Petry is right about the title, but I don't know if GL was ever a member of the SPD. He was bodily thrown out at the Congress of the 2nd International, when he attacked August Bebel, calling him a liar, unless Petry refers to the time when GL was with the jUNGE.

Your "Why I am an Anarchist' I read first, and boy, did I enjoy it! You stiched off a yarn of happenings, events, Ideas, people, whose interaction shaped society and attitudes and the person which you are. the modern Anarchist, you so skillfully reveal.

BR should be both Anarchist and Literary_ Keep printing Poetry of the new and young, as well as the Ginsbergs. This will give you prestige. With social criticism BR should also print literary criticism. It should be a platform for constructive and creative rebellion in every human field.

So! Sock-Em and Rock-Em with (A) greetings.

Jack Frager New York City

Dear Black Rose,

I have read your first two issues and would like to comment. I enjoyed reading the magazine. It is fun and has a-comfortable look and size. I do have two quibbles.

First, on page 35 in the first issue in the interview with Juan Goytisolo you refer to Camp de L'Arpa as a Spanish literary magazine. Camp de L'Arpa appears to be a Catalan not a Spanish title: Perhaps the magazine has a Catalan title and Spanish contents. I do not know. I have never seen it. In any case you appear either oblivious or callous toward those Spanish citizens who hope to maintain a vibrant and autonomous Catalan culture. As editors and writers obviously sympathetic toward anarchism I urge you to investigate the many nationalist and local ist revivals throughout the world and especially in Europe. Nonstate nationalisms provide the possibility of smaller more democratic com munities as alternatives to the large centralized states. A revived Catalonia encompassing both Spanish Catalonia and French Roussillon should be preferable for anarchists to the sprawling centralized oligarchic Spanish and French states.

A magazine like yours should be discussing the European nationalist revival because if you don't you will be abdicating the discussion to several doubtful political tendencies. Reformist liberals like Servan-Schreiber have been very favorable to the various national revivals in France because they see them as a possible way to rationalize both political power and economic markets in Europe in the context of a stronger and more centralized Common Market. Extreme rightists have always been attracted to localism. Charles Maurras began as a disciple of Frederic Mistral, the founder of the Occitan revival.

There are in Europe nationalist movements and writers with ideas with which you and your readers would be sympathetic. Catalonian leftists have discussed the relationship between nuclear power and modern technology on the one hand, and the cultural policies of the modern state on the other. Occitans have used their troubador heritage to support the feminist movements in new ways. Of course you do not have to discuss the nationalist cultural revivals in Europe. Please, however. do not accept the arguments of the centralized states that these cultures do not exist When you use a Catalan word, identify it as Catalan, not Spanish. Catalan is an independent language not a dialect of Spanish. Occitan is an independent language, not a dialect of French.

Second, in Hess's review of Hess in the second issue, he says his neighborhood is a good one. It is good, he claims. because it is white and not poor. This statement is casually racist. Is racial composition of a neighborhood what makes it good or had? Are white neighbors better than black? My experience has not supported that assumption. The same can be said for his automatic derogation of the poor. I raise the matter not because I think that Hess is a racist or anti-poor but because i think he is neither.

BS Levine Hamden, Connecticut

EDITOR'S REPLY—Hess's comments refer to the media image of what constitutes a "good neighborhood'', (i.e. not-black, not-poor) not his own definition. The problems in his supposedly "good" neighborhood must then stem from some other cause than racial or economic oppression— this is his point.

You were right, Camp de l'Arpa is a Catalan title, but the contents are not in Catalan. In any case you raise an interesting and timely issue, one which traditional anarchism has not addressed. Perhaps one of our readers will be moved to submit an article on this or a similar issue.