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[September 22, 1968] Pageantry and Picket Signs

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by Gwyn Conaway


On September 7th 1968, Debra Barnes, also known as Miss Kansas, won the crown of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, sharing the spotlight with protestors that managed to hang banners during the live broadcast and spark a nation-wide controversy over women's liberation.

“The personal is political.”

This astute piece of wisdom, born of deep discussions in the rising New York Radical Women group this summer, was voiced by one of its leaders, Carol Hanisch. She’s the feminist mastermind behind the Miss America Pageant protest that happened just two weeks ago on the Atlantic City boardwalk outside of the live broadcast of the event on the seventh of September.

When it comes to a woman’s image, she couldn’t be more on the nose. Women’s beauty has been touted as the ultimate symbol of the successes of nations, militaries, companies, and men. Even the origins of the Miss America Pageant are rooted in consumerism and marketing.


Miss America has two key duties after her coronation. Product placement and stimulating the economy is the origin of the pageant, and no surprise now includes brand sponsors such as Pepsi. Her other obligation, however, is touring the U.S. troops. The New York Radical Women call the latter a "death mascot."

In 1921, the first Miss America pageant was held just after Labor Day to lengthen the resort season and bring more revenue to the New York and Jersey coasts. The contest was described as an evaluation of a woman’s “personality and social graces,” with an initial round of judgment conducted by photograph–a medium, I should mention, that is hard pressed to showcase either of these laudable traits.

Within a score of years, the requirements for the pageant became clearer, though surely they were a requirement from the start. A contestant was to be a white woman in good health, never married, between the ages of 18 and 28. All the accolades that she brought with her were expected to be mildly bland, uninspiring, and only the sort of polite conversation one has with their in-laws. The Goldilocks Rule aboundeth: Not too hot, and not too cold. This contradictory manner was invented to define the Modern Woman by none other than Charles Dana Gibson, a male illustrator-turned-editor for Life magazine, once again linking the idea of women's beauty, national identity, and consumerism from the male point of view.


When Women Are Jurors, studies in expression by Charles Dana Gibson, 1902.

When New York Radical Women organized the protest outside of Boardwalk Hall, the history of the pageant was baked into its message of decrying the tradition's inherent sexism. Performances of being shackled and mopping the boardwalk with an infant in hand, for example, were meant to visually represent the unending pressures of Western women. Caricatures of the contestants were labeled as a cattle auction, and even a sheep draped in a banner that read “Miss America” was paraded around the picket line throughout the day.

But perhaps the most provocative element of the protest was the now infamous Freedom Trash Can.


Protestors throw their objects of oppression into the Freedom Trash Can on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Contrary to popular belief, no bras were burned that day, though organizers claim they'd wanted to do so in solidarity with recent draft card burnings.

Yes, the one into which women threw their objects of oppression: lash curlers and fakies, nylons and office pumps, girdles, wigs, lipstick, gloves, the Cosmopolitan… The one you’ve no doubt read mention of in the Atlantic City Press’s scorching article, “Bra-burners blitz boardwalk.” The assumption that women burned their effects seems trollish sensationalism from my point of view, though. In looking through statements from Carol Hanisch, she mentions they had intended to burn them, much like veteran draft cards in the protests on the lawn over the summer, but were instructed not to. The protest happened on a wooden boardwalk, after all.

The image of burning one’s brassiere is so striking that it will surely live in infamy, and I won’t be surprised if it happens during feminist protests in the future. Truthfully, it’s already become a double-edged sword. While women might choose to honor the efforts of the activists who came before them through bra-burning, their critics will latch onto it as well, claiming it a symbol of anarchy. To think, choosing one’s own most personal garments could be such a political threat.

However, harking on the Miss America Pageant alone only tells half of the fascinating tale of this year’s beauty brawl. The New York Radical Women’s protest revolved entirely around the misogynistic use of women as a patriotic trophy and how it signaled to American women what mainstream beauty standards should be in the eyes of male judges. But focusing on the pageant by nature necessitated the whole-cloth exclusion of brown and Black women who, as I laid out in the rules of the pageant, were barred from participation.

While white women in the United States have been oppressed by the gender extremes of our society for centuries, Black and brown women haven’t been included at all in the definition of ideal beauty. This means their struggle has been two-fold, balancing the incorrigible partnership of the legacy of slavery and a beauty standard that expects their hair, features, and physique to mold itself after the white ideal.


Phillip Savage (center) plans a civil rights march in 1963 with collaborators Cecil B Moore (left) and A. Philip Randolph (right). Savage cofounded the Miss Black America pageant with J. Morris Anderson. The poster below is undated, though this style of poster and rhetoric was ubiquitous throughout the events of September 7th.

Just down the street from the Miss America Pageant broadcast, there was another event being held: the first annual Miss Black America Pageant.

While the New York Radical Women’s protest challenged the male gaze and has received immense derision from (mostly male) newsrooms, the Miss Black America Pageant has enjoyed public success so far. J. Morris Anderson of Philadelphia decided to organize the event when his daughters lamented over not being able to participate in the long-standing contest. He, Phillip Savage, and others, came together to make a space for the Black beauty ideal on the American stage. They didn’t directly oppose Miss America and its whiteness. Rather, much like Thurgood Marshall in his Supreme Court hearings last year, they circumvented the argument altogether.


I can’t help but think that male involvement in the Miss Black America Pageant was critical to its warm reception, especially since men were barred from participating in the protests down the street. (New York Radical Women even forbade male journalists from interviewing participants.)

The strategic differences between the two events couldn’t have been more stark, nor the message more similar. While the Miss America Pageant protests on the boardwalk were meant to cast derision on men’s control of women’s bodies, the Miss Black America Pageant aimed to take ownership of Black beauty. Both events were after the same goals: to give women a voice in their own image, the power to decide what makes them feel powerful, and the platform to enact change for their communities. 


Miss Saundra Williams, crowned the first Miss Black America, gave a monologue entitled “I Am Black,” performed an African dance, and wore her hair in a natural halo of curls. Miss Williams took ownership of her roots before, during, and after her coronation. Rather than the event pressuring its contestants into following the more marketable approach of the longstanding Miss America Pageant, the organizers and contestants took it as an opportunity to speak directly to their own demographic and define beauty on their own terms.

Whether it's suffrage, the right to divorce, or the profit of our bodies, women have been fighting the same battles head on for centuries with abysmal results. Truly, if we’re fighting the same stigmas in the next century, it will come at no surprise.

Maybe the Miss Black America pageant has the right idea. We learned in looking at fashions of the Civil Rights Movement (of which many of its leaders were involved in this pageant) that the old saying holds true: it’s easier to catch flies with honey. I don’t believe that Miss Black America capitulates to the structure of how white America judges beauty, but rather makes room, and in doing so, diminishes the power of the mainstream.

While New York Radical Women and other women's liberation movements battle the mainstream head on, efforts such as the invention of Miss Black America flank our culture. In a trench war so long and grueling, I have no doubt that these mainstream ideals will sadly stand the test of time…

But they'll also be fighting for oxygen with every new space we create.


Saundra Williams speaking at the 369th Regiment Armory in Harlem New York, 1968.




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[September 2, 1968] What might have been (October 1968 IF)

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by David Levinson

From spring straight into the fall

Back in April, I reported on the early days of the “Prague Spring,” First Secretary Alexander Dubček’s effort to reform Czechoslovakian communism and create “socialism with a human face.” Dubček managed to keep his plans afloat through the spring and much of the summer, but—as anyone who has been following the news is aware—the Soviet bear has flexed its claws and put an end to ideas of openness and freedom of speech. But not without creating a few cracks in the Warsaw Pact.


A Soviet armored vehicle comes to a fiery end.

The first sign of trouble came in June. Military maneuvers by Warsaw Pact forces took place in Czechoslovakia as scheduled, but Soviet troops were slow to leave the country after the conclusion. A number of communist leaders visited Prague over the course of a week in early August; some, like East Germany’s Walter Ulbricht and Hungary’s János Kádár, probably trying to bring Dubček to heel, while Yugoslavia’s Tito and Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu were no doubt more encouraging. Ceaușescu certainly was, since he signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation with Czechoslovakia and has loudly condemned the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the last few days.

It’s not clear what straw broke the camel’s back, though the announcement that Czechoslovakia was considering loans from the World Bank might have accelerated things. In any case, at 11:00 PM on August 20th Warsaw Pact forces rolled across the border in numbers not seen in Europe since the end of World War II. Dubček and other reformist leaders were arrested, and the Soviets tried to install a puppet government, but the people of Czechoslovakia weren’t having it. On the 22nd, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia met hastily and elected a new central committee and presidium, which then unanimously re-elected Dubček as First Secretary.


Somewhat more peaceful resistance.

The invasion triggered protests around the world, even by some Communist parties in western and neutral countries. In Czechoslovakia, although the military was never ordered to oppose Warsaw Pact forces, the invaders have been met with protests and violence. Alas, it was not enough. The arrested leaders signed an agreement to roll back their reforms on the 26th, and after returning to Prague on the 27th, Dubček gave a tearful radio address, asking Czechoslovakians to end their resistance as well as for their forgiveness for his surrender. As I write, that is where things stand, and like Hungary a dozen years ago, Czechoslovakia has been brought back into the fold.

