To start with, the full title of the supplement is ‘The Difficult But Possible Supplement to the Whole Earth Catalogue’. It is thinner and cheaper than the Catalogue, appears twice as often as the Catalogue and is no more difficult and no less possible than the Catalogue. On the inside cover it describes its function as follows:

‘The Supplement corrects and up­dates information in the most recent Catalogue, carries on-going research toward the next Catalogue, and publishes what doesn’t fit in the Catalogue but does relate to the use of tools’.

One third of the supplement relates directly to the Catalogue: corrections, further information about the items in the Catalogue, new suggestions for items to be included, queries, mail and details of the production costs. Broadcast Yourself

The other two thirds of the supplement, i.e. ‘what doesn’t fit in the Catalogue but does relate to the use of tools’, is a superb loose conglomeration of lateral thoughts, scribbles, solid information, opinion, news, letters and manifestos. On one of these pages there is an ad­vertisement for a discourse on the use of tools. Among those involved are the staff of the Catalogue. It is therefore interesting to read the blurb, which says: ‘If a major dynamic of human evolution is the interaction of man and his tools . . . then it is worth investigating some of the new modes of tool use—from the satisfying do-it-yourself labour of intentional communities to the intense experience of living and working on-line with a powerful computer facility’.

If one could state explicitly the function of the back two thirds of the supplement the closest one could get would probably be to echo the advertisement and say that it was concerned with the investigation of ‘new modes of tool use’. More specificaly it seems to be concerned with the activities of outlaw de­signers and the communities they associate with. Thus in the supple­ment in front of me there is much about the construction of geodesic domes and zero about working with computers.

Eight pages are devoted to Alloy. ‘New Mexico is the centre of momentum this year, and maybe for the next several. More of the interesting intentional communities are there. More of the interesting outlaw designers are there. Alloy was their first programmatic gather­ing’. Most of the outlaw designers are dropouts from architecture and related disciplines (‘hope freaks’) and know one or two things about geodesic domes, ferro-concrete, poly-urethane foam and other mass-by­products of technology—they are finding out flexible, small-scale applications   for   substances   and processes intended for rigid mass application.

The supplement’s report on Alloy is scrupulously non-linear: a mass of photographic and drawn lumps juxtaposed with word lumps. The word lumps mostly one sentence long, not distributed in neat columns and contain all brands of content.

Sample word lumps: It can’t get out of control because it already is out of control. Here I am bullshitting you all. I don’t have a bicycle. I also don’t solar heat my house. And I don’t live in a dome. I think maybe I’ll sit down for a while.

What do you mean the sun doesn’t go round us? It’s obvious it goes around us.

I’ll tell you anything you want to know and show you anything you want me to show you about domes, but you probably won’t build it because you’re too lazy. I pray for money.

We were brothers before we were dopers.

We’re increasingly putting our finger in the pie, and we are the pie, and the finger and the putting. …. and so on.

The last section of the supplement is labelled ‘Extra’ and that’s what it is . There’s a do-it-yourself vignette on stealing cars, innumerable letters to and from Steve Baer (a designer of domes and concomminant goodies), a brilliant manifesto from The Master Magician and one or two advertisements.

The supplement, like the Cata­logue, is not yet Whole Earth—I should imagine that 99% of it’s readership is American, so this is hardly surprising. It certainly does not give the impression that it has reached it’s final format. If it con­tinues to evolve along its present lines it should become invaluable. An essential corollary to the Cata­logue is a publication which is process orientated. Theoretically it is possible to stuff everyone on this planet with food, in practice over half of us are starving. Analogously, it’s all very well to find out in the Catalogue how to build a dome but we also have to work out how we are going to live with each other in it, how we are going to stay alive and what we are doing to go whilst we live in it. This is dangerous, con­fusing ground and the supplement is the beginnings of a map to guide us through it.

