Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts, Number 5, Volume 8

Tags: Al Fowler, Al Katzman, Bill Fritsch, Carol Berge, Claude Pelieu, Ed Sanders, Elise Cowan, Gerard Malanga, Gregory Corso, Harry Fainlight, John Francis Putnam, John Keys, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Leroi Jones, Michael McClure, Nancy Ellison, Nelson Barr, Robert Kaye, Ronnie Tavel, Vincent Ferrini, William Burroughs

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Quite a while back, a heartbroken bookseller offered me a copy of the Mad Motherfucker issue of Fuck You, a magazine of the Arts with the Couch cover for $35. Now realize the bookseller was distraught not crazy. When I received the mag in the mail, I could understand his disappointment. On first glance, it was like a giant zit on the Mona Lisa — the Warhol cover was ripped. In addition the once-tight frame had gone to seed, as the body of the magazine was de-stapled and incomplete. For example, the centerpiece of this issue, Auden’s “The Platonic Blow,” was missing. Still I happily paid the $35 for the Couch cover, which even torn was better than nothing. I could always upgrade, right? As it turned out, easier said than done. Fine copies of the issue with the cover attached have become prohibitively expensive, reaching ever higher into the lower four figures.

After I bought it, I scanned the covers and then packed the battered corpse into an archival coffin — where it lay until now. I was sitting this weekend in the pre-dawn, smoking and waiting for the sun to come up, when it came to me out of the fog: Why the hell haven’t I scanned the rest of the issue, warts and all? Reading as I scanned it, I am really glad I finally woke up. Like a fresh, young starlet turned barfly, glimpses of past glory flash from the opened face of the Mad Motherfucker despite years of abuse. The issue remains, even in this damaged and incomplete state, a truly magnificent example of mimeo publication. Over the years I have read quite a bit of Fuck You Press’ output, and I’ll be the first to admit it is equal parts good, bad and ugly. Nevertheless, above and beyond all else, what stands out are the paratexts: the editorial comments, the notes on contributors, the bibliographic asides, the glyph work and illustration. This stuff, the lifeblood of Fuck You Press, is pure Ed Sanders genius. So feed your head on this glorious mess of a magazine.

What is painfully obvious to me is that a complete reprint of Fuck You magazine is sorely needed. Clearly, the time is ripe. The Fuck You Press Archive has proven to be one of the top eyeball catchers on RealityStudio, second only to the Kurt Cobain / William Burroughs dossier. The publication of In Numbers and an upcoming MIT press book on artists’ magazines highlights the fact that interest is there and growing. I look forward to what seems to be an onslaught of critical work on little magazines and the Mimeo Revolution, but, let me tell you, reading about Fuck You is not enough. People need to get access to the magazine itself. Here is a taste. You’ll be hooked.  

On a complete reprint, the question remains: How to do it? The Internet is one option, an option that RealityStudio has fully explored with Jeff Nuttall’s My Own Mag, C Press’s Time, several of Charlie Plymell’s publications, and individual issues of a handful of important little magazines. I love this approach because of its populist nature. It is an open buffet for people to graze as they see fit. But I cannot help but wonder if the prestige of print would have shown My Own Mag, in particular, to greater effect. A hardcover edition forces critics and scholars to comment on its existence and get a discussion going, which personally I desire for this neglected masterwork. To me, it is one of the highpoints of William Burroughs’ career and, of course, the Mimeo Revolution generally. Why I don’t feel that it is enough simply to admire it, I have not fully gotten to the bottom of. But I feel compelled to push this intoxicating publication on everybody. For those who are not interested, in the words of Nancy Reagan, “Just say no,” but I can only say it will make you feel good.

So I wonder, even as we hear daily of the death of print, if hard copy is not the way to go for little magazine reprints. For me, the prototype for such a reprint is the Laurence McGilvery publication of Floating Bear from 1973: a full reprint, an introduction, a complete index of each issue, and footnotes full of information on the contributors and their contributions. Obviously, I would love to see this for Fuck You — Ted Berrigan’s C: A Journal of the Arts also comes immediately to mind as a little magazine desperately in need of a serious reprint — but I would cream my jeans to see a complete version of Jack Spicer’s J or, even better, Dan Saxon’s Le Metro and Les Deux Magots mimeos, as these magazines are close to impossible to assemble on the rare book market. This is not just a question of finances; they are, quite simply, not available. Single issues of these magazines are few and far between, and full runs just do not exist, even in institutions. An institution such NYU, Columbia, or the New York Public Library, just to name those in New York City, would have to step up and offer their magazines for scanning. Not an unreasonable request in my opinion and one that would bring attention to the library’s special collections and their educational value.

Let’s move on to the question of who would scan such rarities. A quick look through the news will tell you that public and university libraries are in deep trouble. They cannot adequately preserve their holdings let alone promote and utilize them. I do not know if the project would be profitable for a commercial publisher. There is always the university and academic press, but I would not mind going back to the Floating Bear reprint as a model. I would like to see a return of the rare bookseller as publisher. Once upon a time, booksellers did not just sell books; they printed them. The Wilentz Brothers’ 8th Street Bookshop and their Corinth Books are my favorite example with chapbooks by Leroi Jones, Jack Kerouac, Philip Whalen, Frank O’Hara, and others. As the McGilvery Floating Bear shows, bookstores also printed reference books. For the past four or five years, I have heard rumblings from various booksellers about issuing a chapbook of some sort or another. Nothing has been released yet, but the interest is there.

What if NYU or UCONN gave Dan Gregory of Between the Covers access to a complete run of Fuck You to photograph? What if the institution or Sanders threw in mock-ups and stencils of the issues? Let’s go crazy and add correspondence related to the magazine’s day-to-day operations, distribution, and reception. Bear with me as I go even further: What if Ed Sanders wrote a lengthy introduction and provided bibliographic and biographic details on the contents and contributors of each issue? What if there were essays on all aspects of the magazine — the mimeograph machines used to print it; how the technology, the ink, and the paper all influenced the design of the magazine; behind-the-scenes information on certain iconic contributions, like Auden’s gobblefest or Nelson Barr’s flowery prose and poems. What if…? Well, shit, that would be one Mad Motherfucker of a publication and I would buy it in a second. I can dream, can’t I? But for now, there is RealityStudio and a quickie version of the Mad Motherfucker issue. Coitus interruptus, for sure, but at least you can get your tip wet and your appetite for more whetted.

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts

Number 5, Volume 8