Lost in the fog

A couple of the protagonists in this month’s IF spend their stories wandering in a daze. Unfortunately, the far less successful of the tales takes up nearly a third of the magazine and feels like a lot more, overwhelming an otherwise decent issue.

Scientists on Mars make an unexpected find. Art by Chaffee

High Weir, by Samuel R. Delany

A group of scientists investigate an ancient Martian temple and discover that the jeweled eyes of the sculptures contain moving holographic images. Meanwhile one of their number, linguist Rimkin, suffers a severe mental breakdown.

Art by Gaughan

Normally, I’d complain about the idea of an ancient Martian temple, but Delany’s writing is just so gorgeous I don’t care. He also has the skill to keep the viewpoint entirely with a man slowly losing his mind, keep the story coherent and include a discussion of information storage that ties the whole thing together. Not his best work, but still excellent.

Four stars.

Report on Japanese Science Fiction, by Takumi Shibano

Top Japanese fan Takumi Shibano (for more on him see last month’s article by my colleague Alison Scott) tells us about the state of science fiction in Japan. The first half of the article offers a brief history of the genre in Japan, from the inter-war years to today; the second half is a run-down of the authors in the field today and the sort of things they write. The history is very good, while the second half is a bit dry. But maybe something in there will catch a publisher’s eye and prompt a translation or two.

A high three stars.

Deathchild, by Sterling Lanier

A baby named Joseph is the ultimate weapon; anyone who comes into unprotected contact with him dies horribly. Is he enough to keep a surging communist China from conquering all of Asia and bring them to the negotiation table?

Feeding time. Art by Virgil Finlay

After a slow start under John Campbell’s tutelage, Lanier seems to have come into his own as an author. There’s certainly some good writing here, however it’s too long. Worse, the concept behind Project Inside Straight is utterly absurd. The quality of the line-by-line writing is just enough to keep the story’s head above water.

Three propped-up stars.

Paddlewheel on the Styx, by Lohr Miller

From the title, I was expecting something in the mode of John Kendrick Bangs or Riverworld. Instead, we have the tale of an attempt to rescue a crashed spaceship on the shore of a river of molten metal on Mercury. It’s beautifully poetic, but it falters a bit right at the end. I will forgive the lapse, though, because this month’s new author is very new indeed: he won’t be 14 until sometime in November. This is very well done for someone so young, and I hope we see more from master Miller in the future.

A solid three stars.

The Proxy Intelligence, by A.E. van Vogt

Space vampires and some nonsense about intelligence. ‘Nuff said.

The head vampire meets the scientist and his beautiful daughter. Art by Gaughan

This unasked-for sequel to Asylum (Astounding, May 1942) is a confused mess. The protagonist wanders through the story in a daze due to his exposure a vastly superior intelligence, but unlike with Delany’s story the reader comes away knowing even less than the “hero.” In desperation, I tracked down the original story. While it did clarify who all the characters are, I can’t say it helped otherwise.

Barely two stars.

If… and When, by Lester del Rey

This month, del Rey looks at what is coming to be known as materials science, the study of improving the materials we use to make things and developing entirely new ones. He covers a wide variety of topics, such as building materials that can be eaten in a pinch, metals that dampen impacts, materials that can be induced to return to a given shape, and many more ideas. This was all inspired by The New Materials by David Fishlock, which he makes sound very interesting indeed. But then, this is a field I’ve long had something of an interest in.

Four stars for me, maybe slightly less if your interests are different.

Or Battle’s Sound, by Harry Harrison

Dom Priego is a university student doing a hitch in the military. His unit is tasked with boarding an enemy spaceship carrying a matter transmitter and keeping them from sending through a huge mass of men and equipment.

Dom fights his way through the enemy ship. Art by Adkins

On the surface, Harrison has given us an entertaining space opera, but underneath it is the philosophical question of why we fight. Overall, this is very well done, but I think it’s the wrong length. Either the combat scenes need to be tightened up, reducing the story by a couple of pages, or it needs to be a lot longer, so we can get to know Dom better, say some stuff from before he signed up and why he did so.

A high three stars.

Pupa Knows Best, by James Tiptree, Jr.

In this sequel to The Mother Ship, more aliens come to Earth. First some blue lizards who leave behind some mysterious missile-like objects, followed by the Siggies, who everybody likes. Earth people start picking up aspects of the alien culture, and then things start to go wrong.

Siggie religion features quaint rituals. Art by Brand

I liked this one a bit more than the first story. Maybe that’s because I have an easier time accepting the underlying premise. In any case, it’s a pithy tale dealing with both religion and the effects of colonization.

Three stars.

Summing up

This could have been a pretty good issue. All but one story are average to very good. Even the low score for “Deathchild” is mostly due to the highly unbelievable premise; up until that is revealed, it’s a good read. But then there’s van Vogt. A “complete novel condensation in a special section” it says on the cover. As I said, if it’s condensed, they took out too much. As for the special section, the magazine is the same length it always is; the story just squats right in the middle like some sort of unpleasant toad. Can we please go back to serials?

Three out of the four have potential, but I’d rather have the whole Zelazny.




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[August 31, 1968] The Sound and the Fury (September 1968 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

In the backround (and sometimes the foreground) of my reading of this month's issue of Analog was the Democratic National Convention held over four tumultuous days in the Windy City.  This was not four days of politicians patting themselves on the back, as we saw in Miami Beach for the GOP Convention—amid the citywide busdrivers and telephone workers strike, there was tumult, walk-outs, protests, and a general breakdown of the democratic process.


Il Duce, Mayor Daley, intent on turning his town into a police state in the pursuit of Law and Order: 12,000 cops plus a contingent of National Guard were on hand last weekend.

The writing was on the wall that first day when Julian Bond arrived with his alternate set of Georgia delegates, the group that broadly represented the demographic makeup of the Georgia Democratic Party.  First, they were not even allowed in; then they were grudglingly placed in the cheap seats of the balcony.  All while Daniel Inouye, Senator from Hawaii, gave a stirring, unprecedented keynote speech in which he decried the anarchy and violence occurring outside the convention halls, but nevertheless put on the assembly the responsibility of rectifying the racial injustice that led to such agitation.

Eventually, the delegates prepared to vote on the certification of the Georgia delegation that had been approved by the party—the less integrated one.  Actually, first they voted on if they were going to vote on it that evening.  It was during this battle that the Michigan delegation offered their seats to the alternate Georgia delegation, a move that enraged members of the "official" delegation.

With regard to who was going to get the Presidential nomination, by the end of the first night, it was clear McCarthy was a dead duck, and few were mentioning McGovern.  However, there was a rising "draft Kennedy" movement that peaked on Day 2 despite Ted repeatedly saying he wasn't interested.  More dramatically, Day 2 marked the day police evicted 1,000 protesters from nearby Lincoln Park, CBS correspondent Dan Rather got punched by plainclothes security for not wearing his credentials prominently, dozens of delegates, mostly Black, walked out, and Georgia Governor Lester Maddox took his ball and went home, saying he was going to stump for segregationalist independent candidate, George Wallace.


Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out…

And that night, I'm pretty sure they still hadn't certified the Georgia delegation.

On the third day, 10,000 protesters gathered at Grant Park, a terrific anti-War demonstration broke out on the floor of the convention, and the minority position tried in vain to make an end to bombing North Vietnam a part of the party plank.  By the time Humphrey was anointed the candidate (a foregone conclusion by that point), it was an anti-climax and anything but a triumphant coronation.  And what a change twenty years has wrought: the Southern delegations that walked out on the convention in '48 are now behind Humphrey, where the liberals who admired the fiery populist now reject the man they view as Johnson's stooge.

Discontent was rampant.  Delegates were frustrated that they were not listened to, that the motions they were voting on were not sufficiently explained, and that Mayor Daley was strong-arming them into voting the way he wanted them to.  Not to mention that there wasn't enough food to feed everyone in the convention's vicinity, and the hot dogs on site were terrible. Many said 1968 marked the death of the party convention, at least in its current incarnation.

But the political strife was as nothing compared to the rivers of blood that were shed as blue-helmeted cops clashed with protestors.  "The Whole World is Watching" and "Fuck LBJ" intertwined with shouts and screams, and all of it was televised in full color (but not live, as that was impossible due to the strikes and Daley's security efforts).

The only bright spot of that third evening was the nomination of D.C. and Black native son the Rev. Channing Phillips, the first American of African descent to be nominated by a major political party for President.

By the fourth day, I was exhausted, yet I tuned in anyway.  I'm glad I did.  That evening, the convention played a retrospective on RFK.  It was too hagiographic, and frankly, the wounds too fresh to bear close watching, at least for me.  But when it was over, something amazing happened.  Virtually the entire audience of delegates, excluding just the groups from Texas and Illinois, rose to its feet and began clapping.  Louder and louder, and then they started singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."  Over and over, "Glory Glory Hallelujah, His truth is marching on."  Daley's henchmen tried to impose order.  They gaveled.  They called out the Sergeants-in-Arms.  Nothing deterred the delegates.  All of the anger, all the discontent, all of the frustrated might-have-beens boiled over in that moment into this display of singing, of shouting, of clapping.

