by David Lodge
Désirée
4. Reading
COUPLE, mid-thirties, fat wife, would like to meet discreet couple.
NESTLING earth couple would like to find water brothers to grock with in peace.
NATURE is where it’s at. Big Sur Dylan Hesse Bach baby racoons grass seashores sensitivity creativity sex and love. I want to groove with girl who likes same.
LOOKING for two or more bi girls for joyous 3 or more-somes with attractive man in early thirties. Shapely wife may also join in. Also, if desired, wife’s young very feminine attractive transvestite cousin. Inquiries welcomed from gals in pairs or even singly. Especially urge novice inquiries from young singles or jaded housewives who’d like to try on the joys of group sex. Discretion assured. Photo optional but appreciated. If not sure, write anyway.
—small ads., Euphoric Times
PLOTINUS WOMEN ON MARCH
The Plotinus Women’s Liberation Movement hit the streets Saturday in its first public appearance, to celebrate International Women’s Day. Among the banners they carried: “Is it smart to play Dumb?” “You Earn More as a Real Whore” and “Free Child Care Centers 24 Hours a Day.” The last of these slogans moved a Puerto Rican housewife to hold up the procession: where, please, could she find one of the Centers? The marchers explained regretfully that they didn’t exist yet.
—Plotinus Gazette
PEOPLE’S GARDEN FOR PLOTINUS
Students and street people moved on to a vacant lot on Poplar Ave, between Clifton and King Streets, at the weekend, to construct what they declared a People’s Garden. The land was acquired by the University two years ago, but has been used as an unofficial parking lot since then.
A spokesman for the gardeners said: “This land does not belong to the University. If it belongs to anyone, it’s the Costanoan Indians, from whom it was stolen by force two hundred years ago. If any Costanoans show, we’ll gladly move out. Meanwhile, we’re providing an open space for the people of Plotinus. The University has shown itself indifferent to the needs of the community.”
The gardeners worked through the weekend, digging and leveling the ground and laying turf. “I never thought to see a hippie working,” said an elderly resident of nearby Pole St.
—Plotinus Gazette
EXTRAORDINARY MEETING OF
RUMMIDGE STUDENTS UNION COUNCIL
The following resolutions will be moved under Agendum 4 (b): That Union Council:
1. Urges the Union Executive to initiate direct action if the University Court of Governors, at its meeting of next Wednesday, does not agree to the following demands:
(a) acceptance in toto of the document Student Participation submitted by the Union to the Senate and Court last November.
(b) immediate action to set up a Commission to investigate the structure and function of the University.
(c) suspension of classes in all Departments for a two-day teach-in on the constitution and scope of the proposed commission.
HOUSE SLIDE
A small landslip on Pythagoras Avenue has made a house unsafe for habitation, public health officials decided today. Occupants of 1037 Pythagoras were woken at 1:30 am last Saturday night when their house slewed through a 45° turn due to subsidence after a freak rainstorm. No one was hurt.
—Plotinus Gazette
CONCERNING THE SITE ON POPLAR AVENUE
BETWEEN CLIFTON AND KING STREETS
This property was purchased and cleared by the University approximately 18 months ago. The University was unable to proceed promptly with the construction of a playing field on the site because of financial difficulties. Funds are now available, and plans for the playing field are moving ahead.
In fairness to those who have worked on the land in recent weeks—many of them motivated by a genuine spirit—the disutility of any additional labour there should be pointed out. The area will be cleared soon in preparation for work on the recreational field.
—Information Office, State University of Euphoria
PARADISE REGAINED
A new Eden is being created in the People’s Garden in Plotinus—the most spontaneous and encouraging event so far in the continuing struggle between the University-Industrial-Military complex and the Alternative Society of Love and Peace. Not just street people and students are working and playing together in the Garden, but ordinary men and women, housewives and children—even professors!
