as if/denied and his protege General Malan can at 1979 speech at the University of South location by the wind/... that stalk our last be found on the same ashheap as Africa in Pretoria. An example was lives like policemen" runs a poem by trickle-down Reaganomics, and lately, made of this professor because he ques- Sipho Sepamla. Stalinism. As details of their dirty tricks tioned the Afrikaans version of manifest The U.S. Pentagon is a prime pur- come to light, F.W. de Klerk has, with destiny, the divinity of their Day of the veyor of such malignant wordage, with visible reluctance, been compelled to Covenant. "permanent prehostility" (peace), "lethal launch an investigation of the innocu- A former policeman and bodyguard aid" for supplying proxie forces with ous-sounding "Civil Cooperation Bu- to Prime Minister John Vorster, Terre weapons, "violence processing" (com- reau." This unit, operated by the milita- Earth") has been Blanche (the "White bat), and best of all, the "Peacekeeper" ry, was a death squad. for having charged at various times (MX) Missile. In Eastern Europe, peo- In any situation of social or political po- illegal possession of weap- arms caches, ple did not wait in line, they joined larity, debate is all too susceptible to reduc- To date, he and ons and ammunition. "socialist waiting collectives."' tio ad absurdum. Ideas become slogans,

followers have never had worse than ' his While we may identify the violence of some inspirational ( An injury to one is soon their wrists slapped. This may apartheid with forced relocations, an injury to all" or "Strike a woman, you conservative change, as the AWB and peaceful marchers being gassed, or fired have struck a rock"), some unrealistic and militance in whites are increasing their upon by soldiers in casspirs (not the reaction to the release of Mandela, and friendly ghost, but armored personnel the the government's meeting with carriers), there are many more subtle leader ANC. The Conservative Party and insidious components to that Andries Treurnicht recently called for "a "Frankenstein-Madison Avenue caul- third freedom struggle" — a thinly-veiled dron of wordsmithing."' rally of 50,000 call to arms — at a For a time the government had its right-wing whites in Pretoria. Bantu Administration Department, the In the sacred history of the tribe, which was responsible for administering if He Boers made a pact with God — townships and the homelands. It was against gave the Voortrekkers victory responsible for forced relocations, but Dingaan's Zulu impis at Ncome River, underwent a name-change when bu- forever mark that as in 1838, they would reaucrats realized that its acronym was In Afrikaner the Day of the Covenant. not contributing to its effectiveness. It of history, it is referred to as the Battle became the Ministry of Cooperation of Blood River, and it demonstrated God's Development. recognition and support for the justice After the Sharpeville massacre in of their cause. 1960, and through the seventies. South One essential feature of Afrikaner Africa became a model police state, with civil tradition is for men to go on a powerful secret police (BOSS — commando. Breyten Breytenbach, the Bureau of State Security) operating painter, renegade Afrikaner poet and around the world... and at home. writes of In the late seventies. South Africa

Page 12 Processed World #25 self-defeating ("No educdtion bfiore liberation"), and some virulently racist ("Sit die katfir op sy plek" - "Put (he nigger in his place"). To move freely across the lines, or to more easily slip through the strictures of

cant is one of the virtues of being an

outsider. Travel is a way to remain outside. As a writer, another kind of outsider,

I went to hear how writers and poets sustained themselves in life under Emergency conditions. The timing of my visit was nestled in the brief period between the '85/'86 Emergency, and the June '86 Emergency (which continues to this day in Natal province).

Much has happened to the people I spoke with: at least two have gone into exile; some were detained; others have had their organizations banned — the UDF and the End Conscription Cam- paign are only now able to resurface William Brummer after Botha and the Minister of Law ancJ PHOTO Order, Adriaan Vlok, clamped down on country; while it lasts, I enjoy it." Heart had been the firm's director since 1977. them earlier in the Emergency. disease, suicide, and alcoholism are Since the State of Emergency was As censorship has been applied to the three of the greatest dangers facing reimposed following my visit, he has left arts, black writers have borne the brunt whites in South Africa. the country, moving to England. of bannings and persecution. Beginning Mike Kirkwood, an editor at Ravan in the fifties, with Bantu Education, MK: You will find in South Africa Press, put it another way: teachers and writers (e.g. Ezekiel numerous pockets, of coniniunication, is in an . living . I'hel writer who Mphahlahle), journalists (Nat Nakasa) I which arc very full inside that particular insulated white suburb, backed up by very good and so many others have had to flee "the pocket. In other words, lots of dialects video resources, television, all the literature he belo\ed land.' Musicians and singers — not simply in a language sense, but in can read, good food, continental cuisine, fresh (Hugh Masakela, Miriam Makeba), terms of idiom, in terms of a way people bread every morning, doesn 't have to see a frerich have of understanding each other. For poets (Dennis Brutus, Arthur Nortje, black person if he doesn't want to. He goes instance, if you were to go around Berea, Wally Serote) have continued this flight shopping in the most elaborate malls all tucked and talk to guys who live on the roof tops through the sixties after Sharpeville, the underground like bunkers — even that writer, for a long time, you would find that they in the can be totally insulated the political seventies with Soweto, and who from have an amazing pattern of communica- reality South Africa, is aware that that very eighties' semi-permanent Emergency. of tion. experience is a deeply political one. It's almost Simply putting distance between Let me give. you an example. I wake impossible for him to keep out of mind the fact themselves and the casspirs, hippos, up late in the night in my block of flats, that the existence he is leading is dependent on banning, detention, and Robben Island which is just over here. I hear a guy theflames in the township. is o'clock in is not always enough. Exile has its own whistling— this two the dangers; At the time — April 1986 — Ravan was morning. He is whistling in the most situated in a dilapidated old house in the incredible way, the way guys whistle Life abroad lacki the challenge thai faces us cattle, it clearly has pattern to it. Berea district of Johannesburg. Berea but a in South Africa. After a lifetime of illegal living After while, you hear a door opening and Hillbrow are adjoining residential a in the Republic 's shebeens, the exile', are suddenly somewhere, a gruff voice calling out in called upon to become respectable law-abiding neighborhoods with valleys of hi-rises Zulu: "Hi. We're over here. Come this citizens. Not a law to break in sight. I have running through them. These "grey way." What this guys been doing is a bit broken too many— regulations to change so areas " were often referred to with shud- like Richard the Lionhearted and his easily. Even if I did change. J would miss the ders by my relatives, for they are now troubadour, singing outside the castle experience of illegal living. home to tens of thousands of blacks walls. He's identified his own fjoys,

illegally living in parts of town reserved is the word that people use. wrote Nat Nakasa. He, Arthur Nortje which for whites. Ravan is one of the more PW: And he doesn't know necessarily and Ingrid Jonker are writers who progressive imprints in South Africa; its which building they'll be on, but if they committed suicide in exile. Wally Serote — writers include M. Coetzee and Nja- hear the noise he makes narrowly escaped assassination in the J. MK: Right, somebody's going to South Africa bulo Ndebeie. Defense Force's 1986 raid come running, and he's going to find his The office I visited was flrebombed a on Gaborone, Botswana. way. He might have come from miles few years later. Although a considerable Whites, of course, have an entirely and miles, from a distant part of the amount of stock was lost, Ravan en- different tolerance of conditions in an country — a rural boy new to the city. dures as a publishing entity, issuing abnormal society. One of my relatives He's using his cattle whistle as a way of books and periodicals like Work In finding his home-boy connections. said, with a certain smugness, "I am as Progress and Staffrider. That's one example. Their whole opportunistic as any white person in this Mike was one of the chief editors, and world is very well-knit. It's a sort of

Pr.><.e«icl World f 25 Page I J support structure, one of the things that country — not at the black man, like me, South Africa situation is like somebody

turns the whole "blacks are victims in who is able to sit with you, and talk your sitting on a powder keg. . . . South Africa" cliche upside down, be- language— it is that man who is not able Apparently contradicting his earlier cause people are not just victims; they do to articulate what's inside him. And you assertion, Sipho gave a different forecast find ways to support each other in an know he lives a pain, which he cannot for change; oppressive situation. There you have bring out, and that is killing him. This SS: I think revolution is our only quite a tight knit pocket of communica- bottling up — it's a pity, because it's going solution. You know the whites are so tion. I'd suggest that South Africa, as a to kill him in the end. What then was the entrenched, man, because ... what are country, is relatively richer in pockets purpose in bringing him to Earth? To people talking about? They can't be like that, which are not accessible. work for mere wages, to live under poor talking of Western values, because there

If you put a tape recorder in front ot conditions? . . . are no Western values in this country. those guys, they'd probably beat you I visited Sipho in Johannesburg, at People are merely concerned about their up— they'd assume you were from the Fuba, an art studio/exhibit space where material possessions, and I don't think State, and that you were trying to get he worked as an educator, and senior anyone can expect whites to give up them to commit a felony of some kind, administrator. anything, because for us to rise they've they'd wonder what they hell you were SS: There are very few people who got to halt the development of the growth doing. buy books by black writers; you have to of white people. PW: However well ordered a society be known to be bought. A new writer will PW: When majority rule is attained, you have, there are always going to be the not find it easy to enter the market. do you see a rapprochement between these cracks, and subcultures. In this Where their energies be hard lines that are now drawn in the case, it is literally the supra culture. PW: would going if they're creative, but feel too dust? MK: I think that's really an interesting disillusioned to write or publish? Would SS: Unavoidable. I think we live by point, because I think that's true. We're they write for the desk drawer, do you natural laws, rather than laws made by talking about a different level now, and think; are they self-publishing, samizdat man. The laws made by man, some- for me the thing goes back to the theme type work; do they channel the energy where along the line, they break down. of storytelling, really. What you're talk- so rigid years back, into political action, or is it bottled up? Apartheid was many ing about when you talk about subcul- but the natural of life has broken it SS: I think most of our feelings are way tures developing in the cracks of a realities, economics, whatev- bottled up. There is no way we could down. The media-penetrated, media-inundated so- do what the Russians are doing with samiz- er, have broken apartheid down. ciety is something similar to storytelling, dat because the South African security PW: You think it will break down the but at a whole new level of development. system is very efficient sooner or later Afrikaners' intransigence? In other words, I'm inclined to take a — they would catch up with anyone doing SS: I think so. I've found it very phrase like "the global village" quite that kind of thing. interesting that among the Afrikaners, seriously, in the sense that one is talking of these chaps that I've heard I don't think many blacks would write some about a new possibility of communica- so-called liberal ideas are people stuff that they put away. It may be express tion between tightly knit groups of I traveled a great deal. happening with whites, but I don't think that know have As people, but at a whole new level. I don't of get money, and blacks would do that. Our writing is more and more them think one should just skip the levels. immediate — we address ourselves to im- move around, and find that there are Those guys on the roof tops — it's going mediate issues, and we want to be black people outside who are having to take them quite a lot of time, quite a published immediately. white women, who are moving in all lot of community organization, political would you hope the writer circles of life, they must come back here organization, before they can plug into PW: How affects the world? and ask themselves, "What's so bad about some sort of world network of communi- I there?" they will fall SS: I hope to God that more and more what saw out And cation, and talk to Processed World, to you people would read the works I've written, in line. I don't think they like being guys in San Francisco, or a group but then there are so many things condemned by the world like they are somewhere else in the world. . . . working against the tradition of writing being condemned right now. It takes If one is black, however, the possibil- that and reading in this country. As a result, some time for the majority to reach ities are fewer. Another writer, Sipho we don't have many people who read our point. That is what we are playing for. is happening in this Sepamla (author of the novel Ride the works. Unfortunately, it is true that most I think what Whirlwind, and numerous books of of the readers are white, so we're caught poetry) spoke with me about prospects up in a very ironic situation because for change. although we claim we are not writing for Whitey, we find that Whitey is the one SS: I'm the last person to say "Revolu- who reads our works. tion is the answer." Because I'm for life, The Group Areas Act just consolidat- rather than destroying life. I'm scared of ed what was there already. I grew up violence, because I think it's anti-human before the time of apartheid, but apart- to be violent. heid was in full swing even then — I grew But, you see, I'm fairly all right. I look up in a location that was miles from at the person who's not in a similar town. I don't think it is correct to blame position to me, and I wonder what are apartheid lor that kind of thing [divisions the chances of that person improving his between black and white writers]; apart- lot? The answer is that they're very heid merely made it worse. Also, I small. Some people — I think this is the suppose apartheid exposed the fallacy of majority — are caught up in a situation a friendship that was in fact one-sided, where some of them wish they were never because whites always expected us to go born. If they'd had a choice, they would to them. Very few came to where we have said to God, "Please, I don't want to lived, even when the law was silent about go and live down there. I'd rather be that. where I am," in whatever form that is. There's no running away from it. The When you look at the situation in the

Page 14 Processed World #25 '

now One dearly-held belief among the to grow, apartheid must go, as it limits country is that the black people have move. the education and placement of a skilled set the pace for how things have to whites is that the blacks can't rule is changing, those workforce. With the added stress of Even it the white man themselves, they are still savages: "You changes are invisible, because the people can take 'em out of the bush, but you sanctions, and the drying-up of invest- not the white who are calling the tune are can't take the jungle out of their hearts." ment, the economy has slowed while the more; they are the black people any Or, as National Party MP Glenn Babb population and unemployment have white people. To be acceptable, the soared. put it: "There is a survival ethic in South people will have to be in line with the Africa which is important, because we Ampie Coetzee, a professor of Afri- pace set by the blacks. But change? have stood on the Limpopo and looked kaans at the University of the Witwat- Unavoidable. north seen that Africa has not ersrand in 1986 (now at the University PW: But they will get swept up in that and of the Western Cape), commented on pace? worked in the way in which we would this phenomenon: "That's the strangest SS: If they don't, they will get crushed like justice to work." thing about South Africa: apartheid has under. . . . The whites call this bogey the swart Many models are invoked in discus- gevaar, or black danger. More proof actually strengthened capitalism. It has sions of South Africa — the violence and that the "kaffirs" are unable to govern made a definite class distinction between unrest suggest the specter of a Lebanon. themselves, let alone take the reins of the worker and the bourgeois. The The real white nightmare is revolution. the whites' jealously guarded first world worker is the black man, and we whites The poet James Matthews, who lives society. are the bourgeois. And the worker is in Athlone, outside Cape Town, told me Because of the bold lines drawn keeping this country going. of the hopelessness that was taking hold reserving property and capital for the "On the one hand, that's the strength among the younger generation: "We can "civilized" whites — apartheid is an unu- of apartheid, but it could also be the accommodate any violence. Now we sually cruel, if transparent mechanism weakness. When trade unions become come back again to the existentialism of to assure economic as well as racial more and more mobilized — that's where the young. That is why our kids don't hegemony for a privileged few — South I think eventually we will probably see worry, they say, 'Fuck, / don't care if I Africa lends itself readily to a Marxist big changes. COSATU" was only don't come home today. analysis, with blacks the working class. formed this year. Proposed solutions include a federa- While this form of racial capitalism may "That's very, very powerful. That's tion of cantons, on a Swiss model, as a have been effective up to a point, it where this South African brand of means of protecting whites from black cannot be maintained. For the economy capitalism could actually be broken — by domination. Even more far-fetched are the secessionary white movements, like the extremist AWB, or the Friends of Oranje, whose ideas of a white homeland (a Boerestaat comprised, naturally, of the best and richest land) are no more tenable than the fragmentary black homelands Bophuthatswana or Ciskei. While de Klerk and his predecessor P.W. Botha have done much to dis- mantle "petty apartheid" with repeals of the Separate Amenities Act, Mixed Marriages and Immorality Acts, and the passbook laws, "grand apartheid" remains substantially intact. People continue to be classified by race (Popu- lation Registration Act) and in theory have their places of residence, the government services available to them, and their employment opportunities determined by this classification. Apartheid ("separateness") was given

its name by the National Party, elected in 1948. As Sipho mentioned, the "colour bar" was nothing new. By 1936, 87 % of the land was reserved for white settlement and development. The rest, largely inhospitable, was set aside for what was then 67% of the population — now more than 75% of South Afri- cans are black. Under the Group Areas Act, blacks are viewed as "temporary sojourners" in the white areas, tolerated only to the extent they are needed to work in the mines, on the farms, and in the pantries of white society.

Page 15 Processed World #2S JS:Basically, it was repression. A lot of

our people are in prison. . . . One of the greatest weapons against tyranny, apart from sabotage and in-

surrection, is for people to live and work together as they wish, without regard for insane decrees handed down by the

state. It is by this means that grey areas like Hillbrow in Johannesburg wear down the teeth of apartheid. Where law

is unenforceable, it falls into disrepute,

and is rendered ultimately irrelevant. The Group Areas Act, the legislation that underpins the bantustans and townships by tribal division, may be the

last pillar of apartheid to fall; already it

is beginning to totter through resistance in the homelands (coups and armed insurrections) and people, black and

white, increasingly ignoring it in the once white cities.