It was only defused when a moment of silence was called for the memory of Dr. King, and then the convention could continue.  The business of the moment was the nomination of a Vice President.  That morning Humphrey had already tapped Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine, and there was no serious opposition.

Yet, and in a truly touching moment, Julian Bond's name was advanced as a candidate (so, the first Black VP nominee of a major party in history), and he garnered 27 and a half votes before voluntarily withdrawing his name.  Humbly, self-effacingly, he noted that he was too young to accept.


Bond withdraws his name from consideration.

Muskey and Humphrey gave their acceptance speeches that night.  There was a lot on their shoulders—the need to deliver speeches that thread the needle, knitting the party back together, both addressing and condemning what had happened in Chicago.

That didn't happen.  What we got was a limp flatness of platitudes.  When I woke up, I learned that 20 delegates, supporters of McCarthy, had been beaten up in their hotel and arrested.  The charge pelting the cops with sardines.  McCarthy pointedly did not congratulate Humphrey that morning; the Vice President, now the newly christened candidate, had made no comment on the incident, tacitly endorsing it.

So that's that.  HHH is our bulwark against Nixon.  Muskie is his backstop.  Wallace just got a shot in the arm, and I can only think that's a blow against Democratic hopes.  Americans are disunited as we have not been for many decades.

It is hard to go on with my assigned task after all that, but the job remains, and I'm the one who has to do it.  The convention was four days of Hell.  Accordingly, the September 1968 issue of Analog was a slog, too, though of a different kind.


by John Schoenherr

The Tuvela (Part 1 of 2), by James H. Schmitz


by John Schoenherr

The ocean planet of Nandy-Cline is in the sights of the Parahuans, a rapacious race of aliens that was beaten back by the Federation seventy years ago, and wants another try at the apple.  They're being cautious.  The humans beat them once, which is almost heresy to the arrogant Parahuans.  To justify losing to the inferior homo sapiens, they decide there must be a secret cabal of superhumans that leads and coordinates our species.  They must know more in order to sway political power from those supporting the Voice of Caution to those in favor of the Voice of Action.

To that end, they have set up a submarine base on the planet and abducted the human, Ticos Cay.  Why?  Because he is nearly 200 years old and seems to have found the secret of immortality.  It is clear to the Parahuans that he must be in the employ of the "Tuvelas", our putative ubermenschen.  They torture him, at length, but he resists because the same disciplines that have extended his life also grant him the ability to blot out pain.  Nevertheless, he will succumb—unless he can get outside help.

Enter Nile Etland, a young biologist living on Nandy-Cline.  She and her two giant mutant otters, sapient and clever, are looking for Cay, who has disappeared from the floating island where he was doing research.  Cay's only hope is that the Parahuans will take Etland for a Tuvela and treat her with comparative kid gloves, testing her abilities, rather than killing her outright.

Etland, to her credit, is up to the challenge…

The premise for this one is excellent, and something I love about James H. Schmitz is his ability with (indeed preference for) featuring heroines over heroes.  That said, the writing in this piece is often plodding and explanatory, and I found my momentum frequently flagging.

So, three stars for this installment.  Now that all the pieces have been set up, perhaps the next half will be more exciting.

The Powers of Observation, by Harry Harrison


by Leo Summers

The Soviets have developed a new kind of super spy.  He looks just like a man, but for some reason weighs over 400 pounds.  If that leads you to guess that he's the Communist version of Hymie the robot from Get Smart, give yourself a cigar.

But the American agent tasked to pursue him through the back roads of Yugoslavia has a few gimmicks up his sleeve, too…

Well-written, but nothing spectactular.  Three stars.

Steamer Time?, by Wallace West

As America grapples with its oppressive smog situation, some are calling for a return to the good ol' days—the days of the Stanley Steamer.  I'm just a little too young to remember when steam cars battled internal combustion vehicles for supremacy, so I don't have the nostalgia for them that Wallace West infuses his piece with.  The arguments for steam are largely that it burns clean, with its only waste gas being carbon dioxide (of course, while not strictly a "pollutant", there are other problems with it; viz. our 1958 article on the potential for industry-caused global heating).  Steam engines were also more fuel-efficient, though I don't know if that's still the case.

The arguments against steam, to me, would be the long time to develop a head of steam.  In the old days, waiting for your boiler to heat up was acceptable since the alternative was cranking up your IC car, and risking breaking an arm when the crank snapped back.  With the invention of the electric starter, that became a non-issue.  Perhaps the steam folks have a plan, too.

Anyway, the piece is readable, if a bit gushing.  I'm sure the auto industry will never allow an IC competitor to emerge, although as we speak, two electric cars are racing across the nation, so who knows?

Three stars.

Hi Diddle Diddle, by Peter E. Abresch


by Leo Summers

A harried reserve USAF captain, assigned to the UFO division, gets tired of all the cranks and reporters and spins a yarn for them: the cigar-shaped "ships" are really space cows feeding on the gasses of our upper atmosphere.  His creation is recounted credulously, and hysteria sweeps the nation.  Eventually, even Soviet agents are involved.

But what if the captain actually guessed too close to the mark?

This is a tedious story, and it just goes on and on.  Analog rarely does humor well.

Two stars.

A Flash of Darkness, by Stanley Schmidt


by Leo Summers

Mars Rover (MR) Robot is having a bit of trouble on Mars.  The autonomous machine uses a holographic laser rather than a camera for navigation (apparently it's lighter; I don't buy it).  When night falls, the rover finds its vision fogged and then blinded by something beyond its ken.  It's up to the technicians back on Earth, and maybe a little intuition in MR Robot's mechanical brain, to solve the problem.

This could have been an interesting piece, but I felt the ending was a let-down.  You'll see why.

Two stars.

Parasike, by Michael Chandler


by Leo Summers

A fellow pretending to use numerology to make guaranteed stock picks turns out to be a quack of a different duck.  He is promptly recruited by America's super-secret psi corps.

A lot of talking, a lot of fatuous acceptance of psi as science—in short, the perfect Campbell story.

Two stars.

Counting off

August has been one of the roughest months of one of the roughest years in recent history.  Analog finished at 2.5, which is lousy, but not that far removed from the rest: Fantasy and Science Fiction (2.5), Amazing (2.6), If (2.9).  Only Galaxy finished above the three-star barrier (3.1)

You could take all the 4/5 star stuff, and you wouldn't even fill a single issue.  That's awful.  Women were down to their usual publication rate, producing 6.5% of all new fiction this month.

It's going to take bold new leadership to change that trend, just as it will take bold new leadership to fix the country.  That new leadership doesn't seem to be near in coming.  I just hope we can withstand another Long Hot Summer…




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[August 28, 1968] The Carnival is Over (The Seekers Break Up)

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by Kaye Dee

Without a doubt, Australia’s most famous musical export would have to be The Seekers, the folk-pop quartet from Melbourne who burst onto the international stage in 1964 and have given The Beatles and The Rolling Stones a run for their money when it comes to Top Ten hits. So, even with persistent rumours for some months that the band might soon break up, it comes as something of a surprise that, at the height of their fame, The Seekers announced in July that they have decided to go their separate ways.

The Seekers at the 1966 Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium

Singing for their Supper
The Seekers – Athol Guy (28), Keith Potger (27), Bruce Woodley (26) and Judith Durham (25) – formed in Melbourne in 1962. But how did a group of clean cut, coffee-house musicians – all of them with middle-class day jobs – become a hot property in the booming British pop scene and a household name on three continents? 

When the group was formed, none of its members were newcomers to the local music scene. The three male members had all attended the same Melbourne school and had their own bands before forming a new “doo wop” band, the Escorts, with singer Ken Ray. This group then transformed into The Seekers in 1962 as the folk music movement grew in Melbourne.

At the same time, Miss Durham, blessed with perfect pitch and originally planning to become an opera singer, was carving out a place in the local jazz scene. As the lead vocalist with a top Melbourne jazz band, “Judy” Durham had already released an EP with a local record label. With her beautiful and versatile voice, she can sing jazz, opera, blues and gospel – and there is no question that Judith Durham’s vocal talents have been a major factor in The Seekers’ success over the past six years.

When Ken Ray married and left the Seekers, Miss Durham was working at the same advertising agency as Athol Guy, and he recruited her as Mr. Ray’s replacement, creating The Seekers as we know them today: Judith Durham, the lead vocalist, also performing piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals; Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.

On the cover of The Seekers first album, Keith Potger was replaced by former Seeker Ken Ray, because his day job as a radio producer at the Australian Broadcasting Commission barred him from involvement in a commercial enterprise. (L-R: Judith Durham, Ken Ray, Bruce Woodley and Athol Guy).




Breaking Into the Australian Charts
Miss Durham’s golden voice and the group’s folk-influenced sound quickly made them popular in Melbourne, although they were largely unknown outside it. When her previous connection with local record label W&G provided the opportunity for a recording contract, The Seekers released their debut album "Introducing The Seekers" in 1963, opening the way to reach a national audience.