Looking back, I see that I’ve just written that the supplement is all-American rather than Whole Earth. Now I wonder if it’s even ail-American ; two-thirds is only of operational value to a small segment of the population of America (those who live in intentional communities) living in a confined geographical area (i.e. California and New Mexico—I doubt if most of the ideas would be as exciting to New Yorkers). Maybe sooner or later the supplement will diversify: each zone discussing for itself how to use the tools of the Catalogue within its own particular social and physical environment. Perhaps the first third of the supplement (i.e. that part directly related to the Catalogue) would be the same in issues over the whole of the earth and the looser process-orientated section alone would vary regionally. The rapidity with which the need for regional variation dies away would in itself be a measure of our success in reaching the goals of the Catalogue.

The supplement is cheaper than the Catalogue, so, if you couldn’t afford the latter, send off one dollar and sixty five cents to: Whole Earth Catalogue Portola Institute 558 Santa Cruz Menlo Park California 94025 USA

No more columns. Still a little bit of linear thought. Plenty of confusion. Apparently ‘Alloy’ tried out a panmictic sampling of its own cultural gene pool and this double-page spread resulted. Christ knows want a panmictic sampling is—all that matters is that the result is well worth reading and digesting.

A piece of string coming from nowhere and going out of sight has got itself into a fantastic knot called ‘the present situation’. It is this that the prosecution, defense, defendant, judge and everyone else involved in the case is caught up in. The prosecution says that the defendant endangers ‘something’. It never seems to be able to define exactly what it means. The defense says that the prosecution has got its string tangled. The prosecution has, says the defense, imperceptibly over the years, come to identify itself with the knot. And now, as the prosecution thinks that it is the knot, it is naturally concerned about the knot’s continued exis­tence. It is this that the prosecution thinks the defendant endangers. The knot is largely the prosecution’s un­certainty about the basis of its reality anyway. The vague awareness it has of this only makes it more paranoiac, particularly if someone seems to be about to point this out and clarify the confusion. Domain Checker

If the prosecu­tion should ever notice that the knot wasn’t really there, its belief in its own existence would be severely shaken. The defendant knows this. He has realised the true nature of the knot. He has come to see that there is no need for the knot and that it is holding things up. He can no longer take part in the knot. It is this that the prosecution finds dangerous, says the defense. And also why the prosecution has difficulty in saying what it is the defendant endangers. To investigate the defendant would be to discover the illusory nature of the knot. The very idea of looking makes the prosecution nervous. And, as the prosecution’s fear increases, so does the knot. It is a paranoiac structure. Thus, the prosecution comes to need a continual supply of de­fendants engaged in conspiracy against itself to keep itself in existance. An existance that is based on fear, says the defense, must feel threatened to feel that it exists. The case is finally about the nature of being. The defense admits the knot is there. Even illusion has its true reasons. It also points out that the structure the prosecution says is endangered is the tangle, and that, after being untangled, the string, by the Law of the Conservation of String will remain.

As long as string exists, the potentiality of a knot will exist. The string, of course, is the defendant. All that is endangered is the present situation, which is danger­ous enough anyway as well as being illusory. To be destroyed by an illusion would be ridiculous. The prosecution can thus, give up its paranoia, says the world and become the defendant. As we said, says the prosecution, he wants to take us over.

Then what is it that is travelling through the string, if not the knot asks the prosecution.

I don’t know, says the defense, let’s turn the judge on—it wasn’t the grass that got us high.

I could let you go, Slip away without a sound If the thought of you Did not catch somewhere inside of me where I Have not let myself go yet.

Goldstein takes personal revenge on any of his critics or friends who have let him down by putting them in his column called Shit List. ‘The Canadian Customs Authorities belong on the Shit List of the world. They are all obviously frustrated whore-masters. They held up Jim Buckley and his entourage for over two hours on their recent trip to the northern country of Canada’. MediaMogul Essentials

The paper’s chief weakness is its repetition. If you read one issue you have read most of them. Goldstein admits as much. ‘Sex is interesting but after a while it gets boring. That is why in the New Year we are starting a new daily which will have plenty of politics as well’. Diversification seems

to be the future policy of Screw. In January there is to be a sexual review staged off-Broadway and for Christmas Goldstein and Buckley have dreamed up the ideal adult game—a sex jig-saw puzzle. A splendid time is guaranteed for all adults as, roasting in front of the log fire and swilling port and beer, they feverishly search for jig-saw pieces to complete the Screw nudes. It’s gotta be more fun than Monopoly.