—Euphoric Times
RUMMIDGE GRAND PRIX PROPOSED
A newly formed consortium of Rummidge businessmen and motor-racing enthusiasts put forward plans yesterday to hold Formula 1 motor races on the city’s new Inner Ringway system. “The new Ringway is just perfect for motor racing,” said the group’s spokesman, Jack “Gasket” Scott. “You might have thought this was what the designers had in mind all along.”
—Rummidge Evening Mail
EUPHORIC PROF AND STUDENTS ARRESTED
FOR BRICK THEFT
Sixteen persons, including a visiting professor from England and several students, were arrested on Saturday for stealing used bricks from the demolition site of the Lutheran Church on Buchanan Street. The bricks, valued at $7.50, were apparently destined for the People’s Garden, where a People’s Fishpond is under construction.
—Plotinus Gazette
MILITANT STUDENTS OCCUPY
RUMMIDGE UNIVERSITY ASSEMBLY HALL
Members of Rummidge University’s Court of Governors had to push their way through student pickets to attend their meeting yesterday afternoon. The students were demanding that the meeting—called to discuss their Union’s document Student Participation—should be open to all-comers. Eventually the President of the Union and two other students were allowed to address the Court, but the governors declined to give an immediate answer to the students’ demands.
As soon as this was known, about 150 students, already prepared with sleeping bags and blankets, moved into the Assembly Hall of the University. After a discussion on the ideal structure of a reorganized University, an improvised discotheque was set up. About 85 students were still in the hall at 2 am. Later this morning an Extraordinary General Meeting of the Union will debate a proposal that the occupation of University buildings be endorsed and extended.
—Rummidge Morning Post
VISITING PROF AND STUDENTS DISCHARGED
Professor Philip Swallow, British visitor to the English Department, was among sixteen people arrested on Saturday for allegedly stealing bricks from the demolition site on Buchanan St. Charges against the sixteen, mostly Euphoric students, were dismissed at Plotinus Municipal Court yesterday because the owner of the bricks, Mr. Joe Mattiessen, refused to sign the complaint. Some of Professor Swallow’s students gathered outside the Court and cheered as he emerged, smiling.
“I’ve never been busted before,” he said. “It was a memorable experience, but I shouldn’t care to repeat it.”
—Euphoric State Daily
STATEMENT BY CHANCELLOR BINDE
We have been presented with a Garden we hadn’t planned or even asked for, and no one is entirely happy about it. The people who have been working on the Garden are anxious about the future of their gift. The residents of the area are unhappy about the crowds, the noise and the behaviour of some users of the Garden. The city officers are worried about the crime and control problems presented by the Garden. Many taxpayers are indignant at what they regard as an illegal seizure of university—and therefore State—property. The organizers of intramural sport are unhappy about the prospective loss of playing fields. Most people are worried about the possibility of a confrontation, although others are afraid there might not be one. As for me, I feel the burden of these worries and several I haven’t mentioned.
So what happens next? First, we shall have to put up a fence to re-establish the conveniently forgotten fact that the field is indeed the University’s property and to exclude unauthorized persons from the site. That’s a hard way to make the point, but that’s the way it has to be.
/>
—Release from the Chancellor’s Office, State University of Euphoria
DEFEND THE GARDEN!
We have taken a solemn oath to defend the Garden, and wage a war of retaliation against the University if it moves against the Garden. If we fight the same way as we have worked together on the Garden—together in teams, with determination, in brotherhood—we shall win.
NO FENCES AGAINST THE PEOPLE
NO BULLDOZERS
BE MASTERS OF SILENCE, MASTERS OF THE NIGHT WITH SHOVELS AND GUNS
POWER TO THE PEOPLE AND THEIR GUNS
The Gardeners
—Manifesto distributed on the streets of Plotinus
SUPPORT THE OCCUPATION
Students of Rummidge! Support the Occupation at today’s Meeting, then join us in the Assembly Hall. Show the Administration that this is your University, not theirs.
—Flysheet issued by the Occupation Steering Committee
POLICE HOLD GARDEN, SHOOT 35. MARCH TRIGGERS
CABLE AV. GASSING. BYSTANDERS, STUDENTS WOUNDED.
