COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 1968
Frank da Cruz Columbia University Academic Information Systems fdc@columbia.edu April 1998 http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/1968.htmlA personal reminiscence of the 1968 student uprising at Columbia University. I was an active participant, but not a member of any particular faction (the only organization I belonged to was Veterans Against the War). I wrote this article for publication in the "Columbia Librarian" at the request of Columbia's Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian, Elaine Sloan (then my boss's boss), on the 30th anniversary of the student rebellion (a). In 1968 I was an Army veteran working my way through a Columbia degree with a part-time job in the library; now I work in Academic Information Systems (the academic half of what used to be called the Computer Center), which, since 1986, is part of the University Library; hence the library connection.Because this article was written for a Columbia audience, familiarity with the Columbia campus and setting are assumed. The article was HTMLized for the Web and slightly updated in February 2001, with periodic updates after that. Pictures were added in June 2001, which you can view by following the links; I hope to find and add more pictures as time goes on. While this is a personal recollection and not an attempt at a definitive history, corrections, comments, additional information, and especially photos are welcome, and will be acknowledged.
Prelude
Life was different at Columbia University in 1968. There was a war and a draft. Up until the previous year, the University had routinely furnished class rank lists to the draft board (b), so if you had poor grades, off you went (of course, privileged Columbia students still had it better than the many kids drafted right out of high school, but that's another story). There were ROTC drills on South Field, military and CIA recruiters on campus, and classified military research in the labs (c). The Civil Rights movement had become the Black Liberation movement, and Black Panthers and Young Lords -- and Soul music -- captured students' imaginations. The women's movement was beginning to shake everybody up, especially guys who thought they were already progressive enough. Dr. King had just been killed and the cities were in flames. You couldn't ignore all this.Throughout the mid-to-late 60s there was all sorts of political activity on campus -- teach-ins on Pentagon economics, Sundial rallies against the war, demonstrations against class rank reporting, confrontations with military recruiters, etc. It was an era of bullhorns. Amidst all this, the University was constructing a new gym in Morningside Park -- the barrier separating Columbia from Harlem -- with a "back door" on the Harlem side. This offended many people, and one day in April some students went to Morningside Drive and tore down the fence, attempting to break into the construction site. They were restrained by police and some were arrested. The ensuing Sundial rally wandered into Hamilton Hall and stayed the night. The original idea was that the united student body, or at least the considerable left wing of it (how times have changed) would occupy Hamilton until the charges against the students were dropped and some other demands were met. Various factions debated tactics and what the demands should be. Eventually six demands were formulated. Their thrust was against Columbia's complicity the war, against racism, and for better and more responsible relations with the surrounding communities.
The First Building Occupations
About 6:00am the white students left Hamilton and moved into the President's office in Low Library, while the Black students remained in Hamilton. This was the result of an agreement reached between leaders of SDS, PL, SWP, YAWF, etc (the predominantly white groups), on the one hand, and SAS on the other, behind closed doors and reflective of the tenor of times [1]. Over the next few days the various mostly-white factions branched out to other buildings -- SDS to Math (which flew the splendid red flag featured on the cover of Spring 1968 Columbia College Today, an issue devoted to the uprising with lots of great photos and much grouchy commentary), the Trotskyites to Avery, the anarcho-syndicalists to Fayerweather, etc (or something like that). In all, five buildings were occupied for a week. The history is written elsewhere such as the souvenir-bound editions of Spectator, and there is also a locally-produced film, Columbia Revolt (shot in large part by the legendary wall-scaling Melvin), that is trotted out on special occasions. When I took my son to see it at the 20th anniversary get-together in Earl Hall in 1988, it was already crumbling. (As of February 2003, there seems to be a copy available for viewing and downloading at Archive.Org; see Links.)I spent the week in Low Library. There was a carnival atmosphere the first day, with press photographers and reporters from magazines, the local newspapers, etc (the Post was fair, the News was atrocious, but the Times was beyond belief -- small wonder, considering the connections (d)). There was an unforgettable, Felliniesque visit from a faculty member who swooped through the window in full academic regalia, Batmanlike, to "reason" with us. Security guards and office workers brought us snacks. Life magazine (May 10, 1968) ran a cover story featuring pictures taken in Low, including my favorite: a group of us seated on the carpet, each with a Grayson Kirk face, complete with pipe (from President Kirk's desk drawer, which was stocked with dozens of 8x10 glossy book-jacket poses).
