Having One for Che.(The Talk of the Town)(Che Guevara)

The fortieth anniversary of Che Guevara's death went by quietly last week, unless you count a party at the Brecht Forum, in the West Village, where a skirmish erupted between the organizers over mojito pricing. Colin Robinson, a Brecht Forum board member and an editor at Scribner, found himself on the losing side of a philosophical rift. "I told them, 'When we sell the drinks, let's sell them at decent prices, so we break even,' " said Robinson, who, in 1995, published Che Guevara's "Motorcycle Diaries" and will publish Fidel Castro's dictated autobiography this December. "They said, 'But people can't afford decent prices!' So we ended up just giving away the mojitos for free and asking for donations."

The party--billed on the invitation as "The political event of the season! An evening of art, music, film, and revolution!"--was meant to attract a more age-diverse crowd than the typical weeknight at the Brecht Forum (upcoming: New Strategies for Today's Labor). "I think the spirit of young people connects to Che," Robinson said. "Even if it's just an image on a T-shirt." Guests ate cheese cubes and browsed among tchotchkes for sale. "These shirts are one-of-a-kind right now," said a representative from a political prisoners' group, pointing to a line of clothing called Panther S'port--athletic jerseys imprinted with the names of imprisoned Black Panthers ("Bobby Seale 66"). He thumbed through the Che offerings: a seventy-five-dollar sweatshirt with a Chanel-like interlocking "C" and "G," a Che polo shirt, and a thirty-five-dollar T-shirt that tweaked the Starbucks logo: "Careful, Che's message you're about to enjoy is extremely hot!" "The idea is to put more marketable things out there--things that people recognize--and to politicize them," he said.

A group from the newly revived Students for a Democratic Society was outside, smoking. "They have a lot of stuff that seems pretty nice," one said. "We go to everyone's events and they come to all of ours. Our organization's not hierarchical." He'd passed on the merchandise. "I already own a Che shirt."

At seven-thirty, the partygoers gathered in an auditorium to hear from the new guard of Che admirers, including Chesa Boudin, the twenty-seven-year-old son of Kathy Boudin, who was jailed after serving as an accomplice in the ...