Suits and Ladders

Abstract

In November of 1967 a graduate student assistant reached up to grab the cord on the window shade and pulled it down to block out the Manhattan daylight, tinged silver with the approach of winter. The conference room on the fifth floor of the American Museum of Natural History went dark. Most of the people sitting, waiting, in the room were scientists, researchers, and assistants from the departments of mammalogy and anthropology; the others included some wire service reporters. Some were impatient, some preoccupied with the work they had left in order to come to this meeting, others thinking of the rapidly approaching Thanksgiving holiday, others finishing what was left of their lunch. A man threaded a roll of 16mm film into the projector that sat on a table in the back of the room. The group had been rather awfully assembled to see this bit of film.

This, I must warn you, is a very hairy subject.

Ivan Sanderson