Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker
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 Press Bibliography
A Items
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
William S. Burroughs
Health Bulletin: APO-33, a Metabolic Regulator
(1965)
Photo by Bradley Allen
Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts
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)
Newsletters
Peace Eye Catalogs
Ed Sanders’ Catalogue 4.5
(Image courtesy of Paul Rickert)
Fuck You Ephemera
John Ashbery
Fuck You Quote of the Week #2
(1964)
(Image courtesy of Between the Covers Books.)
Kenneth Koch
Fuck You Quote of the Week #3
(1964)
(Image courtesy of Between the Covers Books.)
Peace Eye Press Releases
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
Flyers and Handbills
Flyer
The flyer advertises a reading by Herbert Huncke to take place at Le Metro Cafe in New York on 1 July 1964
Handbill
Handbill announcing reading of Carl Solomon (including a lecture on Artaud) at Le Metro Café
July 29, 1964
Handbill
Handbill announcing a “Marijuana March” in the East Village
December 27, 1964
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)
Handbill announcing “Free Marijuana Prisoners”
Circa 1965
Ed Sanders
Handbill announcing a reading by Sanders at the Coda Gallery in Greenwich Village
Circa 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 Ego East on the Lower East Side
(Circa 1965)
HandbillHandbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at the Bowery Poets Coop in the East Village
(Circa 1965)
Handbill
American Theatre for Poets Special Events Calendar, March 1965 (including Fugs, Dick Higgins, Brion Gysin, et al)
Handbill
Handbill for The Fugs appearance at the East End Theatre for March 8, 1965
(Dated by Izzy Young as March 3, 1965)
Handbill
Handbill for The Fugs appearance at the East End Theatre for March 8, 1965
(Dated by Izzy Young as March 3, 1965)
(Image courtesy of Paul Rickert)
Handbill
Handbill announcing an appearance by The Fugs at The East End Theatre
March 29-30, April 5 (1965?)
Handbill
Handbill touting month of “Folkways Recording Stars” Fugs’ performances in July (3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th & 31st) at The Bridge Theater.
(dated by Izzy Young as July 11, 1965)
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 Picket to Legalize Cunnilingus at Union Square in San Francisco on October 30, 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 December 2nd concert of The Fugs at The Bridge Theater.
Handbill
Handbill announcing December 10th & 11th concert of The Fugs at the Café Au Go Go on 152 Bleecker.
Handbill
Handbill announcing The Fugs held over at the Café Au Go Go on 152 Bleecker Street through December 26, 1965.
Invitation
To Ed Sanders obscenity trial on March 20, 1967 with list of the prosecution’s potential exhibits
Legal-size mimeo handbill proclaiming “Ed Sanders Wins Obscenity Case.”
Leaflet
Leaflet for the mock exorcism of the Pentagon held on October 13, 1967 at the Village Theatre.
Fuck You Related
Ed Sanders
1966 Letter to David Schaff
Letter concerning raid on Peace Eye Books and subsequent obscenity trial against 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.
Poster
Fugs poster with fold-in that spells “Fuck You.” Image courtesy of Between the Covers.
Ed Sanders – Ralph Ginzburg Archive Catalogue
View PDF
Phoenix Book Shop Check Number One
Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Two (John Weiners)
Phoenix Book Shop Check Number Three (George Economou)
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
I found issue 5 volume 7 in the garbage of a university. It’s amazing! I’ve never read anything by Ginsberg or Burroughs and this seems like a good way to start.
Nice list
Hi ! Can someone confirm me whether the fuck you Press “books”, such as Roosevelt After Inauguration, were staple bound or just free paper leaves ?
Thanks a lot!
Roosevelt after Inauguration was staple bound as were most of the Fuck You publications, but that said I have seen copies of Roosevelt that were collated but were never stapled. I have seen a couple issues of Fuck You Magazine that way as well. They were never stapled at all; not that the stapled were removed at a later date.
Can anyone tell me which issue contained something by Antonin Artaud, which text it was, and who the translator was?
I have an issue of the magazine that has no volume or issue # on the cover, just “Fuck You, a magazine of the arts, June, 1965.” On the second page it says “Number 5, Volume 9, June/July 1965.” The front cover has different graphics on it from the one you show. Does anyone know what the discrepancy is about? Thanks!
Jack
As you can see with the comment about the stapling on Roosevelt, FY items were definitely put together differently. I have heard of different papers being used on various publications as well (like Platonic Blow for example or the colored vs uncolored covers for the pirated Cantos of Pound). So it is possible that different graphics were made as well. Maybe Sanders ran more copies of the text than the covers and had to make extra covers. If you can please scan it and we can add it to the archive as a possible variant.
