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Image Machine

Design rick poynor on new technology and graphic design i m a g e machine a decade ago, the idea that inky-fingered graphic designers might one day set aside their cow gum, scalpels, and drawings boards for a working life at the computer screen would have seemed wildly optimistic. Emigre type-designer zuzana licko - a self-styled 'new primitive', who argues, citing gothic black letter faces, that legibility is what you are accustomed to seeing - has produced a stream of fash- marxism today december 1990  design ionable, geometrical typefaces suited to the flawed, low-resolution output of the macintosh laser printer.

Helen Storey

Fashion acts, a fashion industry initiative to raise elm for aids research and people with aids. I also love its heat and beauty. when did you last visit your where is your favourite holiday what makes you feel secure?

Playing Safe

in the category of best drama series or serial, the judges will shortly be choosing between summer's lease (from the novel by john mortimer), mother love (from the novel by domini taylor), inspector morse (from the books by colin dexter) and traffik, the channel 4 international co-production about the international trade in narcotics. Mark lawson on the state of the art of tv drama playing safe one evening in march, bashful men in dinner jackets will weave through white-clothed tables heavy with grub and grog to receive large facemasks overlaid with gold leaf from whichever junior member of the royal family's turn has come up on the roster this year.

Altered Images

As independent film-maker mandy rose has pointed out: 'although porn is in many ways flawed, and particularly for women, the fact is that porn is the only sphere that exists for a non-moralistic exploration of women's sexual fantasy and desire.' to remove all depictions of sexuality would effectively return us to an era of repressed morality. 25 marxism today november 1988  'page three, sunday sport and the sport draw on a long and british tradition of smut: the sexual innuendo and titillation of the schoolboy joke' despite an array of viewpoints, and seven years after its publication, andrea dworkin's pornography: men possessing women still sets the main agenda for feminist discourse.

Screen Strife

collectively, the itv companies have little to say about black days in the ratings war the increasing conflicts of interest between their businesses and the itv system. They want to reach a different audience: not coronation street's, but hill street blues' (a series that london itv had before channel 4, but buried in its schedules).

Letters Notices

women’s information, referral & enquiry service wires, a national information service, was set up in leeds in october to inform women of the activities of the women’s liberation movement in britain. finally we do not believe that the cp was really the point - the point about the conflict and falterings on red rag was as much to do with the tension that exists for many non-aligned socialist feminists about both their individual connection to socialism and to class, and also about something which is a problem for us all: the movement’s connection to socialist politics in britain. val adah bea a womens liberation magazine spare spare rib subscription rates for 1 year: uk £4.44; europe — £5.00; elsewhere seamail — $12.00; elsewhere air­ mail - $20.00 subscriptions, c/o rib publications distribution linda phillips, 114 george street.

MISSION ENGLAND

Mission england rosalind brunt mission england is in its final phase as a three-year christian campaign centred around the american evangelist, billy graham. it was banal, instrumental and reach-medown: billy graham as insurance salesman for heaven with a string of fragmentary anecdotes, both jokey and fearsome, linked with arbitrary quotations from 'the voice of god'.

MONDALE RAYGUNNED

reagan's second-term popular mandate is accordingly tempered, even under the conventional definition of 'mandate', which overlooks the startling fact that, as usual, almost half of all voting age americans did not bother to vote. Just as the democrats are well-placed to recover congressional seats in the 1986 mid-term elections, so, if good candidates present themselves, they have a good chance to retake the white house two years after that.

Blurred vision

November 1984 marxism today 43 # end of year report: peter kellner , gordon mclennan, joan maynard mp and robin cook mp consider the performance of labour under neil kinnock, interviewed in the last issue of marxism today. peter kellner blurred vision it would be a mistake to exaggerate the point, but one of the most significant moments of neil kinnock's first year as party leader was his appearance with tracey ullman in the comedienne's video of her song, my guy.

Preaching Progress

Apart from the basis issues of ordination and theological tradition, where is the church on this question of women in society? the church, like the rest of society, is only beginning to wrestle with this and a whole lot of people are refusing to face it. the church in britain has never had to respond to a strong marxist party whereas the roman church, in particular, has entered into dialogue with marxist governments, has encountered strong marxist presence within its own membership and has engaged in revolutionary struggle in latin america.

Obsequy with teeth

The new statesman for reasons no less obscure than those governing the listener's choice of william roberts, caused sir herbert read to write " under pressure" some inconsequential recollections of meetings with lewis scarcely less barbed beneath their trimmings this "pressure," bursting outwards, gave vent in sir herbert to a mild sigh of relief that lewis could no longer menace sir herbert and all that sir herbert stands for. the extraordinary thing about lewis h that his critical talent was so potent that he transformed it from comment into creative art and this ability is of course the necessity of the satirist, but lewis could equally achieve this criticalcreative synthesis in painting which has no satirical intention, for his portraits have nothing of goya"s sardonic regard—the very quality one might have expected—but, held in equilibrium by his classical restraint, the best of his portraits exist in an order, possessed of an inherent logic, which defies the element of the grotesque necessary to satire.