After centuries of wrong, apartheid is withering away. Archbishop Desmond 1 utu and Reverend Allan Boesak are right to ask to see its corpse. A death

blow may still be needed, although the armed struggle waged by the military the workers. Because the workers are all Press told me about some of the difficul- wing of the ANC — Umkhonto we oppressed, and racially oppressed. They ties he had to deal with as a writer and Sizwe — has never been, and probably will the have ample motivation; it's just a case of editor. never be capable of engaging mobilization." PW: You are involved in a writers' South Africa Defense Force decisively. Schools have long been crucibles of union? VVfiich one is it? The linguistic battlefield is where the resistance. They have been viewed by JS: It's called the African Writers future of South Africa may ultimately be It's union in the the black youth with understandable Association. not a decided. The Afrikaners attained power popular sense. It's an association of wariness. Bantu Education, promulgat- owing in large part to the development people who come together as writers, ed in the fifties by the future Prime of their own language as a separate and some as beginner writers. Minister, H.F. Verwoerd, was training distinct voice in Africa. They succeeded PW: Do you discuss works in pro- for It policy in unifying a white tribal power base, enslavement. was a of gress? and used it to divide the country. deliberately limiting blacks to roles as JS: Yes, we discuss works in progress. the South African Com- the wood hewers and mine-fodder for It's a loose association. Skotaville Pub- SACHED, white society. Verwoerd was quite blunt lishing was formed by the association. mittee on Higher Education, is another in his views: "...[The] native child We'll be publishing really topical books. organization which has struggled to must be taught subjects which will Some will be political, and so on, but on counter the intellectual depredations of the literary side, we don't want to be seen enable him to work with and among his Bantu Education. One of its directors, to be pushing writers who have not own people; therefore there is no use Neville Alexander, views culture as a necessarily grasped the art of writing. misleading him by showing him the process, and language policy as a base- The association has consciously been green pastures of European society, in line on which to develop a new national trying to influence Skotaville to exercise which he is not allowed to graze. consensus. Encouraging the use of En- Bantu literaiy meiit on each case. We don't glish by the black majority (usually as a Education should not be used to create want to publish a play because it will third a imitation whites." have a sociological interest. second or language) assumes llirough subtle not-so subtle critical importance, ironically, in the and . PW: ... or because it's topical . . conditioning, the students were indoc- JS: Not that we say art for art's sake, interests of decolonization. It serves to trinated with a view of a world in which but the (raft of writing has to be done unify a people split across many lan- they had precisely defined functions, properly. There are drawbacks on that guage lines, and provides access to the Education with opportunities circumscribed by level. The influence of Bantu world at large. "[The acquisition of in the past thirty years has destroyed a lot "job reservation" of skilled positions for English] represents. . .a form of capital of things here. The writers who are whites, a much-lower pay scale for accumulation. But this is a very special establisfied or who could write properly blacks, commutes which could last 6 kind of capital since it is an instrument are the writers of the fifties, fiecause they hours or more, and other impossible of communication and not one of pro- never underwent that educational pro- the Soweto uprising of (iuction. It is nevertheless this instru- conditions. After cess. That's why most of our writers are 1976, there followed a period of tense in prison or the ones inside the country ment, and generally this instrument calm, but then school strikes flared ;ue not doing much. alone, which makes possible the organi- around the country in 1980, as the crisis PW: Why would you say the ones in zation of the entire modern sector of in education deepened. the country are silent, what silences production and distribution of goods. In One writer, Jaki Seroke, of Skotaville them? other words, the more English you

Page Ih Proiessed World #25 ) 7

get — innumerable photo under siege by a U.S. surgical sledge know . . . the more likely you are to a in time for the to drive well-paying job, the more likely you are opportunities afforded by the returning hammer, while Romania fought to accumulate capital, to gain economic exiles, as African National Congress a stake through the heart of its "Vam- Ceausescu power and thus political power."" leaders have whisked through Jan pirescu" leader, Nicolae The transition of South Africa from Smuts Airport in Johannesburg en route ("that Genius of the Carpathians"), after Stalinist rule. garrison state to majority rule will not to the "talks about talks" in Cape Town. decades of hemophiliac to South be as swift as the opening up of Eastern Western media have to a large degree Some day I will return Africa. For all its strangeness, it had a Europe— to follow it requires more complied with restrictions imposed dur- supernat- sustained attention than we can hope for ing the Emergency, which is why little familiarity which was almost personal. from a week on Nightltne. The turmoil of was heard about South Africa in the ural, and I suppose, highly apartheid has been clicking the counter mainstream press from 1986 through My hope in writing on this subject has are not towards critical mass, an ever intensify- 1989. Even worse, news reports in both been to show that the issues ing revolution of rising expectations, the American and British media too duochromatic, just black and white, and with urgency written large on the world often blandly repeat the language of the that resolution lies in the struggle to free stage since Sharpeville, 1960. South African Bureau of Information, captive hearts and minds with human channels of The reforms announced at the begin- apparent in the expression "black on decency, and new commu- ning of 1990 are motivated in large part black violence." That stock phrase has nication. African by the desperate economic situation, shades of the swart gevaar, along with the As apartheid crumbles. South in the of due both to infernal factors and interna- tribal sleight of hand by which the ruling society will be remade wake tional pressure. As Sipho Sepamla National Party has used a trick of protean change. This story has staying pointed out, whites are going to have to apartheid to divide and rule on lines of power, with special relevance to Ameri- It one of the great surrender some of the privileges accord- its own devising. "It's just more faction cans. represents this century: ed them by color to arrive at a deeper fighting, showing these uncivilized unanswered questions of powerful elite, with security. Men like my Uncle Frank de blacks aren't fit to rule" is the message how does a rich and Klerk will have to compete on equal implicit in such terminology. centuries of inbred intolerance, and a terms with people he might consider his So we navigate across a slipstream defiant isolationism, accept or adapt to centuries racial inferiors. The Broederbond tradi- mediascape littered by Knowledge parity with its neighbors? Can to call tion of baantjies vir boeties (jobs for M(Nuggets, warped by the sudden of bloody-minded determination into reality? friends) has led to half of all employable combustion of televised blipverts, and a all the shots be reasoned Afrikaners working in some capacity for media nee klaced either by state control, For South African whites, the answer to decide their future the State. Job reservation will have to or the self-censorship of monopolistic these questions will end, followed by an affirmative action to corporate ownership. It is a strain just to in Africa. South correct labor and property inequities, keep track of all the bright and dark A new page is turning on the "redistribution of wealth" which threads on this world skein, if we are to Africa. When Mandela steps through takes whites dread, but increasingly accept as tie up some of the loose ends before the the pearly gates of Pretoria, and inevitable. millenium. the nation s capitol with him, the people after centuries After four years of harsh Emergency As 1989 segued into the nineties, it will finally come together Rule, some press restrictions have been reached the point where there was a of struggle. — William Brummer lifted; media workers such as Zwelake Country of the Week, or in the last by Sisulu (editor of the New Nation) has weeks of the year, several countries had been released from lengthy detention to vie for world attention: Panama

1) Comedian Pietei-Dirk Uys, quoted in The New York Times, 30 J an. 1990 2) Pakenham, Tfiomas. The Boer War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979.

3) Opperman, D.J. "Camera." 4) Breytenbach, Breyten. The True Confessiom of an Albino Terrorist. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1983. p. 52 5) Crocker, Cfiester A. South Africa's defense

posture: coping with vulnerahility . Beverly Hills: Published for the Center lor Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University [by] Sage Publications, cl981. (Washington papers; 84) (Sage policy paper) 6) Grundy, Kenneth W. The Militarization oj

South African Politics. Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, 1986. p. 58 7) The New York Times, 12 Sept. 1989 8) The New York Times, 28 Sept. 1985 9) Frankel, Philip. Pretoria's Praetorians: civil- military relations in South Africa. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge Univ- ersity Press, 1984. p. 54 10) Frankel. p. 96 African Trade Unions 1 1 Congress of South 12) Alexander, Neville. "Language Policy and African Defense Force monument on top This is the South National Unity" in Language Projects' Review, v. 4:3 overlooking Pretoria. The plaques bear of Klapper Kop (Nov. 1989). the names of SADF dead. Photography was prohibited at this site.

Page 1 Proiissed World ff2S We toured the favelas (slums) built on stilts over the shoes or rocks up in the hope of knocking down a ripe mango. Amazon as it surged by Belem's million inhabitants at the Then the rains would start and within minutes dozens of river's cavernous mouth. Windmg down narrow passageways mangos were pelting the area below. The boys, armed with six feet above foul-smelling mud, garbage and river water, we emptied garbage bags that they'd rinsed out in the rushing were greeted with friendly curiosity. Among the wooden curbside stream of dirty black water, scrambled to stuff their shacks and extreme poverty we found the occasional antennae bags and shorts full of mangos. What a sight! Six and and color TV* visible in the middle of a living room. seven-year-old boys with 15 good sized mangos stuffed into We encountered in this stilt-town a 5-year-old's birthday their tiny shorts and clutched in their little arms, hobbling party, with a 3-foot tall cake and 2 dozen formally clad young along trying to prevent them from falling and being snatched partiers waiting to cut loose under a plethora of Catholic up by latecomers. icons. We were encouraged to shoot the scene with our video Not too many cities have free food falling into the streets camera, during which everyone was very quiet and serious. every day at 3 p.m.! But too many do share Brazil's Awed by the camera, a great deference fell over the party, astronomical rates of malnutrition and infant mortality, which

making its recording a thoroughly empty effort. But its plague its "developed" cities as much as the country's infamous "emptiness" was my problem since their quiet wasn't less "real" northeast. Amazonians, over seven million in "urban" than boisterously ignoring our presence would have been. environments, typically live in squalid conditions.

Maybe their reaction was more interesting. . . Throughout a bizarre trip on the mud-stricken Transama- Right around 3 p.m. the equatorial rains would fall in zonian Highway, we were treated to the raucous presence of a torrents. The city of Belem is full of mango trees planted over small video brigade^ of Stalinist youth associated with the a century ago, and the street of the house in which we stayed * Brazil has several national, privately-owned TV networks— the market was thick with Mangueiras. Every day, about 2:30 or so, young is dominated by Brazil's own media giant, TV Globo, the pliant voice of up and down the street, clad only boys would begin appearing authority through several military and civilian regimes. At any given time in shorts. Sometimes they clustered under a tree and threw old 65% of Brazil's millions ol TVs are tuned to TV Globo.

Page 18 Processed World #25 "

Communist Party ol Biazil. From iht- behold, this was the stiffest and least their mules, hacking one open for you moment we boarded the bus they bom- funky Funk I'd ever heard (of course, I on the spot, pulling out a gleaming a veritable barded us and the other passengers with did grow up in Oakland, plastic straw and plunking it down into pro-Albania chants, party songs, macho funk/rap capital). I absolutely detested the sweet innards, for about 20 cents. posturing, and even out-oi'-key Beatles this pale imitation of black U.S. music. The consumers of this cornucopia of tunes! They had all the qualities of a It turned out that all musical genres are beach treats were the wealthy tourists teenage clique out for a fun camping practiced in Brazil, including punk, rap, from around Brazil and the world. (In trip, but with the political rhetoric laid thrash, heavy metal, and all modern the evenings, Trancoso became some- on thick. Occasionally we would over- sounds, but why did it all sound so fake thing of a free drug zone, with coke and hear one berating another about what except the music that I knew beforehand pot openly sold in the main square.) Bukharins position was in 1926, or to be "authentic" Brazilian? A punk At the end of the day, the beach was some equally vital historical point. Lat- band called the Titas actually sounds littered with hundreds of cans and er, at the Indian gathering we were all exactly like dozens of bands I used to bottles, coconut shells and plastic refuse. headed to in Altamira, one young man pogo to in the late '70s, a sound I still Human feces and toilet paper floated in of this group turned out to be the son of enjoy. But the Titas are an exception the water just offshore, and could often an assassinated Communist city coun- since usually the cannibalized sounds be carefully stepped over on the beach, cilman. He gave a speech that was didn't ring true. too. As our days in paradise rolled by, notable for his 1968 Maoist militant the ecological time bomb before our oratorical style and the way his voice eyes, which we contributed to by our Every tourist destination has its "spe- took on a gruff, barking sound. presence, ticked on inexorably. Tran- cial" place where it is said to be really * * * coso- as-Paradise can't last for more than remote and beautiful, unspoiled but "Journeys, those magic caskets full of another five or so years. No sewer ready for a visit. Such a place is dreamlike promises, will never again yield up system was under construction or even Trancoso, a somewhat developed coast- their treasures untarnished . . . what else can planned. Garbage collection? Who al village at the end of a 30-km sand the so-called escapism oj traveling do than would do that? Where would they take confront us with the more unfortunate aspects road from the better known tourist it? Easier to chuck it down a nearby mecca Porto Seguro on the southern of our history?— The first thing we see as we ravine once every few months, or burn too, travel around the world is our own filth, Bahian coast. But this place, had it. And where else would one drain the been "cannibalized." We got there and thrown into theface of mankind. primitive toilet systems but into the — Claude Levi-Strauss, found a town that consisted of a central nearest running water? So what if it square surrounded by little wooden Tristes Tropiques, 1955 runs right into the beach that everyone shacks which masqueraded as restau- comes thousands of miles to enjoy! rants in the evenings. After dinner they Cannibalism proves to be an apt Have a Caipirinhal (the ubiquitous na- passed around the honor of hosting the metaphor for how culture percolates tional drink — serious fire water!) from the center to the periphery. My evening's hot lambada discoteque. In the surrounding area the streets were partner, my child and I went to Brazil in out private plots housed part because it was a big, vibrant place, marked and Whatever your intentions or specific full of political drama, but also full of either a home or a small hotel for the origins and attitudes at home in the cultural dynamism and sensuality sorely numerous Europeans and Argentinians U.S., when you arrive in a 3rd World lacking in our U.S. lives. But for the and wealthy Brazilians who jammed the country you are in the upper class by first month or so, wherever we went we town during the magnificent January virtue of having traveled outside of your were besieged by some variant of mid- summer. own country on vacation, clutching 80s' eurodisco or U.S. pop music. It was The three of us found a place in an U.S. dollars. The presence of our then surprising, confusing, finally depress- extremely muggy loft where we could 4-year-old daughter won instant friend- ing. It wasn't until we went to Bahia and stay above the dining/kitchen area for ship many times, as Brazilians love later to Fortaleza and Belem in the north about $12 a night. It was owned by a children, although the class differences that we got away from the banal, 35-ish wiry German who had married a were perhaps emphasized by our large, repetitive music of the center and found Brazilian woman. He was gradually healthy blonde daughter. She was as big the rhythms and depth we'd been expect- building small cabins throughout his as 7 and 8 year old children in some of ing. land, and also rented hammocks to the neighborhoods we visited. On the But what programming have we ab- backpackers, fantasies of a thriving other hand, her presence underlined our sorbed to form these expectations? How "Hippie Hilton" undoubtedly the carrot status as visible targets. his stick. do we know what it is we're looking for? on the end of People continually warned us to

Perhaps this is the reverse of the During the days we would walk two watch out for our child (implying that cannibalism promoted by U.S. culture's kilometers down to the fantastic beach she might be kidnapped at any time!), presence in other societies. We have a and plant ourselves under a palm tree to not to wear watches or jewelry in public, clear idea of what we want: the unfamil- provide a bit of shade against the and not to leave valuables in our hotel iar but fun, the safe but thrilling blistering sunshine. Throughout the day rooms or the hotel safes, either. We encounter with the Other. Aren't our vendors of every imaginable description managed to avoid violent assaults. We vacation fantasies someone else's job made their way up and down the beach, never lost our luggage. But we did description? often with wheelbarrows full of ice escape a couple of hairy situations. We went to a Rap/Funk show in Sao chests laden with beer, popsicles, cokes, One night we had gone to an ocean-

Paulo featuring Brazilian rappers. I etc., while local hippies sold handcrafts side neighborhood called Rio Vermelho assumed Brazilians would be able to get and small sandwiches. Ancient fisher- in the city of Salvador to see a celebra- funky with the best of 'em but lo and men offered coconuts from the back of tion/film screening on the side of a

Processed World #25 Page 19 church along the central north-south davs of the vacation and often con- is a wizard at adapting to new languag- traffic route. It was sponsored by a local strained our "free time." es) and left me in line at the checkout environmental group which had suc- stand to complete what should have cessfully contested the construction of~ a been an utterly routine transaction. But shopping mall on a nearby lot for over 3 I find it strangely ambiguous to be a what we didn't know and I was about to years and was declaring a partial vic- traveling U.S. citizen. Since I am find out, was that you couldn't buy the tory. They also demanded the cleaning sharply critical of all U.S. politicians bottles of beer on the shelf unless you and opening of the nearby beach to the and government actions, I always em- brought with you already empty bottles public. The majority of the 40 or so phasize that I am only American by in exchange. When the sales clerk tried attendees sitting in the parking lot for twist of fate, and don't identify with to explain this to me, I failed to the free movies were homeless boys with U.S. interests. In spite of such aliena- understand at all and fumbled for my their sweaters and scraps of cardl)oard tion, I benefit from my status by the ID, assuming she was asking me to — they were puzzled by the avant garde, value of my money, my health, my prove I was old enough to buy alcohol. surrealistic Brazilian films, but found a ability to travel freely, and if things go We weren't communicating! The line of resonant tale in the story of a serial wrong, the likelihood that at least I can people behind me was growing and murderer caught after killing a dozen purchase better treatment in jails, hospi- discontent was becoming audible. I ran homeless boys in the interior. tals, or wherever I might end up. outside the store and yelled a block As we bussed home a couple oi hours We sought out people involved in down to Caitlin to please come back and later, our bus stopped in standstill various social movements, trying to solve the problem, which she did, but traffic. Far ahead we could see a large bridge the gap our advantages created. what a discouragement! Just when I had crowd in the street. As it drew near, we People were generally willing, even started to feel some meager confidence could see the crowd was dancing around eager to explain their lives to us, which that I could get along, too! a large flatbed truck with a band playing in turn gave us a sense of responsibility At that moment, complete alienation on top— later these scenes became fa- to share their stories when we returned is inescapable. I am surrounded by a miliar as the Trios Eletncos wound home. society in which I cannot function, even through the city's Carnaval-packed In fact, some of our Brazilian friends rudimentarily. Is this the final revenge streets. As our bus slowly drew along- .seemed to have great expectations of us, of superficial experience, of traipsing in side the crowd dancing directly in front which we are finding difficult to live up for a "little looksee" without getting my of the Trio, the dancing youth began to now that we are back home. One hands dirty, my ideas too compromised, using the bus as a drum. As their woman who lived on the edge of a favela inevitably remaining an observer? pounding reached a deafening crescen- (slum) in the Zona Sul of Sao Paulo was When I left for Brazil I thought my do, suddenly the window adjacent to my very excited to be interviewed by us on trip would be something more than partner Caitlin shattered, spraying bro- video and looked forward to receiving a merely finding a nice beach to lay on, or ken glass all over her and our daughter, tape to show her friends and colleagues. a new body to exchange fluids with — opening dozens of superficial wounds. Unfortunately, we've been unable to this trip was different... or, as I thought All the passengers leaped to the aisle in contact her since we got home, and we when I had horrible moments of lost the middle of the bus, and there we can't tell why, whether it's the postal confusion, was it? stood for another 15 frightening minutes service there, here, or she moved, or we We pursued encounters and discus- waiting for the danger to pass. There have the wrong address, or what. sion with like-minded political activists, was no escape — outside the bus was the and tried to consolidate personal links frenzied mob, inside we were sitting across artificial and repressive national ducks. But nothing else happened and boundaries. To some extent we pulled eventually we made it home. that off. But the assumptions that fueled Another time, during the 3 day bank Language is a basic obstacle to every us were often thrown into doubt along holiday imposed when the "New Cruza- foreign odyssey. I've followed the same the way. do" was proclaimed in January 1989 pattern with several languages (French, For example, we found ourselves (only to be superceded in March 1990 Spanish, Danish, and now Portugese): I trying to interpret activists from Brazil's by the "New Cruzeiro"), we greedily become newspaper literate in about a Green Party (PV) within the framework pursued the best exchange rate we'd month or so, and after 3 or 4 months I of U.S. ecological politics. It was hard heard of yet from a guy in the street. We can understand a good 60-99% of what not to compare their ideas to the knew it was too high, but our anticipat- goes on around me, depending on then-current split between social- and ed good fortune was quickly reversed accents and all that. But in no case have deep-ecologists at home, even though when our money changers hustled us I mastered self-expression. To be hon- that division wasn't particularly import- into a labyrinthian alley and snatched est, I've never come close! Somehow my ant to the Brazilian political scene. In our $100 and just as quickly dashed language aptitude is acute up to the fact, Alfredo Sirkis, the Green Party city away. Justice seemed to be served, even point of speech, then it balances talent councilman from Rio de Janeiro, at the time, but it was galling to have with sheer ineptitude and neurosis. claimed that his party encompassed both been had so easily. Experience itself conspires to make tendencies quite peacefully. Also, as "low-budget tourists" han- speaking a recurrent trauma. A typical He went on to comment on the dling our relative wealth was work: going case in point: one day, about a month divergent factions in U.S. eco-politics: to the Cambista, paying bills everywhere, into the journey, we were in Rio de On the New England-based social eco- hiding our money, passports, video Janeiro, it was late afternoon and we logists: "I told them they were 'Leninist equipment, etc. The risk of a rip-off was stopped in a small supermarket. Caitlin -Anarchists,' They had saved the worst an underlying concern during many was fed up with doing all the talking (she things about Leninism and thrown away