In the liner notes for the album, The Seekers described their approach to their music: “We don't claim to be folk singers in the true sense of the word. Then again, we don't regard ourselves as being ‘commercial’. Why? Because we sing the songs we like, the way we like and the way we think people will like to hear them. No long-haired ethnic purity for us, it's more fun our way.”

Two tracks were released as singles, with their version of Australia’s unofficial national anthem “Waltzing Matilda” charting in the Top 40 in Melbourne, and the Top 100 nationally. Obviously, people did like to hear The Seekers singing what they liked, their way.

Sailing Away to International Fame
Since the 1950s, many Aussie entertainers seeking fame and fortune have headed off to Britain to try their luck in its larger, more vibrant entertainment industry, and in 1964, The Seekers decided that the time had come for them to follow suit. With a year-long contract to work as the house band on a cruise ship, the group departed Australia in March.

The Seekers planned to work in the UK and get some exposure for their music during the ten-week layover there before working the return cruise to Australia. Shrewdly, the group sent copies of their album and promotional photographs ahead of them to London talent agencies, hoping this might help them line up some work once they arrived. The tactic was successful, and once in London in May, the group discovered that a top agency had taken them on and already booked them on national TV shows, and on the UK variety theatre and club circuit.

Their planned “working holiday” almost immediately turned into a full-time career, with important London bookings and television appearances, a UK recording deal and the release of their first UK single, “Myra”. This was quickly followed by two studio albums and, at the end of 1964, their first big hit “I’ll Never Find Another You”.

What made The Seekers (deprecatingly described by some in the British press as “three bank tellers and a secretary” due to their conservative style of dress and a lifestyle that was definitely not “sex, drugs and rock’n’roll”) such a marketable property in a British pop scene fuelled by teen angst and teenage rebellion?

Internationally successful folk acts like Peter, Paul & Mary had paved the way for The Seekers’ sound, the product of Judith Durham’s pure and powerful voice and the “nice harmonies” of the three men. With their clean-cut good looks, equally clean-cut voices and quiet dress, they appealed to English squares because they represented something they could understand and feel comfortable with, while at the same time their catchy tunes and soulful ballads, and their sheer musical talent attracted a wide range of audiences. The conservative BBC loved them, because their music contained no offensive lyrics, and their performances no outlandish behaviour, meaning that they received a large amount of air time on radio and television, which gave them wide exposure. 

A Match Made by a Manager
Many of the catchy tunes that repeatedly propelled Seekers to the top of the charts, commencing with “I’ll Never Find Another You” (apparently recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios by day while The Beatles were recording there at night), were written expressly for The Seekers by singer-songwriter-producer Tom Springfield, brother of Dusty Springfield. In a clever move, the agent managing The Seekers introduced them to Mr. Springfield shortly after he had split with his sister. Tom Springfield felt that The Seekers’ style of singing and performance would suit the particular kind of music he preferred to write. He became their resident songwriter, signing the group to his production company. 

In November 1964 “I'll Never Find Another You” became a massive worldwide hit, reaching Number 1 in Australia and the UK, and Number 4 in the US. It also rated highly in Europe and eventually sold 1.75 million copies worldwide. This earned The Seekers a place in the record books as the first Australian pop group to have a Top 5 hit simultaneously in the Australian, UK and US markets, as well as the first to sell over a million copies of a single.


A World of Their Own
You could say that 1965 was the year that The Seekers conquered the world, with hit after hit rising up the charts! “A World of Our Own”, “Morningtown Ride”, and my favourite, “The Carnival is Over”, were all Top Ten hits, as was their 1965 album release. With its melody apparently drawn from a Russian folk song, “The Carnival is Over” reached Number 1 in the UK, even overtaking The Rolling Stones' “Get Off My Cloud”! I’ve heard that the single sold over 90,000 copies per day in Britain, which is no mean feat.

The Seekers receiving their gold record in Australia for "The Carnival is Over"








Winning the Top of the Pops Best New Group of 1964, The Seekers starred in the New Musical Express “All-Star Poll Winners Concert” in April 1965, on a bill that included the cream of the British pop scene – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Dusty Springfield, The Who and The Yardbirds: The Seekers would go on to outsell them all in 1966! Then followed a breakthrough performance in June on The Ed Sullivan Show – the first time any Australian musicians had appeared on US television.

The Seekers during their first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1965


The Seekers' amazing success was repeated in 1966, commencing with a sell-out concert tour of Australia, during which they filmed their first Australian TV special, “At Home with the Seekers”. There was also a successful collaboration with Paul Simon (of Simon & Garfunkel fame), which produced “Someday, One Day”, another major hit. Bruce Woodley then co-wrote several songs with Mr. Simon, including “Red Rubber Ball”, released on The Seekers 1966 UK Top 10 album “Come the Day”. 

In November, The Seekers appeared on the bill at the prestigious Royal Command Performance concert at the London Palladium, before H.M. Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. Finally, in December, the group released what became their biggest hit, and highest charting American release.

“Georgy Girl”, the title song for the film of the same name, reached Number 3 in the UK, Number 1 in Australia, and Number 1 on the US Cashbox Top 100 in February 1967, ultimately selling 3.5 million copies worldwide. Jim Dale and Tom Springfield, the song’s writers, were nominated for the 1967 Academy Award for Best Original Song of 1966, although The Seekers had to pass up the opportunity to perform at the awards ceremony due to a prior booking in the UK. Unfortunately for them, the Oscar was won by the title song of the film Born Free.

The Seekers at the Myer Music Bowl, a publicity shot for "The Seekers Down Under"




While touring Australia in March last year, The Seekers appeared at a concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, which is claimed to have drawn an audience of 200,000 – the largest concert audience ever in the southern hemisphere according to the Guinness Book of Records. (Though rumour has it that the audience figure is somewhat exaggerated, because visitors to the annual Moomba festival occurring in the vicinity were also counted!). During their 20-minute performance, the group was accompanied by the Australian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hector Crawford, also a producer of radio, film and television. Film of this performance was included in The Seekers’ second Australian TV special, “The Seekers Down Under,” which drew a record audience of over 6 million!

A scene from "The Seekers Down Under", showing the group in Canberra

By this time Miss Durham apparently felt the need to branch out on a musical career of her own, and recorded a debut solo single, "The Olive Tree", which was released in June last year, while The Seekers were on a North American tour. For The Seekers as a group, the hits just kept on coming, for both their single releases and their most recent album, “The Seekers Seen in Green”. But when Judith Durham’s second solo single, “Again and Again”, appeared at the end of last year, it sparked early rumours that the group might split up.

During their North American tour, The Seekers joined fellow Aussie performers Rolf Harris, Normie Rowe and Bobby Limb in the special “Australia Day at Expo 67” concert in Montreal, that became the first official satellite broadcast into Australia. They also made another appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing “Georgy Girl”, which has turned out to be their last US hit.

The Seekers performing at the Australia Day concert broadcast via satellite to Australia from Expo 67

Our Last Goodbye
Though we didn’t know it at the time, when The Seekers returned to Australia last December, it was to be their final Australasian tour. But in a fitting finale to their career, The Seekers’ rapid rise to international fame was crowned with Australia’s highest honour: in January, they were collectively named “Australians of the Year for 1967”. This was the first time that a group, rather than an individual, has received this prestigious national recognition.


The Seekers with Australian Prime Minister John Gorton and his wife after receiving the "Australians of the Year" award.

During this tour, they also filmed their final Australian TV special, “The World of the Seekers”. Filmed in colour for international distribution, the programme was first screened in cinemas (so we could see it in colour, lacking colour television in this country) before being broadcast nationally to outstanding ratings. 

At some point during the tour, Miss Durham informed her band mates that she intended to leave The Seekers in the middle of the year, although the swirling rumours of their impending break-up were consistently denied and laughed off, even a few weeks before the split was announced. 

Despite knowing that their days of performing together were coming to a close, The Seekers recorded a final single, “Days of My Life”, in April, which sadly has proved less than successful. A final UK album, “Live at The Talk of the Town” has also been recorded and will be released later this year. A compilation album, “The Seekers — Greatest Hits” has just been released here in Australia (quick work by the record company, that one!).

When The Seekers publicly announced in the UK on Wednesday 3 July that they were breaking up, they insisted that they had never intended to go on performing indefinitely. “It’s getting far too complicated, and should be run as a cold hard business, which means it has now reached a stage we never wanted it to,” they said in a group statement. “It is time for us to part. We are all at a stage where we should be growing up as individuals, not as a group”. This rather suggests that Miss Durham was not alone in her desire to branch out into a solo career, and her decision to depart simply accelerated something that was already in train.

The Seekers made their last appearance together in a 50 minute television special on 9 July, rapidly arranged by the BBC. “Farewell The Seekers”, which has not yet been screened in Australia, was reportedly an emotional experience on screen and off, attracting an audience of more than 10 million viewers. When the lights went down, the carnival was over, and an amazing chapter in Australia’s musical history had drawn to a close. I wonder what will come next for the former Seekers?

