Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

In the wake of the Fuck You Press Cockatrices article, I have been hoping for some inside poop to drop into my mailbox. No such luck so far, but I did call James Musser of Skyline Books in order to purchase Ed Sanders’ Catalog #2. We were shooting the shit on all things Fuck You and he mentioned that he had a few of the items listed almost a decade ago. The story he told was fascinating.

One fine day in Berkeley, Musser got a call from a legendary bookman, Peter Howard of Serendipity Books. Turns out the wife of Bill Beckman dropped off a shopping bag of Fuck You Press items at the store. Bill Beckman? Bill Beckman? It sounded familiar to Musser and then it hit him. A-12(a) in Maynard & Miles: the Fuck You Press edition of APO-33. The bibliography mentions that Bill Beckman obtained a nice copy. I had always thought Beckman bought it from the Phoenix Bookshop, but Beckman, an underground comix artist, did some of the bookbinding for Fuck You limited editions and apparently got a copy straight from Sanders.  

Beckman created Captain High, which was one of the first comix disseminated on a mass level (by the East Village Other, where Beckman was art director). He was featured in the Peace Eye exhibition on underground comix in 1968. By the late 1960s, Beckman moved out to Bolinas and edited The Bolinas Hit, which ran for two issues, with Jim Brodey and Tom Clark in 1969. Kevin Opstedal in his history of the literary community in Bolinas has this to say about Beckman and The Hit:

Another New York refugee in Bolinas at this time was underground comics pioneer and cofounder of the East Village Other, Bill Beckman. He and his family were renting space in a building called the “Cliffhouse,” on the mesa, until they could find more permanent accommodations. Beckman wasted little time before making his presence in Bolinas known via the publication of a crazy little production called The Bolinas Hit. 

The bastard dream-child of Bill Beckman, The Bolinas Hit was a magazine / tabloid publication consisting of eight pages of pure anarchy. The first issue (May 1, 1969) carried a cover photo of two men, pictured from the waist down, dressed in some sort of military or police uniform, complete with jackboots. One man is kneeing the other in the groin. Inset is the following quote attributed (via Frank O’Hara) to Franz Kline: “To be right is the most terrific personal state that nobody is interested in.” The Hit contained poems, a procedure for the manufacture of LSD, a first-person account of an escape from a Mexican jail, Bill Beckman’s “Laying the Foundation” (first in a four-part series on the sport of card / house building), and a photo of the bloated tongue of a dead whale (“courtesy of the Hit Culinary Corner”).

With a cover price of 25 cents, The Hit was printed by the infamous underground comics publisher Rip Off Press in San Francisco. The staff was listed as follows — Publisher: Bill Beckman, Guest Editor: Tom Clark, Hostage Editor: Jim Brodey. In the second (and last) issue, dated June 1, 1969, the staff was listed as Publisher: Bill Beckman, Guest Editor: Tom Clark, Photography: Tom Goodwin, Artists-in-residence: Bill Oetinger and Gordon Baldwin. The cover of the second issue featured a photo of Bolinas resident Bill DesLoge on Brighton Beach wearing a gorilla mask and holding a sign that read “God is getting pissed.” The issue featured a brief excerpt from Bob Dylan’s Tarantula, poems by Richard Emil Braun, Ron Padgett, John Giorno, David Henderson, Gerard Malanga & Tom Clark, and an article entitled “An Overdose of Hasheesh” reprinted from Popular Science Monthly, February, 1884. 

The Bolinas Hit was an exercise in social and artistic anarchy, with flourishes of dada-inspired goofiness, as demonstrated in the following bit in the Want Ads – 

Wanted VENUSIAN DOG HAIR. Any
amount sufficient. Send details
to Hit, box 242, Bolinas.

It was an inspired and somewhat crazed, totally bohemian, and seriously twisted publication, and in that, a suitable document of Bolinas in 1969.

Sounds a lot like a Fuck You Press publication, don’t it?

Needless to say, Musser found the time to head down to Serendipity. The legendary copy of APO-33 was in the bag as was a wide selection of other Fuck You Press material. Particularly interesting are the ephemera, mostly announcing Fugs events. This supports what Brian Cassidy and I were thinking on our way back from New York City. There are a bunch of handbills out there that remain unaccounted for in bibliographic sources. Musser has been kind enough to allow me to reprint the catalog entries of the rarer items. I have not included those entries which are already in the Fuck You Press Archive. For these new entries, I obviously have no images so, please, if you have any of these, send in a scan. I start off with APO-33 for old times’ sake.

BURROUGHS, William S. Health Bulletin: APO-33 a Metabolic Regulator. NY: Fuck You Press, 1965. 4to. Mimeographed sheets, stapled at the edge. The correct first edition. The legendarily rare Fuck You Press edition of this title published by Ed Sanders who abandoned the project before completion. According to Sanders “maybe as many as ten or twenty” copies were distributed before he halted publication due to Burroughs’ dissatisfaction with the copy he’d received. Maynard and Miles state that “a good early copy was secured by Bill Beckman,” and that is the copy offered here. Bill Beckman was an artist from Texas who designed album covers for The Fugs, and a good friend of Sanders who regularly gave him copies of current Fuck You Press publications. This copy bears Beckman’s ownership signature on the title page. If 10 or 20 copies did exist originally, far fewer have been accounted for. We know of only 3 copies in private hands, NUC and WORLDCAT turn up no copies in institutions (though there is a copy at Northwestern), and we’ve never seen a copy offered for sale. The cover sheet has pulled loose from two staples, else fine with all of the illustrations pasted in. Housed in a handsome clamshell box.

[DRUGS] Handbill announcing a “Marijuana March” in the East Village ca. 1965. Prints a long text about repealing marijuana prohibition. Produced by Ed Sanders using the Fuck You Press mimeo on behalf of LEMAR (an early marijuana reform group). An early pro-legalization item. Staple holes to the left edge, else fine.

[DRUGS] Handbill announcing “Free Marijuana Prisoners” ca. 1965. Prints a text about marijuana arrests. Produced by Ed Sanders using the Fuck You Press mimeo on behalf of LEMAR. An early pro-legalization item. Portions of the text illegible due to mimeo flaw, staple holes to the left edge, else fine.

[THE FUGS] Handbill announcing The Fugs’ first appearance at The Bridge Theatre in Greenwich Village, 1965. “The FUGS! / Folkways recording stars / The Lower East Sides most unbelievable hallucination…rock and roll, folk spews, screams from the fear bag, amphetamine psychodrama, & dope thrill chants.” Goes on to list the band members and songs that will be performed. This gig at The Bridge Theatre was their first at a major venue, preceding their signing with ESP-Disc. Produced by Sanders on the same mimeo machine that he used for the Fuck You Press. Some inoffensive staple holes to left edge, a couple of imperceptible creases, but very nice overall. Rare early Fugs ephemera.

[THE FUGS] Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at The East End Theatre, ca. 1965. “Rock and Roll folk spews, amphetamine operas, dope incantations, including all the legendary Fug hits…” Done by Sanders on the Fuck You Press mimeo machine. Staple holes to the left edge, couple of imperceptible old creases, else fine.

[THE FUGS] Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at The East End Theatre, ca. 1965. “Back by Popular Demand The Fugs! The Most Unbelievable Singing Group in The History of Western Civilization — A Three Day Fug Festival.” “Admission $2.00, students & grass cadets: 99 cents.” Done by Sanders on the Fuck You Press mimeo machine. Staple holes to the left edge, couple of imperceptible old creases, else fine.