Page 20 Processed World #25 " 1

the good things." On the California- based deep ecologists: "They were living on a different planet, called California, and had no link with the rest of humanity, not even the rest of humanity living in the U.S." Later we found other ecologists who were careful to keep their distance from the PV. Trying to understand the Green Party as a variation of a Greenpeace or an anti- nuclear alliance only moved us further from understanding what an ecological political party means in the Brazilian context. Given their marginal status after the recent national elections, and their close relationship to the

Workers' Party, it's even less clear what they represent as an independent political party. On the other hand, Brazil doesn't exist in a vacuum and the rise of ecological political groups there is directly related to and influenced by the growth of similar movements in Europe and the U.S. So drawing such connections is inevitable, and not totally with- fan in the late '70s when he was invited modern traveler, chasing after the vestiges of a out foundation, even if it tends to to a "Pastoral Operaria" meeting vanished reality. I lose on both counts, and demote the specifically Brazilian context (Christian workers). When a major more seriously than may at first appear, for, in which they exist. strike wave engulfed the industrial area while I complain of being able to glimpse no Similarly, our encounters with the around Sao Paulo in 1979, he found more than the shadow of the past, I may be

Workers Party (PT) was invariably himself deeply involved, and soon he insensitive to reality as it is taking shape at this framed by our own experiences and was fired. His involvement with the very moment, since I have not reached the stage philosophical predispositions in "ultra- Christian worker group provided the of development at which I would be capable of in left" libertarian politics in our lives at network of social support that allowed perceiving it. A few hundred years hence, home. Should we interpret the PT as a he and his family to survive the next this same place, another traveler, as despairing classical social-democratic formation? couple of years of unemployment (there as myself, will mourn the disappearance of As a Leninist party? As a grand coali- are no unemployment benefits to speak what I might have seen, but failed to see. I am tion of left forces in Brazil? Was the of in Brazil). And it also gave him the subject to a double infirmity: all that I perceive electoral strategy as bankrupt as it is in possibility to get involved with the offends me, and I constantly reproach myself the U.S.? Or should all these categories founding of the Workers Party in 1980, for not seeing as much as I should. be thrown out in light of the cataclysmic which ultimately led him to his current — Claude Levi-Strauss, changes in the East bloc, and because position. Tristes Tropiques, 1955 the PT grew out of highly democratic Me, too! mass movements with roots in many On the other hand, in spite of these different Brazilian communities? I would like to go back and live in rather negative conclusions about the And how to interpret the Catholic Brazil someday, perhaps for a year or possibilities of truly connecting to an- Church, which is split in half in Brazil two. The more time has passed since I other culture, going to Brazil was a between the traditional oligarchy- was there, the more I have come to fantastic experience. The human condi- supporting right wing bishops and the realize how difficult it is to truly grasp tion is sufficiently universal that we broad movement of base communities another society's reality. My own cul- made personal friendships that may last organized by the overtly left-wing Lib- tural baggage was so heavy, my predis- for years. The communication and eration Theologists? I have been hostile positions, responsibilities, and faculties cross-pollination that accompanies such toward Catholicism for as long as I've so infiuenced my experience that it's a visit has an inestimable value for our known much about it, but again and almost problematic to distinguish the own lives, but also, modestly, for the again people we met in urban slums, in "facts" or the "truth" about Brazil as I future of humanity. We can be sure that rural areas, in different movements, present them, from my own life experi- we don't know how sweeping, global explained how they had been drawn in ence as passed through a 4-month prism social change will happen. The grains of by a young priest, often Italian or of Brazil. sand that our travels contribute to the Spanish. dunes of world history may seem neces- . . possibilitiei: either I The current leader of the PTs city . "/ have only two sarily small and insignificant, but we'll council "bancada" (their group of seats) can be like some traveler of the olden days, who never know what our exchanges finally in Sao Paulo, Joao Castro de Alves, was Jaced with a stupendous spectacle, all, or lead to until many years from now. described to us how he had been a almost all, oj which eluded him, or worse still, Everything starts somewhere! simple metalworker and a fanatic sports filled him with scorn and disgust; or I can be a — Chris Carlsson

Processed World #2'; Page 2 BILLBOARD LIBERATION FRONT

high explosive devices appeared around culture, museums?! San Francisco, Pranks R Us requiring the attention of In 1980, Pink Floyd posed a question police bomb squad technicians. The Great that epitomized the post-Freudian, Cold Highway was temporarily closed until puz- War culture: Mother should I build a Everything is at the mercy of the zled authorities determined that these half wall? On the eve of the nineties, the walls pranlfster. The prankster operates in a pound packages of TNT were in fact filled came down, and it wasn't Sampson deliberately grey area where art, politics, with plaster of Paris. straining at the pillars of community, but and performance are in too rare alliance. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Davids with their slingshot messages, Instead of waging an all-out assault on the these fake bombs were removed from the barbs of truth, who brought down the Castle, the prankster slips through the Survival Research Laboratories show Illu- has-been Goliaths of Stasi, Husak, Zo- gates wearing a fool's outfit, or nonde- sions of Shameless Abundance De- mos, and with a few bullets, much blood, script duds, like the new "King of Absur- generating into an Uninterrupted Se- and the Army, Securitate. distan, " Vaclav Havel, or that Delta Force quence of Hostile Encounters, where In Poland, groups like "those crazies in of insurgent advertising, the Billboard Lib- they were supposed to have been show- Gdansk, " the Movement for an Alternative eration Front. ered on the audience. The show came to a Society, espouse a philosophy which can In issue §24, the BLF's distinguished premature end when the stage SRL crew be summed up as "it is forbidden to corporate history was briefly described- exhausted their last aerosol breath fire of forbid. " Actions or happenings by the one of the highlights being their PAVE retardant, and a stack of burning pianos Orange Alternative, Freedom and Peace, ALASKA campaign. This time we present came crashing down, disabling one of the and other activist organizations aimed "to their How-to-do-it manual for liberating lead performers, a motorized gila monster. " treat the political system as a work of art. billboards from the Demand Economy of Through another malfunction, the bomb They called it Socialist Surrealism, and the "free market" system. Others recount canisters were scattered over an empty used it to create a street culture so missions possible for the serious, graphic part of the parking lot, but were quickly corrosive to the pieties of statist society, business at hand— to reveal the terror of snapped up by exiting members of the that the overthrow of same assumed an our ways here in the subliminal city. audience, pranksters all, who took the ironic inevitability. Tension, dissension, and apprehen- performance from beneath the freeway How can even the most determined-to- sion have begun/ into the streets and beyond. conform citizen keep a straight face when The prankster undermines confidence A few weeks later, the OIlie North confronted by thousands of people engag- and security in everyday belief systems, roadshow rolled into town. The gig was at ing in open-air dada, chanting Stalinist sabotages the official reality by moving the Circle Star Theater, and a shredding hymns at the monkey house of a zoo, or objects, letters, words, using chemicals, party was assembled the night before by staging mock urban warfare with buckets solvents, adhesives to manipulate media in the San Francisco Cacophony Society. of water, shouting "Freedom and water!" such a way as to bring into sharp relief the Although security was tight, their revelry Tapes of ousted Communist leader Ladi- true agenda hidden between the lines, the and champagne mirth under police surveil- slav Adamec addressing a Party Congress clenched fists of closed captioned com- lance, they enjoyed themselves to the max, have for months played in Civic Forum mentary for the being-impaired. TV im- not with a bang, * but a *queep video galleries and cafes across Czecho- plodes another logic bomb behind the The next day, bomb squad technicians slovakia, convulsing people as the most eyes, propaganda floods the system— the removed suspicious-looking devices glued riotous comedy in years. newspaper's ink smile fades on the time- to the side of the Circle Star Theater. The political machine is in an advanced shifting crowd which now wavers at the Circuit boards that turned out to be circuit state of decay. Is this the long awaited why of it all. boards attached to (and at) no charge! withering away of the state? It has become Freedom is terror Only Santa Claus can save you from such a self-satirizing system that people said Sartre. The prankster's actions may poverty! brave water cannons and purple dye to jeer be viewed as an aesthetic experience, or a Are these two unrelated incendiary at it in the streets. When any innocent borderline mock terrorist attack. Last hoaxes the same as crying "Theater!" in a bystander can get caught up and become spring saw a rash of prank terrorism here in crowded fire? Do they reflect a new part of the picture, vulnerable to art attack, the Bay Area. militance in art that further breaks down the political volatility and possibilities for In May, a few dozen seemingly authentic walls, from Berlin to those morgues of razing consciousness are primed and ready to go.

The spraycan is a start— it ^Hlk^l ••»«; may have eaten away one side of the Wall, though it took the flight of refugees voting with their feet to give the final blow. Who says "it ain't right to write"? Write on! —Art Tinnitus

The Billboard Liberation Front has been successfully improving outdoor advertising since 1977. We hope you find the following primer useful and comprehensive. We have detailed methods for alterations ranging from the smaller, easily accessible boards, to the massive, more difficult ones on freeways. ..J. In most instances, it should not be

Page 22 Processed World #25 . MANUAL necessary to use the elaborate — even ob- sessive precautions that the BLF has resorted to for an individual or group to get their message across. A can of spray paint, a blithe spirit, and a balmy night are all you really need. There are many different reasons for wishing to alter or in other ways improve an existing advertisement. In this primer we avoid ideology and stick to practical information only.

1) Choosing A Board Once you have identified a billboard message you wish to improve, you may tionately to how convoluted your position police station or Highway Patrol headquar- has become. Placing huge words or im- ters? What is their patrol pattern in the want to see if there are multiple locations with the same advertisement. You should ages is much more difficult. area? Average response time to Joe Citi- determine which ones give your message c) Security zen's call? You can get an idea by staking observing. Is it quiet at optimum visibility. A board on the central After choosing your board, be sure to out the area and night or is there a lot of foot traffic? When freeway will obviously give you more inspect it during day and night. Take note the bars let out, will this provide cover — exposure than one on an obscure side of all activities in the area. Who is about at i.e. keeping the cops busy, or will it street. You must then weigh the location/ 2:00 a.m.? How visible is your work area, drunks likelihood of detection by visibility factor with other crucial variables both in front of and behind the board? How increase the they care? If you are such as physical accessibility, potential visible will you be while scaling the support passersby? Do spotted, it pay to have your escape routes, volume of foot and vehicu- structure? Keep in mind you will make definitely may people check them out rather than lar traffic during optimum alteration hours, noise; are there any apartment or office ground don't call the cops. Do not etc. windows nearby? Is anyone home? Walk just hoping they let them connect you with a vehicle. Have In choosing a board, keep in mind that lightly if you're on a rooftop; who knows the most effective alterations are often the who you're walking over. your ground person(s) pretend to be passersby find out what the simplest. If you can totally change the What is the visibility to passing cars on chance and meaning of an advert by changing one or surface streets and freeways? What can observer thinks. We've been spotted at people two letters, you'll save a lot of time and you see from your work position on the work a number of times and most amused. You'll find that most people, trouble. Some ads lend themselves to board? Even though it is very difficult to were officials, don't look up unless parody by the inclusion of a small image or see a figure on a dark board at night, it is including symbol in the appropriate place (a skull, not impossible. Any point you have line of given a reason to do so. hit. radiation symbol, happy face, swastika, sight vision with is a point you can be seen Go up on the board prior to your Get vibrator, etc.). On other boards, the addi from. a feel for being there and moving around night. Bring a camera tion of a cartoon "thought bubble" or a How close is your board to the nearest on the structure at "speech balloon" for one of the characters The traffic flow soon compelled the all- might be all that is needed. american duo to leave; indeed, it was so 2) Preparation Aim High heavy that even with immediate warning aj Accessibility — had cellular phones been invented — How do you get up on the board? Will Once upon a time there were 5 tree the cops would have taken minutes to you need your own ladder to reach the planters from a cooperative who, having arrive. bottom of the board's ladder? Can you worked very hard, took a vacation in Within 15 minutes the sign was "cor- climb the support structure? Is the board Seattle. They saw a billboard which had a rected" and our heroes departed, leaving on a building rooftop, and if so, can it be very phallic Jet aircraft torqueing across the their spattered overalls and equipment in a reached from within the building, from a sign with the caption "Aim High. " So they friend's boat, which was anchored in one fire escape, or perhaps from an adjoining did. of the city's canals. To celebrate they building? If you need ladders to work the People went onto the board, measured sought out a local bar, whose tinted board, occasionally they may be found on and got color samples. They pasted red windows turned out to have a command- platforms on or behind the board, or on painted letters onto white butcher paper, ing view of the scene of the crime. As they adjacent boards or rooftops. got squeegees and other gear, and one entered it was clear that virtually everyone b) Practicality evening rush hour they posted a person at had watched them; they were fingered . . How big are the letters and/or images one end of the freeway bridge next to the and the room broke into cheers. minutes you would like to change? How close to board, and another near an on-ramp in the They had relaxed for perhaps 20 like gangbusters, the platform at the bottom of the board is opposite direction; all armed with walkie- when the police arrived assist them in their your work area? talkies. The others wheat-pasfed the paper looking for people to a thing, the On larger boards you can rig from above onto the sign. inquiries. As nobody had seen and hang over the face to reach points that Most observers were amused; the others cops left. are too high to reach from below. We don't were much more emphatic, even hostile. By noon the board had been recovered

great . . . recommend this method unless you have One father-son team got out and demand- with the same sign. It looked some climbing and rigging experience. ed that the crew "COME DOWN HERE until the next winter rain, when the added the wet paper: When hanging in one position your work RIGHT NOW!!!" The young vandals ex- letters ghosted through the words "Blow area in very limited laterally. Your ability to plained that they just had a job to do and next to "Aim High" were

leave the scene quickly diminishes propor- ignored these "Love it or Leave It" types. Up The Pentagon!"