Hi Jed,
Thanks very much for your reply. I’ve heard quite a few stories about the inconsistency of FY and other publications, including bad collating, upside down pages, and loads of other variants. You obviously are an expert, and I’m sure you’ve seen many. An interesting fact about this copy and the others in my collection is that they were Jackson Mac Low’s copies. They came directly from his estate, as did some other interesting stuff that I was lucky enough to get. I don’t have a scanner hooked up to my computer, but I will ask someone I know to help me with it, and I’ll send you what seem to be the “odd” pages in this issue. Thanks again for your theories of how this might have happened. I’ll be in touch soon.
Regards,
Jack
That is very interesting about Jackson Mac Low. If you care to share, what other type of material was in his estate? What type of little mags and books did he have/read? I have been meaning to get a copy of DOINGS for quite some time. Have you read that book?
To help complete your bibliography of Peace Eye bookstore, may I add that there was a catalog # 4 1/2 which featured Sazbo’s collection of books he used as collateral against a loan from Ed Sanders.
The cover of the catalog can be seen at this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bookstreet/3389151188/
Thanks.
There is an Ed Sanders exhibit at The Arm in Brooklyn. Details: http://thearmnyc.com/news/2009/06/ed_sanders_show_at_the_arm
I hear there are paste-ups of the various Fuck You, a magazine of the arts issues as well as rare and virtually unseen ephemerial items. The opening in on July 10th.
Just stumbled onto this site. I was living in Ed’s bookstore on 10th st across from Thompkins Sq Pk. Myself and my friend Groovy were putting together copies of “Peace Eye” and we were going to pass it out in The Bronx Zoo if Ed was convicted on obscenity charges. I was 16/17? and a run-away from Long Island at the time.
I actually still have a copy. Maaannnnnn..do I ever have stories from back then…
Any chance of getting a list of the contents of each issue? (Which issue(s) did Warhol contribute to (if any)?
I would love to see credits to the cover artists (if known), specifically which were designed by Joe Brainard. I know he’s responsible for the Cantos.
The majority of the covers are by Sanders himself. There are a few exceptions. Robert LaVigne for Fuck You 5/7, Warhol for 5/8, Claude Pelieu for the Fugs are Coming handbill, and Brainard for the Cantos. The later Peace Eye catalogs might have another designer but I am not sure.
If you are interested in Brainard covers go to the C Press Archive if you havent already: https://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/c-press-archive/
Hi, I was wondering where I could by a copy of “Fuck You, A Magazine of the Arts”
Thanks
–chad
Should the Ed Sanders/Peter Orlovsky FUCK YOU PRESS page in BULLETIN FROM NOTHING 2 be included here?
I dont think so. It is in Bulletin from Nothing which is published by Pelieu not Sanders.
What about THE DICK? (1967)
Definitely. I have a copy but it is too big to scan and I have never been satisfied with the photos I have taken of it. I’ll try to get it up soon somehow.
Great to see this site up and running, and much thanks for the dedication it took/takes to do all the scanning and uploading. I spent the fall and winter in NYC 1964-65. I visited Peace Eye books, and got to know many of the poets who contributed to Fuck You and C magazine where if I recall, I published something. I own a few copies of both mags, and many books from the period. Some of the ny poets I brought up to Ottawa to read at Carleton University where I taught for 38 years. Ed Sanders, Paul Blackburn and Allen Ginsberg were among those who came in the late Sixties, early Seventies. Those were heady days…in a couple of ways.
Anyone enamored with the Beats need to know about Carol Berge and her clique of maverick poets and artists experimenting with multimedia in the incipient East Village, 1960-66. Berge has since passed on but she first put her legacy into print: the LIGHT YEARS anthology chronicles the group’s involvement with not only Ginsberg and Burroughs, it also tells the story of why the Feds and others may have prevented their Renaissance movement from reaching the status it deserved. Charles Olson, Ed Sanders and of course FUCK YOU Press make an appearance.
Light Years is a great book. Here is some more information: http://mimeomimeo.blogspot.com/2010/08/come-into-light.html
Nice job getting all this together, Jed.
The obscenity trial invitation, that you need an image of, is in my Ralph Ginzburg Archive PDF, above.
All Best,
Jeff
Can anyone help me get in touch with Ed Sanders?
Thank you for finding and sharing!
And jesus–what a BOYS club this was.
I’m getting a 502 Gateway error when either trying to display the jpg images of the covers or downloading the pdf files.
I would really like to see these archives as Burroughs and the Fugs and The Holy Modal Rounders and etc etc had quite an influence on me in my youth but I only got to know about them through the 60’s UK underground publications like International Times and then buying the Fugs and Rounders albums.
By the descriptions, International Times followed similar graphical methods, which I remember thinking were very cool eg the overprinting and coloured text. Sometimes impossible to actually read but inventive and always interesting.
By the way, I can recommend the Rounders DVD Bound To Lose.
Writing my English dissertation on Burroughs’s cut-ups. Thanks so much for sharing this online, Jed. I’ve quoted something great you said around these parts about The Exterminator.