[THE FUGS] Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at Ego East on the Lower East Side, ca. 1965. “Freak With the Fugs! The East Side’s Most Infinite Hallucination…” Done by Sanders on the Fuck You Press mimeo machine. Staple holes to the left edge, couple of imperceptible old creases, else fine.

[THE FUGS] Ed Sanders Newsletter, ca. 1966. 2-pages. Sanders recounts his famous obscenity bust at the Peace Eye Booksore where the police confiscated issues of Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts and other material. He also lists the current recordings and appearnces by The Fugs. Short edge tear to both pages, minor wear. Scarce.

[ROCK: The Fugs] Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at the Bowery Poets Coop in the East Village, ca. 1965. “Sunday The Fugs!! in a Fugathon! Dancing Freaking Singing… A Benefit for the Fug’s Cross Country Vietnam Protest Caravan.” Done by Sanders on the Fuck You Press mimeo. Barely perceptible staple holes to left edge, some soiling to verso, else fine.

SANDERS, Ed. With Extreme Regret We Must Announce that Ed Sanders Does Not. n.p.: n.p., n.d. [but NY: Fuck You Press, ca. 1965]. 4to. Broadside. First edition. Lists eleven things Sanders will not do, ranging from “review unsolicited books” and “answer hostile letters about his publications,” to “sell dope” and “operate a snatchery for out of town squack freaks.” Staple holes to the left edge, couple of inconspicuous creases, else fine.

SANDERS, Ed. Handbill announcing a reading by Sanders at the Coda Gallery in Greenwich Village, ca 1965. “Ed Sanders Reading Peace Eye Incantations, Fug songs, Ra-prayers & Soft Man Poems.” Produced by Sanders using the Fuck You Press mimeo. Staple holes to the left edge, inconspicuous old crease, else fine.

[SANDERS, Ed & BERRIGAN, Ted] Handbill announcing a reading by Ted Berrigan and Ed Sanders at the Le Metro Cafe in Greenwich Village, ca 1965. “Attention!! Poets Space Cadets Flamebrains, Dope Freaks…” Produced by Sanders using the Fuck You Press mimeo. Staple holes to the left edge, else fine.

[SANDERS, Ed ] Legal-size mimeo handbill proclaiming “Ed Sanders Wins Obscenity Case.” Prints a text about Sander’s trial for publishing “obscene” material in Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. One example cited was Sanders’ ad calling for “orgiasts and dick-scrunchers” for the underground movie Amphetamine Head. Also announces the re-opening of the Peace Eye Bookstore with an exhibition of relics from the Lower East Side literary scene, including Ginsberg’s signed cold cream jar, and more. Other events listed for the summer of 1967 include a showing of paintings by Sanders and Ted Berrigan. One horizontal center crease, else fine. Rare ephemera relating to Sanders, Peace Eye, and the Fuck You Press.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

As the shit went down on eBay involving the Digit Junkie, Brian Cassidy and I were heading back from the NY Art Book Fair at PS 1 in Long Island City on a donut tire in a driving rain. Based on my experience this year and last, the Art Book Fair has quickly established itself as one of the highlights of the book-collecting calendar. Although I heard reports that attendance was down from last year — blame the weather, which in New York has been incredible this summer, causing twenty-three rain delays at Yankee Stadium — the crowds were impressive. The living dead hipsters do come out in the daytime. Maybe the overcast skies were not such a bad thing after all. The fair is a mix of book dealers specializing in artists’ and art-related books; established publishers like MIT Press, Yale, and Princeton; legends in the field like Franklin Furnace and Printed Matter; and legions of artists and poets churning out zines and mags that prove the Mimeo Revolution did not die with the Reagan Years.  

One thing is clear: the little magazines of the Mimeo Revolution have a bright future. If you were a dealer and you had a complete run of a mag, the chances were good that you were going to sell it. Fuck You Press material is hotter than a sheep fuck in a Turkish bath. John McWhinnie sold a bunch of Fuck You Magazines signed by Ed Sanders as I was looking on. Now I would not know what they sold for since McWhinnie does not see the reason to supply prices. This is the book-dealing equivalent of a “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy. Quite frankly, this policy is annoying. Book collectors are not haus fraus eating dinner at a French restaurant in the 1950s. You can put the prices on the menu. We can handle it. Somehow last year I managed to buy the Exorcise the Pentagon flyer from McWhinnie. To be honest, I am not quite sure how it all went down. Background and financial checks, a good word from some of the Select, and, maybe, an under-the-table handjob or secret handshake. A complete mystery. The book-buying experience should not be like walking the velvet rope at Studio 54 in 1978. That said McWhinnie has all the beautiful-people books you could want: Richard Prince, Warhol, Ruscha, punk royalty like Richard Hell. It is bittersweet that Ed Sanders, the Fugs, and Fuck You are noshing at this bibliographic Max’s of Kansas City, but it cannot be denied that they are. From the aforementioned Fuck You Magazines to the Fugs concert handbill to the Kill for Peace 45 lp to Ed Sanders’s copy of Roosevelt after Inauguration, McWhinnie once again has the best drugs. As long as he has all the glitz and glamour in his salon, collectors are going to humiliate themselves personally and financially to get in. As Eric Burdon of the Animals sang, “And God, I know I’m one.” He can sell his stunningly attractive books how he wants and, as those issues of Fuck You prove (along with a Taylor Mead diary), sell them he does. Once again his booth was one of the highlights of the show.

But other dealers had great Fuck You items as well. At Anartist a crisp copy of the Mad Motherfucker issue sans Warhol cover was snatched up. Kate and Adam Davis of Division Leap had a copy of John Ashbery’s Fuck You Quote of the Week. (Pick up a copy of their self-titled little mag, which riffs on the best of Semina Culture. It looks great.) There was a copy of Bugger. I picked up, thanks to Adam, a copy of Ed Sanders’s Catalogue Number 1 from Karma.

As far as I can tell, the Fuck You Press Archive on RealityStudio is inching toward functioning as a substantial bibliography of the Press’s output. Marguerite Harris’s An Absolute and Glorious New Year 1965 is missing as is The Ed Sanders Newsletter from 1966. The first edition first printing of The Fugs Songbook is a big hole (Alexander Books in Vermont currently has a copy for $750), but like a blossoming Slum Goddess from the Lower East Side, the Archive is filling out nicely.

This got Brian and I talking on our wobbly ride back from New York. What else is out there? Hopefully Ed Sanders’s forthcoming book, Fug You, will clear all this up, but until then a record of Fuck You Press’s complete output remains a work in progress. Brian and I agreed that tracking all the ephemera, like handbills and reading announcements, is a monumental task that may be beyond even Sanders’ knowledge given the hazy circumstances of their publication. But as well as being a poet, novelist, printer, and singer, Sanders is a historian and archivist. Chances are good he kept meticulous records.

The Ed Sanders and Peace Eye book catalogues are examples of the invaluable record-keeping that, for the diligent collector, are available. Not only are these catalogues extremely funny and one of the finest examples of bibliographic humor (sadly such a genre does indeed exist) that I know of, they are great literary reference materials. It figures that Sanders was a great bookseller as well. Before the counterculture collecting boom of the 1990s, before Ken Lopez, James Musser, John LeBow (to name the dealers and catalogues that taught me about collecting and Burroughs when I started in 1993), yes, even before McWhinnie, there was Peace Eye Bookstore, and Sanders had all the good shit (and pubic hair and cumshots) from all your counterculture heroes. From first editions to limited editions to literary archives (like the ones for The White Dove Review and Paul Blackburn) to letters, Sanders sold it all. In fact it could be argued that he created (and satirized) the market. Barry Miles of Better Books and Indica also comes to mind, but he did so without the tongue-in-cheek and kiss-my-ass demeanor.