Page 2 J Processed World #25 —a good cover for doing anything you're not supposed to: "Gee, officer, I'm a night photographer, and there's a great shot of the Bay Bridge from up there ..." Check out your escape routes. Can you cross over rooftops and leave by a fire escape across the block? etc. etc. d) Illumination Most boards are brightly lighted by floodlights of some type. Most large Kant. boards are shut off some time between 11:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. by a time clock control somewhere on or near the board. 'he choice is ssiWj. Smaller boards frequently are controlled by photo-electric cells or conventional time-

clocks, also somewhere on the board. If measurements or tracings directly off the 2) Most large paint you find the photo-electric cell, you can stores carry small board. book paint turn the lights on the board off by taping a samplers. It is possible to get a If, however, you intend to create over- pretty close small flashlight directly into the cell's match from these samplers. lays of great size and/or number of letters We suggest sticking to solid colors "eye." This fools the unit into thinking it is and and you want the finished image to look as relatively simple sunrise — the time the light are supposed to designs for the maximum much as turn off. possible like the advertisers them- visual impact. selves had made it, you should plan on As noted, most larger boards are con- c) Letter Style more elaborate preparation. trolled by time-clocks. These can be found If you wish to match a letter style Find a position roughly level with the in the control panels at the base of the exactly, pick up a book of different letter board and in direct line with it looking supports structure and/or behind the ac- types from a graphic arts supply. Use this square on (200 to 1000 or so feet tual board itself. These panels are often away). in conjunction with tracings of existing Photograph the board from this position locked (particularly those at the structure's letters to create the complete range of and make a tracing from a large print of base). Unless you are familiar with ener- lettering needed for your alteration. You this photo. Using measurements you have gized electrical circuitry and devices of this can convincingly fake letters that aren't on taken on the board (height, width, type we caution you to wait until the clock letter the board by finding a closely matching height, etc.), you can create a scale shuts itself off at midnight or so. Many of letter style in the book and using tracings drawing of your intended alteration. these boards run 277V or 220 volts, and From of existing letters as a guide for drawing this, it is possible to could cook you well-done. determine how large the new letters. your overlays will need to be and what 3) Graphic Layout: d) Application spacing will be required between letters. Lettering & Image Design We recommend not using overlays b) Color Match a) Scale much larger than 4'x3'. If your message is There are two basic ways to match the larger, you should section it and butt the If you are changing only a small area background and/or colors of the lettering sections together for the finished (one letter, image. It a small symbol, etc.) you or image area. gets very windy on boards probably do not and large need to go to any 1) On painted or paper boards you can paste-overs are difficult to elaborate lengths apply. Some to match or design your usually carve a small (1" 1") x sample nights there is "overlay" condensation on the boards, (we'll use this term to describe directly off the board. This does not always and the areas to be covered need to be the finished image/lettering you'll be ap- work on older painted boards which have wiped down. Use heavy pattern plying to paper for the board). Just take actual many thick layers of paint. overlays and gloss lacquer paint. The

lacquer paint suffuses the paper, making it super tough, water resistant and difficult to tear. For making overlays, roller coat the background and spray paint the lettering through cardboard cut-out templates of ^CHEVRON the letters. For extremely large images or panels, use large pieces of painted canvas. The canvas should be fairly heavy to avoid being ripped to shreds by the winds that buffet most billboards. Glue and staple ( spanner 1"x4" boards the entire horizontal length and bottom line of the canvas. The canvas will then roll up like a carpet for transportation and can be unrolled over the top of the board and lowered into place by ropes.

You can either tie the four corners and middle (top and bottom) very securely, or, if you can access the face of the board either by ladder or rope, attach the panel by screwing the 1"x4" spanners to the

board behind. A good battery powered drill is needed for this. We recommend hex We're With You ALL The Way! head "Tek" sheet metal screws, #8 or #10 size. Use a hex head driver bit for your drill.

GRAPHIC:-' Page 24 Processed World #2? . ) "

To apply the cement use full sized (10") house paint rollers and a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Have one person coat the back of the paste-overs while another coats the board's surface. Both people will be needed to affix the coated paste-over to the finished board surface.

4) The Hit

Once you've completed all the preparation and are ready for the actual hit, there are many things which can be done to minimize the risk of apprehension. a) Personnel Have the smallest number of people possible on the board. Three is about optimum; two for the actual work, and one lookout/communications person. You will probably require additional spotting teams on the ground (see below).

These screws work well on either wood rubber cement. Rubber cement is easily bl Communications backboards or sheet metal. removable (but if properly applied will stay For work on larger boards where you will To level overlay panels on the board, up indefinitely) and does not damage or be exposed for great lengths of time, we measure up from the bottom (or down permanently mark the board's surface. recommend hand-held communication de- from the top) of the board to bottom line of This becomes crucial if, after your appre- vices (CB units or FM band walkie-talkies)

[where it needs to be in order to cover the hension, the authorities and property own- if you have access to them. existing copy. Make small marks at the ers start assessing money lost due to Have one or two cars positioned at outermost left and right-hand points. Using property damage. crucial intersections within sight of the a chalk snap line with two people, snap a Application of rubber cement on large board. The ground unit(s) should moni horizontal line between these two points. overlays is tricky. You need to evenly coat tor oncoming traffic and maintain

This line is your marker for placing your both the back-side of the paste-over and radio contact with the lookout on overlay(s). the surface of the board that is to be the board. (Note: do not use the pop- Although there are many types of adhe- covered. Allow 1—2 minutes drying time ular CB or FM channels; there are many sive which could be used, we recommend before applying the paper to the board. others to choose from. A verbal code is

Office"). They had substituted — perfectly We Also Do Boards — the word "Deadly" for "the Law. " Our first attempt was not as polished: we replaced the third line with ours, which Our story begins long, long ago . . . even position, pressed down, then rolled firmly. read "It's a Trap for Assholes. " We the statute of limitations has run out . . The process is repeated for another large alterations I've never been at my best at 3:30 in the piece, then for two small ones. specialized in these signs, our morning; being acutely nervous doesn't We are interrupted by happy cries from including "It's the Pig's Law" and "Men help the experience. In the predawn dark- the street — skateboarders! One of them turning 18 must register at the morgue. ness our voices are muffled as we wake calls his friend over - unable to believe his We also hit other targets of opportunity. rolls colored artist's paper and drink some coffee, some alcohol: eyes. His friend misses us at first, then We used of stores; originally we tried Slivovitz. We leave silently, carrying anon- focuses. They ask what we're doing, and I from various it as too much ymous black knapsacks, dressed in dark tersely explain "We're correcting this bill- spray-painting but gave up colors, wearing felony shoes (sneakers), board. " They watch for a minute before work and too expensive. We made letters get into our vehicles and depart. heading down University Ave. We rapidly with the appropriate color of paper and The actual At the prearranged area we park out of finish our work and collect our tools. The applied them with white glue. with sight of each other, retrieve our sacks and ground person has already vanished application to the board was done It only works on bundles (rolls of paper, painting rollers with around the corner when we dismount and ordinary laundry starch. it is cheap long handles, what are those — mops.^J walk away calmly, pausing for a moment paper or cardboard signs, but obtain. and walk calmly to the board. It's one to admire our handiwork. A sign which and easy to training for more we've hit before so we know access and used to advertise a condominium village in We regarded this as endeavors. had read visibility. Hopefully the watch teams are in Richmond with the slogan "Once a Great adventurous We "Traces" — a manual useful for those who place in each direction. We won't know Notion I Now a Great Life" now reads actions which they do not want to until we all get home — or we are warned "Once a Great Nation I Now a Great perform caught doing — emphasizing the use of of an approaching cop by a blinking Li e. " A banner with 20 inch letters be items, and lots of flashlight. reading "US Out of North America" co- untraceable, ordinary pieces of the perpetrator ''he board is low, so one person will vers the real advertiser's name. (Let us not caution about on the crime-scene, and vice- w irk on the ground. The nimblest climbs get into a debate about whether it has ever remaining versa. uf^ first, then the heaviest. Mops are been all that great; we went for the ) the ease of pci.;sed up, a bucket appears, and plastic cuteness. We were indifferent to — figured that the workers bottles (here now, what's this? starch.^j are We corrected about a dozen boards in removal we did would be paid anyway. One emptied. On the ground the rolls are about a year. We were inspired by another who so I worker replacing an SS unfurled and wetted lightly with a mop, group in Berkeley which was altering afternoon saw a furious- while above another wets the paper of the Selective Service registration boards ("It's board that we had hit; we worked calls, assembled the team, and billboard the same way. The awkward Quick / It's Easy I It's the Law I Men ly, made sheet is handed up, maneuvered into turning 18 must register at the Post continued on next page ?ela Bocage

Processed W

5) Daytime Hits We don't recommend this method for most high boards on or near freeways and

major roads. It works well for doing smaller boards lower to the ground where the

alteration is relatively quick and simple. If you do choose to work in the light, wear coveralls (company name on the back?), painters' hats, and work quickly. Keep an eye out for parked or passing vehicles bearing the billboard company or advertiser's name. Each board has the company

emblem bottom center on it. If you're on a Sleaze Co. board and a Sleaze Co. truck

pulls up, you're probably in trouble. It is unlikely that the workers will try to physi-

cally detain you (try bribery, if necessary), but they will probably call the cops. a good idea since others do have access to the area, and a rendezvous point with the POSTSCRIPT the channels you will be using.) ground support crew. If a patrol is ap-

proaching and you are in a difficult spot for If anyone reading this primer finds it of

It is crucial that your ground crew do not quickly ditching and hiding (hanging on a any use in their own advertising endeavors,

lounge around outside their vehicle(s) or in rope in the middle of the board, for we at the BLF will consider it successful.

any other way make it obvious that they instance), it may be better simply to stay We believe roadside advertising en- are hanging around a likely desolate area still until they pass. Movement is more hancement is a pastime more individuals late at night for no apparent reason. A likely to catch the casual eye. Once on the should engage in. It's not that difficult to passing patrol car will notice them much ground, if pursuit is imminent, hiding may do smaller, low-to-the-ground boards. A sooner than they would ever notice you on be the safest bet. If you've covered the quick hit-and-run on such a board will not the board. Keep a low profile. terrain carefully, you'll be aware of any require all of the elaborate preparations

c) Escape good hiding spots. Keep in mind that if the and precautions we have detailed. police search (doubtful, but The more "real" If you've done your homework, you'll do a thorough messages we have on know the terrain surrounding the board not impossible), they will use high- the freeways and streets, the better. Thornhill quite well. In the event of detection, powered spot lights and flashlights on foot. -R.O. prepare a number of alternate routes out of Stashed clothing in your hiding spot may BLF Education Officer

had a newer — better — version up by 4:00 assistance. " One, strung across the last security" company. His boss called him in the next morning. Fast service! overpass before the toll plazas on the and told him that he had just finished We never went onto a board in advance; SF-Oakland Bay Bridge, was in honor of reassuring the place's head of security that a certain feeling that it wasn't all that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Imitating a the person who had done it was fired (the necessary and that it exposed you unduly. movie marquee it read "LEBANON — FBI proved that the paint was applied In fact, some LAGgards (Livermore Action Featuring: A Casket of Thousands / A US- before the labels were put on the cans). Group — an anti-nuke group) were caught Israel Production." It went up at 6:30 a.m.; Fortunately for him, his boss had lied. measuring on a board and charged with CalTrans crews took this cotton sheet Et So, what's the point? Get out there and trespassing. Needless to say, they also rope creation down in less than an hour, have fun; spread the good word! Some-

became some of the "usual suspects" for but not before countless people saw it. The times it's disheartening — you'll find that any billboard operations in the area. We other was done in support of a LAG block- lots of people never look at billboards, and worked with photos and visual inspections ade, and was a light paper/balsa sign that some people who do don't see what it on foot, as we were mostly hitting small read simply "US Navy Supports the Liver- really says. But such methods represent boards in urban areas. Freeways are a more Blockade. " Intrepid climbers were alternate communications that subvert different matter. dropped off on Treasure Island (a US Navy commercial and social space.

Most of our work was "corrections" and Et Coast Guard property ) at about 6:15 a.m. Hope to see your writing on the wall, real small alterations. We learned the hard way They climbed up and hung the banner soon, everywhere! that what the BLF says about small pieces above the tunnel for west-bound traffic. And remember — Be careful; Be funny; of paper is not just a good idea; it's a law of We had several cars, each making a quick Be Audacious! nature. We only tried to take over a whole automotive stop — with excuses ready — — Unos de Nosotros board once. A dozen of us were involved on the lower deck (east bound! periodically — tremendous racket, lots of work, big until the party was retrieved (or captured). failure. If we had scouted first we would The sign was quickly removed, but at least have known that this beast was enameled one AM radio DJ reported it, wondering metal. Our staple-guns and starch were idly if the Navy knew about it. A caution- ineffectual. At least we got the size right. ary note here — we were VERY careful They closed off the access after our about these — if your sign comes down on attempt. Ah well. Wish we'd had the BLF's traffic it will be very counterproductive. manual then. Make sure the sign can be removed safely. Unwilling to limit ourselves to existing "authorized" locations, we also hung ban- You want to be careful with stencils; one ners—large ones. Both were initiated by of us applied anti-nuke slogans to the others; we merely provided "technical labels of cans going to a local "national

Page 26 Processed World #25 MICROFICTIONS

An Ancient Dilemma Jim slipped on his son's toy slime and passed through a time portal. When he regained his balance, he was standing on the deck, sailing a barge through the strait of ancient Messina, approaching Scylla and Charybdis. "Captain," said the mate, "what now? Either we're dinner ior the beast or we perish in the maelstrom!" Thoughts of flesh tearing, bones crush- ing, and death by choking. "Don't know," replied Jim. "Maybe there's a third option.

Let's drop anchor! Now when I say three, everybody chortle!" They stopped the ship and guffawed at the frustrated monsters until the Age of Mythology passed.

Friday, July 3, 4:45 Jim ran into Cheryl on the company elevator. When she mentioned the weather, he thought, should I bring up global warming? Start a meaningful discourse? Before he could speak, the elevator got stuck near the sixteenth floor. When they tried dialing for help, the elevator jeered, "Fools, that won't work. I am not letting you out. So give up." "You can't hold us, we've got Said Jim, Uncertifiable work to do!" "Pah!" laughed the elevator, "Your new Depressed by recent unexplained events, Jim went to a psychiatrist. He told her job is amusing me." about the time subluxations, the evil elevator, and the Famous Dead, but added that "C'mon," said Cheryl, "It's a three-day he'd always managed to cope. weekend!" "These may be delusions," she said. She asked him the color of his nightmares, the "Don't make me laugh. I've held people color his office walls. say. if " of He couldn't Then she asked him there were round through Chrislmas. stamps, magenta fruits, or rubber houses and if not, why not. He gave terse replies. Jim looked into Cheryl's sassy eyes, and After a long and expensive session, she said she'd let him know her diagnosis. The for the first time noticed they were curb- next day she called. "Mr. Walker, good news! I've detected no delusions in your stone gray. "What the hell," he said. "It's 90 profile, outside, cool as a supermarket here. Let's psychological none whatsoever. Feel better now?" get comfortable at company expense." Soon "Yes," he said. "Yes, thank you." As soon as he hung up, she appeared on his as they lay down on the plush carpet, the computer screen in pixilated color. Before he could turn it off, she stepped out. doors opened. — Peter Bates

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Processed World #25 Page 27 "^ adult population stfll used the 'jrJ3> .epresentative H.L. ) \ "Buzz" Ephus, D- Death vile stuff, and that many of them Valley, sipped on his beer, settled were minorities in the lowest eco- into his armchair, and fixedhis gaze nomic brackets, in other words,

. nonvoters. on the' talking head of President Quayle. Quayle held up a large bag of "ice," pointed Tobacco was the only choice. But with over a quarter of the population still ad- to it, and droned on about his War on Drugs without even cracking a smile. Ephus dicted to it, it would be impossible to enact the whistled appreciatively. sort of draconian penalties for tobacco use which users of less He took another sip, turned down the TV, and had proven so popular when applied to had problem, began to think of ways to turn drug hysteria to harmful drugs. Ephus knew he a personal political advantage. Quayle had staked but one which properly solved could lead to big out the popular ground on the issue of illegal political rewards. drugs and there wasn't much to be done about The following week he announced his plan from the steps of the capitol in Sacramento. It had it short of advocating "Islamic" penalties. Ephus chuckled as he imagined ripping the lungs three parts: First, that an additional $l-per- out of marijuana smokers and the nasal pack tax be added to the levee on cigarettes; passages from coke snorters, but he soon Second, that the legislature mandate that abandoned the thought. Those penalties every ten millionth cigarette sold in Czdi- were so vicious that even those connoisseurs fornia be impregnated with cyanide; Third, of inflicted pain, his constituents, wouldn't that the cigarette tax/poisoning program approve of them. be combined with the existing state lottery as The That left the legal drugs. Ephus knew and that the result be promoted that alcohol killed well over 100,000 Hot One. people a year, including tens of Under the proposal, the next of kin of thousands of drunk driving and "winners" would become instant murder victims. But a majority of winners themselves — they would non-drug-using adult Americans collect $10,000 on the spot merely used alcohol on a regular basis, and by hauling the cadaver and the Ephus was enough of a realist to unsmoked portion of The Hot One lottery outlet. As a know that any attempt to inflict to the nearest eligible to severe legal pain on them would bonus, they would be in a drawing to ap- be doomed to failure. participate pear on The Big Spin. That left tobacco. It was more addictive than heroin The proposal caused an uproar. Nonsmokers Every year it killed over generally approved of it, but 300,000 of its users, causing almost 100 times as many many felt that it didn't go particularly deaths as all illegal drugs ar enough. A vehement anti-smoking combined. And it even killed 5,000 nonsmokers group, Nonsmokers Smoking annually via second- U^r Against hand smoke. Best of Tobacco in Everyday ituations (NASTIES), all, its use had plum- that meted in recent publicly urged years; polls had the poison used be shown that only botulin toxin. They M that 27 percent of the argued hour m^^c^-J:^-'^?^.