After the first day, activities grew more structured, and thenceforth the occupation was one long meeting governed by Robert's Rules of Order, interpreted creatively ("point of obfuscation!"), interspersed by housework. Contrary to popular belief and press reports, the President's suite of offices was kept immaculate and orderly after the chaotic first day (e). Cleanup detail included vacuuming, shaking out blankets, scrubbing the bathroom, etc. The administration's fears of vandalism (and their special concern for the Rembrandt hanging above President Kirk's desk) were poorly founded, at least in Low.
Outside, a system of rings developed around Low Library. Opponents ("jocks") formed the inner ring; student supporters (known, along with us, as "pukes") formed an outer ring, and later concerned faculty formed an intermediate buffer ring. Each group wore distinctive armbands, not that they were needed: jocks (Columbia light blue) looked like jocks; pukes (red) were scruffy; faculty (white) wore tweed with elbow patches. Black armbands came later. Beyond the rings were crowds of onlookers and press. The outside pukes would try to send food up to us, but the jocks intercepted most of it and made a great show of wolfing it down con mucho gusto as we looked on with envy (most food didn't throw well and fell short; what little got through was mainly oranges and baloney packets). One day a tall stranger with waist-length hair appeared at the distant fringe of the crowd (almost all the way to Earl Hall) and began to hurl five-pound bags of home-made fried chicken our way, one after another, with perfect aim, over the jocks' heads and right into our windows. What an arm! (The chicken was cooked by Mrs. Gloria Sánchez of the Bronx, and it was delicious; I never learned the identity of the mysterious stranger.)
. . . Until June 1, 2001, when I had a call from Jerry Kisslinger of Columbia's Office of University Development and Alumni Relations, who recognized the waist-length hair and powerful arm of John Taylor, son of Nürnberg prosecutor and Columbia Law Professor Telford Taylor (who declined to lend his name to a statement signed by most other Law School faculty, which said the student protests exceeded the "allowable limits" of civil disobedience [New York Times, 24 May 1998]). Thanks to both John and his dad!
Aside from the meetings and work details, a concerted effort was made to rifle through the many file cabinets and turn up evidence of covert links with the war machine and defense contractors, large corporations planning to divide up the spoils in Viet Nam, etc, all of which were to be found in abundance. These were photocopied and later published in the East Village underground newspaper, Rat. Some items were picked up by the mainstream press, resulting in some embarrassment among the rich and powerful, which quickly passed.
The First Bust
After a few days, the NYC Tactical Police Force (TPF, of distinctive leather cladding)(f) muscled through the crowd and the rings to form a new inner ring just below our feet as we congregated on the ledges and windowsills. Police on Campus! Academia violated! (A famous photo shows Alma Mater holding a sign, "Raped by Cops".) We fortified the entrances to the occupied buildings, especially through the tunnels, against the expected assault (more about the tunnels HERE).Which, inevitably, came. After the final warning to vacate or be arrested, we discussed (still observing proper parliamentary procedure) whether to resist or go peacefully. Opinion was divided and many variations were proposed. After much discussion, consensus converged on civil-rights-movement-style passive resistance; we would go limp and the police would have to carry us out.
We devoted the final moments to preparations -- the Defense Committee piled furniture up against door, while the rest of us picked up trash, vacuumed, and scrubbed so the President's suite would be left in pristine condition, better than we had found it (except for tape criss-crossed on the window glass and the jimmied file-cabinet locks). Those with pierced earrings took them off (a routine precaution in those days of police actions) and then we formed a 100-person, 10,000-pound clump singing "We Shall Not Be Moved", knowing that we would.
Soon axes were crashing through the door, the barricade was breached, and an army of TPF piled in, first prying apart the singing clump of us, then forming a gauntlet to pass our limp bodies down the corridors, whacking our heads with flashlights along the way, and dragging us by the feet down the marble steps so our heads bounced. Superficial head wounds are harmless but they bleed a lot, and journalists got some terrific photos of us on our way to the paddy wagons waiting on College Walk.
