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Show Conference Freaks Press Collegiate Press Service Editor's Note: The gentle people held a "Freak out the Press" conference in New York to-well, to freak out the press. David Lloyd-Jones of CPS was there. Here is his account of how the freak-out proceeded. NEW YORK (CPS) In the theater where the conference is to be held, there are posters (featuring (featur-ing a ring of Alan Ginzbergs surrounding sur-rounding a pentagon, with nameless name-less evil spirits inside it), electric rock, incense, flowers, beads and a gaggle of puzzled cameramen and reporters. After a while a trio comes in carrying a green cardboard model of the Pentagon. Someone explains to anyone who will listen that the Pentagon is a symbol of evil. Others jump on the stage and begin painting the model, arranging ears of corn around it, and attaching it, by piano-wire, to the lifting mechanisms mech-anisms of the stage. A succession of people come on stage. Someone recites what are supposed to be Assyrian exercisms. Then there is a prayer for the karma (in Hinduism and Buddhism, something like one's destiny) of soldiers in Vietnam. A lanky, bearded chap calls for a moment of silence. There is, but for the music, and then people sit down. On stage, the symbolism escalates esca-lates a girl with a plastic jug runs around cleansing peoples' hands and then the model pentagon. penta-gon. Corn meal ("A symbol of the goodness of the earth, someone explains) ex-plains) is scattered around the floor and the model. Dancers appear,, ap-pear,, dance and leave. The cameramen camera-men keep on reloading their film magazines. A ring of dancers forms, and they walk, shuffle and prance around the model. After a few seconds, sec-onds, it is lifted by the piano wire. By this time the conventions of the stage have taken over though the wire is quite visible, this is a morality play, something from the fourteenth century. The lifting is obviously in answer to the dancers' prayers. The dancing stops, the pentagon drops a few inches, and there is an embarrassed silence. Abbie Hoffman Hoff-man saves the occasion by walking over to the pentagon and tearing it to bits, throwing pieces to the audience and promising them that if they bring the pieces to the march they will have good karma. About half the 250 people there run forward to get pieces, while others filter out onto the street. |