Processed World #25 Page 28 uosu\?Msai oiHdvyo upon hour enhance their already macho image, and Lottery earnings and disbursements ol retching, Ephus' bill was promptly enacted into to schools have doubled — the schools agonizing law. now receive two dollars per student per pain, and Within a week Ephus announced his year— and even the surgeon general's hallucina- candidacy for governor, lotto fever hit notice on cigarette packs has a kinder tions fol- the smoking public, and the day that the and gentler tone: "Warning: If you pur- lowed by first Hot Ones went on sale there were chased this pack of cigarettes, you may

death would lines at cigarette counters all over the already be a winner." be a fair state. — by Chaz Bufe pavback lor 1 wo days later the first winner, Heber the misery, Benson, a 48-year-old plastics factory discomfort, foreman, dropped dead in an Italian and disease restaurant m Fresno. The other custom- caused by ers were ecstatic, and Benson's wife, a second- fundamentalist christian, shrieked that hand the "rapture" had come when she hauled smoke. Heber's carcass to the nearest liquor Ephus store and received her $10,000. The acknowl- Lottery Commission lifted her even edged the higher with another $10,000 for her merits oi permission to use Heber's name and

their suggestion, but argued that it would image in The Hot One's promotional make his proposal unworkable. Botulin campaign. toxin would require several hours to take Both campaigns were spectacularly effect, by which time The Hot One would effective. Ephus won the gov- have been discarded. He argued that ernor's race in a landslide, and this would destroy the integrity of the today, a year after the first system, as the heirs of any clown who winner bit the dust, you can

picked the wrong can of vichyssoise still see of Heber scampering could haul their dear departed to the around in lottery commercials nearest lottery outlet and claim $10,000 lip-syncing When You're Hot rightfully belonging to smokers. 'You're Hot. The anti-smokers remained uncon- vinced until Ephus played his trump

card: "Look, if cyanide is used, the next time you're in a restaurant and some jerk pulls out a pack of cigarettes, you'll know there's a chance that the clown will be face down in the lettuce and thousand

island within seconds. If botulin is used, that won't happen.'' That they bought; and the botulin suggestion was immediately withdrawn. Smokers were initially edgy about Ephus' proposal, but they warmed to the idea after he explained, "You know, the average smoker smokes about a pack a day. That works out to 7,300 cigarettes a year. At that rate you'd have to smoke for 1400 years before hitting The Hot One! Hell, your chances of getting eaten by hogs are higher than that!!" After Ephus explained the minimal risk to smokers, popular opposition to The Hot One melt- ed away. Male smokers quickly realized that a little additional danger would GRAPHIC; IRSwanson

Processed World #l'i Page 29 Just Two Precious Weeks?!!

gratifying— but it runs the risk of becoming a sham, of being

l\ recent advertisement for US Air tells us that foreign just another role one plays. Of course we humans are workers (German, French, Australian) all enjoy paid vaca- wondrously inventive, and so the appropriation of time and its tions of a month or more. It concludes "In the US we get just multiple utilization is never a simplistic matter. What is one two precious weeks, [pause / cut to diver over pool] GO FOR person's drudgery, avoided or minimized by gadgets or hired

IT!" It is at once a nakedly revealing portrait of our overwork persons, is another person's joy. I like cooking and eating; my and a paean to our personal toughness. disposal of time (and money) will be dictated by a different

With few exceptions, people don't enjoy work. Not only is it requirement: far from minimizing it, I want to intensify the compulsory, often in a boring and predictable environment experience. over which we have little or no control, suffering major Satisfaction in autonomous time is strangely elusive. Free outrages and minor threats, exercising no personal creativity, time is not fun, instead it can be threatening. As "Paris- but the JOB keeps encroaching on our own time] While the Cheques," a data processor in a bank puts it in Travailler Deux work week lengthens with growing commutes and time spent Heures Par Jour (see page 44): "The women at work tell me: preparing for work, the job extends into leisure space/time — 'But what would you do with an extra free day? I don't even perhaps more accurately labeled "autonomous" time, since it is know how to go to the movies alone!' As far as they're seldom exclusively dedicated to "leisure." The phone, the concerned, if I am not either at home or at work I'm obviously home computer and the fax — all becoming more mobile and cruising the street. ...You have coffee, next to you is powerful — are changing our society's definition of leisure someone who feels like having a conversation, who perhaps had time. Nor is it enough to show up for work, bright eyed and a cool experience and it stops there. That's life. Or listening to bushy tailed — or at least awake — one must now conform to some guy play jazz in the street: that's pleasure. They [the company policy and drug law at night and on the weekend. women] have lost even pleasure. You deny yourself joy and As other reviews in this issue indicate, the reduction of work after work you get drunk or run away towards who knows time is not only desirable, it is feasible — dare we say necessary. what, eventually to die ..."

Recently, in a break with the 40 hour straitjacket, the We have so little practice in using autonomous time in

(West) German Metalworkers Union signed contracts for a 35 creative ways that it would be surprising if most people were hour work week, which at least suggests that it is possible to capable of unfettered enjoyment — schools, the crucible of reduce the work week. But increasing autonomous time is not team sports, conformity and obedience, work to dissolve a goal; it is a means to a fuller life. creativity and personality, resulting in Homo Obedientus, a

The common phrase "free time" is precisely analytical, creature capable of performing menial jobs under supervi- rather than flippant and vague. The core of the experience is sion. For many (North) Americans, leisure time is equivalent time spent at one's own desire. Anything else may be with the hypnotism of TV and mass sports, tinged with the satisfying for a while— for some people it may always be drudgery of household tasks.

Page JO Processed World #25 In reality, "free" time serves to divide necessary tasks that can't be done at notes on one of these exercises —

and pacify workers even as it buys them work. To the extent that culture is vacations — accompany this article as a off. The money economy permeates produced outside of the corporate realm sidebar.

off-work Hfe as thoroughly as it controls it is created and supported by this free The difficulty categorizing this time

work-life. At the same time that it has time; garage bands and writers and reveals a central aspect of leisure time

extended itself to the farthest reaches of artists and singers all help to both create — it serves many uses at once. In the planet by means of pesky tourists and preserve popular culture. autonomous activity we can discern a

and ubiquitous radio waves, it has There are many ways of looking at denser usage of time: while some cook, moved ever more relentlessly into di- free time on the micro-level; perhaps as for instance, alone and in silence, most

verse spheres of domestic life. The many as there are people. How do we people "utilize" their now-occupied lei-

"Phone Sex" industry is a colonization of define its boundaries? I arbitrarily im- sure by adding to it on "another chan- the world of fantasy. Activities which posed some order by borrowing a divi- nel." The radio may be on, providing at used to partake but little of the realm of sion used by business, which yielded 12 least an ersatz human interaction (the commodities are now informed by en- broad categories: Entertainment, includ- talk show), music or a story, sports and trepreneurial concerns. ing music, movies, games (except games, etc. Friends or family may The ironically named "Leisure In- sports) etc.; Sports & fitness; Culture and participate either by working or simply dustry" is big business indeed; the U.S. the Arts; Reading; Self-education; "The Se- "hanging out" and talking. These social Department of Commerce estimated cond Job, " including hobbies that cross contacts are more prevalent in societies that in 1987 the U.S. spent some 570 into the commercial sphere, financial that are characterized by larger family billion dollars on leisure — about 18% of investments, etc.; Home improvements and groups and more extensive social net-

all personal expenditures. Hardly sur- "Do it yourself projects, etc.; Cooking works. prising, as in this society the realization &/or Eating; Shopping; Vacation & Travel; Attitudes towards "women's work" — of every human need is reduced to a way Family & Friends; and Beliefs & Values, often highly productive — are also af- to make money. which covers philanthropic, charitable, fecting the definitions of work and

Beyond the profit motive there are religious and political activities (this leisure. House work and child care is

even more insidious uses of leisure — magazine, fer instance). To this list I necessary to the maintenance of the

take, for example, an early example of would add Automobiles, including all home, indeed, of life itself, yet it is industrial psychology. in those improvements frills on cars, as unpaid and often not recognized as "real Workers a . & factory were divided into two groups, well as "cruising" in all its forms; Pets; work." one of which was given a 15 minute Fantasy; and Crime, such as joy riding, This "free time" is not merely an

break during the day. Not surprisingly, petty burglary, drugs, etc. Informal expression of consumption; it can be a they were more productive than the other (re)assertion of creativity, personal en- group, even though they worked fewer joyment and worth, and our sense of minutes. After the experiment the com- play. It is the alter ego of our Clark pany, with typical ingenuity, ended the Kent work life.

break . . . and the workers who had re- The attempts at personal enjoyment

ceived it remained more productive and the human will to create fight than the other group! Aha! A science of against control and conformity. We control is born. If so small a thing as a day-dream on the job and take breaks to few minutes break entirely surrounded reassert some control over the workplace

by work can be a powerful motivator we (or at least to side-step it for a while), we might deduce that paid vacations are an form friendships to ameliorate the isola- even more enticing carrot. tion and inhuman environments. Mak- Beyond the subtle manipulations of ing fun of the boss, or of stupid rules, identity and aspiration there is an helps us maintain sanity as well as enforced "individualism." What were undermining authority. Time-theft is once collective activities become pri- one of the most common and direct vate—and passive — acts. In music, for ways of reasserting personal control at example, we rarely create music; rather work: reading and writing, practicing

the "boom-box" is used to demand waste-basket basketball, etc. Sabotage public attention, to assert existence, and theft represent not just personal while a portable stereo and headphones gain but also ways of reasserting one's

allow us to exclude the world with our self; of restoring some much needed music. Many uses of autonomous time excitement and risk to life. We might serve to separate people and confuse also remember that the Luddites broke them about the world. frames not simply to protest speed-ups We— the consumers of this leisure and layoffs, but also in rage at the time, the temporarily free — see things degraded quality of the product: the differently. For us this time is not just a need for competence, as opposed to reward or a way to be exploited. It is the waste, is a very strong motivator. locus of our personalities and hopes, as As businesses increase pressure on well as our own reproduction; not just executives and managers, who increas- sex, but also cooking and cleaning and ingly have no real job security, they too health maintenance and all those other join the stampede to identify themselves

Processed World #25 Page 31 with their leisure time activities. While A NINE-CANDLE EVENING for some leisure is just another arena in which the personality displays itself for ." bred of disdain, this foundling nuance . . others it is increasingly the reason for being. It is as though some initiate or recreation, Autonomy — or leisure, stumbled awkward iniike by whatever name— is as productive as here to address this vitriol, "real work" — usually more so. This is a venom sulk, like embarrassment. the seed of recreating the way we work; rather than wage-labor one can envision Wet behind the years a different form based on this sense of maturation threw one for a loop; history autonomous activity. Autonomous time some damp yearns for saturation, a soaking simple dupe. is intense, creative, social. As less time

is spent at paid labor more may be spent Tea in this cup at creative work. Not only does mecha- like some bedside opera glass nization yield greater productivity dur- a brewing, magnified touch ing those hours at work; the time freed steeped in a bungling upper class. for other activities may be more fully used — the person will be less exhausted Rather sweaty palms might betray and preoccupied. this hesitant novice yet to speak; Leisure time — autonomy, free time, until spoken to he awaits the fray of conversation fearing his voice too meek. my time — is multifaceted. It serves as a way of expanding the money economy How tedious the Governor's breezy prattle and commodity relations as well as ever artful his lesser minions contrive intensifying their hold. It is the essence a shred of attention in this weasels' battle of how we, as people, reproduce our- to advance one's own opinion is to survive. selves and our culture. It is both a shield

against the tyrannies of work and a t has been said that there is nothing sword that can help end that tyranny. quite like utter, dread silence — Primitivo Morales to make even the strongest of men shrink; but a particular quietude was soon evident. Thanks to Thorsleen Veblen, Dennis Hayes, William Banner of Leisure Trends, and the PW A welcome lull thus becalms the gale, collective; the errors and lacunae are mine. the novitiate clears his anxious throat; but suddenly he bursts forth, a bolder wind in his sails and barks from his trousers a vaporous boast. VACATION! n that instant the dour note had struck "Some day I'm going to walk up there followed a damning soundless moment to a white woman with a baby in as the entire starched still-life became stuck her grocery cart and cry, 'What a in the vortex of this nasty gaseous omen. darling little white child! Is he a K .« The mortified youth weighed the remote chance full-blood? May I take his picture? ^.'flfc of outright escape or brisk Could you stand over by the Won- a walk ^^^ probability that his yet smouldering pants der Bread, please — Hopi V'//n ^S'^''^^^ my ' i(»!lff may have caused this painful lapse of talk. friends will just die when they see this!'" Multiple mega-eons seemed to elapse — Cynthia IVI. Dagnal-Myron and the eolian stench by then was withering; a Hop! woman^ a composureless call for a match brought about the spectacle of many men fidgeting. The Vacation is no mere scrap of time wedged between onerous tasks; A senator was first with the tinder remedy cigars were awkwardly re-lit without delay; it is the oasis at the end of work. The although these proceedings bore no small levity standard two weeks, barely enough to not a soul had as yet even a syllable to say. decompress from habit, is so stretched

filled it is frequently found to and that The young innocent trembling under the weight be exhausting: "I need a vacation to of his stiff upper-lip finally braved the quiet; recover from my vacation!" he managed to look straight upon this muted array Vacations are often solitary, shared as though 'twas not he who caused such foul riot. by the smallest social groupings: family, occasionally a few friends. This is The ever-genteel^assembly prepared to ignore this obvious guilt and resume their idle chatting; only partly because of cost: it also when at last he spoke and demurely implored reflects the importance of "getting "Well, rather decent weather we're having? . away" for those who feel trapped at " work or home. The ability to cast off Josiah R. Leet

Page n Processed World #25 the standard roles, duties and sur-

roundings is the core of the experience. The false good cheer of the tour group, both guide and charges, is not to be mistaken for any genuine social contact. Transience and shallowness mark most such encounters with one's fellow tourists, and they are in far closer proximity— more understandable—than those who inhabit the landscape through which the tourist journeys.

By dress, money, mobility and behavior the tourist distinguishes itself. Norms of behavior from home are discarded, or at least modified, while none of the "quaint" indigenous customs are respected, let alone adopted. The sight of the tourist calmly walking uninvited into people's houses and ceremonial centers is common: such behavior would not be considered appropriate at home, wherever that may be. The tourist pays out of the pocket for the often unpleasant treatment meted out to him/her. The cost of the

Infrastructure is often paid by government bodies of one sort or another (airports, roads, electricity, etc.). Pri- vate capital creates enormous islands —a mobile and cushioned gulag — dedicated to separating visitors from their money. There are many "resort- destinations," which are often literal yearly; they do not dispose of non- this area. Within Leh the handful of fortresses in the midst of intense biodegradable waste in compliance Ladakhis who own large hotels benefit poverty. Even the wealthy North Amer- with treaties covering the Antarctic. disproportionately. ...The problem ican landscape is dotted with facilities The Institute of Political Ecology of goes beyond an uneven distribution of catering exclusively to those outside Chile now advocates the suspension of the benefits, however. Those not par- the community, ranging from small such commercial tours "because this ticipating can become economically tourist malls and parks to whole cities land of eternal ice and snow is being worse off simply by continuing to live such as Las Vegas and Atlantic City. dangerously contaminated." as they always have. The reciprocal The consequences of this for the The damages of the tourist industry relations of mutual aid are broken people in the area are rarely given more go beyond the obvious ones of eco- down by the extension of the mone- than lip service; they are expected to logical contamination and forcing peo- tary economy, and tourists' demands be grateful for the jobs. The hidden ple into a servant relationship. The for scarce resources drive up the price costs: sewage and garbage, traffic, effects are magnified in cultural (or of local goods. etc. are borne entirely by "the locals." anthropological) and "green" tourism "For example, in the past villagers Examples of environmental despoli- because of their attraction to those commonly shared pack animals in ation are found around the globe. In a areas that are the least "spoiled." The informal exchange relations. Now, recent issue of Appen Features'^ there tourist despoils what it most values. during the tourist season, animals are were articles illustrating environmental Sometimes deliberately (insisting on no longer available to a neighbor in are frequently off in hills damage from resorts & tourists in "western" accommodations) and need: they the Palawan (a unique island in the Philip- sometimes unintentionally (as when carrying tourists' luggage." pines), the Antarctic. In China, the government and private planners treat Social problems such as theft are government's proclivity for giving the indigenous people as objects of a increased by the disparaging— and painful is with pandas as political gifts — in this case development plan). There are hidden -comparison that made to a Taiwan zoo— threatens the sur- problems, as Peter Goering' shows: foreign cultures: it comes to be valued vival of these endangered animals by "The tourist economy is centered by at least some of the young as better shrinking the available gene pool. Ant- around Leh ia small Indian city near than their parents' culture, which is the arctica is threatened by commercial the Chinese and Pakistani borders], often seen as ignorant, backwards, package tours (in addition to problems and very little of the economic benefit object of amusement by sophisticated with scientific stations), which bring of tourism accrues to the more than 90 people; indeed, the customs the tour- about 3,000 visitors to the continent percent of Ladakhis who live outside of ists come to see are perceived as the

Proiessed World #2S Page 31 .

leisure of the fabulously wealthy: the Club Med type vacation where one escapes from the sordid reality of work and the daily exchange of money, and where one has plenty of people to boss around while doing nothing useful.

Time is the major constraint; money is secondary. Tourists are usually passive: they aren't themselves a part of the sur- roundings, and are shown objects and spectacles devoid of any meaningful content. Given the pack-like nature of many tourist activities, as well as the ubiquitous telephone, escaping from the "rat race" becomes impossible:

they bring it with them. Organized leisure is the rule of the day: the only choices are already determined, and are almost always reassuringly familiar. Impelled by the need to have a good time— fast — in a narrow social space, the tourist leaves unsatisfied: ready for more, but not at the same place. SCI' Escape from responsibility and everyday drudgery is guaranteed: the pi ultimate promise remains a mirage. - P. M.

tt 1) Cultural Survival Quarterly #14 (1). If CS, 11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138 2) Appen Features, Asia-Pacific People's Environment Network, releases 37/38, 38/39, and 1/90. Contact: c/o Sahabat Alam Malaysia, 43, Salween Road, Penang Malaysia. K^^ 3) Cultural Survival Quarterly 14(1), pg20. Join the PASSIONATELY PASSIVE TRAVELERS ASSN. and recei\e as a bonus our handy pocket traveler's helper, Speed Waiting Made Simple!

