December 8; 1972

£ (Editorial

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3%: 32mm: and math

Directed Change

President Leggett’s proposal for all»college analysis is
certainly being acted upon at the moment. Data is coming
in at a rapid rate; reports, analyses, statistics are piling one
upon the other, The real work, the work which will require
creativity and an outstanding foresight, must also begin.
Based on the reports gathered, long range planning must be

undertaken.

Any sort of analysis which requires quantifiable data runs
the risk of remaining too fascinated by that data. Numbers
are impressive; they do prove points. However, opinions
and impressions, also very important in determining policy,
are by their very nature not quantifiable. One can point to
trends indicating development along a certain line, but the
need for alteration in that development is hard to measure

with statistics.

A disturbing factor emerges from the historical studies which
have been undertaken. Independents and off-campus study have
been reduced to figures, with more emphasis on the numbers
of students involved than the nature of the workinvolved,
Granted that assessments of the quality and type of work
undertaken five years ago are hard to come by, but numbers
alone cannot be used as conclusive evidence for plans for the

future.

Changes in each area under consideration should come when
relevant facts have been collected; alterations cannot wait
until all areas have been explored. There is a danger in these
incremental steps, however. As solutions are attempted to
individual problems, it becomes easy to lose sight of the over-
arching question; as action is taken, coordination becomes

more and more difficult.

All areas which President Leggett opened for questioning
must be seen as inter-related; any changes in one will have
ramifications in the others. The question mustalways be posed
of not only “Will these modifications improve the area con-
cerned?”, but also “How will these changes affect other areas

of campus life?”

Thus, the real challenge posed by the analysis is whether
it‘ can be the ongoing process that Leggett hopes it can. To
be truly comprehensive, the past, the present, and the pre—
dicted future must all be taken into account. Change may be
undertaken before clear goals are set; if goalsare not defined,
however, change in one area may work in opposition to change “mad “5 3 51mm“ m 2‘ lawsmm"

in another.

Data gathering is not the final step, merely an aide to come
prehension. Long range aims must be the primary focus and
must be developed parallel to short range changes.

~mew

Velvet Underground

by John Potts

The velvet Underground Live at
Max‘s in Kansas City is a very
interesting album. For one thing,
it was recorded on a cassette mac-
hine and, in effect, is a sort of leg-
inmate bootleg. The sound is hor-
rihle, but the material is interest-
ing (and the price is low -- $2.98
list). Originally intended to be re
leased as a double album, it was
pared down to one record with a
high energy side and a dreamyside.
Side one includes a new rocksout
version of ”Beginning to See the
Light" and an extended version of
the classic “Sweet Jane” contain—
ing a new verse, not present on any
other recording, Side two features
“Pale Blue Eyes" and Lou Reed
singing some of Nico’s featured
numbers from the first VU album.
But perhaps the most interesting
pans of the record are Lou Reed's
betweenrsong raps and the back-
ground chattel" of the crowdat Max’s.

Max's Kansas Cityis apervy night-
club in New York City, favored by
the Warhol Superhip set. On any
given night you could be gang raped
in the Men's room by a group of
250 pound transvestites. Addicts,
perverts, degenerates — the Vel-
vet Underground is truly in its eler
nlellt. L'iiilol’g’louud is a no»
York City band to the core, and,
as such, reflects the real nature of

Port 4

the city .. which is more often ugly
than beautiful.

When Lou Reed introduces the sav-
agely rocking “I’m Waiting ior the
Man" as ”a tender iolk ballad about
love between man and subway” he’s
not saying it just to be cute, It
is somewhat oi a disappointment,
though, when Lou responds to a re
quest for ”Heroin” with a not re
fusal,

Anyway, the Velvet Underground
was house band at Max’s ior the
entire summer of 1970, about the
same time the hand was working on
Loaded. Live at Max’s was re
corded late in the summer, just be
fore the band broke up. Perhaps
this explains their relatively sloppy
performance and Lou Reed’s list-
less vocals. ln fact, this was the
last time Lou Reed was to appear
with the Velvet Underground before
he split because oi managerial hose
sles. Earlier in the summer, the
hand was much more lively; Lou
Reed’s vocals had a lot more flair,
and the band tended to jam spou-
taneously, doing such things as play-
ing "I'm Waiting for the Man” and
then suddenly breaking into a chor-
us oi “White Light/White Heat",
interestingly enough, the band was
also poiibinnug indiuiioi out his
later to show up on Lou Reed's
solo album. in any event, Live at