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Fashion, music, politics, sports

[August 16, 1968] Brown is the color of my true love team (the NFL in 1968)

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by Marie Vibbert

Looking forward to the 1968 NFL season!

The only big news this year is that The New York Giants and New Orleans Saints have switched divisions.  The New York Giants had finished second in the Century Division last year and will bring competition to the Dallas-dominated Capitol Division.  Hopefully they will not just beat up on Philadelphia and Washington, but if they do, with the advantage of short bus rides to those cities, they’ll be all the more able to knock Dallas off their perch.


Yankee stadium where the Giants played the Packers last October; that's Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick in the foreground.

Meanwhile, the Saints finished dead last in the Capitol Division last year and might do better against the softer teams at the bottom of Century – namely Pittsburgh and St. Louis.  They should be pretty evenly matched with St. Louis, and it’ll be fun to see two hot weather teams wrestle it out early in the season, as they do September 29.

The league negotiated these moves to make the divisions more evenly matched, and if that comes to pass, it is good news for football fans.  Who wants to watch a one-sided slaughter?

At the draft earlier this year, the Minnesota Vikings traded for the first pick, which they spent on Ron Yary from UCSC, an offensive tackle.  This is the first time the number one draft pick was an o-lineman, and about time, I say!  Coaches underestimate the vital importance of the line.  And Yary is well worth the pick.  As a junior, he was moved to the offensive line from defensive line (where he was a PAC-8 all star) and was a consensus All-American as a junior and a unanimous choice in 1967. He was the 1967 winner of both the Outland Trophy and the Knute Rockne Award, awards that annually go to the nation's top collegiate lineman. During Yary's three seasons, the Trojans compiled a 24-7-1 record.  I think Minnesota will be well pleased with their pick for many years to come!

The beleaguered Vikings traded their QB Fran Tarkenton to New York for the draft pick.  Despite the player it gained them, I cannot agree with being so profligate.  Tarkenton threw four TDs in his first game, which was also the Viking’s first game, and no rookie quarterback has accomplished that feat since.  For the past six years, Minnesota has suffered the problems typical of a young team, and Tarkenton has been one of their bright spots, leading 8 of the first 10 wins the team had in his first three years.  Sure, they only had three wins last year, but remember they had three ties, too.  What Tarkenton needed was a stronger offensive line to give his arm time, and now they have it – but no Tarkenton.

We’ll see if Tarkenton provides the spark to take New York forward from their 7-7 season.  They’ll also be happy to be away from the constant spanking by the Cleveland Browns, and as that rivalry has been so one-sided lately no one will miss it.  While they managed to win one this year, the last time they won against their division rival was five years ago, losing six straight games!  I’d be nervous if I were Dallas!

The Giants play their first division game against Dallas on November 10th – though I wish it were in New York for the snow.  But if the fine weather and fine home field refs manage to squeak a victory for Dallas, they’ll have to face New York again in New York in December, and I guarantee they won’t win that one.  Not a fan of Dallas; I think the team is weaker than their record shows.  They got lucky with some simple mistakes and questionable calls in their playoff win against the Browns last year, as was clearly evident when they were easily defeated in the next round by Green Bay.


The Packers and the Cowboys face off at the "Ice Bowl" which culminated last season

Speaking of the Browns, yes, I am pleased that the only team to come close to them is leaving the division, but they don’t need the help.  Remember that their record in their “bad year” 1966 was 9-5, same as it was last year.  It was pure politics and stat voodoo that kept them out of the playoffs for one year.  Last year proved that. 

Running Back Leroy Kelly went for over 1,000 yards rushing for the second straight season, along with 11 touchdowns, while Ernie Green, now out of the shadow of Jim Brown, went for over 700 yards for the second year. Frank Ryan showed he’s not so old and beat up after all, throwing for 20 TD passes.

I think Browns head coach Blanton Collier’s done a lot to re-shape the team after the 52-14 playoff loss to Dallas.  (I have questions about the officiating in that game, but besides I guarantee the results would have been different in Cleveland.  Warm-weather teams don’t play hard in the cold.) Perhaps too much, but it can’t be denied that a lot of our stars are aging out and young blood will do them well. 

It’ll be strange to see the Browns without place kicker Lou “The Toe” Groza, who has announced his retirement – yes for the second time, but this time for real.  He made 11 of his 23 field goals last year and is the last member of the original Browns team from 1946. For twenty-one seasons he has been a reliable offensive tackle and kicker, helping the team win eight league championships. He holds the NFL record for most points scored by a single player, most field goals made and most extra points made.  234 field goals, 641 extra points, and 1,349 points total!  For a man who started out on the offensive line! 1,603 points if you count the pre-NFL years.  Groza, at 44, has much of life ahead of him, but the game of football will forever be changed by his presence.

He will be succeeded, but not replaced, by Don Cockroft, who was drafted out of Adams State last year in the third round, a gifted young kicker who will have the advantage of a year studying under Lou.

The Browns spent their early draft picks shoring up the defense.  Marvin Upshaw from Trinity will be the only rookie on the tough D-line.  John Garlington and Wayne Meylan, from LSU and Nebraska respectively, will join the linebacker core.  With a strong, veteran offensive line and two great running backs behind them, Frank Ryan won’t have much to worry about at QB but hiding when and where he hands the ball off. 

The season looks pretty soft, too, starting off with the Saints and the Cowboys, who, I repeat, are not as good as their record shows, with two pretty-much guaranteed wins against Pittsburgh and one more chance to beat up New York as a non-division game.  I know I say this every year, but this time I feel almost bored with how sure I am.  The Browns will go all the way.  The Cowboys will find when they have a real division rival in the Giants they won’t even make the playoffs. 

But the real winners are the fans.  This promises to be a hard-hitting, hard-playing season.



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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[August 12, 1968] Galaxy's the One?  (the September 1968 Galaxy)

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by Gideon Marcus

Live from Miami Beach!

If you, like Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (and me), soldiered through the four days and nights of GOP convention coverage, you saw the drama unfold in Miami Beach as it happened.  Dick Nixon came into the event a "half-inch" shy of having the nomination sewed up, his chief competition coming from New York governor Nelson Rockefeller.  California governor Ronald Reagan, best known for his Chesterfield cigarette ads, coyly denied that he was a candidate…until he suddenly was, in a desperate bid to court "the New South".

The suspense was all a bit forced.  By Day Two, it was understood that the New Jersey delegation, which had been putatively firm in supporting native son Senator Clifford Case through the first ballot so as to be able to play kingmaker later on, was now breaking for Nixon.  On Day Three, South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who had expressed that his first and second choices were Ronald Reagan, suddenly declared his support for Nixon.

And so, after endless seconding speeches for candidates who had no intention of being President, like Governor Hatfield of Oregon and "dead duck" Governor Romney of Michigan, Nixon won on the first ballot.

After that, the only unknown was who would be his running mate.  The South made loud objections to any GOP liberals being tapped, like New York mayor John Lindsay and Illinois Senator Charles Percy.  The smart money was on a Southerner like John Tower of Texas or Howard Baker of Tennessee.  So everyone was surprised when Maryland governor Spiro Agnew got the nod at a press conference the morning of Day 4, overwhelmingly winning the ballot that night (though not without loud protest from Romney's Michigan contingent).

Why Agnew?  Here were a couple of comments from the NBC reporter pool after the convention:

"It's not that Agnew adds anything to the ticket; it's that he doesn't take anything away."

"Everybody loves Agnew–no one's ever heard of him!"

Agnew, who is kind of a Southerner, and kind of a liberal, but who has recently come out in favor of strong "law and order" (which means urging cops to shoot Baltimoreans if they steal shoes), will enable Nixon to retain his chameleon qualities while Agnew acts as attack dog.  And since being the actual Vice Presidency is worth exactly one half-full bucket of warm piss, it doesn't really matter that Agnew is brand new to large scale politics.

Long story short, Nixon is the One, which we've known since February.  God help us all.

Live from New York!

When Galaxy first appeared in 1950, it was also "the One", breathing fresh new air into the science fiction genre.  18 years later, it is still a regular on the ballot for the Hugo Award.  Last month's was a superlative issue; does this month's mag maintain that level of quality?


cover by Jack Gaughan

Nightwings, by Robert Silverberg

Silverbob presents a richly drawn future world, one in which humanity has soared to great heights only to stumble back to savagery twice.  Now, thousands of years later, Earth is in its Third Cycle.  The planet is an intergalactic backwater, and its people are rigidly divided into castes.

Our heroes are a Watcher, a Flier, and a Changeling.  The first, whose viewpoint we share, is an aged itinerant, hauling in a wagon his arcane tools with which he clairvoys the heavens three times a day (or is it four?  The author says both.) for any signs of an alien invasion.  The Flier Avluela, the only woman in the story, is a spare youth who is able to soar on dragonfly wings when the cosmic wind is not too strong.  And finally, there is Gorman, who has no caste, yet has such a broad knowledge of history that he could pose as a Rememberer.


art by Jack Gaughan

All roads lead to Rome, so it is said, and indeed the three end up in history-drenched Roum, where the Watcher finds the city overcrowded with his caste.  The cruel Prince of Roum, a Dominator, takes a shine to Avluela, compelling her to share his bed.  This incenses Gormon, the crudely handsome mutant, who vows his revenge.