Brian noted that the Catalogues would be a great place to look in filling out a Fuck You Press bibliography. A brilliant idea but the problem is I do not know if all the Fuck You special and limited editions listed in the Catalogue actually existed. Banana is a great example of a Fuck You Sasquatch. Reva Wolf in her indispensable book on Warhol and the poetry scene provides the details surrounding Banana. Around the time Warhol supplied the Couch cover to the Mad Motherfucker Issue, he suggested Sanders compile an anthology, like Bugger on anal sex, on the topic of bananas. The project was advertised in the Fuck You Talk of the Town in the Mad MotherFucker Issue: “preparing the fug-press publication of ‘BANANA, an anthology of Strap Verse, Dike Shrieks, harness poems & worshipful emanations from the Shrine of The Bull Tongue Clit.’” Wolf confirms Banana never got beyond the planning stage. Interestingly the same Talk of the Town announced Fuck You’s first movie-making venture: “Mongolian Cluster Fuck: a short but searing non-socially redeeming porn flick featuring 100′s of the lower east side’s finest, with musical background by Algernon Charles Swinburne & THE FUGS!!”

As I told Brian, the Catalogues are filled with tantalizing and mysterious Fuck You related items. He suggested a list of these items would make a great RealityStudio post. What follows is that list. I am missing Catalog 2 and 4.5, so the list is no doubt incomplete but even so it provides a great sample of the comic and bibliographic genius of the Catalogues. It also provides an opportunity for readers out there to provide any feedback they might have on any of the items listed.

Jersey Devils, Loveland Frogs, and other Fuck You Press Cockatrices

Burroughs, William. THE ROOSEVELT AFTER INAUGURATION PAPERS. A folio of all preliminary sheets, doodles, notes, drawings (contains the only instance in Ginsbergania of an attempt by him to draw a piece of shit), the text, a copy of the first edition (which was so fucked up with typos etc that it was entirely destroyed except for two copies), a copy of 2nd edition (this was limited 500 edition), & a signed (Ginzap) copy of the Yage Letters. ($40.00)

Fainlight, Harry. An autographed copy of FUCK YOU / a magazine of the arts, number 5, volume 7 (THE GOD ISSUE) in which Fainlight’s 4 page poem THE SPIDER was first published. ($7.50)

Fuck You, a Magazine of the Arts. A full set as above but in the signed limited numbered BOILING SPERM EDITION. Fuck You/Number 5, volume 2 appeared in two editions, the trade & Boiling Sperm Edition, an edition of signed, numbered copies (editor’s signature, edition of 10 copies) with a genuine blotch of the editor’s sperm on the cover. ($75.00)

Fuck You? Letter to the editor. A letter (on church stationery) from a Benedictine Father in Minneapolis, Minn. Requesting a copy of FUCK YOU / A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS, plus the latest copy of MANual, TRIM, and GRECIAN GUILD PICTORIAL. Suitable for framing. ($5.00)

Fuck You / a magazine of the arts. An entire run including all that will be published in the future with a guarantee that 80% of the poems will be signed by the authors. First 11 issues, approximately 100 signatures, available July 1st. Only one set to be offered ever. ($500.00)

BUGGER, AN ANTHOLOGY OF ANAL EROTIC, POUND CAKE, CORNHOLE, ARSE-FREAK, & DRECK POEMS. This is the incredibly evil FUCK YOU / press publication, published in 5 editions (send for particulars); The Trade Edition, The Rough Trade Edition, The Special Bugger Fantasy Edition, The Trembling Buttock Edition & The Pygophile Edition.

THE BUGGER PAPERS. These are all the documents involved in the publication of BUGGER, An Anthology of Buttockry. Published by the Fuck You Press. Included are 11 pages of editorial notes, and SIGNED manuscripts from Allen Ginsberg (a really brilliant two page section from a long unpublished work), Szabo, Al Fowler, Ed Sanders, Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, John Harriman, John Keys; Included also is a copy of the Bugger anthology with each poem signed by the author. The original unbelievable fantastic drawings for the cover & insides are also included. ($25.00)

SANDERS. Another Sanders FUCK YOU Press & poetry notebook. Contains at the beginning 30 pages of drafts & notes for his long Gobble Gang Poems (soon to be published — see item 127); then 5 or 6 pages of notes for the format of Fuck You #5 vol. 4; many notes for editorial scene in Fuck You #5 vol. 7. There are many weird notes stuck in loose among the pages of the book. Parts of Sanders’ unpublished “Hymn to the Existential Hole.” About 60 pages filled. ($7.50)

THE FUGS!!!! Here is offered a copy of all the FUG POSTERS for their concerts to date plus a Brochure from THE AMERICAN THEATRE FOR POETS which prints two of their legendary hits. The FUGS, Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, Ken Weaver, Peter Stampfel & Steve Weber, sing & freak out unbelievable songs; The I Saw The Best Minds of My Generation Rock, Coca Cola Douche, Bull Tongue Clit, etc. Included also is a copy the very limited invitation to the party for the THIRD ANNIVERSARY ISSUE of Fuck You a Magazine of the Arts, at which the Fugs had their world premiere. The concert posters were printed & designed by the Fuck You Press. 4 posters, 1 invitation, 1 brochure. ($4.00) (The invitation is on RealityStudio; anybody have knowledge or info about the brochure or posters?)

Marijuana Newsletter Papers. This is two stuffed folders full of the entire manuscripts, editorial notes by Ed Sanders, formats, drawings, etc used in the printing, & production of Marijuana Newsletters #1 & 2. About 100 sheets. Also, two original hand-corrected typescripts by William Burroughs. Also a very short signed letter from Burroughs to Sanders. ($20.00)

Sanders. Hand cover notebook containing many first drafts of poetry & editorial notes for the upcoming Fuck You a magazine of the Arts (#5, Vol 9). Contains several first drafts from his new book PEACE EYE, from another forthcoming book CEMETERY HILL, from SUM #2, et al. About 45 pages. ($7.50).

SPECIAL BOXED LEATHER BOUND VOLUMES OF FUCK YOU A MAGAZINE OF THE ARTS. Here are offered boxed leather bound beautifully appointed individual issues of Fuck You a magazine of the arts. With the embossed hand stamped signature of the bookbinder, the artist William Beckman. What is here offered: #5, Vol. 5 boxed in slip case. Contains work by Harry Fainlight, Lenore Kandel, Huncke, Keys, Orlovsky, and the famous poems THE CHANGE, by Allen Ginsberg. #5 Vol. 6, contains work by Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, Al Fowler, Szabo, Berge, et al. This is a special edition with the title page SIGNED by the contributors, six signatures in all. #5 vol #2. Contains the famous cover of Little Orphan Annie getting her eyeball fucked by Sandy. Work by John Wieners, Berge , Taylor MEAD!, Keys, et al. This is the Writhing Squack Issue. These have to be seen to be believed. Inspection on approval invited. Fuck You is the freakiest mag in this part of the century. Each: ($20.00).