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cause of backwardness. Emulation of which are driven underground or al- the "rich" outside world further opens tered (for instance, performing sea- the village to the dollar, as well as sonal rituals at the wrong time of year exacerbating environmental problems. for the tourists). Often tourists are The village, disunited and increasingly presented with empty rituals, which out of step with a now damaged they mistake for reality, and villages environment, often changes even "contaminated" by foreign elements, more, and not for the better. Carried which they reject as being unrealistic far enough this becomes a dissolution (i.e. not like the pictures & descrip- so complete it scares away even the tions). tourists; the area survives in a ghastly The vacation is a token of both imitation of foreign life. The Club leisure and wealth: the more money Med's slogan, "The Antidote for Civi- you've got, the farther you can go lization," is cruelly ironic. from everyday life. Tastes differ; some Of course, the objects of attention prefer the pristine (but not for long) become damaged as well— whether mountain fastness, others tour the we speak of objects such as Lascaux's Antarctic or swim with whales, etc. frescoes, or of peoples' practices Some prefer to emulate the apparent

Page U Processed World #2? to fully experience, enjoy, compare and _ Reflections reflect? To be happy rather than miserable? I saw once a French engineer solve a com- ^//v of an plicated problem by analytically recreating the entire process— a thing that's virtually impossible to do for American engineeers. Immigrant Their minds had been trained not to see the whole spectrum, but a small portion

of it. Get it? People who specialize too cared for one another more. Friends would much will never know what's real or what without calling. Here, telephone drop by they are missing, it's very frightening as ironically the main means of has become we are talking here about the most de-

communication. I couldn't help noticing veloped country in the world! Today's

most so called friends I happened to make America is very disappointing. Only a small during the first few years were superficially group of people is enlightened enough to polite— a very British quality — but frightened see what's actually happening. I guess it to get close with other human beings, all starts when people learn how to recog-

I arrived to the U.S. at 23, as a fresh eager to retreat into shells they lived in. nize certain values. It all begins at home, graduate. B.A. was in the re- were self-sufficient, used to early college My They then school. People here are not in touch discipline of Italian and French lan- independence. After all, they never had mote with their roots, in universal sense, they guage and literature. I soon found that my of a childhood and usually worked much are not in touch with their basic selves. planned education in Mediterrane- their teenage years. What a carefully through best They surely won't tind balance by imple- civilization, suitable for Europe, was preparation for demands of an wonderful menting new computer solutions to their completely irrelevant in California. today's maddening world! What about reality, instead of realizing they basically People here were more interested in my having a quiet teenagehood, deprived of don't need that. Just like they can do typing skills and ability to file alphabetically such serious responsibilities they (biologic- without all that stuff they are made to be- than in my real background. I had to swallow ally) were not ready for anyway? I read lieve they need to survive. Who on earth a bitter pill: I couldn't survive on a tour somewhere that, by a caprice of Mother needs all those cars and microwave ovens? guide's (I didn't even know the area!) or being doesn't really be- Nature, a human Who needs three layers of packaging for interpreter's income. I also realized that come ready for life until late twenties, and one little thing? Why do people feel this opens up some possibilities of his birth until that time, having a B.A. from the moment urge to succeed? The tempo of living in in corporate world, no matter how ob- he lives in a sort of a social womb, where the America and the stress is certainly beyond solete my other qualifications were. This he learns the most important things in his anything I have ever seen. bizarre practice had been introduced, so life. Well, if that's true, then this country Why do I stay if I am so negative? Well, that people with as bizarre an education has been producing some emotionally, first of all, I am just passing by. I've always find employment. European spiritually impoverished in- as mine could culturally and believed my place was somewhere quiet, employers were a lot more selective, but dividuals that, in turn, treat their kids in like Canada, or inspirational, like Europe. then, they appreciate odd professions more. the same way, by getting rid of the re- Secondly, I wasn't always negative, in fact, in Upon my arrival, I discovered that, sponsibility of having them at home as at first, I was fascinated. Following the order to compete for a job, I had to produce early as possible. Maybe I am prejudiced, rules, I went broke by buying a new car, a resume. I wanted to get a decent job, so after all I come from a country with a highly got myself in debt — all this glitz, you know. skills I pretended I had the enthusiasm and developed cult of child. Here, it seems, only Then, I started missing my old values, so they were looking for. Job hunting was an rich kids can afford vyhat every human I took time to reflect. I studied art and exhausting and nerve-wracking experience being is entitled to: time to grow up at a read a lot of wonderful stuff the minority for totally unprepared to compete and natural pace, without extra stress. It is no me, in this country tries to communicate to the unaware of the rules of the game. For the wonder that nobody here takes time any rest. When I finally got ready to look first time in my life I had to "market" my- more to smell the flowers and just relax. around, I saw things the way they really self. After many unsuccessful efforts, a Well, not quite. I have met here a few were. I still believe this world can be soul offered a job and off developed their sympathetic me people who have actually changed. There are some people who care

I went on my new "career" path. Needless spiritual and emotional lives. enough. And I want to contribute. In the

say, I lost first two jobs, just because distinct and disturbing phe- to my Another country where most people don't like their of accent and inability to follow some can be observed in the American my nomenon lives, yet function with incredible efficiency, rules. third job paid barely enough to actually feed their My suburbs. Those people putting up with stress that's killing them, survive, but the responsibilities were enorm- children with some very backwards ideas some radical change is needed. What the ous. During seven years in California, my full prejudice conservatism. When of and hell do they need the incredible structures work has become consistently more boring I first to this country, I lived among came they are locked in for? Life is complicated with time, not that I didn't have enough them. I ended up believing that all Ameri- as it is. There is time and place for every- lot work, on the contrary, but there was a cans like that. Until I moved to San were thing in most other places in the world,

more bureaucracy involved, less fun, how- Francisco, of course. There I was lucky to except here. Even in West Germany (the ever—it paid morel Interesting, isn't it? a part of things that actually matter, and be most square headed country in the world)

I people in America are ideas. Of course, noticed that fed my brain with new they take a month of vacation every year,

generally more devoted to their em- I haven't forgotten past experience, much my and their productivity level stays the same. ployers than people in Europe, or, should and still keep wondering why education is Amazing, isn't it?

I say, the percentage of overachievers and the last on the list of priorities in this Well, I have given you a piece of my workaholics is much higher. I've been country, and why does it have to have a mind. As terrible as it sounds, this is what observing corporate politics with the de- price tag? That is, why people study mostly I really think. I am actually glad I was able is for knowledge, if they tachment of a person who extraneous the grade, not the to be an observer, and hope you don't not only because of her low position in study at all? Specialization pushed to ex- take all this too hard, providing that is to immediate suc- the hierarchy, but who also comes from a treme maybe the key chauvinism doebii't impair your sense of different reality. In my old world, values cess, but ultimately it defeats the purpose '^^''^y and priorities were very different. People of our lives on this planet. Aren't we here -MalgorzataG.

Processed World #25 Page « The Right To Be Lazy

"... You have to have Mr. Novak unemployed, unhappy, sleepless, going crazy, and then happy to take a job on a road or elsewhere." — Rita Klimova, new Czech ambassador to U.S.

quoted by Rob Waters, June 1 990 Mother Jones

" "Far better were it to scatter pestilence and to ancient history. "An Essay on Trade and Commerce

poison the springs than to erect a capitalist M. Lafargue, born in Santiago Cuba Part of it reads "the factory population factory in the midst oj a rural population. on January 15, 1842, was the son of a of England had taken into its head the

Introduce factory work, and farewell joy, mulatto woman — Virginia — who had fixed idea that . . . Englishmen . . . have health and liberty; farewell tu all that makes lied Haiti, and of Abraham Armagnac by right of birth the privilege of being " life beautiful and worth living. — a conservative landowner from Boi- freer and more independent than the The French constitution contains a deau.x. He was expelled from a univer- laborers ot any country in Europa. This

phrase about the "Right to wori<." sity in Paris along with other students idea may have its usefulness for soldiers,

Unlike its US cousin, this phrase didn't lor insulting church and state in 1865. since it stimulates their valor, but the mean overtly anti-union/syndicalist He soon became a member of the less the factory workers are imbued with

laws; it simply states that workers Proudhonist French section of the first it the better for themselves and the state.

demanded work. But was it really the international (IWMA). He studied Laborers ought never to look upon

workers demanding work, or was it the medicine in England, graduating in themselves as independent of their su-

new owners of France requiring work- 1868, and then practicing in London for periors. It is extremely dangerous to ers? a while. On April 2, 1868 he married encourage such infatuations in a com- One hundred years alter the French Karl Marx's daughter, Laura. He was mercial state like ours, where perhaps revolution a demand was put torward by in Paris when the Franco- Prussian war seven-eighths of the population have the workers of North America for a started. When the Paris Commune was little or no property. The cure will not 40 hour work week, in contrast to then declared he went to Paris, but returned be complete until our industrial laborers common 10-13 hour days, 6 days a to the provinces to campaign on behalf are contented to work for six days for

week. The infamous Hayrnarket Mas- of the Commune. After the fall of the the same sum which they now earn in sacre and May Day were indirect re- Commune he was smuggled into Spain, lour." He goes on to propose imprison- sults of this struggle; the reduction in arrested on August 11, 1871, and was ing the poor in work-houses, which

work took a bit longer: in the US it held for 10 days. He was released before should be "houses of terror, where they wasn't obtained until during or just a secret society was able to initiate a plot should work fourteen hours a day in after WW II. to free him, and went to work in Spain such a fashion that when meal time was In the '90s a lot of people look as ^ member of the First International deducted there should remain twelve ." enviously at the 40 hour work-week; the (IWMA); he was by then allied with hours of work. . Ever wonder where rats may have won the race but the rest Engels against Bakunin. In 1880 he was Maggie Thatcher & Co. get their ideas? of us are still frantically galloping. Even back in France, writing for a socialist Lafargue goes on to describe the

so common a source as the Gallup poll weekly called L'Egalite. This is when he many wonders of industrial work and

indicates that the work week has in- wrote "The Right to Be Lazy." It was the many blessings that it brings on the creased from 40.6 hours in 1973 to 46.9 printed as a book in 1883 while he was workers, among them bitter poverty and hours in 1988. Even the "progressives" in jail on political charges. an early death. He quotes several of his issue calls for "full employment." Is He starts by denouncing "A strange contemporaries about the grim condi- there no alternative? delusion" that posseses the working tions prevailing in Europe at the time Karl Marx's son-in-law, Paul Lafar- classes: "... the love of work, the — 12 and 14 hour days for men, women gue, could perhaps be called a man furious passion for work, pushed even to and children, poor food, polluted air,

ahead of his time. I say perhaps becau.se the exhaustion of the vital force of the long commutes (by foot), etc. it may more properly be said that no individual and his progeny. Instead of He drives home the contrast with the

person is ahead of their own time; it's opposing this mental aberration, the idyllic promises of the ideologues of just that most people are well behind priests, the economists and moralists work, among them a Rev. Mr. Town- their own. This was biought home when have cast a sacred halo over work." shend of the Anglican Church: "Work, the Pfy collective was sent a book, a new The thinking that underlies these always work, to create your prosperi-

."" edition of an 1880 tract called "The conditions was not at all new, even then. ty. . Referring to the legal imposition Right to Be Lazy," by Monsieur Paul He cites a 1770 pamphlet, published of work the good cleric continues: "[it]

Lafargue. Stick with me while I retrace anonymously in London under the title gives too much trouble, requires too

Page J6 Processed World #25 much violence and makes too much Sundays and 38 holidays during which — of Henry David Thoreau, John noise. Hunger, on the contrary, is not it was strictly forbidden to work. He Muir, Robert Marshall, Aldo Leopold

only a pressure which is peaceful, silent cites this as one of the great crimes of — a crucial complement to their social

and incessant, but as it is the most Catholicism (in the eyes of the bour- radicalism, and a challenge to the naive

natural motive for work and industry, it geoisie) and a major cause of the optimism of most Marxists and anar- also provokes to the most powerful apparent irreligiosity in the commercial chists (Lafargue included) regarding the efforts." bourgeoisie who "emancipated the emancipatory character of technology." Yet the reality was that workers were workers from the yoke of the church in This is an excellent book and for the never given more than a fragment of order the better to subjugate them under most part it doesn't show its age. The what they produced — merely enough the yoke of work." He gives many cases style of M. Lafargue's writing is some- for a brute survival, while the vast from feudal and pre-capitalist Europe to what dated — elaborate metaphors, productivity of industry was consumed support the idea that the machines have heavy use of the vocative, a certain by a very narrow minority. Indeed, the not brought us leisure. He does point hyperbole — but the material here is as rich could not dispose of all the surplus, out that the reductions in work that had important as ever, and not only for the which, claims M. Lafargue, led to the been attempted up to then — in England ideas of leisure. cyclical crises of capitalism. There is too where there was a reduction in the work M. Lafargue was also an organizer. ". much food while workers starve, and so day to 10 hours a day from 12 — it was As Fred Thompson puts it (pg 91): . .

it has to be burned. There is too much accompanied by increased productivity! his reputation is mainly that of a cloth even as people wear tattered rags, In one passage, again curiously rele- popularizer of Marxism; party builder etc. And, "of course, the slump in vant to today, he says "Our epoch will he became, too — and insistent that the "demand" would require less produc- be called the 'Age of Adulteration' just as party serve immediate and long-run

tion, and the consequent unemployment the first epochs of humanity received the needs of the workers. . .and yet [he was of multitudes of workers. This is a direct names of 'The Age of Stone,' 'The Age also] a champion of socialist unity. . . . result of the tremendous productivity of of Bronze,' ..." Examples, such as M. Lafargue aimed to build a move-

"modern" industry. treating silk with salt to weaken it, ment in which there was scope for those He gives an example of conditions in remind us that the deliberate cheapen- of his fellow rebels with whom he

one industry. Says he "A good working- ing of goods is not a modern idea. disagreed." This book goes a ways woman makes with her needles only five Lafargue sarcastically extolls the inven- towards revealing a man whom most meshes a minute, while certain circular historians have ignored, or slighted. tiveness of these capitalists.— knitting machines make 30,000 in the He ends with a chapter "New Songs The book itself has a long printing same time. Every minute of the machine to New Music" — in which he sketches a history. It was translated into English by

is thus equivalent to a hundred hours of society based on laziness. Far from Charles H. Kerr in 1907, and has been the workingwomen's labor. .. What is calling for abolishing the capitalist reprinted many times by, among others, true for the knitting industry is more or class — and other non-productive para- the IWW as well as the Socialist Party

less true for all industries. . .But what sites (generals, free and married prosti- during the days of Eugene Debs and do we see? In proportion as the machine tutes, etc.) — he says "if they swear they Emma Goldman. Its most recent print-

is improved and performs man's work wish to live as perfect vagabonds in spite ing was by the Chicago anarchist group with an ever improving rapidity and of the general mania for work, they Solidarity Publications in 1969. It has exactness, the laborer, instead of pro- should be pensioned and should receive now been reprinted by the Charles H. longing his former rest times, redoubles every morning at the city hall a five Kerr Publishing Company, of Chicago his ardor, as if he wished to rival the dollar gold piece." Satirical, but with an (1989). It has the full text of M. machine." He clearly despises the rich element of utter seriousness beneath it Lafargue's piece (60 pages), an intro- for promulgating this philosophy— for all — what happens when everybody, not duction by Joseph Jablonski and an

requiring it, even — but he also hurls just a few, are allowed to consume fully essay about the man and his times by

epithets at the working class for having of what is produced, are allowed a life of Fred Thompson. This is an excellent

embraced it whole-heartedly, for having full leisure? book — as history, as analysis, as rhetor- acquiesced in their own enslavement; In his introduction to the book, ic. It has its problems — left as a solution

"this double madness of the laborers Joseph Jablonski points out that many for the reader — but it belongs on killing themselves with over-production generations of radicals have lost sight of YOUR bookshelf. and vege Mng in abstinence." M. Lafargue's visionary society of lei- — P. Morales He attacks the concept of progress as sure, continuously echoing the cry for well, saying "our epoch has been called "more jobs." "Authentically revolution-

the century of work. It is in fact the ary theory," he continues, "was kept century of pain, misery and corruption. alive by the various currents of the

And all the while the philosophers, the extreme Left: Wobblies, anarchists, 'ul-

bourgeois economists. . .all have in- tra-Left Marxists, Wilhelm Reich, the toned nauseating songs in honor of the Frankfurt School, and the surrealists. In god Progress, the eldest son of Work. the 1960s the Black insurrections, wild- Listen to them and you would think that cat strikes, the 'New Left,' the women's happiness was soon to reign over the liberation movement and the 'counter-

earth, that its coming was already culture' brought this hidden revolution-

perceived." As one of his examples he ary tradition. . .to the fore. In more cites the old regime (before the French recent years younger radicals have revolution) as having guaranteed, by found in the even more hidden tradition l-^C/i-.-^ the laws of the Church, 90 rest days; 52 of wilderness (or ecological) radicalism

Processed World #25 Page 57 PERSISTENCE I

8:05 K bus pulses in the terminal under a web of girders reliefed in soot and pigeonshit

where dappled roseate fog is gliding in i A five-year black boychild lies deeper than dream

on the front bench seat, head entrusted to small open hand The driver, muscle backed

in her green uniform sweater leans over him — to take him? I no, tucks with tender precision

a red toy into his pocket. This after such endless theft of song She turns to the windshield rose-nimbus

seats herself, guns engine, takes us out onto the roaring bridge How can we not persist? PHOTO: lames Carman Adam Cornford HUNTER

Irresistably, he wants to catch that bird THE RADIATORS the hunter in him is easily tapped he squats down close to quarry in dry brain: A dry pen a and is it not also that he wants to breathe in an ageing man an aged house. in the mystery of the little bird The radiators work diligently rather than possess that small form DID I TELL YOU I USED to make offense of this the tiniest of scarlet tanager TO WORK FOR A VAMPIRE? winter season. with his red earmuffs and rectangular The pipes clang and start red form above his breast, his Did I tell you I used to work for a vampire? as they stage their egos protection from aggressors in whistles through that brilliant red striping Typing, phones, the falling day. which will mesmerize an attacker light bookkeeping. create a state of awe and attraction The usual.

