Fiery ‘60s Live on in the Pages of Underground Journals

“The ‘60s are over” is a frequent putdown of certain forms of idealistic or anachronistic behavior. But for certain publications, generally politically left-of-center, the ‘60s are definitely not over. And there is no better place to find out what radical groups are thinking and doing than in the pages of their own journals.

One such is Breakthrough: Political Journal of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee ($6 for four issues, from John Brown Book Club, P.O.B. 1442, San Francisco, Calif. 94114). Prairie Fire was the above-ground component of the Weather Underground and continues to be interested in revolutionary activity in places like the Philippines. Breakthrough frequently publishes communiques from national liberation groups in Africa and Central America.

For the answer to political trivia questions--like what ever became of Leonard Pelletier, Ruchell Magee and Kathy Boudin?--Breakthrough is the place to look.

Actually, Pelletier, who became a cause celebre for Hollywood liberals after his conviction for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents at Wounded Knee, has a journal largely devoted to his appeals. Called Crazy Horse Spirit ($12 per year: the Leonard Pelletier Defense Committee, P.O.B. 6455, Kansas City, Kan. 66106), the publication also includes news about other Indian political activities, as well as poetry and art.

One of the oldest, and for a long time one of the best underground papers was the Fifth Estate ($5 per year, P.O.B. 02548, Detroit, Mich. 48202). It hit its peak in the late ‘60s when its focus was cultural politics. In its current phase it chronicles the activities of anarchist movements throughout the world but especially in Europe where the action-oriented environmentalists seem to hold a special attraction for its editors.

More than most political periodicals of any stripe, the occasional journal is preoccupied with artistic and literary issues.

Among the most savvy of radical political organizations is Greenpeace which has won a lot of publicity and support for actions against nuclear testing in the Pacific and in defense of baby seals in Canada. The Greenpeace Examiner ($15 year, Greenpeace U.S.A. 1611 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Wash D.C. 20009) is lively and well written and full of information.

Finally, as if to prove that anything can become a sinecure, the Youth International Party, the Yippies of stand-up comedian Abbie Hoffman and Yuppie spokesman Jerry Rubin, lives on in Overthrow ($10 per year, Youth International Party Information, P.O.B. 392, Canal St. Sta., New York, N.Y. 10013). Because it is published in New York City, where more of the ‘60s veterans are still active, and because it has higher-than-average production values and a broader appeal, Overthrow probably ranks as the most influential of the old New Left magazines. With its leftover flavor of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” its politics appeal to an audience that would turn off and tune out more sectarian publications.

By one conservative estimate, 65,000 periodicals are published in North America. From abattoirs to zymurgy, there is scarcely a topic not already covered by some journal. Yet, month after month, new magazines arrive, generated by enthusiasts or entrepreneurs to meet some perceived need or opportunity.

Presentation Products magazine, whose premiere issue has just arrived, seems to have located an empty niche, positioning itself in the $17-billion annual market for products used by businesses, schools and government agencies in making presentations.

Advances in electronic and computer technology have made audio-visual programs more audible, colorful and original than the grainy, garbled films of the past. And new products seem about to revolutionize the industry. According to Ames Cornish, a marketing manager at Apple Computer, “Desk-top presentation could be an even greater opportunity for us than desk-top publishing,” which has dominated consumer attention for the past couple of years.

Presentation Products owner Bill Slapin, who has founded five other successful periodicals on consumer electronics and computer products during a 20-year publishing career, said the 56,000-copy controlled-circulation magazine has met with immediate acceptance from advertisers. By focusing “on the total range of products and services” used by presenters, he noted, the magazine’s first issue has attracted product advertising from Sony, Panasonic, AT&T; and Kodak.

In addition to new products, each issue examines “a specific industry segment,” looks at “trends and updates in a particular category” and offers “applications-oriented features that show our readers how presentation products are actually used.”

The 8 1/2-by-11-inch, 72-page journal is printed on slick stock with a liberal use of color, especially by advertisers. Although it carries a $3 cover price, it is mainly available “to executives in business, government and education who decide what presentation products their institutions use,” said editor Larry Tuck. The premiere issue, May-June, looks at recent developments in big-screen video display devices, in-house photographic slide-making and portable sound equipment, and also has quick takes on new services and equipment from erasable compact disks to laser pointers.

Tuck says initial circulation was based on trade association mailing lists, with more than 20% of the recipients qualified before the first issue was mailed. “We have been getting back about 3,000 of the enclosed subscription cards a day,” he reported, “and expect to be close to 100% qualified by the end of the year.” The magazine will publish every two months beginning in September and assume a monthly schedule in January, 1989.

Slapin’s track record is solid. In 1975, for example, the Los Angeles native started the successful Electronic Retailing, which was aimed at audio professionals. Computer Merchandising magazine, which he founded in 1983, was by 1985 listed at No. 9 on Folio magazine’s rating of the top 400 trade journals.

The same year, he sold his Eastman Publishing, which included an electronic data base service and Software Merchandising magazine as well as Computer Merchandising, to International Thomson, the British-Canadian information services conglomerate. Last month, Thomson folded Computer Merchandising.

“You don’t feel good about it,” Slapin said. “But it’s like when you sell a house you love. You can’t do anything about what the new owners do to it.”

Although Presentation Products is published by the ambitious-sounding Pacific Magazine Group Inc., Tuck said there are no immediate plans for new publications. Those interested in receiving the magazine can get a subscription card by calling (213) 455-1414 or writing the company at 513 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, Calif. 90401.

Sassy, the 5-month-old teen magazine patterned on the Australian model, is spending about $200,000 on an image-building national contest to find the “Sassiest Girl in America,” according to a spokesman. The winner of the contest, sponsored jointly with Noxema, will receive $10,000, plus $5,000 for her favorite charity, and be pictured on the cover of the monthly and in a Noxema ad.

The contest is limited to girls between 13 and 19 years old. In the first month, Sassy received over 4,000 responses and hopes to have over 30,000 entrants by the contest’s close on June 30. Six finalists will be flown to New York for a five-day, all-expenses-paid trip.

The folks at Teen magazine seem unperturbed by the contest, perhaps figuring that imitation is the highest form of flattery. The Los Angeles-based magazine has run its own Great Teen Model Search annually since 1981. The 12 finalists are flown to Los Angeles for their fling. The winner receives $5,000 in cash from Maybelline, a $5,000 modeling contract with Gillette, and $5,000 worth of clothes. This year’s contest, which just closed, drew 25,000 applicants.

You will want: Psychedelic Monographs and Essays. The latest issue (Spring) of the academic biannual, edited by Thomas Lyttle and Phoenix, is on the nostalgic theme of “Psychedelics, Higher Consciousness and Spirituality Psychedelic Research.” Among the topics explored are the relationship between psychedelics and spiritual experience, high lucid dreams and emergent scientific paradigms of reality. The letters pages are fascinating ($9 an issue, $18 a year: PM&E;, 624 N. E. 12th Ave., 1, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 33301).