Soon we were in the Tombs [the jail and criminal court building at 100 Centre Street]. I was in a cell with six others including Tom Hayden (one of many luminaries who visited and/or sat in with us -- others included H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael, Charles 37X Kenyatta, I forget who else -- Angela Davis? Che Guevara?). Later, students from the other buildings began to arrive, much bloodier than we were. The students in Math (some of whom -- the ones who weren't killed in the 1970 East 11th Street townhouse explosion -- later went on to the Democratic convention in Chicago, and then formed the Weather Underground) (deep breath...) received less gentle treatment -- one student was thrown from a second-story window and landed on a professor (Jim Shenton), breaking the professor's arm.
In December 2001 I received the following email from Thomas Gucciardi: "My dad, Frank Gucciardi, was a cop during the riots. He was paralyzed from the waist down for 3 years. (A student jumped off a building into the crowd) He has had a miraculous recovery & still enjoys a fairly active life. I just found your site & commend you on it. My dad till this day loved his job & he does understand the students uprising. He holds no grudges at all for what the students did to him at 34 years of age & having 3 children. Thank you for your website." Later Thomas sent copies of newspaper clippings that told how Patrolman Gucciardi had been inured when an unidentified white student jumped from the balcony of Hamilton Hall, landing on the officer's back as he bent over to pick up his hat, and of the operations on his spine over the next several years. A series of articles by columnist Martin Gershen in the NY Times, the Long Island Press, and other papers, followed his progress and gained national attention. Also injured was Officer Bernard Wease, kicked in the chest by a student in Fayerweather Hall while giving the vacate-or-be-arrested order, causing damage to his heart.While an article in the LA Times, 9 September 1969, quotes Mayor Lindsay as acknowledging that some police used "excessive force" and states that "news reports quoted witnesses as having seen nonuniformed policemen punching and kicking both male and female students... one blond girl was said to have been beaten unconscious on the sidewalk in front of Avery Hall... a boy left writhing in front of Ferris Booth Hall with his nose smashed...", the only two injuries serious enough to require prolonged hospitalization were to Officers Gucciardi and Wease.
Many of the later arrivals to the Tombs were bystanders. All hell had broken loose after we left, with mounted police charging through the crowds on South Field, swinging their "batons" at all nearby heads like rampaging Cossacks (NEED PHOTO). Subsequent investigative commissions called it a "police riot." The combat spilled out to Broadway and down the side streets towards Riverside Park, horses galloping after fleeing pedestrians -- it must have been quite a sight (too bad I missed it), and it was a "radicalizing experience" for many former sideliners. Ed Kent (UTS BD 1959, Columbia PhD 1965, currently professor of moral / political / legal philosophy at Brooklyn College, CUNY) recalls:
I made sure that I put on a coat and tie -- it was about 1 a.m. and I had been alerted by a colleague at Hunter who had heard the bust was imminent. I then joined the cop assigned to the gate who was entirely sympathetic to the students and we watched with horror as the cops beat up kids that had come out of their dorms to find out what all the ruckus was about (Those occupying buildings had been taken out through the tunnels earlier.). I will never forget one small sized student being chased by a group of cops with clubs intent on beating him up -- he finally took refuge on top of a car where he tried to avoid their swings. They finally knocked him off and pounced with their clubs. The next day many faculty and students were treated for head and other injuries -- all of them innocent of any connection with the actual building occupations. Incidentally at the Cox hearings I heard the dean [Henry Coleman] who had supposedly been imprisoned by the students in Hamilton admit in response to a question by Anthony Amsterdam that he had in fact been ordered by the President to remain in his office and had been treated with entire courtesy by the students throughout and could have unlocked his office door (and relocked it to protect student records) and left at any time. This was given as the excuse for the police action and Sidney Hook refused to take it out of his book account (I got his galleys to pre-view) although I personally drew his attention to his mis-reporting there. Hook had become very right wing by then.
Meanwhile, back in jail... Escorting a group of incoming wounded was a fellow worker from Butler Library, now wearing a badge. In Butler, posing as a student library assistant, he had been trying to recruit us to "blow stuff up". Luckily he had been an inspiration to no one, but the episode served well for many years in discussions of leftist paranoia. The librarians, to their credit, were shocked to learn they had hired an agent provocateur and fired him immediately, not so very inhumane considering his better-paying day job.