Who reads Screw} According to Goldstein, plenty of women have subscriptions. ‘Jim and I are not in the least ashamed of publishing Screw. Both our mothers read it regularly’. Back at the office after leaving Criminal Court I met the secretaries, all wearing Screw tee-shirts. They told me it was great fun working on the paper and one girl showed me the day’s mail to prove her point. One Screw reader was so inspired by the paper that he had sent a polaroid photo of himself—all of himself. Goldstein barked at me from the office: ‘Get this straight—there are no orgies here. We are far too busy getting the paper out. This is a business—we don’t have time to screw around’. Jim Buckley is already busy preparing the next issue and Al takes me aside. ‘When I first met Jim he was a catatonic. Just look at the boy now’. Jim tells me he first met Al dressed up as a nun in Central Park.

The editor’s desk looks as if it had just been blitzed by the plaster-casters. In fact they have been sent samples of a penis pipe to review for the paper. ‘We have fun putting the paper out but there’s plenty of hard work involved. Whatever happens it’s better than being a corporation whore’. ‘You know’ says Buckley thoughtfully, ‘you know who is really responsible for the success of our paper and the rest of the alternative press come to that. IBM, yes, IBM that’s who is res­ponsible. IBM type-setting machines have had more effect on the growth of these papers than anything else’.

Screw has been sired by the cross-fertilisation of the underground press and the sexual tabloids. It is now fighting the law with as much conviction as any civil libertarian in America. But its raison d’etre that the sexual revolution is the key which will unleash every other kind of revolution is dubious. In its simplistic way Screw extracts the sexual element from dissenting culture in America and presents it, ripped from all context, as the only element worth fighting for. As a result it has inevitably become part of the manipulation of sexual repression that already characterises so many American publications. It depends for its main success not the support of dissenters but on middle-class readership titillated by voyeurism and by the sensual spin-offs from youth culture. There is no case for banning the paper but since Screw takes itself seriously it deserves to be judged by its own aspirations.

I walked out of the office with Al Goldstein. ‘Say, what magazine are you going to write about us for?’ ‘I’m not sure yet’, I said. ‘Maybe New Society.’ ‘New Society} What’s that? I’ve never heard of it. Is it a smut paper? Are you sure it won’t give Screw a bad reputation?’ Goldstein clambered on to his parked Yamaha. ‘Go and have some more talk with Jim Buckley’. As he started the machine he yelled: ‘But don’t believe a word that Jim tells you’. The Yamaha roared past me and over his shoulder Goldstein shouted at me and the rest of Manhattan: ‘Remember—I invented Screw’.

As a team they are funnier than Abbott and Costello, dirtier than Rowan and Martin. Gold­stein never stops rapping—Buckley rarely says a word but he is a very sharp publisher. In the paper they insult each other mercilessly and both admit to being ego-crazy. Buckley tells me: ‘I’m more intelligent’. ‘But’ says Goldstein, ‘I’m more Jewish’. Behind the double-act they are very serious about the philosophy of Screw and they run the paper shrewdly. ‘We did not bring it out just to challenge the law. We felt that the printed word in papers and magazines was lagging way behind films, theatre and the novel. The back­ground to our first issue was Hair, off-Broadway nudity, Portnoy’s Complaint and films like / Am Curious (Yellow). All the material we put in Screw is true. The New York Times doesn’t run fiction so why should we? Accessories The point is that we are a newspaper. We have a full-time staff of 14 and about 25 regular contributors’. This compares with a trio of fiction writers who publish Screw’s rival pornzines. The competition waited four months to see if Screw would survive before bringing out a pale imitation. Now you can buy Pleasure, Kiss, New York Review of Sex and Gay Power. Goldstein dismisses them as ‘Times Square Fiction. Look, we’re not a ‘spread’ book. We report and comment on news every week. We are also funny—very funny. And that’s what makes us different from Pleasure and the others. You can’t get a hard-on while you are laughing’.