EMERGENCY, CURFEW ENFORCED.
A noon rally and march yesterday to protest the University’s seizure of the People’s Garden erupted into a brutal battle between police and demonstrators lasting all afternoon. Sixty people were hospitalized and by dusk tear gas had spread through the south campus and adjoining residential districts. Police, openly wielding shotguns, fired birdshot into surging crowds of demonstrators, many of whom fled with blood streaming down their faces. One policeman was stabbed and three others received minor injuries from rocks and shattered glass. The National Guard has been called out by Governor Duck, and a curfew has been enforced between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am.
At 6 am yesterday, after police had evicted students and others sleeping out in the People’s Garden, the Esseph Fence Company arrived to erect a 10-foot high steel-link
(Contd. back page)
—Euphoric State Daily
RUMMIDGE SIT-IN CONTINUES
An extraordinary meeting of the Rummidge University Students’ Union, attended by over 1000 students, voted today to endorse and continue the “sit-in” already initiated by 150 left-wing extremists yesterday evening. At the end of their meeting the students went in a body to the Assembly Hall and a number of them forced their way into the office of the Vice-Chancellor’s secretary and demanded that the Vice-Chancellor Mr. Stewart Stroud appear to hear their grievances.
“It was a waste of time,” one of the students present commented afterwards. “He showed no understanding of the legitimate demands of students for democratic participation in university decision-making.”
The students occupied several offices in the Administration Block, causing “considerable alarm” among the secretarial staff, according to a senior official.
—Rummidge Evening Mail
GARDENERS AND COPS, GUARDSMEN
CLASH IN DOWNTOWN PLOTINUS
Supporters of the fenced-off People’s Garden played cat-and-mouse with police and National Guardsmen over the weekend. On Saturday they invaded the shopping area of downtown Plotinus. Milling over a three block area on Shamrock Ave, they were confronted by a line of guardsmen who herded them back at bayonet point.
At approximately 1 pm, Miranda County Sheriff’s Deputies jumped and clubbed a young man spraying WELCOME TO PRAGUE on a window of Cooper’s Department Store with an aerosol paint container. He was dragged off to the police station bleeding profusely, and was later identified as Wily Smith, 21, a black student at Euphoric State.
On Sunday a huge procession of Garden supporters coiled its way through the streets of Plotinus, planting miniature “People’s Gardens” on every vacant lot they passed. Asked why he had instructed his men to remove the grass and flowers, Sheriff O’Keene said, “They’re a violation of property.”
—Esseph Chronicle
UNIVERSITY AT WAR, RUMMIDGE PROFESSOR WARNS
Gordon Masters, Professor of English Literature at the University of Rummidge, has condemned the present sit-in by students in strong terms.
“The situation closely resembles that of Europe in 1940,” he said yesterday. “The unacceptable ultimatum, followed by a Blitzkrieg and occupation of neighbouring territory, was Hitler’s basic strategy. But we did not yield then and we shall not yield now.”
On the wall of his office, Professor Masters has a large map showing the plan of the University’s central heating system. “The heating pipes are conveyed through a maze of tunnels,” he explained, “which would make an excellent base for resistance activity should Senate and the Administration have to go underground. I don’t doubt that the Vice-Chancellor has a secret bunker to which he can retreat at short notice.”
The Vice-Chancellor’s Office declined to comment.
—Rummidge Morning Post
RIOT VICTIM ROBERTS DIES
STUDENT REFERENDUM TO BE HELD
ACADEMIC SENATE SETS MEETING ON GARDEN
—Headlines, Euphoric State Daily
WE ACCUSE! WE SHALL OVERCOME!
The People of Plotinus know who was responsible for the death of John Roberts.
Chancellor Binde, who declared war on the people over a piece of land.
Sheriff O’Keene, who armed his blue meanies with shotguns and let them loose on the streets.
The nameless pig who pumped two rounds of buckshot into the back of a defenceless young man at point-blank range.
