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21.
MIDPENINSULA FREE UNIVERSITY. A broken run of 16 issues of The Free You: a forum and news medium of the Midpeninsula Free University:
i) Vol. 2, #11 (July 1968); ii) Vol. 2, #14 (September 1968); iii) Vol. 2, #16 (October 1968); iv) Vol. 3, #1 (January 1969); v) Vol. 3, #6 (May 1969); vi) Vol. 3, #8 (July 1969); vii) Vol. 3, #12 (October 1969); viii) Vol. 4, #2 (February 1970); ix) Vol. 4, #6 (April-May 1970); x) Vol. 4, #10 (May 26, 1970); xi) Vol. 4, #11 (June 2, 1970); xii) #? (July 1970 - volume numbering stopped with this issue); xiii) #15 (August 19, 1970); xiv) #22 (October 7, 1970); xv) #25 (October 28, 1970); xvi) #26 (November 4, 1970); together with two early, pre-Free You mimeographed MFU newsletters (#2 & 3) from Fall 1967.
Formats and pagination vary. Initially quarto, stapled wrps. (12pp.- 68pp.), then folded tabloid newspaper format from Vol. 4, #10 on (12pp.-24pp.). Illustrated throughout with photographs, drawings and cartoons (some colour). Early issues assembled and published in Menlo Park using an IBM Selectric Composer and distributed free via Kepler’s Bookstore, record shops, the Whole Earth Truck Store, and elsewhere. Edited by Fred Nelson, Ed McClanahan, Jon Buckley and Gurney Norman, and later by a larger editorial group who took over during the fourth volume following the MFU’s change of leadership.
The Free You was an open forum that encouraged free expression, reflected the diversity of the local community, and accepted submissions of articles, stories, poetry or other pieces of work from anyone, with minimal editing by the staff. It also published reprints (for example from The Palo Alto Times and The Realist, even Alan Coren from Punch [in Vol. 2, #14]), recipes, humour, travel pieces, and original work by established writers, including, as here, Thom Gunn and Wendell Berry (Vol. 3, #8), Ken Kesey (Vol. 4, #2 and #6), and Robert Stone (“Kesey on the lam” in Vol. 4, #6). Berry also provided the magazine’s masthead motto: “One lord, One faith, One Cornbread”.
The magazine was widely distributed outside its membership and flourished as the public voice of the MFU from 1968 to 1970. Later, in May 1970, as content grew more politically militant following the change of MFU leadership, the format changed to tabloid newspaper. Numbering was dropped in July 1970, and by February 1971 it had ceased to exist, as would, a few months later, the MFU itself.
Featured in the run here are excerpts from a speech given by Timothy Leary during the MFU’s 9-hour Be-In in El Camino Park in June 1968 (titled “Excerpts from Tim Leary”, and later reprinted in the Ann Arbor Sun in September 1968, the text is unrecorded by Leary’s bibliographers). In his speech Leary celebrated the “holy seeds” planted around Palo Alto and Menlo Park, among them Eric Nord (“King of the Beatniks”), Joan Baez (who participated in her first protest while attending Palo Alto High School in 1958), Dave Harris (peace activist who married Baez in 1968), Ken Kesey, and Eldridge Cleaver, who also spoke at the event. A short report on the Be-In by Ed McClanahan appears on the opposite page.
Also included is a lengthy text on marijuana; extensive coverage of the Lytton Plaza busts and subsequent trial (beginning in the summer of 1968, student rallies and concerts were held regularly in Lytton Plaza, which was located across the street from the Lytton Savings Bank, culminating in mass arrests by the police); news of Robbie Basho’s MFU benefit concert on October 19, 1968; columns on astrology by sexologist and Gay rights activist, Gavin Arthur; Gurney Norman on Sun Ra (2pp.); a lengthy interview with three MFU coordinators, Vic Lovell, Kim Woodard and Robert Cullenbine; news of MFU courses, Gestalt workshops, etc.; Fred Nelson on “Liferaft Earth” (Stewart Brand and Hugh Romney’s ‘happening’, with photos of both); “Organic Gardening for Surburbanites” by Gurney Norman; reports on recent Be-Ins; an extensive interview with new MFU coordinator, John Dolly; “Buddha on my Shoulder” by Baba Ram Dass (8pp.), including an interview section; Herbert Marcuse (“There’s Nothing New in History”); Lew Welch (“Crack At The Bottom Of It”, reprinted from The Realist/Digger Papers); news on the women’s movement; support for the Soledad Brothers; articles on the Weather Underground; a centrespread printing the White Panther 10 Point Program (July 1970); Angela Davis; the Venceremos (a multicultural Maoist/Communist revolutionary brigade who named Lytton Plaza the “People’s Plaza” and encouraged their membership to bring weapons to “fight the pigs”); how to chop a Harley; an obituary for Janis Joplin; the New York trial of the Panther 21; gun control laws; an interview with incarcerated Black Panther, Shellie Bursey; a community bulletin board; occasional book and record reviews; ads. for the Sexual Freedom League and the Modern Sex Institute, local boutiques, book and record stores; more.
Also included here are two early MFU Newsletters, edited by Jim Warren, numbered #2 (4 legal-size sheets) and #3 (one legal-size sheet), both dated Fall 1967 and pre-dating The Free You, which began in 1968. Contents include news of the storefront found for the MFU in Menlo Park; a section on Synanon and the Synanon Game; and a critique of the traditional university.
Split at tail of spine to Vol. 3, #1; some age-toning to tabloid newspapers (#26 slightly worn); o/w all items Very Good or better. Individual issues of The Free You appear for sale occasionally, but rarely, as here, in an extensive run.
(16 issues + 2 newsletters).