Back to 1937

It was a measure of the depth of the gulfs in the society of the 1930's that he believed that the only kind of meaningful middle-class socialism was socialism through shared experience with the working classes, or rather the search for socialism through shared experience, for he believed that full sharing was impossible. class distinction to orwell expresses itself not so much in differences of income as in differences of manners and styles, whole ways of life, and as an exceptionally class-conscious product of the middle classes he recognised that "to abolish class distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself".

One New Town

This leads them to work out plans based on new neighbourhoods, multi-level corridor streets, mixed development, and social centres — all drawn from an outsider's view of cosy working class relationships which of course ' must not be disturbed ' or at least must be given a new form, a new significance. Housing estates (and, therefore we must suppose, the new towns) are now being attacked for not creating an environment which promotes the closeknit pattern of life which has been observed by sociologists, (notably michael young and peter wilmott — family and kinship in east london) in their studies of working-class communities.

Voice of Reason

Y e to e y e jon snow talks to denis healey about the gulf war voice of reason denis healey is a labour mp and a former defence secretary and chancellor of the exchequer denis, great atlanticist, a man with a vivid war experience, former defence secretary, it's an unlikely position to find you in over this war, isn't it? For instance, you find the chief of staff of the pakistani army, which has forces in saudi arabia, saying that the war was a zionist plot, and the moroccan government, which has troops in the gulf, supporting a general strike against the war.

Crete's Enigma

The female ancestors of this civilisation where women held great positions of power are the women of crete and greece today, whose strength and force probably stem directly from the amazonic and dynamic women of the minoan race. the war is still fresh in the minds of both greeks and cretans and this loyalty to the past, which at times can seem to border on obsession, is easier to understand if we note that the misery of the second world war was prolonged in greece by a civil war which continued to ravage the country until 1949.

Summer Of Discontent

if the public servant was once the victim of the public, the disasters transformed the target of collective calumny - we were all educated by the public inquiries in their wake: travellers were able to invoke their own experience, day after day, descending into the dungeons of london transport, to measure against the management's culpable negligence. for in london and the south east, the heartland of thatcherism, everyone except, it seems, the prime minister depends on public transport: personal experience every day vindicates the necessity of public-service transport, as much for the night cleaner in hackney as the civil servant in croydon.

Rocking The Racists

but raising your voice against apartheid is somehow qualitatively different from either band aid, kids aid, sport aid, ferry aid or farm aid. • agitpop june 11 sees the biggest array of pop stars since live aid, gathered together to celebrate nelson mandela's 70th birthday in an all-day concert at wembley stadium.

Lessons In Elitism

the curriculum consultation paper, for which a mere two months at the 'downgrading the mass of ordinary schools for ordinary people's children' comprehensive education: unpopular schools will be closed as a result of market forces height of the summer is allowed for response, is a typical product of a remote, managerially-inclined bureaucracy. government ministers are said (by an experienced observer) to have been 'startled by the passionate support for the state education and health services' voiced during the election; if the united voices of 'parents, churches, teachers and the local authorities can be mobilised in opposition to the education bill', writes maureen o'connor, positive results may be achieved (guardian, june 23, 1987).

Democrats' White Hopes

What panics the democratic establishment is that the synchronised march primaries - explicitly organised by the dlc to stop jackson and ensure the nomination of a white southerner - may backfire in jackson's favour as blacks vote in unprecedented numbers. Unlike lee iaccocca jackson: the only real opposition to reagan 3 marxism today august 1987  focus ('who wants to be president during a depression?'), the governor of new york has not given the definitive reason for his withdrawal and may be awaiting the mutual ruin of the other contenders to open a walk-on nomination next june.

YAMAL GAS PIPELINE

a more modest scheme was then devised whereby a loan of 8 billion dm would be made to cover the cost of imported equipment for a much simpler pipeline running yamal gas pipeline the construction is about to begin in the ussr of a natural gas pipeline stretching from the desolate wastes of western siberia to western europe. Called the yamal pipeline, after the yamal-nenetskii region where the ussr's (and the world's) largest gasfields are located, it will carry 40 billion cubic metres a year of gas from the giant urengoi field to west germany, france, italy and a number of other countries.

Culture and Society

Belching factory chimneys brought home more forcibly to philosophers that the times were changing, but they made by themselves no fundamental change in the structure of social relations; their smoke it may be added prevented many philosophers from noticing many other things that were now in the air. and ugly as the mills were, and bad in various worse ways, a lot of people hurried into them as soon as they began to spring up, glad of steadier work and better wages than they could get in the village; much as in our own day all the poor nations of the earth are to be seen pushing and jostling their way towards that ' industrialism' over whose gateway mr. williams's men of culture wrote their all hope abandon.  78 the new reasoner to be seen in the round, and understood in its real bearings, a pattern of ideas must be seen taking shape in the minds of members of a determinate social group in a specific epoch. Wordsworth's v. g. kiernan : culture and society 79 theory of diction was after all directed against the aristocratic culture of the pre-industrial 18th century, the culture of heroic couplet and man trap; and blake when he wrote of the harlot's curse and the soldier's blood was following a long humanitarian tradition of condemnation of things that were part and parcel of the old regime - evils among which the satanic mill made only one more, and which indeed were in part the reason why the mill was satanic.