Our land is desecrated, but the spirit of the Garden is alive on Shamrock Avenue and Howle Plaza. The people of Plotinus are united against the pigs and tyrants. The bullshit barriers are coming down, the barricades of love are going up against the pigs. Street freaks, politicos, frat rats, sallys and jocks and mommas for peace are pulling off their masks of isolation and touching each other’s hearts.
—Euphoric Times
PROFESSOR RESIGNS
Professor Gordon H. Masters, Professor of English at Rummidge University, yesterday tendered his resignation to the Vice-Chancellor, who has accepted it “with regret.”
It is well known that Professor Masters, who was due to retire in a few years’ time, has not enjoyed good health lately, and friends close to him say that the current student troubles at the University have been a source of severe strain for him.
Professor Masters’ resignation takes effect from next October, but he has already left Rummidge for a period of rest and recuperation.
—Rummidge Morning Post
CHOPPER SPRAYS DEMONSTRATORS—TEAR GAS
BLANKETS CAMPUS
A National Guard helicopter clattered over the Euphoric State campus yesterday, spraying white tear gas over some 700 students and faculty trapped in Howle Plaza by a tight ring of guardsmen.
The gas attack was authorized by Miranda County Sheriff Hank O’Keene, to disperse the remnants of a procession of 3000 mourners marching in memory of John Roberts. Wind blew the gas and carried it hundreds of yards away. It blanketed residential houses, entered university classrooms and offices, seeped into the wards of the University Hospital. Faculty wives and children in the Blueberry Creek swimming pool 3/4 mile away were affected by the gas. A group of faculty have lodged a strong protest with Chancellor Binde against the indiscriminate use of gas by the law enforcement agencies.
—Esseph Chronicle
AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD’S VIEW OF THE CRISIS
I didn’t get to see the People’s Garden really, but I could feel that it was beautiful. In the Garden it was made of people’s feelings, not just their hands, they made it with their heart, who knew if they made it to stay, there are hundreds of people that built that garden, and so we’ll never know if they meant it to stay.
The police are just ruining their lives by being police, they’re also keeping themselves from being a person. They act like they are some kind of nervous creatures.
—Submitted by Plotinus schoolteacher
to Euphoric State Daily
ASSEMBLY HALL TEACH-IN
This weekend the organize
rs of the sit-in have arranged a teach-in on the subject of THE UNIVERSITY AND THE COMMUNITY.
What is the role of the University in modern society?
What is the social justification of University Education?
What do ordinary people really think about Universities and Students?
These are some of the questions we shall be discussing.
—Handout, Rummidge University
RUMMIDGE SCHOOLKIDS ON STUDENTS
most students don,t like the way colleges and universitys are run tats why they have protested and sit-in. When students are older they will find it was ran in a good way. Students waste people and police-mens time, i think just for a laff. Most of them are hippeys and act like big fools and waste thier brain when someone else would be proud to be brainy.
I think students are stupid they throw stink bombs at people on purpose ony because they want to be noticed. They are a load of old tramps with their long dirty hair. They look like they haven’t had a wash. Their clothes are disgraceful and they don,t have any money. They go on the television and smoke drugs in front of the viewers. They cause riots in the streets fighting and destroying everything that comes their way. Some students are sensable they wear nice clothes and got nice hair, they have a nice home and are not stupid.
if a student came to me and said something i would walk on. Lets say you are a cat and the students pick you up and you think he is kind. but they cut you up and experiment on you. Some students are all right but they are stuck up noses.
I don’t like students cos they all follow each other in what they do they all wear the same clothes and they all talk like americans, and they smoke drugs and have injections to make themselves happy and they talk about love and peace when their unhappy.
if i was the police i would hang them.
—submitted to Rumble by Education student
RUMMIDGE DONS PROPOSE MEDIATOR
The non-professorial staff association at Rummidge University has proposed that a mediator be nominated to chair negotiations between the University Administration and the Students’ Union Executive, to try and bring the sit-in to an end. Earlier today, the students voted to continue the sit-in.