Some 700 people were arrested that night, a logistical nightmare, involving at least 20 precincts and much transportation. We were arraigned and released over the next day or two, with court dates set that would stretch for years into the future, a story in itself. Back on campus... what a mess! The morning's newspapers were full of it. The Times ran a front-page story with a photo of a police officer standing in the President's Office, which was a total wreck (mean-spirited graffiti sprayed on the walls, bookshelves toppled, etc), gesturing sorrowfully towards a mound of mangled books, a forlorn tear in his eye: "The world's knowledge was in those books...". Ironic because it was not us who made the mess and sprayed the graffiti! We caught the author of the story on campus and asked why he had written such dreck when he had been witness to the whole episode -- he freely admitted it was a pack of lies and recommended we complain to his boss (a Columbia trustee). Luckily for posterity, whoever wrecked the office after we left overlooked the Rembrandt.
The Second and Third Busts
In the following weeks, regular classes were replaced by "Liberation classes" on the lawns (NEED PHOTO). There were no grades that year. Picket lines were thrown up in front of every building. The Grateful Dead played on Ferris Booth terrace. A student batallion marched up Amsterdam Avenue to City College to make noise and "link up". Organizers for progressive labor unions began circulating pledge cards among supporting staff (this cost me my Butler Library job). A contingent from the French student/worker uprising handed out those famous posters (unfortunately printed on cheap paper, now disintegrated) from the "Ex-Ecole des Beaux Arts", and we also had visits from student representatives of many of the other universities that followed Columbia's energetic lead that year, who raised clenched fists and gave rousing speeches. (Later some of us visited other student uprisings in progress, notably in Mexico City, where police and military actions made the Columbia arrests look like a lovefest.)Community issues loomed large -- an apartment building on 114th Street was the scene of a second occupation a couple weeks later, in which several hundred of the newly radicalized onlookers from South Field took part and were promptly arrested (I don't recall exactly what the issue was, but housing has always been a touchy topic at Columbia). On May 22nd, sensing no movement in the administration on the issues of the strike, we went back into Hamilton (déjà vu was the rallying cry). This time the police were summoned onto campus without hesitation, and back we all went to jail (there were 1100 arrests in all). By now it was like commuting. Again, campus erupted after we left -- this time, 15-foot-high barricades were erected at the main gates and set ablaze (NEED PHOTO), windows were smashed, cars crushed, crowds surged back and forth, and many heads were bashed -- most of them attached to innocent bystanders. As in the first bust, the police also did a fair amount of mischief aimed at discrediting the strikers.
Commencement and Beyond
The year ended with most of the Class of '68 walking out of graduation, which was at Saint John's that year, on a prearranged signal -- students carried radios under their gowns and walked out when WKCR played "The Times They Are A'Changin'" -- to a countercommencement on Low Plaza, accompanied by loud rock music, and from there to Morningside Park for a big picnic that turned out rather well.At Columbia, classified war research was halted, the gym was canceled, ROTC left campus, military and CIA recruiting stopped, and (not that anybody asked for it) the Senate was established. Robert Kennedy, the antiwar presidential candidate, was killed in June 1968, and later that month the French uprising was "voted away" in a national referendum. Mexican students and supporters and bystanders were slaughtered wholesale in October, in La Noche de Tlatelolco. Columbia antiwar rallies continued, and large Columbia contingents chartered buses for the huge demonstrations in Washington, of which there were to be far too many -- the war dragged on for another seven years. To this day, I don't know if all the antiwar activities combined had as much affect as the Vietnamese figuring out how to shoot down the American B-52s that were carpet-bombing their cities.
The Cox commission produced a report on the disturbances. Springtime building occupations continued for the next few years, but eventually were replaced by disco. Then came the 80s and 90s: the rich became richer at the expense of everyone else; organized labor was squashed; most real jobs were exported; drugs and greed ruled; social awareness was replaced by political correctness, student activism by ambition, and real work by sitting in front of a PC clicking on investments.
After a semester's suspension and dozens of court appearances (but no hard time -- thanks National Lawyers Guild!), I received my BA in 1970, held a number of odd jobs (taxi driver, etc; nobody pays you to save the world), and eventually wound up back at Columbia getting a graduate degree in computer science and working in what was called the Computer Center, where I still work today. And now, thanks to the Information Age, the Computer Center has been absorbed by the University Library and I suppose that brings us full circle(g).