Marijuana Newsletter # 3. Sanders, Beckman, et al. ($0.25)

Sanders (Ed). An Ed Sanders / Edmund Wilson publication listing with regret the things and services that E. Sanders does not perform. “With extreme regret we must announce that Ed Sanders does not 1) review books 2) criticize manuscripts 3) fuck unsolicited snatch 4) sell dope 5) indiscriminately bugger.” Etc Etc. Signed by Sanders. Each ($0.50)

Sanders. THE COMPLETE SEX POEMS OF ED SANDERS. Limited Edition, Hard Cover, signed, numbered from 1 to 50. Contains The Gobble Gang Poems, The Toe Queen Poems, Blow Job Poem, Sheep Fuck Poem, Corn Hole Poem, Aphrodite, The Banana Poems, and the complete Tit Shriek Poems. Sanders has designed & added his infinite sex drawings, a must for collectors and grope cadets. The Limited Edition ($15.00)

Sanders. The Evilness Notebook. A notebook which contains many notes for Sanders’ book PEACE EYE, notes and editorial plans for issues of Fuck You a magazine of the arts, original unpublished poems, personal notes, etc. Approximately 40 pages. ($12.50)

THE FUGS!!! The most unbelievable emanation of the culture of the Lower East Side. The Rolling Stones of the l.e.s. Here is offered the FUGS sweatshirts, sizes small, medium and large. White sweatshirts with red white and blue FUGS stenciled on it. ($3.50)

FUGS tee shirts with red white and blue FUGS stenciled on it. ($2.00) 

Fugs panties, black or red with FUGS in gold on the crotch ($2.00) specify size

BUGGER, an anthology of homage to the art of butt fucking. Original famous first edition of Fuck You press in 1964. This particular copy was used by Sargent Fetta (the officer who arrested Sanders in 1966 on charges of possession of obscene publications) in preparing his case against Sanders. Accordingly the good sergeant typed out a list of things he considered objectionable in the publication on a sheet of paper and stapled it to the front cover. Particularly distressing to Fetta was Sanders immortal Corn Hole poem on page 4 and John Keys poem on page 12. This historical publication and appended police document, only ($8.50)

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

I have to think that a complete Fuck You Press bibliography would be a monumental task. Take this handbill from the March on the Pentagon in October 1967. It is clearly Ed Sanders’ handwriting and has the trademark Fuck You style, but the page size reminds me of Ted Berrigan’s C Journal rather than the standard 8.5 X 11 of most Fuck You stuff. I wonder if this handbill was run on the Phoenix Bookshop mimeo machine, which, as I understand it, Berrigan used to print C. Sanders also used the Phoenix mimeo for early issues of Fuck You Magazine and then he bought his own machine, which he installed at Peace Eye Books. Looking at other Fuck You handbills this “Chant to Exorcise the Pentagon” has a different feel to it while still remaining trademark Fuck You. I have never seen another one of these available. Any information would be great.

For those of you in the dark about what the March on the Pentagon was all about, read Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night for enlightenment. Here are some YouTube videos about the March.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

To quote a Canned Heat lyric, “I’m on the road again.” The trip up to New York City on the Chinatown bus was all wind in the hair and “Born to be Wild.” Smooth sailing with Billy and Wyatt, but the trip back to Baltimore was more like the bus ride with Ratso Rizzo at the end of Midnight Cowboy. That said, it was worth the trip as New York City was the site of two very different exhibits dealing with the 1960s: the Whitney’s Summer of Love and Printed Matter’s’ Fuck for Peace: A History of the Fugs. Neither show was ideal but taken together they provided a very informative perspective of the era.

I must admit that my viewing of the Whitney exhibit was somewhat tainted by several people who told me to focus on what was missing from the show. These absences do speak volumes about the exhibit, but if one really digs around and explores the entire museum, it can be argued that the Whitney saw the gaps in the Tate Museum’s organization of the show and attempted to correct them. Psychedelics are supposed to cleanse the doors of perception, clarify the sight of the third eye, and help one see the Truth more easily, but the Summer of Love exhibit tends to filter the Sixties through rose-colored glasses. The exhibit for the most part presents the good trips such as those provided by Owsley’s White Lightning. What needed to be given more attention were the bummer visions like those engendered by the notorious brown acid that filtered through Woodstock.

The problem could be that the exhibit used the more positive / celebratory elements of rock culture to tie together the whole show. Handbills, album covers, light shows, and posters dominated the space. Think of the Art of Rock book that chronicled the rock posters and handbills of the period. This is to be expected at a show celebrating the art of the psychedelic era, but the focus on rock music and the artwork it inspired could have been used to much greater and complex effect.

For example, those attending the exhibit could pick up pre-recorded devices that played music with certain sections of the show. In some cases, the music simply accompanied a rock poster, album cover, or visual effect. As a result, the listener would understand what a band or situation sounded like, but in far too few cases did the music actually comment critically on the era. When utilized in this manner the effects could be striking. The most memorable instance for me involved the Fugs’ song “Kill for Peace.” The song was to be played while viewing Peter Saul’s large piece: Saigon. It was an inspired pairing and unusual as the Fugs and Vietnam were two of the notable absences of the show. This type of hard edge would have benefitted the show.

The New York section of the show focused on the Fillmore East, Millbrook, and Woodstock with no mention at all of the freak scene of the Lower East Side that Ed Sanders and the Fugs represented. This aspect of the New York art world was big news during the Summer of Love. For example, Sanders made the cover of Life in 1967. He and the Fugs should have been included in the New York section.

There was a small part of the exhibit that presented photographs of Vietnam. Interestingly, most of the photographs were by Robert Whitaker who also took many iconic rock photos. The exhibit, as put together by the Tate, highlights the rock and not the war. I think the Whitney understands that Vietnam and violence are a huge part of the era and under-represented. For example, a handout available at the Whitney reads, “If you would like to hear more about the politics and social unrest associated with the Summer of Love, check out our Summer of Love podcast on Whitney.org.” Whitney press releases talk the talk. Unrest, turbulent era, protest are all highlighted but in reality the real meat of the exhibit on display is on the “sweet freedom of the moment” as captured by John Phillips in his song on San Francisco: “For those who come to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” Yet if you dig and work at it, the other side of the coin, the underbelly of the Summer of Love, is there at the Whitney.

Tucked away — I would say hidden — in the Sondra Gilman Gallery on the Fifth Floor Mezzanine is a small exhibit entitled Resistance Is. While the Summer of Love exhibit was crowded and lines circled the museum on Sunday, this small section was basically unattended. Yet it was here that the sole picture of the Black Panthers (taken by Gordon Parks) hung. Curious really as the photograph was taken in 1967 of the San Francisco chapter of the group. The Whitney clearly realizes the importance of the Black Panthers to the era as the photograph is featured in the Whitney calendar for June-August. In addition the only photograph of the Chicago 7 hung in the Gilman Gallery. This prompts the question were was the student protest in the main exhibit. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement might be before the time period shown, but there is no excuse for not mentioning the takeover of Columbia in 1969 in the New York section of the exhibit. By the way where was Stonewall, the Weathermen or the more militant aspects of the feminist movement like the Red Stockings. This was all San Francisco with the Flowers in your hair and no Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker.

The Resistance Is exhibit also globalized and made contemporary its subject in a way the Summer of Love did not. London gets lavish attention but what about France, Italy or Germany to just focus on the Western World. Resistance Is looks beyond the West into the East and the Third World. The Whitney calendar reads, “Resistance Is considers the relationship between historical narratives and the conditions of social agency prevalent today.” There is footage from as recent as 2006. In a sense the Resistance Is exhibit was the more relevant to today. Or should be. The lack of a protest movement that embraces all aspects of culture and on the scale of the sixties is shocking right now given the apparent dissatisfaction with the state of the union in the United States. There is a more music, art, and literature being made than ever before, but none of what you see in the mainstream is about protest or resistance.