At the height of its success Screw was available on nearly one thousand New York news-stands. Since the bust many stands refuse to handle the paper although every issue carries the following warning on the cover (worded, it sounds, by the Good Housekeeping Institute): ‘Adult type sex material. If you are liable to be offended by such material kindly lay off and place back on the pile neatly. The editors of this newspaper have made every effort to ensure that the contents of this publication are not obscene or pornographic under the law, common sense or contemporary standards of candor in sex’. The story goes that of the first nine news-stand men arrested for carrying Screw, six were completely blind. Maybe they thought Screw was a sister magazine to Practical Mechanics.

Jim Buckley asked me what chance the paper would have in London. I said I thought it would last about ten seconds. He looked dejected. ‘It’s hard for the establishment to realise that a new social order has come into existence. The law doesn’t cater for them. It is hard for most people to realise that, for example, sixteen year olds today are no longer shocked to see couples making love. But our involvement in all this litigation is very educational. The problem is that we are spending all our profits on hiring good lawyers’.

Is London missing anything by not seeing Screw? Jules Feiffer has referred to it and its rivals as ‘dildo journalism’. He calls the magazine ‘narcissistic, anti-woman and about as pro-sex as the clap’. Strong words but in fact the paper tends to practice overkill in its enthusiasm to emancipate the reader. There is a compulsion to pepper every article with four-letter words when selective use would be doubly effective. The famous nudes of Screw are indeed quite bare and no air-brush is used to make them look like the girl next door. Often they look flabby and plenty of them are probably hard bitches. Every issue shows enough genitalia to keep Alexander Portnoy bliss­ful for ever.

The regular features vary in their quality. Perhaps the most successful innovation has been the use of the ‘peter meter’ as an aid to film re­views. Screw’s panel of critics judge new films by the number and quality of erections obtained during viewing. (Such a technique would raise immediate problems if adopted in London where the majority of film critics are old women—in­cluding many of the men.) A consumer column provides a valuable guide to what is new in the market of sexual devices and toys. Goldstein and Buckley investigate new products with all the zeal of a Which panel. The literary section is devoted to reviews of what the paper calls ‘fuckbooks’. The reviewers are usually merciless in their put-

Screw on the other hand . . . Well, Screw is downright filth. Screw starts where Playboy leaves off. Screw is the first of the pornzines (look that up in your Funk and Wagnall). The chief crime committed by the publishers of Screw, apart from all matters of taste, is economic. Screw sells on the city’s newstands for 35 cents. The big boys just cannot tolerate that sort of undercutting and availability. That is why the porn shops, the whack-off supermarkets, do not stock Screw. That is why I am walking along Centre Street, New York on the tip of Manhattan looking for the Central Criminal Court. The editor and the pub­lisher of Screw are being arraigned by the DA on obscenity charges. Death Cab For Cutie Narrow Stairs

The Court building is like Liverpool Street station at the rush-hour. Hundreds of sweating New Yorkers are searching for their friends, their lawyers, their court-room. I am looking for Al

Goldstein and Jim Buckley, editor and publisher of Screw. By the time I find them the preliminary hearing is over. Outside the court-room Goldstein and Buckley are rapping with a friend in a seer­sucker jacket. ‘Meet Patrolman Davis’ says Goldstein. ‘He arrested us originally’. Davis is a plain-clothes cop and he busted Screw under instructions from the DA. Patrolman Davis is a cool cop, Goldstein and Buckley like him and Davis has to appear at every hearing connected with the obscenity charge. He tells me he wants to have a holiday in Yorkshire some day but not in a police group. We all shake hands again. As Davis leaves the court building he tells me he likes the editor and publisher of Screw but he thinks the magazine is disgusting.