By the end of the second Day of Rage, Chicago was still there. The Weatherman publicity man had left town, and their nicely structured itinerary was shot to hell. Their withdrawal in search of tactics, oddly enough, became an effective tactic by itself. Perhaps the most important element of music is its silences-the rests between notes. The Weathermen continued to wrench the mind of the press by doing nothing.

Revolutionary logic will always work in a straight-street city-a city of schedules. police reporters with deadlines unable to see beyond what is actually happening. There are arrests to be totaled. conditions of victims traced through the various hospitals, statements of. . .

Word goes out that the Weathermen are holding a press conference at the Chicago Sheraton at 10 Thursday night.

There is a golden shield with crossed swords and lions behind the empty chairs awaiting the Weathermen. There are four sparkling golden candelabras with plastic candle-flames in them. reflected in the baroque loopy swirling mirrors surrounding the room. Television mikes are poking out from the fireplace like so much kindling. Five large television cameras are digging into the rug. Talking floats in the air like the cigarette smoke, making no recognizable pattern.

"What are you doing back from Israel?"

"See if we get any noise . . . (sound men are linked to every television camera like air supplies).

"There'll be no tape recorders here. . ."

Which makes quite a few people grin. There seven tape recorders wrapped in leather on the table. A pitcher of water appears on the table, matching all the glass ashtrays. the glasses. Forty men. wearing ties, fill the room.

It is ten after ten. The Weathermen are late to their own press conference.

"Who called this press conference?" someone is asking.

The void in news has been putting each reporter on edge for ten hours. The a.m. deadlines had drifted by with no news events to write about their stories were of the settling smoke.

Now they were all together.

Twenty after ten.

A photographer plucks a gas mask from under the chair of one of the city reporters who has a seat nearest the empty chairs. The photographer hands if to the reporter and suddenly everyone in the room has something to focus on-something is happening. The reporter passes it off to a black reporter next to him.

"Put your gas mask on, too. ?. Yeah, hold still ?. With or with out? With." Click.