A whole wall is dedicated to Warhol’s Factory and the Velvet Underground. One would think that the inclusion of this speedy, gay element would provide something of a corrective for the show. Instead, the focus is on the Plastic Exploding Inevitable; heavy on handbills and posters. The exhibit seems to suggest that Warhol and the Velvets fit in with the visual, performance elements of the Summer of Love. This is unfortunate since the Plastic Exploding show in San Francisco was a disaster and highlighted the differences between the NYC and San Francisco counterculture. New York’s art scene was definitely not represented by Woodstock as suggested. Yet I think the Whitney realizes the harder edge and importance of the Warhol / Velvet circle in the counterculture and in the formation of the art scene of the 1970s such as punk and urban arts like graffiti.

Again you had to search it out on another floor. To my mind, an installation in the Rudolf Stingel show on the third floor provided all the commentary you could want on the impact of the Factory. Stingel constructed a large, floor to ceiling space out of Styrofoam which he then covered in silver wall paper. Previous attendees of the exhibit in other cities as well (as Stingel) were allowed to chip away and graffiti the silver wall so that by the time it reached the Whitney the purity of the silver was completely defaced in every nook and cranny. If the beginning suggested the tin foil of the Factory, the end result was the bathroom at CBGB. The installation placed above the Summer of Love exhibits commented on the trajectory of the New York art scene after the Factory and indirectly on the influence of the Velvet Underground. If the Summer of Love celebrated pot and LSD, Stingel’s silver room brought to mind images of shooting up in a toilet stall. The exhibit also had echoes of the urban landscape, a decayed setting that was the site of controversial renewal in the 1960s. The idea of the subway (graffiti art) or the jail cell (Attica, George Jackson) came to mind.

The Summer of Love exhibit is full of curious choices. There is a lot of coverage of Keith and Mick’s drug bust in 1967, but that was hardly the most important, most representative, or most “sixties” moment of the Stones. I would argue that occurred with the murder of Meredith Hunter by the Hell’s Angels during the free Stones concert at Altamont. Many of the major darker themes of the 1960s were captured by Baird Bryant, the cameraman, when he filmed the murder. It could be the Zapruder film of the counterculture. The exhibit provides film footage of Altamont, but focuses on the construction of the Ant Farm installation instead. There is a day-glo and air brushed feel to the entire Summer of Love show. For example, if you are going to feature Life magazine covers throughout the exhibit, you may want to end the show with the cover featuring Charles Manson. It is one of the most recognized issues of Life and an enduring image of the 1960s. If it was there, I missed it.

Why did the Tate show touch up the Summer of Love and why did the Whitney acknowledge the deficiencies but choose to hide them in the recesses of the museum? A cynic would say that you have to go no further than the gift shop. All the CDs and coffee table art books were available right up front. You get the sense that the Whitney was like a Starbucks selling sanitized nostalgia. By most accounts, the Summer of Love was over in San Francisco by 1967. Mass markets and mainstream media co-opted it for distribution to the curious in the 1960s, not just in the present. The gift shop in the Whitney highlights a major theme of the Summer of Love as it was experienced in 1967 — the commoditization of the counterculture — but to get any treatment of this from the exhibit you have to dig and be aware of what is missing from the display tables.

The wall on LSD is an interesting section of the exhibit that touches on these issues. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters get lots of pictures here. The 1967 Be-In is featured along with psychedelic publications like Psychedelic Review and Leary’s LPs and books. The truth is that San Francisco in 1967 was not about LSD at all. LSD was made illegal in 1966, and strangely, pot was scarce. Instead, heroin and speed flooded the market. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about this involving organized crime and the CIA, but none are mentioned by the exhibit. This section did feature exploitation / sleaze paperbacks on LSD and the hippies under glass. These pulp paperbacks shared space with Life and Saturday Evening Post features on the same topics. This section of the exhibit suggests the influence of mass market capitalism on the counterculture, the packaging and fetishization of illicit activity to Middle America, as well as the pacifying nature of exploitation. The inclusion of Leary and Kesey in this section brings home the point that they were hucksters as much as gurus. This is not hindsight; this was all understood at the time. Proof of this is the Diggers, maybe the finest critics of the Summer of Love. It was nice to see the Diggers featured alongside Leary, Kesey, and mass market treatment of the Haight.

This was the most complex and critical part of the entire show. I wonder if this was just coincidence or if it was intended. The selection of Life magazines in this section suggests the former. A few cover issues on LSD were present including of course the piece on LSD art. Yet the 1967 Hippie issue of the Saturday Evening Post should have been included there as well. Why feature the discotheque issue of Life? The Saturday Evening Post issue was much more pertinent then and now. It ran Joan Didion’s scathing piece on San Francisco entitled “Slouching toward Bethlehem.” To this day, Didion’s piece is one of the finest critical looks on the Summer of Love. It would have shown that the bloom was off the rose even in the mainstream media and driven home the point that the times were a’ changing and a bad moon was on the rise by 1967.

Printed Matter’s exhibit entitled Fuck for Peace: A History of the Fugs offers a nice corrective to the Whitney show. Located on 10th Avenue between 21st and 22nd Street, Printed Matter is a publishing collective that specializes in the book arts and alternative publishing. The Fugs are a perfect choice given that two members of the Fugs, Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, are legendary members of the mimeo revolution. The DIY aesthetic of the Fugs in song and in print fits in perfectly with the goals and production of the collective. The exhibit focused on two founding fathers of today’s zine and artist book culture.

The Fugs exhibit was small and cramped, but at the same time, had an air of inclusion. The exhibit featured publications, album covers, newspaper and magazine stories, fan letters, and lyric sheets. Yet there were no photographs and I think that was a mistake. Of course a broader show could have been done. This show would include documentation of the Fugs at Detroit, at the Chicago Convention of 1968, at the Pentagon in 1967. The political and racial turmoil of Chicago, Detroit and Washington were largely missing from the Summer of Love show. Such photographs would have broadened both exhibits but even so there was a grit and obscenity at the Fugs show that would have done the Whitney good.

If you are going to focus on the Summer of Love, you have to have some fucking in the streets. The first thing I saw when I entered the small back room of the Fugs exhibit was an image of Tuli Kupferberg sitting on a shabby couch clutching his cock. This was not a young nymph with flowers in her hair. Works like Fuck God in the Ass, Auden’s Platonic Blow, Sheep Fuck Poem, and the outrageous fan letters written in the Fuck You style provided the atmosphere of goofiness, depravity, transgression, and upfront sexuality that was the flip side of the Summer of Love. The Fugs also captured the anarchy, paranoia, and ugliness of the time.

Not surprisingly, William Burroughs is absent from the Whitney exhibit but all over the place at Printed Matter. You flip through the contemporary work being sold by Printed Matter and the Burroughs influence is strongly felt. I think this speak volumes about the type of 1960s being portrayed In the Fugs show as opposed to the Whitney. Burroughs tends to scare the parents. Hide your kids from the dirty old junkie. Printed Matter wants to shock while the Whitney wants to soothe.

All the Burroughs publications by Fuck You were there including one of the holy grails of Burroughs collectors: the Fuck You Version of APO-33. I have told the story of this legendary rarity elsewhere but let me say: It did not look as unprofessional and disorganized as I expected given Burroughs’ reaction. This is more proof that Burroughs was something of a control freak concerning the presentation of his own material and that the laissez-faire attitude towards his work is maybe something of an act. As a collector, seeing APO-33 was the highlight of the weekend.

