CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Vol. 5, NO. 2 SATISFYING BUT HOT FILLING SUmmOP 1983 STAFF EDITORIAL CONTENTS Co-Editors Lenny Dee Peggy Lindquist David Milholland Jim Blashfield Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistant David Milholland Proofreader Stan Sitnick Camerawork Paul Diener Ad Production Peggy Lindquist Stacey Fletcher Ad Sales Linda Ballantine David Clifton Public Interest Marketing Typesetting Archetype Irish Setter Contributing Artists Lynda Barry Dana Hoyle Sa/ise Hughes Liza Jones Contributing Photographer Eric Edwards Thanks Lumiel Dodd Ike Horn John Keister Paul Loeb Doug Milholland A l Schwartz Charlotte Uris International Attache Pippo Lion! Advertisers please call 367-0460 322-8711 Fall Deadlines Copy Aug. 15 Advertising Aug. 23 Parraxtut. It’s a small village in Guatemala, only recently accessible by motor vehicle. Parraxtut (pronounced Pa-rah-shtoot) is situated on a ridge high up on the slopes of the Cuchumatanes Mountains in northern Quiche province. During the period 1968- 70 ,1worked in the neighboring community of Aguacat^n, and often found myself walking to or through Parraxtut, drawn there both by its beauty and its isolation. Like most Indian communities off the beaten track, the people were shy but friendly, often startled to see a “tall” Gringo striding by. The entire setting was so pastoral as to seem part of another century. People in Parraxtut grow subsistence crops, along with a bit o f onions and garlic for cash. The plots are small, and most families are forced by necessity, once or twice a year, to travel to Guatemala’s South Coast to work for a large coffee or cotton plantation. Labor conditions there are miserable, wages are sub-minimal and disease is rampant. But the money earned enables them to squeeze by from year to year. Often I would arrive to find only older women and children about, the rest of the villagers working away from home. This same cycle has occurred for generations. Then last year disaster struck Parraxtut. Four days before Christmas, with most families reunited at home, a group of Guatemalan army vehicles arrived in Parraxtut, undoubtedly prompted by reports of guerrilla activity in the area. Soldiers of “moderate" President Efrain Rios Montt ordered all residents into the village square. The army officers in charge then ordered the men from a nearby village, Chiul, who had been forceably marched to Parraxtut, to “prove their masculinity” by killing all the men from Parraxtut. They likely had little choice in the matter. After the killings, the army officers divided up the women, executing the older ones, sparing the younger to be raped before their deaths. Many of the children managed to escape, though some were wounded while trying and others died of exposure while in hiding. The men from Chiul, having committed the blood massacre, were finally allowed to return home, to the astonishment of their fellow villagers, who assumed they too were dead. This astonishing incident, uncovered by the human rights group of America Watch, and recently reported in The New York Review of Books, has never crossed the wires of AP or UPI. It's another instance of the silence we hear from the so-called Third World, unless a war has attained front-page status. And it ’s not the first case of hundreds of civilians being slain in Guatemala without a whisper being uttered. Compare this to the recent slaying of the “first American casualty” (somehow the nuns have been forgotten) in El Salvador. The wires dripped blood for several days, as i f the man had died to save us all from something. But hearing of such events matters little unless we realize our common humanity. For those in positions of power, be it in the Kremlin or the White House, the Par- raxtuts of this world are simply pawns in a much larger game. General Rios Montt, who suddenly came to power with our government’s blessing, has once again initiated the reign of terror that has defined Guatemalan life since the mid-Sixties. Our President, searching for anchors as Central America comes undone, continues to whitewash the Guatemalan situation, hoping to reopen the arms and aid floodgates despite the potential consequences. We urge you to let him and your elected representatives know how you stand on this issue. DM Cover Steve Winkenwerder Beyond the Cold War E.P. Thompson ........................ 4 Depo Provera Another Shot at Birth Control Mary D ea to n ................................ 8 First Japan Poem Harvey S t e in ............................ 10 Mal Waldron and Company Lynn D a r ro c h .......................... 14 The Apocrypha of C.T. Chew James G. F a r le y ...................... 19 A Scene from the Late Artozoic C.T. C h e w ................................ 20 Ashglow Lisa Kinoshita . . ........................ 22 Pain’s Passion Peter Watkins’ Icy Fire Penny Allen ................................31 What the Hell! Let’s Go to France Lynda Barry ............................ 38 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202, (503) 222-6039. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © 1983 Clinton St. Quarterly. The Clinton St. Quarterly’s Seattle office is at 1520 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101. AWARDS AND APOLOGIES The Clinton St. Quarterly is proud and pained. We win some; we lose some. On a positive note, for the th ird straight year we emerged from the Society of Professional Journa lists ’ Oregon competition for non-daily publications with laurels in hand. Our winners include: Illustration: 1st Stephen Leflar “ Post Conservative America’ 2nd Mary Robbens Cover, Summer issue 3rd Mary Robbens “ The K illing o f Big Isaac” Art Reporting and Criticism: 1st Penny Allen “ Henk Pander” 2nd Lynn Darroch “ Bright Moments” 3rd Iphano Blair “ Bruno Loewenberg Personalities: 1st Penny Allen Environmental Reporting: 2nd Stephen Dodge, Jim Johnson & Stan Kahn “ Brice Lalonde” “ Garbage: The Burning Issue” FORK O O V E R ^ WE’LLTAKEYOU FORARIDE! Hop on for the CSQ subscription drive. We’re off to points unknown, a full year (4 issues) of guaranteed excitement, thrills and spills at very reasonable rates. Bring along a friend, as many friends as you like. Here’s how you join us. Just write down your nameand address (with zip) on a sheet of paper, and then add on all those friends you want along for the ride. Now grab your checkbook and tally it up K .. only $5 per person. Mail it off today to: N y CSQ W . J ( 1520WesternAvenue W . ] r \ Seattle, WA98101 On the f lip side, apologies are owed to Kent Dickson, who illus tra ted the “ Trojan Holiday” story (his name was misspelled); to Jamey Stallings, whose photos accompanied the artic le “ Nicaragua — Before and A f te r ” (his name was omitted); and fo r the fo llow ing m issing acknowledgement fo r use o f the poem “Sonnet” : Copyright © 1976 by Stanley Plumly. F irst pub lished by The Ecco Press in 1977. Reprinted by permission. A tip of the hat to one and all. ■ r P.S. We’ll send you two tickets to The Egyptian / /for each and every $5 subscription you send * our way. It’s our way of saying thank you and F z your way of saving mucho dinero. Clinton St. Quarterly 3
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