Afterword
Much can be said (and has been!) about the strike's effects on Columbia University. Of course it hurt the University in many ways -- applications, endowment, contracts & grants, gifts, and so on. It took at least 20 years to fully recover. Perhaps it strengthened the University in other ways, who knows.
Most press accounts of the time focus on the strike leaders, their affiliations and temperaments and hairstyles, but honestly, I don't recall them being a major force, except on the first night when they decided the white students should leave Hamilton Hall. They certainly didn't choreograph the events after that. Actions were either taken spontaneously, or discussed to death by EVERYBODY until consensus was reached, in the manner of the day (and night!). In Low library, leadership meant nothing more than fairly moderating the open discussion and applying Robert's Rules -- a process not nearly as interesting to the media as sound bites from high-profile personalities.
I never felt the strike was motivated primarily by antipathy towards Columbia. After all, students came here voluntarily and received good educations (often obtaining their introduction to radical thought from their own professors) and -- even in those days -- the student body, if not faculty and administration, was among the most diverse anywhere. Community relations were not all bad: many of us were Project Double Discovery counselors or involved in various Columbia-sponsored Harlem community action projects.
Rather, it was a case of students doing the best they could in the place where they were to stop the war in Viet Nam and fight racism at home, just as they hoped others would do in other places: in the streets, factories, offices, other universities, the military itself, the court of world opinion, and finally in the seats of government. Whether this was the best way to do it is debatable, but it is clear that the more polite methods of previous years were not working, and every DAY that passed cost 2000 lives in Southeast Asia. So to the extent that the Columbia strike hastened the end of the war, it was worthwhile. As to racism and community relations, it's not my place to judge.
After-Afterword
Chronology
23 April 1968 Occupation of gym site, occupation of Hamilton Hall 24 April 1968 Occupation of Low Library 26-28 April 1968 Occupation of Math, Avery, Fayerweather 30 April 1968 712 building occupiers and bystanders arrested 6 May 1968 University reopened, students boycott classes 17 May 1968 117 arrested at 114th Street SRO 21 May 1968 138 arrested in "Hamilton II" + bystanders 4 June 1968 Counter-commencement on Low Plaza.
Legend
BPP Black Panther Party CORE Congress Of Racial Equality (then); Columbia Organization of Rising Entrepreneurs (now) IDA Institute for Defense Analyses PL (PLP) Progressive Labor Party ROTC Reserve Officers Training Corps SAS Students Afro-American Society SDS Students for a Democratic Society SNCC Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SRO Single Room Occupancy SWP Socialist Workers Party TPF Tactical Police Force WKCR The Columbia student-run radio station YAWF Youth Against War and Fascism YCL Young Communist League YSA Young Socialist Alliance
Notes
- Publication of the Columbia Librarian issue, Volume XXVII Numbers 1-2, was delayed until Fall-Winter 1999.
- Big demonstrations and other actions in 1967 persuaded Columbia's administration to stop turning over class rank lists to Selective Service, in defiance of US policy, if not law. Fast forward 35 years to when Columbia announced plans to send regular reports about each foreign student to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (not just residence and visa status but also detailed academic information) and not a peep was heard from anybody. In the intervening years Columbia had often refused to provide information such as students' reading preferences to the FBI as a matter of principle, even without student prodding.
- These things are not intrinsically bad; you have to take them in context. For example, see the 1940s section of my Computing at Columbia Timeline. It's one thing to fight Fascism and genocide (if that's what we were doing) but Viet Nam was something else again, and Columbia was tied to the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) which conducted classified war and weapons research for the Pentagon, e.g. on the "automated battlefield" and defoliation. Six weeks prior to the Columbia strike, a petition bearing nearly 2000 signatures calling on Columbia to cease classified war research was brought to the President's office; the University responded by placing the students who presented it on disciplinary probation.
- The Times managing editors were also Columbia Trustees.
- Press and photographers were allowed into the President's office the first day, when it was messy, and this was the only view the public had (most famously from the May 10th Life issue). The mainstream press was barred after that because of their fixation on silliness, like the student who was smoking the President's cigars, rather than the issues of the strike.