Ode to Bartok

unutterable things - thought cannot form it, or speech reach down so far, eternally, utterly down, nothing but music, music like yours, bart6k, and yours, kodaly - music can pierce this night, your music, music expansive and fierce with the heat from the heart of the mineshaft - music endures, in visions of things to come when people will sing once more - music, the song 71  72 the new reasoner of this people, risen, reborn, so liberating our souls that the very walls of the prisons and camps are torn down, so fervent in inconoclastic prayer for our salvation, now, and here, in sacrifice so savage, so insane to salve us, that our wounds are stanched. order, but true order, lest the world perish o, if the world is not to perish the people must be free to speak, majestically!  70 the new reasoner gyula illyes : ode to bartok thin, wiry, dedicated musician, stern, true artist, true hungarian, (held, like so many of your generation under disapprobation,) was it not deep compulsion, this creating: that from the depth where the people's soul lay waiting, a darkened tomb that you alone can plumb, that out of this profound, from the long echoing chambers down, this mineshaft, from this narrow throat you could send forth the piercing note that rings to the outermost vault of the ordained, geometric concert-hall, the rounds and ranging tiers where remote suns are hung as chandeliers?

Exposes are very Square

brook is trying to feel his way towards a definition o f a new theatre, a theatre o f total reality that discards the “ lies” o f “ story, construction, technique, tempo, good curtains, effective moments, big scenes, climaxes” - lies which he calls “ time honoured forms” , but which are not forms at all, but conventions, our particular bastardization o f the well-made play, itself a bastardization o f a genuine dramatic form, the french eighteenth century rationalist drama. But our society presents both the domination o f our commercial theatre by a mechanical variation o f the wellmade play (a convention descended illegitimately from a form), and a proliferation and fragmentation o f con­ sciousness so extreme that no form can even begin to w h a t is really g o in g o n in g er m a n y ? wollen sie sich aus erster hand informieren ? dann lesen sie your refreshment rendezvous c arfax cafeteria cornmarket street and queens cafe 39-40 queen street p a r t y c a t e

Donald Davie's Poetry

milovan djilas the leper and other stories methuen j. p. donleavy meet my maker the mad molecule bodley head s. dutt buddhist monks and monasteries of india george allen & unwin d. j. enright the old adam chatto & windus and hogarth press vergilius fenn concise dictionary of religion peter owen tom girtin the abominable clubman hutchinson dr. brigitte granzow a mirror of nazism gollancz 30/- geoffrey gorer death, grief and mourning in contemporaybritain cresset press 30/- royden harrison before the socialists : studies in labour politics 1861-1881 routledge & kegan paul a) roy harrod reforming the world’s money macmillan h. w. heason beyond relativity regency press be 2 christopher hill intellectual origins of the english revolution oup. j. d. hoffman the conservative party in opposition macgibbon and kee 42/- david horowitz shakespeare: an existential approach tavistock 25/= karl jaspers leonardo, descartes, max weber routledge & kegan paul 30/- kk. 15/50/40/7/6 g. m. thomson the twelve days : from the 24 july to 4 august 1914 hutchinson paul tournier john wiles & alan garrard the whole person in a broken world collins leap to life : an experiment in youth drama chatto & windus winifred wilkinson godin hell gollanez ivo andric ralph miliband & john saville michael young innovation and research in education routledge & kegan paul wayland young thirty-four articles weidenfeld & nicolson wayland young eros denied weidenfeld & nicolson the bow group the conservative opportunity batsford 104 25/212 18/50/— 12/6 30/— “30/5 455 25/> 25)/2 ae 18/— 23/5 25).

Bevan by Claude Bourdet

consequently; at the very moment when frank cousins the new leader of the powerful transport union - as well as bevan’s own wife took up a violent position in favour of the renunciation by great britain of nuclear weapons; bevan preferred to pass with gaitskell a relatively honourable com­ promise; but which caused tremendous disappointment throughout the left in the party; demobilised the best militants; and provoked an estrangement between him and his most loyal friend, michael foot and “tribune”. Where do you stand ? 2 bevan claude bourdet a personality who aroused passionate feelings, about whom it was impossible to be indifferent; a unique figure in contemporary british politics: such is the judgment with which both friends is so important a phenomenon; linked simultaneously to personal and to more general factors; that it seems to me indispensable to analyse it now: this is, i think; the best homage one could render the ideal served by bevan and the memory of a man to whom we owe a lot.