Interestingly, the “evil” hands of the marketplace could be felt all over the Printed Matter exhibit. Many of the pieces came on loan from the Fales Collection of NYU (the APO-33, I suspect), but a good number including a beautiful copy of the Mad Motherfucker issue of Fuck You with the Warhol cover were up for sale. And not cheaply either. The Couch issue could be yours for $1500. From a collector’s point of view, the material at Printed Matter could not be more beautiful. The complete run of Fuck You magazine was immaculate. Too much so? I think the copies do not have the original staples and have been rebound. I could be wrong but the Mad Motherfucker issue was definitely rebound with new staples. For obsessives, this is problematic, but the brightness and crispness of all the material should overcome some of these feelings of violation.

Not surprisingly, the alternative art market created a darker exhibit than the mainstream market at the Whitney. Collectors interested in the Summer of Love can find the exhibit basically recreated work for work in the latest Beatbooks catalog. The Printed Matter show while smaller was in some ways more complex and more accurate. Make no mistake both places are selling something. Much could be made of the image of the 1960s each makes available. The packaging of these two shows comments on the various roles of art in society. For me, the view presented by Printed Matter and the images hidden from viewers at the Whitney are the ones that matter in the now and in the long run. Basically, the Whitney show highlights and foregrounds peace, love, and understanding. As Elvis Costello would say there is nothing wrong with that. But it is not what is most dynamic and lasting about the era. Great art is produced outside of the mainstream in a position of opposition. It is against something. The Summer of Love exhibit downplays protest and conflict (although the Whitney attempts to correct this). In addition, art associated with drugs are about erasing boundaries and about the pain of alienation. Drugs should intensify those sensations not numb or heal them. In an age of de-anxietized man, there are no great artists. There is little sense of the fear and paranoia of the 1960s at the Whitney.

The mantra of the real estate market is location, location, location. Maybe that is the key with these two exhibits as well. One museum is located on Madison Avenue and the other is on 10th Avenue. One’s view of the world begins with a look out one’s front door.

New York: Fuck You Press 1964, by “Willy Lee”, bound in stapled wraps. Maynard & Miles A9. Small and short (only 14 gathered leaves), this routine was originally intended for inclusion in The Yage Letters but was censored by the English printers. A version appeared in Floating Bear 9 (1961) before being co-opted by Sanders into this edition. Some copies of this work were released from the publisher with the spines not stapled. The publisher estimates 500 copies printed.

New York: City Lights 1979, first edition thus in illustrated wraps, one of 3,000 copies.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Rolling Stone magazine just celebrated its 1000th cover with a tribute to / touching up of the legendary Sgt. Pepper album cover. Reportedly, the new cover cost over $1 million to produce. It is fun and interesting, but I doubt it will reach the iconic status of the Sgt. Pepper original or even make the top ten Rolling Stone covers. Enduring images on albums and magazines are hard to consciously generate. They seem more spontaneous or natural. They rarely celebrate milestones or are officially commissioned for special events. Sgt. Pepper is unusual in that the Beatles openly sought to create the greatest album cover of all time and miraculously may have succeeded. Like the Beatles’ music in the album, the cover could only be created in the studio dependent on meticulous staging and artifice. Images of such power usually contain an element of chance and / or luck or at least they give off that vibe.

Annie Leibovitz’s photograph of a naked John Lennon entwined with a clothed Yoko is the greatest Rolling Stone cover and one of the most important rock and roll images of all time. Clearly, the scene was staged but it seems so natural and so emblematic of the relationship of John and Yoko. No other image could capture the essence of John Lennon as the world attempted to express their feelings and thoughts about him shortly after his assassination. Obviously, Leibovitz did not plan for her photo to be associated so closely with Lennon’s death and legacy as she took the photos on the last day of his life. Without planning it, Rolling Stone had the perfect image for a celebration of Lennon’s life. Fate played quite a role in the photo’s enduring status.

From David Cassidy to Jennifer Aniston, naked celebrities prove to be some of the most memorable images in the history of Rolling Stone. The David Cassidy cover (also taken by Leibovitz) from 1972 is relevant to RealityStudio. An early and extensive interview with William Burroughs by Robert Palmer appears in the issue. Cassidy was hoping to spice up his squeaky clean teen image with a more adult look. He definitely received increased attention due to the controversial photo, attention he tried to live down later. The Burroughs interview, like a similar one with Philip K. Dick in the mid 1970s, introduced the cult writer to a larger audience as well as explaining the major themes in his work. The interview would prove to be one of the most important given by Burroughs. The 1965 interview by Conrad Knickerbocker in Paris Review may equal it. Not surprisingly, this issue of Rolling Stone is collectible and frequently appears on eBay where it always receives active bidding.

As I was scanning images of Kulchur and Fuck You Magazine for RealityStudio, I came across two related cover images that highlight the reasons why I prefer Fuck You Magazine to Kulchur. I have discussed in detail the Couch cover to the Mad Motherfucker Issue of Fuck You Magazine. Interestingly, Kulchur featured a related image on the cover of Issue 13. Issue 13 reproduces a still from Andy Warhol’s movie Kiss just as Fuck You reproduced a still from Couch.

The Couch cover is one of the prides of my book collection. Kulchur magazine is an essential part of my collection but not an item I return to again and again. The Fuck You cover is a highly sought after Warhol collectible and a work of art in its own right. The reason for this is how the Couch and Kiss covers were produced. I assume the Kiss cover was created using the offset printing technique that produced Kulchur magazine. Just how the image went from celluloid to magazine cover I am unaware, but it was a fairly standard process of commercial printing.

The Couch cover is a different story and involved a newly emergent printing technology of the 1960s that inspired several artists such as Warhol and Wallace Berman. Thermofax is a wet process predecessor to the Xerox. According to Art Cloth Studios, “Thermofax screens are lightweight silk screens, created using a thermal imaging machine. The machine is designed to bond a plastic/polyester film temporarily to a carbon (dry toner) photocopy. Releasing the temporary bond creates a silkscreen image that is photographic in quality. These screens last for hundreds of printings and can be used with all wet media, including thickened dyes, discharge chemicals, all textile paints, foil adhesives and resists.”

In 1964, Warhol and Gerard Malanga began experimenting with this new technology. One direction these experiment took was collaborations with Second Generation New York School poets, like Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett. 2/2 Stories for Andy Warhol published by C Press is one example. In Andy Warhol, Poetry and Gossip in the 1960s, Reva Wolf describes this publication in detail. The book consists of ten sheets of the exact same text — a page from an early twentieth-century novel. Padgett selected the page so that it can be read as a loop; that is, the first sentence can be read as if it follows from the last one. The book was read in February 1964 by Padgett, Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan and the poet Dick Gallup, with Warhol in attendance, along with Gerard Malanga, Edwin Denby, John Giorno and a reporter from Life. When Berrigan published Two Stories as a book, he procured for the cover design a Thermofax copy of a two-frame still (paralleling the ‘Two Stories’ of the title) from an obscure Warhol movie — an image rather hard to read, but clearly a scene showing one man (apparently Robert Olivo, known as Ondine) receiving oral sex while another looks out toward the camera. The Couch cover of Fuck You recreates a similar scene. The Thermofax, like the silkscreen, provided another way for Warhol to distance himself from artistic creation and introduce the machine into his creative process. In addition, Warhol could incorporate elements of repetition as well as explore the relationship of original/copy that so dominate his art.

Wallace Berman was interested in similar themes. Not surprisingly, he utilized the early photocopier in his art from the 1960s until his untimely death in 1976. Verifax, another wet process copier, was an early photocopying technology made by Eastman Kodak. They were forerunners of dry photocopy machines like Xerox. They had a duplicating machine that worked much like developing print film. You exposed a document for a number of given seconds (depending on color of the paper) and then immersed it in a developing solution for a further given number of seconds and then drew the “negative” and the paper the image was to be copied on out together between a “squeegee”.