Gormon has the advantage of knowing that justice will not be long delayed–the alien invasion is coming, and he is an advance scout…

There's something hollow about this tale, rather in the vein of lesser Zelazny.  Oh, it's prettily and deliberately constructed, but the story's characters are merely observers rather than actors.  The stage is set and the inevitable happens.  When the alien conquest occurs, it is our Watcher who sounds the alarm, but it is implied others were about to do so (why they did not cry out the night before when the invasion first became apparent is left an inadequately explained mystery).  It's a story that doesn't really say or do anything.

Beyond that, I object to the lone female existing to be loved and/or raped, depending on the man involved.  She is there to be a pretty companion, a object of pity, a tormented vessel.  I suppose the small mercy is she is not also a harpy, as Silverberg is occasionally wont to present his women.

Anyway, I give it just three stars, but I imagine it'll be a Hugo contender next year…

When I Was Very Jung, by Brian W. Aldiss


art by Brock

A weird mix of sex, cannibalism, and archetypes.  I found it distasteful and out of place.

One star.

Find the Face, by Ross Rocklynne

One of science fiction's eldest veterans offers up this romantic piece.  It has the old-fashioned narrative framework, with an aged tramp freighter captain describing the day he was contracted by a wealthy widow, and what ensued afterwards.  The widow's husband and family had been lost in a space accident, but somehow, his face remained, etched across the sky in cosmic clouds and star clusters.  The widow saw this phenomenon once, and she was determined to find from what vantage in the universe it could be reliably observed again.

The captain, meanwhile, was looking for Cuspid, the planet whence the green horses that sired his favorite racer came.  Together, they went off on their separate quests, and in the process, found the one thing neither had been looking for: new love.

It's something of a mawkish story and nothing particularly memorable.  That said, it is sweet, almost like a romantic A. B. Chandler piece, and I appreciated the two characters being oldsters rather than spring chickens.  Moreover, these were not ageless immortals, but silver-haired and wrinkle-faced septuagenarians.

More of that, please.  Three stars.

The Listeners, by James E. Gunn


art by Dan Adkins

In the early 21st Century, Project Ozma continues, despite fifty years of drawing a blank; even with the efforts of dozens of astronomers, hundreds of staff, and the entire survey calendar of the great Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, not a single extraterrestrial signal has been encountered.  Low morale and lack of purpose are the rule amongst these dispirited sentinels.

This is an odd story, with much discussion and development, but no resolution.  At times, the author hints that a message is forthcoming, or maybe even already being received, if only the listeners could crack the code to understand it.  But the climax to the tale has little to do with the story's backbone, and, as with Nightwings, the characters drift rather than do.

It feels like the beginning of a novel, not a complete story.  Larry Niven could probably have done a lot more with the piece in about half the space.

Three stars.

For Your Information: Mission to a Comet, by Willy Ley

Now this piece, I dug.  Willy Ley talks about why comets are important to understanding the early history of the solar system, and which ones could feasibly be approached with our current rocket and probe technology.  The little chart with all the astronomical details of the Earth-approaching comets was worth the piece all by itself.  I particularly liked the idea of Saturn for a "swing-around" mission to catch up with Halley's Coment from behind!

We truly live in an SFnal reality.  Five stars.

The Wonders We Owe DeGaulle, by Lise Braun


art by Brock

Newcomer Lise Braun offers up a droll travel guide to a mauled Earth.  It seems a French bomb that exploded in Algeria sundered our planet's crust, sinking half the Americas and turning the Sahara into a stained glass plain.

It's mildly diverting but Braun's clumsy writing shows her clearly a novice.  I think the setting would have served better as background than a nonfact piece.

Two stars.

A Specter is Haunting Texas (Part 3 of 3), by Fritz Leiber


art by Jack Gaughan

Lastly, the conclusion to Leiber's latest serial, a sort of fairytale version of a hard science epic.  The "Specter" is really a spaceman named de la Cruz, a gaunt, eight-foot figure kept erect by an electric exoskeleton, denizen of a circumlunar colony.  He has been the centerpiece of a Mexican revolution, which is trying to throw off the literal yokes (cybernetic and hypnotic) forced upon the Mesoamerican race by post-Apocalyptic Texans.  The spaceman's comrades include two quite capable and comely freedom fighters, Raquel Vaquel, daughter of the governor of Texas province, and Rosa ("La Cucaracha"), a high-spirited Chicana; then there's Guchu, a Black Buddhist, reluctantly working with the ofays; Dr. Fanninowicz, a Teutonic technician with fascist sympathies; Father Francisco; and El Toro, a charismatic leader in the revolution.

In this installment, de la Cruz finally makes it to Yellow Knife, where he wishes to lay claim to a valuable pitchblende (uranium) deposit.  Unfortunately, the Texans have gotten there first–and what they have established on the site finally reveals just what all those purple-illumined towers they've been planting across the North American continent are for.  'T'ain't nothin' good, I can assure you!

Last month, I read a fanzine where someone complained that this was a perfectly good story ruined by being turned into a tongue-in-cheek fable.  Certainly, I felt the same way for a while.  By Part II, however, I was fully onboard.  While this last bit didn't thrill me quite as much as the middle installment, it's still a worthy novel overall.  When it comes out in paperback, pick it up.

Four stars for this section and for the serial as a whole.


art by Jack Gaughan

Roll Call

Like the Republican convention, the outcome seemed certain, but a few twists and turns along the way did create a bit of doubt.  But in the end, if this month's Galaxy is perhaps not all the magazine we hoped it would be, nevertheless, it's one we can live with.

For the time being, Galaxy remains The One.  May it continue to be so for four more years.




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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[August 4, 1968] Changing Tastes (The Year of the Sex Olympics)

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by Mx. Kris Vyas-Myall

Last Summer I complained about the growth of “flower music” onto the charts in the UK. Almost as quickly as it appeared, it seems to have vanished again, apparently being a phenomenon over here only as long as it was 1967. In fact, there is barely anything that could be described as psychedelic in the top 40 singles or albums.

Arthur Brown in makeup with lighted horns
Not the usual hippy scene

The only notable exception is “Fire” by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which is very different from the sounds coming out of California last year.

Chicken Shack and Rolling Stones Covers

So, what has been replacing it? Well, firstly there has been a revival in the heavier blues sound, in both established acts such as The Rolling Stones and John Mayall, or new acts like Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack. Others seem to moving towards a pop sounding rock ‘n’ roll with heavy degrees of satire, the kind pioneered by The Kinks, we are now seeing on acts from The Beatles to Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich.

Andy Williams and Don Partridge covers

There are two genres that were also popular in 1967 that continue to be so. The first is the kind of Easy Listening music which predominates on BBC Radio 2, with figures such as Engelbert Humperdinck and Val Doonican. The other is folk music, which has much more variety in the charts, from the poppier sounds of Esther & Abi Ofarim, the more traditional route of Don Partridge or the curious experiments of The Incredible String Band.

Supremes and O.C. Smith covers

But probably the biggest musical genre in Britain at the moment is soul music. Not just the continued success of American greats like The Supremes, The Four Tops or Ray Charles. But also newer acts such as P. P. Arnold, O. C. Smith and the orchestral sounds of Love Affair, along with established British Acts like Dusty Springfield, Lulu or The Mindbenders.

If anything, this goes to show how quickly musical tastes change nowadays. What was popular in the summer of ’67, ’66 or ’65 sounded decidedly old fashioned the next year. Where will tastes be in 1969? Only time will tell.

Whilst I was pondering this, a stunning new teleplay came on to Theatre 625 and gave us a glimpse into the entertainment of the future.

The Year of the Sex Olympics

Promotional image for The Road
Nigel Kneale: Last seen by The Road

It has been a while for Nigel Kneale as a TV writer, working on films such as The Witches or First Men on The Moon instead. His last teleplay was half a decade ago with the excellent clever ghost story, The Road.

His teleplays have been known to be shocking and to provoke debate, sometimes even in parliament, and this is certain to carry on in this tradition.

Opening Logo for Year of the Sex Olympics

In a future clearly inspired by Huxley, the world now exists at peace and without want. Society is now divided into two groups:

There are a small group of “high drives” who we observe work in broadcasting and control the TV programs we see. Most people, however, are “low drives”. These people do not work, instead live in automated controlled environments. These do not have any interest in working and are kept pacified by the television programs the high drives produce.

High-Drive controllers watching a couple having Sex in qualifiers for The Olympics
High-Drive controllers watching the “Sport”

This society seems to be set up in this way for two reasons. Firstly, it keeps people pacified with the regular mantra, “Watch not do.” Sex television was designed to stop population explosion and wars, people numbed to doing anything by just seeing it all the time.