Wow! You have a fantastic resource for mimeo revolution material here. Thanks for maintaining it!
My Archive has a small collection of mimeo era material in it. All my scans are hi-res individual jpegs and are suitable for large size printing or for producing a reasonable facsimile if needed. That is what separates my Archive from the rest of the low-res PDF archives.
I’d love to increase my collection of mimeo holdings. But the rise in prices of mimeo related material makes it very hard for my limited budget – as mimeo is just one of 140 areas of collection I oversee.
Here is a link to some of the mimeo related material in my Archive:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=mimeo%20revolution%20teoli
(Note: there are a few modern, small magazine poetry journals mixed in the search results.)
Best regards,
Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
Daniel D.Teoli Jr. Archival Collection
Daniel D.Teoli Jr. Small Gauge Film Archive
Daniel D.Teoli Jr. VHS Video Archive
Daniel D.Teoli Jr. Audio Archive
Daniel D.Teoli Jr. Social Documentary Photography
Daniel,
Thank you for sharing a link to a most extraordinary digital collection at Archive dot org!
The phenomenon of “digital” books and magazines reminds me of what Marshall McLuhan wrote about the televised or video “instant replay”.
Applying his analytical method known as a ‘Tetrad’, McLuhan pointed out that with instant replay, one can obtain the meaning of a past situation one wasn’t a party to but not the experience.
For me, digital replicas of texts fail to provide me with that experience of full satisfaction opening and reading my copy of INTREPID #14 / 15, Fall / Winter 1969 / 1970, or AM HERE BOOKS Catalogue Five 1981/82, but for research purposes, digital replicas are extremely valuable resources.
The coolest thing I know about high resolution JPEG files is this: today’s OCR software can manage to create high quality searchable text from such a JPEG file as readily as from a good quality PDF file and output that searchable text to PDF or Text format files.
With Appreciation for all the work you do,
G. L-N.
I downloaded the Reality Studio copy of Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts No 5 Vol 7 “The God Issue”
One motivation was that I knew I was missing a few pages, and maybe you had them (it turns out you had one, but not the other I was looking for). I did a detailed comparison and found a number of variations between the RS copy and mine.
Pages missing from my copy of Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts No 5 Vol 7 “The God Issue”
(Page numbers based on pages numbered in Reality Studio pdf copy)
p. 3 (second page of contents)
p. 30 (Gregory Corso page 1, “God Is A Masturbator”)
p. 30A (we are both missing Gregory Corso page 2)
p. 64 (Al Fowler page 1, “junky / ‘cross the green track”)
p. 65 (Al Fowler page 2, “LARSON O.D.’s; FOWLER SCARED SHITLESS” and “HEROIN”)
The subsequent pages of Al Fowler are in a different order:
RS AF page 3 (“TAKEOFF”) is my AF page 4
RS AF page 4 (“THE ROOM, JUNK WITHDRAWAL”) is my AF page 3
RS page 5 (“junky ii – speedball”) is the same as mine.
However, my first two pages of AF are different than yours:
My AF page 1 is on orange paper and begins “a bitter taste in my mouth / of a new york dawn”
My AF page 2 is also on orange paper and begins “flouting my dignity, my desire to sit stupefied / all night, nursing the junk in my veins”. Also, at top right it reads “AL FOWLER, O.S.Mf.”
I also have the back cover page on mine (“DOPE-FREAKS ARISE!”) with drawing, colophon, and notes on contributors. Also, the second and third pages of notes on contributors are reversed in order and, like the back cover, face the back of the magazine.
The last two pages of John Weiners are in reverse order in my copy (pages 11 and 12 of RS copy are pages 12 and 11 of mine)
In my copy, Antonin Artaud (RS pages 69-70) comes after Philip Lamantia (RS pages 71-72).
Colors of many pages are different, for example the Burroughs page (Page 20 in the RS copy) is in blue, not white.
For what it’s worth, my copy of this issue was purchased for $5 at a yard sale in State College PA in the mid-1990s. It was the only really worthwhile thing between some truly overpriced beat-up albums (I remember the Plasmatics and Ornette Coleman in there) and a hardback copy of Stranger in a Strange Land with a drawing in gold ink on the cover (added by a previous owner). I picked up the magazine (I had never seen a copy before), handed the guy a $5 bill and he bowed slightly, acknowledging my good taste.
thx 1000%
For what it’s worth, my copy of this issue was purchased for $5 at a yard sale in State College PA in the mid-1990s. It was the only really worthwhile thing between some truly overpriced beat-up albums (I remember the Plasmatics and Ornette Coleman in there) and a hardback copy of Stranger in a Strange Land with a drawing in gold ink on the cover (added by a previous owner). I picked up the magazine (I had never seen a copy before), handed the guy a $5 bill and he bowed slightly, acknowledging my good taste. 1000%%
like 1000%