I work at sleep In her What a cute bird, I to the pain ease say and it sidles away as the boy Most jobs mind. of a seascape is now looking at me and broken when they pat you on the back, shore The foam on is the magnetism between him they're just feeling out is night's residue. the and this smallest creature where to slide in the knife. he, myself and the tanager

Though I do not write, are all city guys, our experience I thought at least this'll be different, I dream is almost a success ending more up front. and wake to the fragments mostly in indifference with the of my internal history: bird out of sight and the recognition It was all right. a labyrinth of labyrinths between the boy and myself quickly I have chosen. stilled in the necessity of city life Lousy hours. to turn elsewhere Had to work holidays. After months of silence, And the vampire had weird friends. the sentence of my psyche, Janice King But he dressed well, I write to get the click with a certain Old World charm. of inner thermostat my Didn't tell a lot of stupid jokes. to raise the heat But I had to tell him about Secretary's Day. of a pen turning paper IF THE WEATHER CHANNEL WENT OFF THE AIR into steam. He was a lot like my other bosses. buildings would collapse John |. Soldo cities would be swallowed by the earth Although once

life as we know it would cease to exist, I asked him for a night off a harrowing thought and the look he gave me that makes each performance was definitely an inferno of urgency. from beyond the grave.

Adam Quest Christopher Hershey

Page )8 Processed World #25 THIS IS MY LIFE. |ONATHAN DAVID CHANGE

If I had time, 1 would tell you i met a poet What my wrists feel like that no longer bow who was trying To the hinge of my arm, sometimes drop things, to sell Unannounced, barely nod to the pneumatic gun his fashionable Torquing bolts into nuts every fifty-five seconds; string tie Show you those wrists singed under gloves for a shot And forearms dingy with burns; of whiskey Show how my fingers sponge oil one night From oxheads and only come clean after after i had Long lay-offs; show you my body been waiting As it sways to the rhythm of the spring-suspended tables in a Spotgun, a pendulum keeping pace with my small bistro Automatic fingers glued to my palm where all the After six hours of sleep customers come

And snap when I pry them up. in at once &v having a pocketful of tips Son, if you'd ask, I'd lift my shirt. i obliged &^ bought Show you the paths welding sparks take down him a well drink My neck, my back, on their way to burn holes at the bar next door

I there. In my jocket waistbands and how stand &^ as he pulled off his tie Absorb their fire, car after car he talked of dante For seven hours and fourteen minutes, &^ the recurring questions

Five days a week; I would show you of existence Smokestrings lining my nostrils &^ as i put the tie And legs that spring into the plant in my pocket Like struts but do an old man's shuffle i thought i might Out at three; ask you to watch my supervisor feel differently about Watching me weld, how he takes my gun the answers in the morning And demonstrates with one car

What I should do with four-hundred twenty-nine Richard Wilmarth While saying "I can do it; you can do it, right?" Show you my robot nod;

I would tell you about the editorials And about my friends that argue about autoworkers Overpaid with cradle-to-grave' security.

My family that reads what I earn, Show my unemployment card collection. Tell you what it's like Building the Car of the Year Nobody wants; Tell you I'm more than the handsome face Slid between seconds of timeclock sensors But my time has run out.

Christopher R. Barnes

FOG

showing out-of-focus gray over the water PHOTO: lames Carman posing as a painting that doesn't admit to much but is just " THLMOON "done this way Uta was describing her restlessness. How she just blurred-out loss of line wants to take a trip and go anywhere. Especially is purposed to preserve illusions anywhere far. To Paris. To Amsterdam. To the DDR. and being an To San Francisco. To Mexico. 'I think I'd really like all-around-presence thing to go to the moon!", she said, then without paus- rates right up there ing, she said, "The moon is going to be full this artistic as anything past it weekend," and at first I thought she meant that

hovering, . totally unretouched . . was going to be full of people who all wanted to get away for the weekend and go someplace far. Jim DeWitt Glenn Caley Bachmann

Page }9 Processed World #25 The Occult Revival

It began as a joke. reading "Damnation Army Please Dragon. He was drawing from the same Phillip Kaufman had played the Give." So folks ask him, "if you in the crowd every night so it was always trombone on Bleeker Street for years. In army, what rank are you?" "I'm a fifty-sixty dollars out of the till. After the Seventies and early eighties the place private but I aim high." "How many four nights, which is to say on Thurs- bloomed with a few clubs and restau- folks you damned?" "So far just one. day, Susan, the Green Dragon's own- rants. Now that the bloom has withered, Myself. I damned myself but if I can get er/barkeep, called the police. at 6:00 just it has returned to what it always has a few more bucks I'll damn some more The police came on Friday been — angry graffiti and swirling news- folk." It was a cold night and people felt as the Green Dragon's night was start- papers which had served as someone's sorry for a crazy man in a thin shirt and ing. Unfortunately a film crew from blankets the night before. The smarter Phillip drew in sixty dollars. KHLY came also. One of the patrons it's mobile beggars and all of the musicians He left with the closing time ciowd. must've I ailed in the story; although, save for Phillip moved ten blocks east to "I've got to give the Boss His cut." So he hard to imagine any of them being

Ambrose Avenue. I don't know if Blake counted out six dollars and tossed the enfranchised enough to handle calling a was right about the entire universe in a money into a storm drain. Bill the wino news station. The cops asked Phillip to grain of sand, but you can have an crawled out of the shadows and tried to move. He said it was a public sidewalk. entire world in ten blocks. Phillip stayed get at the money, and Bill said there The cops told him to put away the sign. in front of the Green Dragon, the only weren't no money no more. It had He said they were violating his First bar with any clientele. He slid his disappeared like. Amendment rights of religious expres- trombone out every night for pennies But that don't mean nothing. sion. I'he cops asked if this was a and dimes. People reserved their quar- Phillip was there the next night. Some legitimate religion, and if so, why hadn't ters for the jukebox on the premises. folks allowed as how his playing was "they heard of it. He pulled a sheet of One night he shows up with a faded better but he walked away with only paper from his shirt pocket, unfolding orange Arrow shirt and black corduroy fifty dollars— five dollars to the Boss. the paper three times to typewriter-size. pants and a black beret. And he puts the Phillip drew about the same every night It bon- two columns in a gothic type beret on the curb and a sign by the beret which was bad news for the Green with its margins festooned with inverted

Processed World Page 40 #25 penlacles, goat's heads and snakes. Magic," "Devil Moon," and "I'm Head- had removed a plate glass from an

While the lead cop studied this (and ing for the Last Round-up." Several abandoned store front and ran with it

KHLY filmed), Phillip said if the cops ministers, two priests, and a rabbi came between them like brackets ]. They [ didn't know about his religion — well, he to the next night's performance looking were going to smash it on these men wasn't responsible for their ignorance for something to denounce. They didn't who challenged their ideas, but they — and he offered to damn them on the find anything they could clearly de- tripped on the uneven sidewalk. One spot. This proved too rnuf h for one ot nounce; although one of the priests was was pretty cut up. The other was dead. the junior cops who shoved Phillip off disturbed by a jack-o-lantern on top of The Damnation Army also suffered — the curb and onto the cold asphalt Ml of the piano. It was more than a month to bruises all, Phillip a cut on his right this made the ten o'clock news and eaiK Hallcnveen, and the priest knew what hand, the pickup lost all its glass Saturday morning an ACLU lawyer jack-o-lanterns really signified. The (including headlights), the jack-o- (ailed on Phillip in jail. Phillip got absence of the denouncable didn't stop lantern was smashed. This too made the sprung and dedined to sue the polut- one Pentecostal minister from sermo- papers and the extent of the destruction department because "some folks cani rnzing. He began preaching between embarras.sed some of the ministers who handle damnation when it first ( omes m >.ris iiKJ Phillip said, "Your intentions had cau.sed it. Others remained stead- call." may be well and good but I don't come fast. play 'bone in your church." a There was no Tuesday night per- He was back in front of the fJrecn my And couple of burly picked the minister the Dragon Monday night. A guy pulled up men formance, but Damnation Army u[) e\'er so gently and deposited was crowd in a cream-in-coffee colored Nissan him back on Wednesday. The se\'eral blocks away. crowd won- surrounded them protecting them from pickup truck. He had a beat-up piano in The dered if these had their marching angry missiles that never came. the back. He walked up to Phillip and men A orders Satan. national news team got some pictures took out his own gothic-print paper. from The Damnation Army was con- and everybody struggled to get into Phillip studied it for a moment, and next them. sour note: a drunk, a then the two had a confab. Jazz piano demned from many pulpits Sun- One Green youths, of regular could never do anci slide trombone are a shaky combi- day. And strong-eyed knights Dragon who Christianity all, hid in the without the crowds, told a reporter that nation, but the pair had a great aucii- Monday night waiting for o'clock. he'd never that a nigger (mean- ence due to media coverage. They took shadows two known closed the ing Phillip) could get a black eye. in two hundred anci forty dollars. Susan The (ireen Dragon at two and Damnation Army (in its only seeming There was some talk in town that Mr. relented. All these new people came in tie to commercialism) stopped playing and Mrs. Chase, the parents of the dead for a drink (or just to get warm and then. or to boy, might sue the Damnation Army as bought a drink as space rental). She The crowd walked stumbled their cars. The was counting the contributing to the death of their son, hired two barmaids from the crowd to Army night's proceeds. at it was only talk. go outside and take people's orders. The knights ran but them hurling bricks and stones and such enterprising fellow rented a store- The next day Susan told Phillip the An other detritus as could be found in the front a block from the Dragon. Damnation Army could play on the Green lc3ts of Street. lads in bookshelves and filled the inside of the Green Dragon. Phillip said vacant Bleeker Two He put no but thanks kindly. There's plenty of damnation available in c heap bars, but some folks find salvation there too. It wouldn't do to send out mixed signals. The IRS showed up in the form of a little man in a gray suit. The IRS said it was tired of people making up these pseudo- religions to avoid paying taxes Phillip pulled out his paper and handed it to the IRS and said theirs was a real religion. The IRS stared at the paper and turned it over and over in his hands. Frankly he couldn't make heads or tails of it. The IRS desperately needed new contact lenses. The IRS drove away in his Hyundai and a tambourine man bicycled up. The tambourine man also had a paper. So there was a trio. The Senttrifl and the Chronicle sent reporters to cover the Damnation

Army. They printed lots of junk to fill out their articles— satanic graffiti seen in downtown areas, white slavers in shopping malls, heavy metal music. The last reference was pure nonsense. The Damnation Army mainly played jazz standards including "That Old Black

Processed World #25 Page 41 shelves with paperback occuh and UFO top of the piano and began a strip tease. down. So he said "Yes," all thin and books, skull candles, Tarot card decks, This was widely condemned from the high. And Phillip said "Well brother quartz crystals from Arkansas, and pulpits. Several ministers prevailed give me your address and I'll handle all bottles of come-to-me oil. He put in upon the police to put an end to this and the paperwork." The guy wrote some- fluorescent lights and an open 24 HRS likewise the illegal practice of serving thing on a index card and everybody sign. He put out an awning with the drinks out of doors. The police arrived watched him all night. They was afraid shop's name. Ye Damnation Book about eight. Sergeant Cabanis and Of- that the worn-out asphalt of Bleeker Shoppe. Phillip strolled in the next ficer Bulhon. Bessie had finished her Street would open up and swallow him. morning and told him to change the first act and was in the Green Dragon There was a lot of talk in town the name of the shop. Phillip said, "All trying to warm up. It's hard to strip in next day. The Chronicle ran a piece on a you're selling is junk. You got papers? forty-degree weather, but you've got to man who claimed to be finding the Satanic You don't got no Authority. I'm selling do what you've got to do. The police tithe in the city's drain system. Phillip the real Damnation and if you want read a cease and desist order to Phillip challenged the man to show up at a Damnation you come to me, and if any Kaufman, and Phillip said (1) He wasn't D.A. meeting, and of course the guy never of your clients want Damnation they the one doing the stripping, and (2) did. can come to me, and if they want damn He'd advise Bessie Mae to cease and The first convert showed up down- fine music they can come to me too." desist if they could show him a law town in front of the biggest bank in Phillip left and there was a smell of against a woman taking her clothes off town. He put an old flaking teflon pot brimstone to the air. And the next day atop a piano, which rested in a glassless on the sidewalk. He'd written in Magic the sign read Blue Goat Bookstore New Nissan pickup truck in front of a Bleeker Marker on the side "Give to the Dam- and Used, and it attracted the usual Street dive. And the cops said they'd be nation Army." He wore a devil costume collection of neurotics and near-mystics back later this evening to arrest Bessie and rang a bell. Three types of people such stores attract. Mae if Bessie Mae was still stripping. put money in his pot: people who were

Susan had the Green Dragon's sign The cops drove off, and it came to amused, people who were afraid not to repainted and the tacky dark paneling pass that they were involved in a give, and people who give to every street torn out. high-speed auto chase, and they drove charity so they won't have to look the Phillip refused interviews with 60 their car into a concrete bridge support. solicitor in the eye. Some folks com- Minutes and a chance to appear on But that don't mean nothing. mented on the bell — when they were

Geraldo. "Shucks," he said, "I'm just a After another week they had their first well away. Massive verdigrissed brass 'bone player." and he pulled out his by convert. A wimpy-looking guy with a cast in arcane sigils and forgotten, now somewhat worn paper by way of blond beard and thinning hair stepped forbidden words. explanation. And the studio recruiters up between sets. "I want damnation," he There were more converts in the next studied it hoping for an address so they said. Phillip leaned over with his trom- few days. Soon almost every important could interview the brains of the opera- bone in one hand — leaned real close so street corner had its bell ringer. Phillip tion. they could smell what each other had for made a rare statement to the press, "The

There was no address. dinner. Then Phillip said "Are you sure, Damnation Army is growing. Soon it

Friday night, Bessie Mae, an over- brother? Are you ready to disbelieve? will be a big thing. Soon it will be in weight brunette from a closed-down Are you ready to renounce God and all your town. When it is, I'm sure you'll go-go club, arrived. She had her own his works?" Everyone saw this guy was know what to do." paper. When night fell she climbed on scared. Scared to say yes, scared to back -Don Webb

(For Stephen and Nancy) :

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Processed World #25 Page 43 1

'JnoivtijJlU^^ "^lîû^y H^mM' ^^ ô-î/i^ m @

"The question I am raising is why this life goes on — what purpose it serves, two hours a day would be sufficient to maintain current French

and who wants it to continue, and why. I am not taking the merely rebellious, lifestyles. social oj a faineant [lazy] attitude. I am considering the significance Where is Progress? plongeur's lije. Essentially, a 'smart' hotel is a place where a hundred "I looked at the French economy during two periods of 40 people toil like devils in order that two hundred may pay through the nose for years each: 1896-1936, and 1936-1976. During the first things they do not really want. Ij the nonsense were cut out of hotels and period productivity (i.e. production per head per hour) restaurants, and the work done with simple efficiency, plongeurs might work " increased by a factor of 3. During the same period, worktime six or eight hours a day instead of ten orfifteen. — Down and Out In Paris and London was divided by a factor of 1.4. During the second period, by George Orwell (1933) productivity augmented even more than in the first: it was multiplied by 3 or 4, but the length of the workday did not significantly change." He provides this visual aid:

Writing goes against the grain: it is Work. Reading is pleasure: I am a reader. This book is in French, but it is so important that I had to take up my pen. We spend too much of our short lives at work, or commuting and preparing for is, so I make it my task to tell you about Travailler.

Published in 1977, it is the effort of a collective named Adret, which means the sunny side of a mountain, just as does the "Yang" of "Yin and Yang" fame. The first half is comprised "3/8," of five tales of toil from all walks of worklife : "Paris-Cheques," a longshoreman, a secretary and a metal worker/locksmith who started work at the age of 14 in 1928. I read these tales in one happy sitting. Their insights echo my own twenty years of toil. So what happens with all this production? A good example

"Liberate the Schedules!" is the title of the second part of the is given from a story out of "Le Monde" (P.M. Dontrelant,

book. It presents arguments in favor of a Utopian society 11-4-1975): "The destruction of 100,000 tons (eur) of apples,

based on individuals; it analyzes attitudes towards "tied work" straight from the tree to the waste dump." Farmers, paid to as opposed to "free work" (tied to your job or free to work at destroy their crops line up with truckloads, paid for wasting a

home?). Its author is a theoretical physicist who decided to billion apples by the E.E.C.'s FEOGA (Fond Europeen drop out: "It all stemmed from a single question: What was Agricole). It reminds one of The Grapes of Wrath and its the meaning of my scientific activities which led me gasolined oranges and starving Okies.

obstinately to pursue the exploration of increasingly distant The issue is WASTE, one recognized in the U.S., certainly worlds, when the 'real' problems, those affecting the evolution not new, yet more vital than ever. Time is wasted also. L.V. of humanity, remained outside the walls of the scientific has a chapter on the subject ("A Time of Waste, a Waste of institution, despite their urgency?" Time"), and guess what? Its primary concern is the waste Shaken by "defections" in scientific circles, L.V. ceased to occasioned by cars: ''Time Lost to Speed: When you look at the believe in his job. He quit to start on social research. His hours a car can save you and the hours you spend paying for

background gives him a tremendous ease with numbers, and it, you start yearning for the days of walking and bicycling. A he went through a ton of statistics (INSEE, the French worker owning a car spends for its purchase, upkeep, repairs National Statistics Institute, for example), double checking as and insurance, some 375 hours or about 2 months of work on he went, to dig out the numbers. His calculations show that the average."