Secondly this acts as a form of eugenics to promote more high drives. With the sexual impulse of the low drives suppressed they are less likely to reproduce and most end up dying by the age of 35. Further tests are also done to determine if any high drive children are low drives and they are cast out into the audience.

Chessboard in a glassbox with a machine labelled "auto-chess"
Why bother playing chess when a computer can do it for you?

We are shown two problems with this situation. Firstly, some of the controllers are getting disenchanted with this society. Most notable is Kin Hodder, a set dresser, who is trying to introduce his real art into the broadcasts against the will of the controllers. The other is that the computers say they need to add more humour into the broadcasts, a concept none of the audience seems to be able to understand. For example, getting groups of clowns throwing custard pies only generates boredom.

Both problems are solved at the same time when the artist falls from a rope and dies in a gruesome manner, resulting in huge laughs from the audience. Thus is born a new concept: a show where people live on a remote island without any modern conveniences and are constantly filmed. Viewers get the thrill of never knowing if the participants will live or die. Two controllers, Nat and Deanie, volunteer for the pilot of the Live-Life show and bring along Deanie's daughter Keten.

Life is going to be much harder than they thought and, unbeknowst to the contestants, it turns out that the island is already inhabited. However, it will make for excellent ratings!

Naked woman lying down holding a veil with the word "Artsex" imposed over the top
Fancy something a bit more high-brow? Try Artsex!

The dangers of television becoming more shocking for the sake of it seems to be a subject en vogue right now, for example Kate Wilhelm’s Baby You Were Great or the film Smashing Time’s You Can’t Help Laughing. However, having it on screen in this way is much more immediate and shocking.

The message is hammered home very hard throughout. Not just with the imagery but with the language as well, where we hear phrases such as:

“A censor stopped things from going too far. We stop when things don’t go far enough.”

This could seem as too didactic or curmudgeonly but it is a testament to Kneale’s skill that he manages to pull it off.

I have to wonder if some of this is also grumpiness at his own experiences of television. It is notable that “audience testing” is a big part of this future. Continuous calibration made to audience reactions and even the winners of competitions are based on this.

Two people throwing food at each other.
Other entertainments include “The Hungry Angry Show”.

One of the odder choices is to give many of the (all British) cast American accents, something it does not appear they had much training on. This combined with the use of futuristic slang did make it hard to follow at times.

One person thankfully not trying to do one of these accents is Leonard Rossiter, a character actor probably well known to SFnal fans for his recent turns in The Witches and 2001: A Space Odyssey. He is an excellent choice for Coordinator Ugo, as he is able to come across as very unpleasant at the start whilst selling the disgust he feels at what is happening by the end.

Nat holding an axe whilst seeing a native of the island
The Live-Life Show. I think the title could do with some work

We do have to talk about the ending, as it is worth the price of admission alone. However, if you would rather wait for a possible repeat showing, stop reading now.

So, on the island Keten catches a disease that would be curable in the city, however, with no help available she dies. After the funeral Deanie is then brutally murdered by another inhabitant of the island who is then killed by Nat in revenge. This delivers the effect the controllers were hoping for as we see the audiences in raucous laughter over the horrific deaths and Nat’s grief.

This is disturbing enough but Nigel Kneale adds one final twist of the knife. Throughout we hear little jingles, very much in the style of pirate radio. Rather than having dramatic music playing over the ending, we just have a continual repetition of “The Year of the Sex Olympics Jingle”. Forcing us to ask, are we the same as them? Did we learn anything from what we saw or are we just as much passive participants?

If you missed it and are in the UK, write letters to the BBC asking for a repeat. If you are outside, see if you can convince a local station to import it.

Five Stars




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[July 8, 1968] Let the Sunshine In (Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical)

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by Erica Frank

Hair is a rapturous celebration of free love, higher consciousness, sexual adaptability, racial integration, and anti-authoritarianism. It's a critique of political corruption, the tragedies of war, and religious oppression. Also there is nature-based spirituality.

Hair is a debauched glorification of sex, drugs, perversion, profanity, and rebellion. It mocks public service, patriotism, and the church. Also there are fart jokes.

Pick one. Or take two; they're cheap. Everyone's got an opinion and none of them are the "real truth" about this complex and colorful stage production.

Note that the more positive description involves more words. It's easier to say something is bad–depraved, degenerate, vile, corrupt, and so on–than to praise something that doesn't fit into the established storytelling patterns of the day. And this musical–and its album–steps well off the common path to get its points across.

It's transcendental meditation versus the implacable forces of orthodoxy, and the prize at stake is the souls of a swarm of young people hanging out in Central Park.

Hair album cover

The cover is so striking you might not realize that the hair is not an artistic cloud-of-lightning addition–that's Steve Curry, who plays Woof in the Broadway cast.

Talk About Your Plenty, Talk About Your Ills

The music is incredible. From the opening "Aquarius" with its drumbeats and slow crooning that suddenly shifts to a cascading list of delightful assumptions of what the new era will bring, to the lascivious "Sodomy," to the jubilant "I Got Life," to the poignant "Easy to be Hard," the songs compel emotions with a shifting array of perspectives. The titular "Hair" is rebellious without hostility; "Don't Put It Down" is irreverent without contempt; "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" is stark and accusatory; "Good Morning Starshine" is bright and hopeful.

It's easy to get caught up in the music and miss the message–after all, the message is multi-directional and possibly contradictory. There's no one single theme I can point to and say, "this, this is the true message of Hair."

A scene from a performance last year, before the play hit Broadway.

It's anti-war, anti-draft. Those parts are simple enough. But it doesn't talk about war's influence on communities or even society–it talks about deaths of strangers happening far away, and young men who are afraid or (not unreasonably) unwilling to march off to fight and possibly die. This is not like Mark Twain's War Prayer; it's not a reminder that one side "winning" means another side enduring sorrows and agonies. This is instead, a view of war from the perspective of confused teenagers: A lack of comprehension why anyone would want to fight when the world seems on the verge of so many social and spiritual breakthroughs, when there is so much beauty and bliss and they could be partying instead.

War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things

Sheila leads the tribe in chanting for peace and freedom. Claude denounces his parents for coupon-clipping and wanders the streets looking at daffodils. Hud quotes Muhammad Ali from the New York Times last year, saying, "The draft is white people sending black people to make war on yellow people to defend the land they stole from the red people."

Muhammad Ali and friends at the Houston courthouse after he refuses to be drafted

Muhammad Ali and friends leaving the Armed Forces induction center in Houston after Ali refused the draft – April 28, 1967. | AP

There is something very true about that. And yet it is also facile, a simplification of a complex political situation. It boils the draft down to "why is this wrong for me" without consideration of why one nation might take up arms on behalf of another.

I do not think the US should be in Viet Nam at all, and we certainly shouldn't be drafting soldiers to send there. But my reasons for these beliefs are not discussed in Hair, which is focused on its "haggle of hippies" and their interests, which do not include political theory.

The play is obviously, overtly anti-racist. It denounces segregation and discrimination, speaks out against the white historical practice of "colonizing" by killing anyone who get in their way. But it does so by having black characters proudly claim the slurs thrown against them as badges of honor, by showing native peoples as "noble savages," insightful and wise but speaking with broken English. It does not show that some black people are uncomfortable with gutter slang, and would like to be lawyers, doctors, or professors, rather than street dancers and "President of the United States of Love." It does not show that some people hold all Americans, not just "the Establishment," in contempt. It celebrates white girls dating black boys and vice versa; there's no equal jubilation over black people who want nothing to do with the communities of their historical oppressors.

It's not inaccurate so much as it's incomplete, showing only narrow aspects of multi-faceted problems, a view so limited it could reasonably be called deliberately misleading. It preaches that peace, love, and tolerance can overcome all conflicts, settle all disagreements, glossing over any disputes that have their roots in limited resources or incompatible cultural differences.

The Politics of Ecstasy

It would be easy to dismiss the play as a performance of Timothy Leary's admonition to "Turn on, tune in, drop out," and to say the "core" message is "ignore all the rules; just enjoy yourselves."

Poster fort Human Be-In in 1968

Poster for the Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park in 1967.

And while there's plenty to support that claim–lots of sex and drugs and, every time things get a bit too serious, Berger makes crude jokes–there's something deeper as well. The hippies wrestle with politics, survival, and their sense of self. They try to find their own identities in a community that's aggressively cooperative, in contrast with the large society that seeks to erase them.

For all the fun and festivities, there is a dark undertone that cannot be banished by any amount of song and merriment. As the story pushes toward the conclusion Claude fears so deeply, he is left with the awareness that, while his community will share his joys, they don't know how to lessen his worries or sorrows. We, the audience, are stuck also realizing that these cheerful, carousing people, who hug freely and seem devoid of jealousy or malice, are fighting an unwinnable battle against forces they do not wish to comprehend, because even naming the foe would lose the innocence that allows their tribe to exist at all.

Five stars. The highs are lively and charming, and the lows are breathtakingly bleak.




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[June 24, 1968] Martin Luther King Jr. and the Fashion of Neighborly Protest

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by Gwyn Conaway

The tragic assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in April left America reeling. Images of his final march through the streets of Memphis have been presented everywhere, his apparition and his voice still echoing through American society now, and surely for generations to come.