- In retrospect, perhaps the leather-clad police were not TPF after all, but a detachment of motorcycle police brought in temporarily until the TPF arrived.
- Nothing lasts forever. In 2005, academic computing was severed from the Libraries and rejoined to administrative computing.
还好，经过了20分钟的折磨，终于成功地自己戴上了。秘诀就是自己在那儿慢慢磨蹭。戴是戴上了，自己拿不下来了。幸亏店里的西班牙裔帅哥拔刀相助，帮我取了出来，好险啊！终于完成了自己戴三次的练习，好开心。这么多年来，第一次不用戴眼镜就看得这么清晰，我感觉自己是二郎神附体，孙悟空再世，一双火眼晶晶，恨不得立刻就飞出去拯救世界。我纳闷儿，哈利波特大为什么不配隐形眼镜，他要是在除魔的时候戴上隐形眼镜，保证事半功倍。
昨天晚上和花猫的妈妈辩论现在为什么小孩子喜欢写博客和看博客。我啊，搜肠刮肚把能想到的溢美之词都献给了博客，还举了桑格格、王三表、黄集伟、老六、北京女病人、醉琴等多位网络著名写手的例子，来讲述文艺性博客、政论性博客、贫嘴博客、自我表达性博客和日记性博客的异同。
最后，花猫的妈叹了口气，“不就是自己肠子里那点破事儿吗，值得费这么大劲儿吗？”值得，值得，我连忙接下茬儿。我接着论证到，博客这个东西和论坛不同，基本上是自留地，大家的干劲可高着呢！我们这种人玩票的人，就是为了写写日记，让朋友知道自己的动向，完全没有自我标榜的意思。回头呢，要是万一，我说可是万一，我一不留神成了名人，也可以方便给我写传记的同学们察看我的历史动向嘛。花猫的妈妈笑了，要是文化大革命再来了呢？你自白书都不用写了，现成的反动言论汇总都呈现在群众雪亮的眼睛面前。苦啊，为什么我总是喜欢看事物/世界光明的一面呢？Too much positive thinking going on!
晚上做梦，梦到老爸。他老是担心我钱不够用，不能自己出书，要给我垫上出版的费用。爸啊，别操心了，您的心意我领了，好好睡吧，我就要回北京看您了。洋酒我也给你带，洋烟我也给你装，洋钱我也带一把，让你也能路路通。
花了五分钟冲进书店，买了一本哈金最新的小说《A Free Live》准备送给David。大略看了一下介绍，讲的是1989年后留学美国的学生的选择。匆忙跑到David的办公室，看见他老人家正襟危坐，完全没有和我出去吃午餐的意思。原来，我把时间搞错了，我们约得是明天。不过，礼物都买了，不好意思再拿回去。双手恭恭敬敬送上，感谢他老人家三年来的照顾，雇用我这样一个笨学生来做助研，费了不少的口舌。David 哈哈大笑，指着我的题词道，这里这里，你又写了一个错别字。诶，当老师也不能这么诲人不倦吧！
到125街附近的小餐馆里就餐，子含爸爸送我的毕业礼物终于被打开了。原来是七福猫！据说，凡是博士毕业的人在日本都会受到这份礼物。七只的小猫代表着财运、福气、人缘、健康等等，是药师堂的作品。我欢天喜地的收下了，连干了两倍house wine，爬上125街地铁楼梯的时候，脚都软了。地铁车站无人，夜里风也不硬，吹着舒服。上城那一边灯火闪烁，好像是天上的街市。下城么，就是那著名的欲望都市，影影绰绰，不甚清晰。
有一搭没一搭地和本猫讨论着李白这个蛮子，如何能用外语写作而达到别人用母语写作都达不到的高度。结论是，他懒！李白懒得吊书袋，喜欢直抒胸臆，不喜欢像汉人一样曲里拐弯地表达自己的感情。我们推测，他平时一定是个磕巴，喝了几杯酒，舌头才直过来，能说汉语。这几杯酒刚刚让他达到微醺的状态，正好用来撒欢儿，纵情文字之中，而又不被传统所束缚。这个痴儿最是性情中人，真不枉他喝了那些上好的美酒。