Page 44 Processed World #25 But I,.V. doesn't want to deprive you which constitutes one of the most alien- manage it." Or as the longshoreman of your car. He proposes reducing the ating parts of the industrial system." puts it: "Me, I'm, all for mechanization: nuinlKT of hours needed to pay for it by There is no doubt that economics is a I swear I'd rather have a machine do my building sensible cars— made to last, easy complex subject few of us are ready and job, otherwise at night . . . I'm dead to fix by yourself, simple and environ- able to tackle. Nor is economics the sole with fatigue." mentally-minded. He also promotes a element: "Alter all, it is evident that the Work and pleasure are intertwined decentralized organization: the return principal obstacle to reduced work hours — good sex equals a good workout to living and working within a walkable is mostly political. Of what use is all the doesn't it? So does gardening, cooking, or busable distance. reasoning in the world if you lack the carpentry, hacking, and a long list of I disagree with his car scheme entire- desire for a different life and the will to other "useful" activities. ly. Looking at the total cost of this mode fight for it?" To return to the issue at hand — of transportation, humanity will pollute Sadly, most people seem trapped in retlucing the hours that it takes to utilize its environment beyond repair, to the that nothing can change machinery — L.V. makes the same ar- the belief point of extinction. been that way; gument about small appliances. Instead because a) it has always But how many are willing to consider powerless individually; c) of units welded shut, which cannot be b) they are public transportation as an alternative their cars to go to work and fixed, he imagines the possibility of they need their VCRs to unwind from a tough job. ^^^ ^^^^ Yet rare are those individuals that do '^^^ '^^^^h^-'^^^ jobs. not despise and vilify their The Hope isn't crazy; the dream is workaholics of our society are mosdy self-serving entrepreneurs, madmen work and who reasonable. Let loose the imagination! with no life outside of demand long hours from their employees. L.V. has a four pronged attack to achieve the reduction of work: "1) production; augment produc- to cars.-* Imagine the resources wasted in neighborhood workshops where people reduce 2) part of 'tied work' individual cars applied to diversified share mechanical knowledge, spare tivity; 3) transform a augment the number "public" transportation modes (includ- parts are available for decades, instruc- into 'free work'; 4) engaged in 'tied' work." ing free fleets of bikes in cities and tions are clearly written and sketched. of people

"rental- private" vehicles to get to other- People take pride in saving their cuisin- L..\ . knows it is heresy to ask for a wise inaccessible places). We would art from certain death, and avoiding reduction of production. Most of us need only a fraction of what the private pollution of the landscape and waste of believe the wealth of our countries auto industry consumes and people natural resources, by changing its rotor depends on it. Let's watch the switch of would not spend more than 2 months a belt and ensuring another 7 years of military production in the U.S. in the year earning the choice to go places at faultless operation. 1990s. It is a prime example of overpro- their will. The time saved could be spent The same can be said of clothing, and duction to no particular end. Deemed traveling. the manufacture of more complex pro- essential to national security — read in- No cars, well-organized, subsidized ducts such as electronic gizmos, motor- stitutional survival — by the military, its and far-reaching free public transporta- cycles, etc. Standardization of tools and continuation is rendered unworkable by tion, neighborhoods, trees, birds, old design, simplicity of involvement of the economic realities. people, the end of hierarchy, the begin- individual (You want a TV? Build it! L.V. propo.ses that the reduction of ning of an economy based on the needs Help do the programming, too!), and production be accomplished in three of the people, equal sharing of resources participation in neighborhood projects ways: a) redistributing revenues; b) diminishing waste; c) increasing the includuig ourselves: that's what I want. are all possibilities. He also suggests Take care of the big five— shelter, mechanization of the processes that lifespan of products. food, clothing, education and medical make the individual parts, suggesting He makes a detailed economic study care first. With two hours of daily work robotization of the most painful jobs: based on published documents used by you have time to do whatever you want: "Thus we would be able to eliminate the the very economists employed by the French government to support its claim tend a garden, tell tales and play games majority of assembly line work . . with the kids, build your own house, have a sex life and get enough sleep to stay healthy. As an illustration, in the tales of toil, the worker "3/8" describes how, because of a shifting schedule, night becomes

day and family ceases to exist. This is his coiTiment on sexuality: "Let's not talk

about it; it's complete misery because

one is pooped. I talked to fellow workers, they said working 48 hours a week in 3/8 [meaning their work schedule changes from day shift to swing to graveyard with no control] they can't get

it up or else 'like dogs when you can

Processed World Itl'i Page 45 complish for working class families, workers outside of work, and consumers, what the unions had accomplished in the work environment: to take your own destiny in hand. It was a fascinat-

ing life, we did great stuff. For example, cultivation in common. There were 10 of us, we talked of this communal truck garden project, called a meeting. Per- haps a 150 people showed up. We talked about our plans: to get the right to cultivate certain lands through city hall and then take charge ourselves, workers, together, to cultivate them, turn over the dirt, plant and harvest. They we don't care — they still have to pay to political relevancy. His conclusion is were workers, most of them had never ." divided 20.'. . In the case of a boat full of that French production can be done this. At the meeting, people asked toxics, the end result is that if you fight by a factor of 1.7 (;i return to 1965 'Who will do this and this?' 'Well, it's the of successfully through the unions — who levels) without altering standard you, it's all of us together.' Well, then get a middleman's cut out of it — you get living. people said 'but it's crazy.' After an just as poisoned as before but with a He proposes three ways of augmenting entire afternoon of discussion a few danger duty pay. Hope your widow productivity. First, use automation to accepted." likes it. the max. The history of the Industrial They got 52 acres and allotted them To return to the analysis of L.V.: Age is that of mechanization and in- to the neighborhoods closest to the "When you look closely at all the creased productive capacity. Second, scattered tracts and organized work numbers which I cited, you sometimes maximize the time freed by the use of parties to take care of the tasks. The get the feeling that with a bit of good machines. He cites studies made in success of the project was helped by the several countries that show that each sense and good will, what appears times: it was WW II, food was scarce, insane hour of reduction in worktime boosts today could be brought back to unemployment was high, commerce productivity by 5%. This is not the reason. But, to repaint our world in the was disrupted. Yet "Locksmith" ran into colors of Utopia, I had to eliminate same thing as maximizing mechaniza- the problem of having to motivate profit, which is its engine, and centralist tion. As the docker puts it: "What seems people, a task which we know to be authoritarianism, which defends it. I important is to not empty schedule difficult at Processed World. was able, for this demonstration, to use reduction from its context of struggle. If "But what's really terrible in work the magic of thought to transport myself the reduction of worktime is not ob- organization is: why don't people think 'another' world. tained without a struggle that prefigures (prudently) to One that anymore? Why don't they take respon- thought alone isn't enough to create. a society of the future that we want, it's sibilities anymore? Because everything "Capitalism is truly here, ready to empty, empty as a balloon." is predigested, even the simplest things. defend itself. The absurdities and injus- Third, everyone who wants to work Very often workers know more than tices we recognize are not the result of will be able to. Everyone has something managers, still they don't have the right mistakes or bungling: they are necessary to share. With a "required" workday of 2 [to express their opinion,] there is no to its survival." hours, handicapped people, students, place where they can express their "And Now? ... " closes the book, mothers, older people and all the vari- intelligence, they are used to having no with a vision of a 21 hour work week ous groups that societies are made of responsibility. It's frightening to see how with a hike in pay as a concrete would have no trouble contributing fully 30% work organization doesn't take account demand for the present. Consumer to both "tied" and free work. It also of people and their intelligence. So boycotts to a certain extent: means a reassessment of the meanings work up intelligence not used to being employed "Subjected to a strong enough pressure, of work and creativity, usefulness and becomes lazy. There are people who end the class give on ethics. dominant would way up not taking interest in anything demands which eat up its profits but So a partial answer is mechanization because their intelligence is never called and guaranteed pay for unemployed don't really threaten its survival in the upon." human labor. "We fought for mechani- short run. In themselves these demands L.V. sounds an appropriate note on are acceptable by the system and can be zation to avoid hand labor. It was hard which to end this: "This free time is also called reformist. because the union always proposed the time to simply take a breath, to live "What can be revolutionary, less easy to raises or a reduction of the tonnage and dream, to find oneself, to return to recuperate is the possible use of free handled daily to earn full pay. There the source of what makes us desire a time. of us could take advantage were many of us saying: 'The beef is not "More different tomorrow. Technical argu- of this time, not to feed the leisure with raises, it's with automation." mentation is there to prove it: Hope isn't to this industry but to take charge of ourselves The answer of the unions crazy; the dream is reasonable. Let ." the outside the mercantile structure. . demand for automation is to bemoan loose the imagination, let us realize "Locksmith," for example, is interest- loss of employment. Here is the repartee Utopia!" of the dockers of St. Nazaire: "We told ed by collectivity, the neighborhood: — Reviewed/Translated by Frog there are 20 of us "Then for 10 years I was a member of them: 'If today, The address of Adret (1977) is: Adret, the popular family movement. It was a working on a boat, they must pay 20; 11 route Neuve, Gometz-le-Chatel, workers' organization wishing to ac- and if 2 are enough, so much the better, 91400, France

Page 46 Processed World #25 Six Kinds

It is not without precedent that we reprint fiction (e.g. from the clippers, severing it. Restrain-O-Lite, it was called. "Kareendi's Story"). In this instance, we present an excerpt Used by British cops to hold large numbers of prisoners after a from the just published final installment of John Shirley's A riot; the stuff absorbed static electricity and gave it off when

Song Called Youth trilogy (Warner/Questar). What is unusual is you moved . . . about a fourth of them had died in the that in this case we do so with the author's permission, nay: restraints; were hanging there, rotting. Some had rotted free, encouragement. slipped to the floor. The others were starved, bruised, cold, In "Eclipse," the start of the trilogy, Europe has been bleeding from the shackle cuts, drained of dignity." devastated by a NATO-Soviet war triggered by the KGB At the end of the first book a rocker, Rickenharp, has taken hardliners after a Central Committee coup ends the Glasnost the top of the Arc de Triomphe. Playing a wildly amplified era. To maintain security NATO has brought in a private guitar and singing rebellion, accompanied by the staccato of security firm. The Second Alliance, to police its turf. The SA is assault rifles and the basso percussion of mortar, he taunts the in fact part of an extreme right-wing plot led by a charismatic SA. They destroy the Arc, its environs, and its occupants, with preacher, "Smiling" Rick Crandall. The cabal believes that ajaegemaut— an enormous swastika-like metal wheel. Hitler lacked efficiency and stability: their plans are at least as By the end of "Eclipse Penumbra" the score has been evened cruel. somewhat; the space colony at L5 has been taken by the In a raid on one of the concentration camps — designated techntcki — the workers, and the SA has suffered losses, "Processing Centers" — the New Resistance, a loose alliance of especially in North America, but it still has the upper hand in many disparate groups, finds prisoners: "Every one of them Europe. In the third act, "Eclipse Corona," we meet had been bound in the stuff, tied together, squeezed in so Jerome-X, musician and video-hacker (a la "Captain Mid- tightly there was barely room to move or breathe. Torrence night") as he prepares for a "show" in London. recognized the hard but prehensile gray plastic as sparks shot

"Wc backstage, now. Gimme a kiss." "De anarchist underground. Plateau Republicists. Dey scared, like ever'body ..." She crushed him to her, and he gave in. subsystem bulletin board." else out in de cold, boy.

She broke it off herself, looking him in "Some of those Wolves'll give you fake [later, out in the crowd . . . ] the eye, almost nose to nose. "You know codes just to get their rivals in trouble." They ordered vodka martinis and sat de protocols?" "Dese ain't Plateau Wolves, these are hunched together between two groups of giggling "I know the UNIX protocols. I know Plateau Rads. About de only people I sweating, almost-naked men the systems call code to log on as a met on the Plateau I trust. Dey got a over cocaine fizzes. Advertisements superuser. I know how to evoke the guy used to be a hacker for SAISC till he blinked up the cocktail straws; taped debug function. If they haven't changed found out what dey were into. He knows music groaned like a machine about to the debug function." de system's back gates." break down. On the walls, videopaint- "Dey probable haven't, 'cause dey use "The anarchist underground cooper- ings recreating scenes from medieval a rented system. High security, but ates with the NR? You'd think they'd paintings of the Crucifixion and Resur- in rented. If dhey have changed it, fuck say fuck off. The NR wants to establish rection flickered through sequence 'em, we'll log off and dey won't be able to the old European republics. That's not doleful chiaroscuro; occasionally the with other trace it to an aug chip. I think de back very anarchist." images of Christ alternated " door is still open on dis system — "Anarchists hate de Fascists worse den figures, paintings by Paul Mavrides and post-acid "Where'd you gel it from?" de Social Democrats, worse eben den de other icons from the erstwhile

Processed World #25 Page 47 ^

House era; Timothy Leai y asc eii(iing Tlie left lobe hacking V(^3.t'S ttlC SCCFCt tO kCCDitlff into heaven, riding a lloppy disk like a London UNET: ll)#4r)47q:5;i9. F"*& Burroughs and Superuser: WATSON. flying saucer; William VOUf phOflC blllS dOWn*^ through a '•^ waltzing , , , Laurie Anderson ,,,, , , . — i t^-^ ~-_ , ., ,. 1 he lett lobe t)i Ins braui workmg / ^ ^^^^

while starveling • concentration camp . . i -..a i / T' 4 r.^»^ . . , wall tlie chip, which emitted a signal, , o 1 / I /I It I? \Kr^-^

Strauss on orches- ,- • • camp victims played i "'-^iVi!, ^ ri * /l/IllDr' , r '. interlaced with a powerlul microcom- Ill ^ Tr i ^'l\JI\r shooting . '^*»i_/ tral instruments; Kotzwiiikle , , , ,• , , I V/ A /^ A /-r«» 1- outer hidden among the micalike layers I r I . II I J I \Arii /-'i /I . /\ I I /^ A t/^ . ' with Wilham Ciibson; . , . , skull-shaped dice •, . . V ^^lll)\JQl' „ , _, , ot chips in the midi ol Bones synthesiz- , , , m ^, V ^^i\il and the minimono star C-alais ' /" * Bob Black . ^ tt i i l —v^ t>r; erome-X seeing the Herald on the \ ... o I TT 1 J u 1 \ chained to Stephen Hawkiiigs wheel- \;' . • j' , r ,-.t^ r i V / , . , , . IN V- T I hallucinatory LCD screen ol his minds ^— chair; the American guru iJa rieejonn ' r-N.

^ ' with an arm growing hoin his lorehead, , t- ^ , ttvti— h-n j^ i j ,.*.,* . London UNET, ID #, date, assumed O arm wrestling with an arm growing „ '^ /--' superuser name. r I r I J r I. 1 J II ^ from the lorehead ol Rick Crandall; ' J^^ Robert Heinlein goose-stepping with , i i i ^Ji^^^^-

. , ,,, ... 1 Scanning, at ihe root, lor the branch ^-^r^ , 1 T r. i> i'

Rukeiiharp ^^' , Pen; ,, , Adoll HiUer and Le , 4^ ^

, 1 • 'J' die system he needed. r „ I I 1 I- 11 §f Mm, 9 falling into the rubble ol the collapsing <- ' r o i » n t >* -r- -• CL^ f „ . , . ,, 11- Scanning lor; Second Alliance Inter- ^ W^ ^* Arc de Inomphe; Ivan Stang adding • • •? « ' w . . ^ national Security 1 twentieth-century paper money to the ,, o C_-orporation: intelligencein- Security ,, , , , II ' flames under the stake on which a ,. ,

subdirectory . . . T T-> iiD u" r-> 1 I I grinning .R. Bob Dobbs is being . ,- , ,, ,,, , ,. ,

• • Ironi the audience, Patrick , , , T^ 1 n Watching alive; David Bowie eaten canni- burned . ,, , , i / , i

. in , ,, Barrabas remarked (and was unheard I , 111- bahstically by a demonic horde ol , , , , i , v i_ j r ^' ' the blare) that erome-X had a lunny, i> 1 II ^^ y. ' . . . ^ twentv-lirst century pop stars; Buddha ,, , / ^^ / , c ontortionistic way ol dancing as he , x^ n I II I'resi- • making love to Mrs. Bester, the ... . i i i l i i. ,i .u . . n sang. His eyes squeezed shut, his hands His rappoi t with the aug chip essentially , >Q. f I IT . . clcnt oi united ot3.tes. ... ^' .. tnc .. i i i i i a data-i . creating mental data-glove, , waving as il over typewriter keyboards. a , , 1111 back to the dead but numinous . . ,, . „ . And , , , ^ , ,1 1 glove that materialized.11 only in thea • • Not playing the air guitar, but , , p , , r>< II 1 body ol the scourged Christ, his head in ^ • " 1 . 1 r^ i 1 i r ^ 111 virtual reality ol con- . holography .. .. , typing on the air keyboard. .. , p,

Mary Magdalene s lap. ... . , 1 . , erome typing the commands sciousness. , , , , , was •' .. . , . , and now the show begins , r^ 11 at . , * out. Asjerome sang. i, , ,1 Using a technique Bettina had was into the system, erome lelt it 1 He 1 1 i- nu^re complex '^"'-^''^ '^''" '" '"'P'^---^t u,,/,,,,, of the Arctic before he saw it. He was ;. """'",^"ds; seeing through his aug chip The computing work was done by the Su months into the mght '"^^''" '-"^^- ^^^"^. ^° ^ P"^"^'''"' "^^'" Darkness the eclipse left brain - and the camouflage by the Ij^ of physically on a mental key- right brain. The right brain was sing- forgetting oj all light ^J}^^^ " ' Six kinds to "Six of ' j of darkness ing. Singing the chorus Kinds i- r ii- in- , ihe chip ted him tactile illusions and „ „ 1 1 1 1 r I oixV;»- 11 cannotmnnnt leutpll — Darkness, while the other part of his • 1 1 1 ,

. , read out his responses through its con- 1,11 1 T-i I ' ° mind worked with the c hii). ihe right . , . , ,. , . ,,. .... , , , , ,

. . tact , with parietal lobe, reading the input rinding his way through the darkness ,

• lobe singing , , . • 1 , r 1 -r- ° ° Iroin the proprioceptive sensors — sen- in the lorest of data. Taking cuttings. Six kind of darkness, spilling down sory nerve terminals — in the muscles. Taking information. Planting some-

overme and kinesthetic sensors — tactile nerves thing of his c:)wn . . . Six kinds of darkness, sticky with — in the fingers: Jerome's movements energy— translated into cybernetic commands. — John Shirley DON'T GET CAUGHT WITH NOTHING DECENT ;s:;rrrrsc:r«2r.=2 TO READ IN YOUR BATHROOM! Parry treated in a similar fashion. —G.C.B. Subscribe to PROCESSED WORLD!

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