Youngberg: SGA Provides Illusion 0i Calm

Open Letter to the SGA President:

College students have the desire
to see their aspirations, opinions,
and desires institutionalized and
publicized Far be it from anyone
to try to hash-about why students
desire Student Government, What
students want, at least on this cam»
pus, is unfortunately equally as oh»
scure to everyone, but that is more
a shame than an enigmatic philo-
sophical question, Unless it be true,
as SGA seems to assert by its ins
visibility, that everyone is happy
here at Grinnell, son is doing a
damn fine job oi doing nothing. lt's
job is not primarily to be a talent
scout ior good Mid-west hands, a
job one man seems to do quite well.
By all appearances to the uninformed
(myself) its job should be more than
getting telephones and single rooms
for Its own members. It was income
prehensible to me that our student
body president said at the beginr
ning of this year that this year
should be a year oi evaluating the
reforms previously lnstituted. (You

didn't even mention what they were,

these terrific reforms of yours)
in the welcoming speech that ima
mediately lollowed, Glenn Leggett
paid more lip service to ”advance-
ment”.

Now, i understand what “evalua-
tion” of our present situation means.
it means waiting until the faculty
gets fedrup with students who are
noninvolved in cnmpus intellectual
life, ll means waiting until the face
ulty gets fed-up with spoonsl'eedlng
a slowly deteriorating student body.
And, it means waiting untll the
administration takes action at the
faculty's request to bring Grinnell
back into the Twentieth Century-
u.s.A. (America, remember that
junk pile out there, students?) The
faculty are pretty staid and solid
about all this though. They might
wait a decade so there would bea
nice slogan: “Grinnell, coming ins
to the eighties”, All the while son
committees do all in their power
to waste all student action in our
eaucracy. son's answer to ”the es-

tablishment” is a bigger and more
complex “establishment” of their
own, A simple double-talking poli-
tician like Glenn Leggett would look
alright to me right now,

No one cares at Grinnell anymore,
one is told. coming to Grinnell was
like being plunked down in the Fif—
lies (almost) And, that’s the way
most students like it, I guess. i’m
personally (I hope) going hack tothe
seventies. (someday scour/stead
on with the Grinnell experience.

Brian Youngberg

low School Admissions Difficult

by Steve Nunn
Slit! Waslllnxlolr Burt-rm

NEW YORK-Whose oi you consids
ering law school should be advised
that, judging from Columbia and
Harvard at least, it is still a sel-
lers' market The law school here
at Columbia says it is expecting to
gel thousands or applications ior its
ZOUsodd places. They won’t even ins
tervlew you, in fact, until your ap-
plication has cleared a number of
preliminary hurdles

It may be just as well if they don’t
let you into Columbia, actually,
‘cause the law students here work
really hard: many oi them say they
never go out on week nights and ins
frequently on weekends. They do
little--the top onesr-bul study the
law and exist.

And the existence is marginalr liars
mony Hall, one of Columbia's dor-
mitories, is sort or the Cowles Hall
of New York City: Loren Ha‘rt, a
first-year law student from Grin»
nell College who lives there, refers
to it as a tenement, That’s a Small
exaggeration. A very small one,

in fact, they say Columbia was

account of Harmony and the dorms
near it.

There is a good point about Har-
mony» it has no rats. Columbia ex-
terminated them, as a result oi the
slumlord suit.

But Columbia has redeeming fea—
tures, There are some good, ineXr

Max’s gives us an idea of what
the Velvet Underground sounded like
stripped oi overdubhed guitars, key»
hoards, and electronic effects, The
result is very reminiscent of the
driving rock on their first two a],
burns, and lncldeutly, I can’t help
but hope that someone will release
the live tapes of that earlier band.