This, of course, includes his movement’s fashion.


King upon his arrival in Memphis in March of 1968.

When you see photographs of King standing behind a microphone, or especially linked arm-in-arm with his collaborators, you might see nothing special. Three-buttoned suits in grey, black, brown, and navy. Pressed white dress shirts dressed with narrow silk ties and tie pins. Freshly brushed fedoras and homburgs. To many of us, this fashion is commonplace in America. This is the uniform of company men and Hollywood.

Which is exactly the point.


King flanked by Reverend Ralph Abernathy (right) and Bishop Juian Smith (left) in his last march in Memphis in March.

Let me interrupt myself here to say, if you haven’t perused my recent critique of Vogue and its use of women as decor for an escape from the instability of Western life, I humbly urge you to read it as a prelude to the topic of neighborly resistance I will introduce now. For in all things, fashion and beauty have purpose. In the case of Vogue in my last article, propriety is used as a tool to control the expectations of women, while here, we will see propriety used as a tool of protest.

In resistance fashion, there are two prevailing trends that exacerbate the divisions of society and define the identities and ideals of those pursuing a better world: one of negotiation, and one of force. Force is easy to recognize, often taking on militaristic elements of dress, such as the Black Panthers with their berets and leather jackets, or constructing a mystique of terror, such as the Ku Klux Klan with their pointed hoods. Negotiation, however, is difficult to separate from polite society. The message is, “I am your wife, your friend, your colleague. I am just like you.”

This approach makes the militaristic response to King’s peaceful protests all the more jarring. Black men and women dressed for church, walking the streets peacefully are met with primarily white servicemen and police officers with rifles, helmets, and combat boots. Rather than a potentially dangerous movement, cameras capture the dignity of Black America as it meets a terrified government at the end of a rifle barrel.


Black men and allies protest peacefully in Memphis this April in clean-cut suits, dress shoes, and ties as if attending a job interview for equal rights while the National Guard's response appears alarmist with guns raised and tanks rolling down the streets.

This isn’t the only time in history that we’ve seen this subtle but effective tactic in the pursuit of change. The suffrage movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries also faced threat of violence and harsh criticism. Women across the Western world were caricatured by cartoonists, politicians, and journalists as brutish and ugly for their pursuit of the right to vote. Perhaps most insidious of the stereotypes was the thought that they were uncaring and selfish mothers, unfit to raise children. Suffragists fought back against these insulting depictions through hunger strikes, riots, diplomacy, literature… and by how they dressed. By the turn of the century, the movement realized they had a public relations problem.

Thus began the image of the beautiful, patriotic, charismatic “suffragette,” a term that had previously been used to belittle the movement.


A postcard entitled "Sermon of Stones!" in which a suffragist from the turn of the century is depicted as mannish, violent, and improper.


Walt Disney's 1964 production of Mary Poppins depicts suffragettes in the late 1910s, at which point they won the battle for voting rights in America (1920) and the United Kingdom (1918). The song "Sister Suffragette" was performed by Glynis Johns as Winifred Banks, Hermione Baddeley, and Reta Shaw.

Though critics of King’s tactics within the Black community claim he’s accepting standards of white American culture rather than lifting up their own, the truth is more complex. Our identities are literally worn on our sleeves, and while the Black Panther Party may be the most recognizable civil rights group, the image of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is just as powerful. Whether bombastic and rebellious or gentle and assimilated, fashion proves to be a powerful tool for identity, politics, and change.

I look forward to meeting my new neighbors, sooner rather than later.




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[June 20, 1968] Art imitates Life (the wargame Viet Nam)

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by Gideon Marcus

Over There

It seems like only yesterday that a minor naval engagement in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam embroiled the world's mightiest nation in a struggle against Communism in Southeast Asia. Less than a year later, the American commitment totaled 100,000 troops. Today, as the last aftershocks of the second Tet Offensive are beaten back from Saigon, more than half a million soldiers are fighting and dying in those far off jungles and cities.

It's a war unlike any other we've fought, though perhaps not unlike wars our allies have fought–there's a reason why the British, who fought an ultimately successful anti-guerrilla war in Malaya, have declined to join us in Vietnam.  It's not really a war for territory, nor a total war, as we fought against the Nazis or the Japanese.  It's a holding action, a war for "hearts and minds", holding the bag until the South Vietnamese can fight for themselves–if, indeed, that will ever be possible.

So new and unusual is this conflict that one would hardly expect it to be a viable subject for board wargaming.  After all, the pushers of counters on hex grids have largely stuck to World War 2 and the Civil War for their battlefields, highly researched and decently distant as they are.

And yet, just one year after Tonkin, Game Science came out with Viet Nam, a sophisticated wargame covering the war on a strategic level.  Could a game developed so early in the conflict have any chance of modeling reality?  And is it any fun?  This Memorial Day, we took the game for a spin and came to some very interesting conclusions.

In the trenches

The first thing one notices about Viet Nam is the board.  Rather than use the hex grid that has become de rigueur these last several years, it reverts to areas like in last decade's Diplomacy.  This makes sense.  Viet Nam is not a game of tactical maneuvers but of strategic province control.

The Allied forces (Americans, ARVN, Koreans, Filipinos, Australians) and the Communists (Viet Cong and NVA) start out splitting the provinces between them.  Control is indicated with a little bingo disc that represents a local militia.  Each side also gets a number of regular armies, the Allies starting with more, but acquiring them at half the rate of the Communists.  The regular armies are important because they are the only units that can both move and hold ground, the local militias adding strength but being both immobile and subject to flipping by the enemy.

The Allies also get air units that can be used for tactical support of armies (adding to their strength), strategic bombing of provinces (with a chance of destroying Communist units in the area), interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail (which kills Communist reinforcements) and mass bombing of North Vietnam (which earns victory points).  Bad weather in the summer and fall months limits strategic air missions.

Each turn, simulating one month, begins with both sides allocating ten factors towards various political activities: bolstering/destabilizing the government, terrorism/counter-terrorism, psychological warfare (to flip militias), seeking world favor (worth victory points), and ambush/counter-ambush (a trap for Allied armies).  This is essentially Rock-Paper-Scissors and the place where the Communists can win the game.  Unless the Allies guess right every time, they will lose stability or provinces, each of which leads them down the path of losing victory points.  Once below a certain level, they go down to nine or fewer factors to apply in this phase, which is a spiral of doom toward defeat.

After the political phase, both sides plot their moves in secret.  The Communists are trying to seize provinces and Allied bases.  The Allies are seizing provinces, defending, and allocating air power.  As the Communist players in our game quickly learned, randomness is key–there are always a dozen places they can attack, and the less consistent they are, the less chance the Allies will anticipate and head off an attack.

Combat is another kind of Rock-Paper-Scissors, each side having a set of four cards depicting various attack strategies.  In each conflict, the two players choose cards and then compare the two to determine the result.  For the Americans, the outcome is either inconclusive or a victory resulting in the loss of a regular army.  For the Communists, they are either forced to retreat or they win.  In other words, this is a part of the game the Communists will also ultimately win once they understand the cards, as the Allies cannot guess right every time, and they run out of armies faster than the Communists.  The more provinces under Communist control, the more mobility they get, again building momentum toward victory.

So is the game hopeless for the Allies?  Maybe not.  The game begins in January 1965, when weather is excellent.  Optimal strategy suggests that the Allies should interdict the NVA for those good months, allowing the Allies to build up an army superiority.  The Communists can only really run rampant if they have the regular troops for it.  If any air power be left over, the Allies should immediately start bombing North Vietnam as it is the only sure way to get victory points–it is the Allied counterpart to the Communists' political factor advantage.

Provided the Allies can contain the NVA and make lucky guesses to keep the Communists stalled, it is possible that, over time, the Communists will be forced below 10 political points per turn and, themselves, end up on the slide to defeat.  It'd be a long slog, but it is at least conceivable.

Proof in the pudding

I spotted Viet Nam not at my local game store, but in the campus store at the new campus of University of California San Diego.  Though the copyright on the game is 1965, various references in the rules and components suggest this is a brand new edition, updated based on three years of conflict.  Thus, I don't know how prescient the original was.

That said, the game seems to suggest that unless the United States goes bombing right out of the gate, as many generals urged us to do, there is no chance of victory.  Even a six month delay results in swarms of NVA and endless Red provinces.  Moreover, even had we gone in, bombs blazing (and what might the political ramifications vis. a vis. the Soviets been of that?), Viet Nam suggests that victory still would not have been certain, and it would have taken a long time.

It seems like an accurate simulation to me!

But is it fun?  Well, we enjoyed it at the time, all eight hours that we played before the Allies conceded the game to the Communists in latter 1965.  But on further analysis, there actually isn't that much to enjoy.  It's all a matter of luck, see-sawing back and forth on the victory point chart, until a lucky break drives the meter over to either a win or the inevitable road to defeat.

Thus, Viet Nam is less a game and more a puzzle–and a lesson.  Once the puzzle be solved and the lesson absorbed, there is not much replay value.

Just like the real war…




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