The emblematic image of Berman’s work of this type is the disembodied hand holding a small transistor radio. Inside the radio, Berman photocopied drug, religious or animal images. Berman used the Verifax as a means to explore photomontage techniques initially discovered by the German Dadaists. The Verifax could print in negative, a feature Berman made much use of in these pieces.

The Verifax and Thermofax represent a newer, more raw, cutting edge technology as opposed to the more professional process that produced the Kiss image. Interestingly, the image depicted on the Couch cover is more raw and more transgressive than the Kiss cover. Both images and both films address similar themes of the erotic, the mundane, the taboo that so fascinated Warhol. Clearly, the Couch image crosses more boundaries than Kiss. This is in line with the nature of Fuck You Magazine and Kulchur. Fuck You was designed to offend and shock. It is gossipy and full of humor. Kulchur was designed to provide a critical thrust to the material provided in Floating Bear and Yugen. Kulchur is a literary journal that reports and educates. The Kiss cover and its means of production reflect the more conservative nature of Kulchur. Fuck You launched a total assault on the culture. The Couch cover lends ammunition to that assault in what it depicts and how it was created.

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

It was a good day when I finally got my hands on Fuck You Vol. 5/No. 7. Quite possibly the coolest, hippest magazine of the mimeo revolution (Fuck You epitomized the revolution as demonstrated by naming the Steve Clay book “A Secret Location on the Lower East Side”) and the most desirable piece in my collection with serious competition from Dead Fingers Talk, Floating Bear, Rhinozeros, and Time. They are all great pieces; all signed. The cover by Robert LaVigne (who discovered and drew Peter Orlovsky in the mid-1950′s before Allen Ginsberg came into the picture) of an infant demon is awesome. The Burroughs cut up “Fluck You, Fluck You, Fluck You” in three column newspaper layout is wonderful. But what makes Fuck You so wonderful is its construction. Literally on multi-colored construction paper (supposedly it would not be unusual to get a copy of the magazine with a footprint on it) scattered with freaky, turned-on hieroglyphics.

The writing of the magazine is sometimes spectacular, yet uneven. Editor Ed Sanders claimed “I’ll publish anything.” The list of contributors is impressive. Charles Olson, Philip Whalen, Gregory Corso, Gary Snyder, W.H. Auden, Pound, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Antonin Artaud, Robert Duncan. The editorial comments are priceless, especially the notes on contributors, the advertisements for a secretary, or the search for a literary assistant for Allen Ginsberg.

Here is a visual archive of materials from the Fuck You Press.

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 1
(Feb/April 1962)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 2
(May 1962 (??))

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 3
(June 1962)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 4
(Aug 1962)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 1
(Dec 1962)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 2
(Dec 1962)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 3
(May 1963)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 4
(1963)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 5
(Dec 1963)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 6
(April/May 1964)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 7
(Sept 1964)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 8
(1965)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 8 (Warhol cover)
(1965)

Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
Number 5, Volume 9
(June 1965)

Jake Marx
“An Index to Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts”
The Serif, 1971
(Special thanks to Jake Marx for permission to reprint this index)

Fuck You Press Publications

William S. Burroughs
Roosevelt After Inauguration
(1964)
I may be biased as a Burroughs collector, but Roosevelt After Inauguration is for me one of the most famous and desirable Fuck You Press items…

William S. Burroughs
Health Bulletin: APO-33, a Metabolic Regulator
(1965)
Photo by Bradley Allen.

W.H. Auden
The Platonic Blow
(1965)

Carol Bergé
The Vancouver Report
(1964)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
To Fuck Is to Love Again
(1965)

D.H Lawrence
Maxims And Aphorisms from the Letters of D.H. Lawrence
(1964)
Compiled with appended poems by Marguerite Harris

D.H Lawrence
Maxims And Aphorisms from the Letters of D.H. Lawrence
(1964)
Compiled with appended poems by Marguerite Harris
Tipped-in drawing

Claude Pélieu
Automatic Pilot
(1964)

Ed Sanders
The Toe Queen Poems
(1964)

Ed Sanders
Fuck God in the Ass

Ed Sanders (Editor and contributor)
Despair: Poems to Come Down By
(1964)

Poems for Marilyn

A Valorium Edition of the Entire Extant Works of Thales
(1964)

Bugger: An Anthology
(1964)

Ezra Pound
The Cantos of Ezra Pound CX-CXVI
(1967)

The Regal Society of Sooey Semen
(1969)

The Fuck You Quote of the Week

Harry Fainlight
Quote of the Week #1
(1964)

John Ashbery
Quote of the Week #2
(1964)
(Image courtesy of Between the Covers Books.)

Kenneth Koch
Quote of the Week #3
(1964)
(Image courtesy of Between the Covers Books.)

Fuck You Press Catalogues and Newsletters

Fuck You Press News Flash

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 1

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 2

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 3
(Spring 1965)

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 4

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 4.5
(Image courtesy of Paul Rickert)

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 5

Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 6

Peace Eye Bookstore Catalogue 7

Peace Eye Bookstore Catalogue 8

Ed Sanders
In Defense of Kiss and Screw
(1969)

Marijuana Newsletter No. 1
(1965)

Marijuana Newsletter No. 2
(1965)

Flyers and Handbills

Marijuana Review Handbill
(Can anyone confirm that Fuck You is actually the publisher of this?)

Flyer
The flyer advertises a reading by Herbert Huncke to take place at Le Metro Cafe in New York on 1 July 1964

Flyer
The flyer advertising a protest against federal narcotics agents

Flyer
The flyer announcing a publication party for the novel Barbara by Frank Newman-Sam Abrams

Flyer
Flyer for the October 1967 march on the Pentagon

Leaflet
Leaflet for the mock exorcism of the Pentagon held on October 13, 1967 at the Village Theatre.

Handbill
Handbill announcing a “Marijuana March” in the East Village
December 27, 1964

Handbill
Handbill announcing reading of Carl Solomon (including a lecture on Artaud) at Le Metro Café
July 29, 1964

Handbill
Handbill announcing Picket to Legalize Cunnilingus at Union Square in San Francisco on October 30, 1965 (possibly designed by Sanders)

Handbill announcing “Free Marijuana Prisoners”
Circa 1965

Ed Sanders Newsletter
Circa 1966

Ed Sanders, ed.
With Extreme Regret We Must Announce that Ed Sanders Does Not
Circa 1965

Ed Sanders
Handbill announcing a reading by Sanders at the Coda Gallery in Greenwich Village
Circa 1965

Ed Sanders and Ted Berrigan
Handbill announcing a reading by Ted Berrigan and Ed Sanders at the Le Metro Cafe in Greenwich Village
Circa 1965

Legal-size mimeo handbill proclaiming “Ed Sanders Wins Obscenity Case.”

Fugs Memorabilia

Fugs Flyer
(Image courtesy of Paul Rickert)

Fugs Flyer

Fugs Flyer

Fugs Flyer

Fugs Cross-Country Caravan Flyer

Fugs Bios

Handbill
Handbill announcing a Night of Napalm concerts starring the Fugs on August 7, 1965 at The Bridge on 4 St. Marks Place.

Handbill
Handbill announcing Fugs concert and poetry reading at The Orb Theater at 1470 Washington in San Francisco on October 29, 1965 (possibly designed by Sanders).