The early Velvet Underground was
the first band to use a lightshow,
feedback, electronic effects, expllr
cit drug lyrics, andbisexuallhemes.
They were appearing in iull drag and
using whips and chains on stage
long before Alice Cooper Came on
the scene The Velvet Underground
were innovators far ahead of their
time Traces of their influence can
he heard in most of the big time
rock bands, including the Beatles,
Stones, and David Home. A lot of
what is now commonplace in rock
was first done by the Velvet under
ground, Recently vu songs have been
recorded by Detroit and Mott the
Hoople, while David Bowie includes
several early vu songs in his live
act Slowly and belatedly, the Vol-
vet Underground's popularity is
catching up to its talent, even as
Lou Reed's solo career blossoms.
l'll he [tiling more about Lou Reed
and his albums sometime in the fur
ture, but right now I’m as tired of
Writing about the Velvet Under-
ground as you must be oi reading
about them,

To quote llial venerable sage,SCott
Mason, “one listening is worth a
thousand reviews" Consequently,
this Sunday night at midnight on
KDlC I'll be playing everything ever
“‘1‘"?de “y the Velvet Underground.
li you're interested, be sure to tune
in W midnight on Sunday.

pensive restaurants nearby, includ
ing one where you can get a beer
for ZSc-rconsiderahly watered, of
course Actually it is not accurr
ale to say the beer there is watr
ered. it's more the water is beerr
ed.

Harvard has some good eatingpla-
ces too, including one of the pre-
mier hamburger establishments of

Washington
Report

the world, Mr. Bartley's Burger
Cottage,

The difficulty or getting into Hare
vard’s law school, by the way, is
evident in the story of a friend
of mine who got a scholarship to

Phillips‘Exete'r Academyupon grade .

nation from our mutual junior high
school.

From there he went to Harvard,
graduated, and got a master’s,
also from Harvard.

in 1968, he won first prize in the
Atlantic Monthly’s short story Cone
test.

Now he teaches two undergradur
ate courses at Harvard, while he
works toward a Ph.D. in Amerie
can history.

He is 22.

He’s in the process oi applying
to the law school-~tor the third
time. He’s been turned down twice.

Part of his difficulty is that Hare
vard restricts the number of its
own graduates that it lets into its
law school, as do some other uni-
versities. But that seems like a
fairly impressive list of credentials,
one that Should be competitive among
other Harvard graduatesrrhis fail-
ure to get in doesn't augur well for
any prospective applicant who is not
al ady a Supreme Court justice

is home state, at the very least.

A literary Birthday

by Brent Schondelmeyer

It looked like the kind of package
a sociological study would come in
after a previous remittence of some
ungodly sum.

Livre Avion.

US Customs - Passed Free - 28
- Chicago, ill.

Republic Francaise.

Mr. Gordon Edelstein
Box 135
Grinnell College
Grinnell
lowa 50112
USA.

Sometimes feeling like everyone
else’s intellectual whipping post i
sat down on night after literary ad»
monisnment and read ”Waiting for
Godot“ by Samuel Beckett.

The Sunday copy of the New York
Times, November 19, 1972 featured
a story by A. Alvarez adapted from
a forthcoming book of his Beckett.)

“Beckett has always beenamartyr
shyness have increased.” He did
not even go to Stockholm to accept
his Nobel Prize for Literature.

But Beckett came to Grinnell.

But not before Grinnell penetrated
the solitude of his Paris apart—
ment.

Air Mail

U.S.A.

Foi' Samuel Beckett September 1972

Three years und your taped life
Should be ready ior at least
Listening

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paper of Grinnkli Cullen, published with, unit
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on rxprrxs consent or the tunar

Second class nasdir raid, Crihnolt, um suilz.

EDITOR .
MANAGING rpiron.
conv EDITOR

EuSlNESS MANAGER

,nan napkins
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John "who

.nm Ammrrmnn

Your tired heart must feel it still
Al sixty six, what next, what next?
The words you formed, you wrote irom hell
One day you'll be blind like me
Maybe l doh'i know
igrope ior an answer
And i don't
know which one to choose
But you seem to
Oi‘ know not to know
is there an order lo Dr in this
Madness
prophesy of Nixon and servant Spiro you
Didn't even mean, leads me
To iollow you Are you a
Prophet7
Do you really want to cruciiy babies7
Your face is next in Keaton's in
Pictures they took of you are
Rare beauties ivorn and tired
thr never knew what he was doing
He said, i never saw him
But We been told
Wllal about Quentin
Why do you have to reach people
I still want to fight back, Beckett
Even after coming out oi your
Words
lsllll need In
lsllll have |o
lam only seventeen
The air is full of our cries
WhaL next" What next"
Gordan Edelsleln

It's not absurd for authors to have
birthdays, too.
Best wishes to one and. . .
No’s Knife “for Gordon Edelstein
with all good wishes

Samuel Beckett
Paris Nov. 1972"
all good wishes for the other

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