人生得意须尽欢，莫使金樽空对月。
天生我材必有用，千金散尽还复来。
烹羊宰牛且为乐，会须一饮三百杯。
Hasmik Papian的Norma 是大都会的招牌，这个来自于亚美尼亚的大明星把诺玛由爱生恨，爱恨交织的心态刻画的入木三分。表面上看，故事在讲一个有权利的女人在爱和责任之间的挣扎，其实，女人么，太容易因为情感而堕落，而且又是为了那么不值得的人。如果Pollione 爱她，仿佛世界就焕然一新；如果他抛弃她另结新欢，世界就不值得存在，就这个水平的智慧还能担当女祭司，难怪他们的民族要被罗马人征服了。故事的结局太过讨好，在死亡面前，旧情人幡然悔悟，重投诺玛的怀抱，两个人拥抱着登上死亡之旅，这个结尾是在有点俗套。固然不是每个女人都能像Electrica那样决绝，但是那个男人有什么值得挽回的呢？反对罗马帝国统治的大局在前，不奋勇拼搏，却执著于男女之间的那点破事儿，这样的角色恐怕不怎么讨好。
好在贝利尼妙笔生花，用浓墨重彩把诺玛感情的极度转换写得如泣如诉，此剧堪称是bel canto传统中的经典。Hasmik在高音区的自由游弋在第一幕的“Casta diva”和第二幕的“Teneri, teneri figli”中得到了最好的体现。
一个没有信仰的人犯了罪，那些具有道德优越感的人代表社会对他进行了双重审判（French people）。第一重审判是因为他对别人生命的剥夺，这个罪不至于死。第二重审判是因为他对社会基本伦理和道德的蔑视，这个罪威胁着这个社会存在的根本，因此是死罪。我不禁想起《读者》那个故事，什么是审判？什么是社会正义？审判是为了救赎还是惩罚？
小说在最后几页到达了高潮。主人公和牧师进行了冗长的对话。开始，他采取了一贯的无所谓的态度。最后，他终于发作了，把牧师骂得体无完肤。宗教和宗教所许诺的救赎对主人公而言，完全没有任何意义。在生命的尽头，他意识到整个世界的无意义。也是在这里，他终于和自己的母亲取得了和解。 故事在此处嘎然而止，余音绕梁三日不绝。我不禁击节称快。一个人在临终前终于得到了身心的全面解放，终于能够直面必死的命运，还有什么比这更幸福的事？一个弱者终于摆脱了社会所强加给他的桎梏，能够自觉面对自己的行动及其后果，还有什么比这个更能彰显个性的崇高？
如果说《潜水钟和蝴蝶》是一个人对生命的留恋，是一首美轮美奂的挽歌，那么《陌生人》就是对不自觉地、麻木的存在的一个决绝的否定，对于生命彻底的怀疑，一个响亮的嚏喷。这个故事其实并不容易进入，侥幸的是我先看了Without Stopping 和The Sheltering Sky，对本书所描述的人生状态有所准备。奇怪的是，阅读仍然对我产生了很大的影响。有的时候，在地铁摇摇晃晃的车厢里抬起头来，我看到对面的陌生人，突然奇怪自己身在何处，甚至会犹豫着要不要上车或者下车。一个看似无所谓的决定，最终会根本地改变一个人生命的方向，这个想法我无论如何也摆脱不掉。
和安娜在路易斯威勒小城里闲逛。中南部的小城，到处是衰败的景象。所谓的艺术区里，有几家古玩店和老家具店，经营者都是guy。午饭后，找到一个玻璃作坊，外面太冷，正好到里面暖和一下。两个匠人正在烧一个缂丝玻璃花瓶，炉火熊熊，一团融化的玻璃渐渐地变成了一件精美绝伦的艺术品。玻璃一遇热，变得绵软不堪，匠人们用剪刀就可以把它剪开，然后再随意加以造型。最后定型的时候，一个人拿起小榔头轻轻一敲，一声脆响，瓶口应声而断，一个花瓶就诞生了。
我跟安娜讲起了《陌生人》，安娜大惊，怎么这个年纪才看？那个可是卡缪的名著！卡缪，原来他就是卡缪！大学的时候把他的东西拿来看，总是看不进去，误打误撞，现在和他撞了个满怀。哈哈，人生何处不相逢？我在2007年碰到了1946年的故人。阿瑟米勒昨日去世，什么时候也要把他的书找来看看。