Handbill
Handbill announcing return from cross-country tour and concert of The Fugs at The Bridge Theatre (December 1965).

Handbill
Handbill announcing The Fugs held over at the Café Au Go Go on 152 Bleecker Street through December 26, 1965.

Handbill
Handbill announcing The Fugs’ first appearance at The Bridge Theatre in Greenwich Village
1965

Handbill
Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at The East End Theatre
Circa 1965

Handbill
Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at Ego East on the Lower East Side
Circa 1965

Handbill
Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at the Bowery Poets Coop in the East Village
Circa 1965

Posters

Poster
Fugs poster with fold-in that spells “Fuck You.” Image courtesy of Between the Covers.

Related to Fuck You

Peace Eye
Peace Eye was not actually published by Fuck You but by Frontier Press. However, it provides an interesting bridge between two great mimeo scenes — Fuck You Press headed by Ed Sanders in New York and Frontier Press in Buffalo.

Ed Sanders
Poem from Jail
City Lights, San Francisco, 1963

Miscellaneous Items

Invitation
To Ed Sanders obscenity trial on March 20, 1967 with list of the prosecution’s potential exhibits

Invitation
To the grand reopening of Peace Eye Bookstore in celebration of Sanders’ victory over obscenity charges to be held on June 27, 1967

Invitation
To party and exhibition of the collages of Claude Pelieu at midnight on March 28, 1969 at Peace Eye Bookstore on 147 Avenue A

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number One

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Two (John Weiners)

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Three

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Four (Carol Berge)

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Five (Michael McClure)

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Six (Ed Sanders)

Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Seven (Gerald Malaga)

Herbert Huncke 80th Birthday Card

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

I spent some more time on Dave Moore’s page of Burroughs covers the other night. An interesting piece could be written on the cover art and external packaging of Burroughs’ work over the past five decades similar to the essays that have been written on the prefaces, introductions and afterwords that comprise the various editions of Naked Lunch. Burroughs’ work always seems to be adapting to changing times and audiences. This is one reason I think his work will last in the reading public’s imagination.

Looking at Dave Moore’s page, I am always drawn to one image in particular: The Fuck You Press edition of APO-33: The Metabolic Regulator. I would love to own one, but I doubt I will ever get the chance. Like Issue 24 of Floating Bear Magazine, the Fuck You APO-33 is a stopper that you just never hear about and never get the opportunity to see. I saw it for the first time years ago in Maynard and Miles. It has a simple production layout on the covers; I would be interested in seeing the contents. Apparently the layout of the contents concerned Burroughs as well. When he received a copy of APO-33 from Ed Sanders, Burroughs expressed nervousness about the print job and Sanders halted production. According to Maynard and Miles, “Since the mimeo would not print the full width of WSB’s columns before it faded, the columns were typed down the page and a new column started at the top again, which resulted in columns changing a bit from WSB’s manuscript. Also the illustrations, done on the electrostencil, did not turn out too well and were glued in the finished text at places different from where they were glued in the original manuscript (one was glued over some text).” In his biography on William Burroughs, Barry Miles writes, “The technology did not exist to reproduce the photographs on the stencils, so they were done separately, and Peter Orlovsky, Allen Ginsberg’s lover, was responsible for cutting each one out and sticking them on the finished pages. Unfortunately Peter was on amphetamines at the time and set about his task with furious energy, scattering pictures and glue everywhere.”

Burroughs’ reaction has always mildly surprised me. This concern with the layout seems miles away from the author who wrote and published Naked Lunch in 1959. In Naked Lunch, Burroughs goes to great lengths to diminish himself as an author going so far as to say he had little recollection of writing the book and calling himself “a recording instrument.” In addition, Naked Lunch was by all accounts put together in the most haphazard and rapid fashion calling into question if Burroughs ever had a set form in mind as he wrote the novel. The cut-up experiments of the Beat Hotel years and after also assault the primacy of the author and introduce elements of chance and randomness that seemed to interest and please Burroughs. All this points to the fact that Burroughs would be less iron-fisted with the production of his works than demonstrated with the Fuck You piece. Clearly this is not the case showing that Burroughs took great care in how his work, especially the visually rich work of the mid-1960′s like Time and APO-33, appeared on the page. This concern with the visual aspect of words and the physical act of reading places Burroughs alongside the concrete poets. Not surprisingly, Burroughs’ cut-up work in Minutes to Go and The Exterminator appeared in magazines side by side with several concrete poets. More on that to come.

In any case, a few copies of the Fuck You APO-33 saw the light of day, roughly 10-20 copies which were collated before Burroughs’ reaction. According to Barry Miles, an initial run of 5,000 was planned. I have never seen one of these copies for sale on the open market and prior to Dave’s page I only knew that UCLA’s library had one. I assume that the University of Connecticut possesses a copy as well since that institution houses many of Sanders’ papers and a sizable Fuck You Press archive. Back in 1965, the Phoenix Bookshop received a few copies. According to Maynard and Miles, the Special Collection Department of Northwestern University had a copy as well as Barry Miles. It has been 15 years but sooner or later I will see a copy up for sale. I can only imagine what it would sell for.

If the Fuck You APO-33 is forever out of reach, the Beach Books editions of 1966-1967 and the third edition of 1968 are a fine consolation. All three of these editions were printed in runs of 3,000. It should be noted that the third edition states that it is the second printing “(c) by William Burroughs 1966, 1967, 1968.” Burroughs definitely felt comfortable with the Beach Books editions. These editions are a photo offset of Burroughs’ own manuscript. Mary Beach, publisher of several magazines and books that featured Burroughs as a textual and visual artist, passed on recently in her 80s. Various obituaries and celebrations written about Beach mention her relationship with Burroughs. Beach and her husband Claude Pelieu were heavily influenced by Burroughs’ cut up techniques.

I have never given APO-33 its proper due. Time always seemed more important and more inventive to me. I am not alone; Port of Entry scarcely mentions APO-33. Looking closely at APO-33 again, I have to reassess my prior feelings. The Bulletin proves to be a major statement of Burroughs every bit as interesting as Time and central to Burroughs creative output of the mid-1960s. Like Time, APO-33 highlights Burroughs’ concern with the interplay and presentation of textual and visual experiments. Collage and cu-up techniques are on ful display. Where Time played with the magazine and newspaper format, APO-33 also toyed with the format and content of the academic journal harkening back to Burroughs’ beginnings as a writer in the British Journal of Addiction. APO-33 rewrites his 1957 scholarly article. As APO-33 demonstrates, Burroughs was no longer content to experiment with drugs and chronicle drug addiction in works like Junkie and the British Journal. He increasingly concerned himself with exploring the addicting and controlling aspects of language and image as well.

The various editions of APO-33 appear on eBay every so often and sell for under $100. Several copies are available from booksellers on abebooks. There is no reason to spend much more than $100; $150 for an unusually fine copy. APO-33 is cheaper than Time and every bit as interesting. Both pieces highlight Burroughs during one of his most radical creative periods, if not his most non-commercial. In my opinion, these works will find an audience of art collectors, as much as book collectors, seeking to document the relatively undiscovered period between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art of the early 1960s. In time, these art books of Burroughs will be as prized as the later shotgun art work and the collectible first editions.

Read More about APO-33

• Speed, Apomorphine, Mimeo, and the Cut-Up
• Apomorphine and Naked Lunch
• APO-33: A Metabolic Regulator (Shoaf Checklist)

APO-33 Archive

APO-33 Fuck You Press, 1965	APO-33 Beach Books, 1968
(Missing page 5?)