Johnsons JAHRESTAGE - Der Kommentar

Seite/Zeile(n)	Datum/Text
	05. Januar 1968

551, 26-35	Die wöchentliche Zählung ... Getöteten auf 15997 - Vgl. den Artikel »Foe’s Loss at 359 In Queson Battle« der NYT vom 5.1.1968: »The weekly summary of casualties listed 185 Americans, 227 South Vietnamese and 37 other allied servicemen killed in action last week. [...] American and other non-Vietnamese forces reported killing a total of 623 enemy soldiers;the total reported killed by the South Vietnamese was 815.[...] American losses through Dec. 30 brought the death toll for 1967 to 9,353 and the total killed in the war to 15,997.« s.K. 110, 17f.
552, 1-13	»In einem 90minütigen ... und 18 Raketenwerfer.« - Unter der Überschrift »Foe’s Loss at 359 In Queson Battle« heißt es in der NYT vom 5.1.1968: »Six members of a 25th Infantry Division were killed and 13 wounded yesterday in a 90-minute skirmish only 14 miles from Saigon. A few hours later 4 other Americans were killed and 21 wounded when their positions were mistakenly bombed by American and Vietnamese planes. The 25th Division again raised, to 382, the enemy death toll from its battle Monday 60 miles north of Saigon. Troops searching the jungle near the artillery base that elements of the Vietcong 271st and 272nd Regiments tried to overrun found 75 automatic rifles, 11 light machine guns and 18 rocket launchers.«
552, 14	(c) by the ... York Times Company - s.K. 116, 25.
552, 15-21	»Das Verteidigungsministerium wird ... 1, Spalte 4.)« - Unter der Kurzfassung auf der Titelseite »Major Events of the Day« der NYT vom 5.1.1968 steht: »The Defense Department will continue selling great quantities of arms abroad to fight the gold drain. Pentagon sources said that the sales were expected to reach a combined total of a least $4,5 billion to $4,6 billion over this at the next two fiscal years. [1:4]«
552, 17	Pentagons - s.K. 24, 17.
552, 23- 554, 24	»Newark, 4. Januar ... will be filed.« - Vgl. den Artikel »LeRoi Jones Jailed for 2½ to 3 Years On Gun Charge« der NYT vom 5.1.1968: »Newark, Jan. 4. - LeRoi Jones, the militant Negro writer, was sentenced today to two and a half to three years in the New Jersey State Penitentiary and fined $1,000 for illegal possession of two revolvers during the Newark riots last summer. The sentence was virtually the maximum - it could have been three years - and allows no probation. It was handed down by Essex County Judge Leon W. Kapp after he said one could suspect that the 34-year-old poet and playwright was ›a participant in formulating a plot‹ to burn Newark on the night he was arrested. The riots, in which 28 persons died, lasted five days. [...] The judge indicated that he based the severity of Jones's punishment to large extent on a poem published last month in ›Evergreen Review,‹ a monthly magazine. He read the poem in the courtroom this morning, substituting the word ›Blank‹ for what he terms ›obscenities‹. Addressed to the ›Black People‹ the poem, as read by the judge, listed the merchandise in some of the city's larger department stores and in the smaller ›joosh enterprises‹ and continued in part: All the stores will open if you will say the magic words. The magic words are: Up against the wall mother blank this is a stickup! Or: Smash the window at night (these are magic actions) smash the windows daytime, anytime, together, let’s smash the windows drag the blank from in there. No money down. No time to pay. Just take what you want. The magic dance in the street. Run up and down Broad Street niggers, take the blank you want. Take their lives if need be, but get what you want, what you need. Dressed in a striped African tunic and wearing a small red cap at the back of his head, Jones stood with his hands behind his back and laughed frequently while Judge Kapp read the poem. Several times, however, he interrupted the sentencing statement. When the judge said, ›You are sick and require medical attention,‹ Jones replied: ›Not as sick as you are.‹ And when the judge noted that the prisoner, who has been free on $25,000 bail, had failed to appear several times for recommended examinations by the county psychiatrist, the writer interrupted: ›Who needs treatment himself‹. After Irvin B. Booker, Jones's lawyer, had appealed for a probationary sentence and a nominal fine, the playwright was permitted to make a statement. He rose and told the judge: ›You are not a righteous person, and you don't represent Almighty God. You represent a crumbling structure ... ‹ ›Sit down!‹ shouted the judge, loudly rapping his gavel. At one point, after the sentences had been pronounced a tall, slender Negro teen-ager among the spectators rose to protest. When he failed to respond quickly enough to an order to sit down, he was ushered out of court by several attendants. ›They're going to beat him,‹ cried Mrs. Sylvia Jones, the writer's wife. Mrs. Jones, who was holding their 7-month-old baby, was taken from the room. As Jones was being led from the courtroom, he called back over his shoulder, ›The black people will judge me‹. [...] Both Mr. Booker and Israel Mischel, the lawyer for McCroy and Wyna, said, that an appeal to the Appellate Division of the State Superior Court would [sic] be filed.« LeRoi Jones wurde zu 2½ bis 3 Jahren Gefangnis wegen illegalen Waffenbesitzes verurteilt. Johnson ubersetzt den Text fast wortlich, er last drei Absatze uber zwei Mitangeklagte und zwei Zeilen des Gedichts aus; s.K. 219, 7; 586, 20; s. 846, 24-26.
552, 27	Aufstände in New Jersey - s.K. 9, 6f.
553, 3f.	Monatszeitschrift Evergreen Review - Anspruchsvolle Zeitschrift für internationale moderne Literatur, Hg. Barney Rosset, die u.a. Texte von Beckett, Dery, Grass veröffentlichte.
553, 8	›Schwarzes Volk!‹ - Titel des Gedichts von LeRoi Jones, »Black People!«; s.K. 553, 12-27.
553, 12-27	Alle Geschäfte werden ... was ihr braucht - LeRoi Jones’ politisches Gedicht »Black People!« stand im Dezemberheft 1967 der »Evergreen Review« (Vol. 11, Nr. 50, S. 49). Johnson benutzt für seine Übersetzung die Fassung der NYT vom 5.1.1968 und läßt zwei Zeilen aus. Die NYT hatte außer einem veränderten Zeilenbruch einige obszöne Begriffe - not fit to print - durch das Wort »blank« (engl.) »leer, unbeschrieben« im Sinne von »Leerstelle« ersetzt. Der entsprechende Text in der »Evergreen Review« lautete: »All the stores will open if you will say the magic words. The magic words are: Up against the wall mother fucker this is a stickup! Or: Smash the window at night (these are magic actions) smash the windows daytime, anytime, together, let’s smash the windows drag the shit from in there. No money down. No time to pay. Just take what you want. The magic dance in the street. Run up and down Broad Street niggers, take the shit you want. Take their lives if need be, but get what you want, what you need.«
553, 16	This is a stickup - (amerik. Slang) Das ist ein Überfall!
554, 24	... will be filed - (engl.) hier: wird eingelegt werden.