review of
Steven Clay & Rodney Phillips'
A Secret Location on the Lower East Side
- Adventures in Writing: 1960-1980
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 15, 2013

My, my.. Once again, I must have 'too much' to say on this subject b/c my full review is too long for here. SO, if you want to read the whole damned thing go here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/324762?chapter=1

This (1998) is a very vital & important resource work that shd be in the library of any serious literary researcher. Perhaps a companion volume to it wd be John McMillian's Smoking Typewriters - The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America (2011) (wch I haven't read yet so I'm not necessarily recommending it). Basically this is an ambitious (& at the same time somewhat necessarily myopic) overview of the small press literary publishers & publications over a 2 decade period, mostly in North America, & mostly associated w/ the "mimeograph revolution".

In the "Pre-Face" by that man of exceptionally broad knowledge & experience, Jerome Rothenberg, it's written:

"And while the Reagan years might have brought about a new resistance (& sometimes did), they also brought a new defensiveness in what became increasingly a culture war directed against the avant-garde rather than by it. The secret locations of this book's title were no longer secret but had come into a new & far less focused visibility & a fusion/confusion, often, with the commercial & cultural conglomerates of the American center. Increasingly too there had developed a dependence on support from institutional & governmental sources - the National Endowment for the Arts, say, as the major case in point. The result was to impose both a gloss of professionalism on the alternative publications & to make obsolete the rough & ready book works of the previous two decades. But the greatest danger of patronage was that the denial of that patronage, once threatened, became an issue that would override all others." (p 11)

Now, no doubt Rothenberg knows his shit.. BUT, does he know everybody else's shit?! Apparently not. Rothenberg has enjoyed the support of major presses since at least 1968 when Technicians of the Sacred was 1st published. Methinks that when Rothenberg writes "there had developed a dependence on support from institutional & governmental sources" he's referring largely to the academic poets he's probably friends w/. Even the most cursory look at, say, punks & 'zines will show an unbroken continuity from the "rough & ready book works of the previous two decades". One cd certainly look at my own publications from 1977 to the present or, to use a more recent example, those of rOBNOXIOUS (see my review of his oPEN eYES uNLOCK dOORS here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3174988-open-eyes-unlock-doors ).

The bottom line is that as long as there are people too poor &/or disconnected from conventional funding sources there will always be publications made under economically strained conditions. & it's these very publications that're often likely to include hand-done touches missing from more well-funded publications. Rothenberg is writing about the well-to-do people who're his social circle.

Alas, both Rothenberg's intro & statements like this: "Looking back at them now, the books and magazines of the mimeo revolution appear imbued with a vivid purity of intention which it is nearly impossible to conceive of creating in today's publications" (p 15) strike me as the statements of people who simply don't know the work done outside their particular cultural (&, probably, generational) ghetto.

Another example of this narrow vision is Lewis Warsh's statement that "United Artists was probably the last of the great mimeo magazines since by the mid-80s everyone had computers and all the magazines became perfect-bound with glossy covers" (p 199). I conclude from this that Warsh was/is economically well-off. His father was a principal & his mom was a teacher & he graduated from college w/ a masters degree. &, NO, Lewis, by the mid-80s NOT "everyone had computers". How can you be so ignorant?! My own magazine, "DDC#040.002 #3", was printed by myself on mimeograph in 1985. & I didn't have a computer. By the time I had one given to me by my friend James "Sarmad" Brody in 1994 it was printing out on a dot-matrix printer - something of a lower quality than mimeo.

& then there's Eileen Myles: "I've never liked mimeo. Sure, it's fast and it's cheap but it doesn't look like a book. If you can do it yourself, why bother? Why not just xerox your favorite new poems from time to time and hand 'em to your friends?" (p 223) Well.. it's not really THAT fast - after all, each page is printed one at a time - it's not like web-press printing where a large sheet of paper is printed & then folded & cut. As for why do it yourself? Maybe b/c if you don't no-one else will, maybe so you can learn HOW to do it, maybe to be pro-active!! Why not just xerox & give the xeroxes to friends? Maybe b/c xerox didn't come along until much later than mimeograph, maybe b/c mimeographs were much more affordable to individuals than photocopy machines were, maybe b/c you want to do outreach outside of yr friends!! I deduce that Myles, too, is/was a rich brat. Since the 1st issue of her magazine, "dodgems", is shown w/ a spiral binding it seems fit to comment that perhaps "dodgems" was a business report & not a cultural magazine?!

But picking out these bones is like picking a few hairs out of a pie - all in all, A Secret Location is wonderful. I got to learn more about Ed Sanders' fabulously irreverent publications: "The energy and ethos of the magazine is vividly expressed in the following statement: "Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts is edited, published, zapped, designed, freaked, groped, stomped, & ejaculated by Ed Sanders at a secret location in the lower east side, New York City, U.S.A." Almost forty years later, it is still completely original and a total delight." (p 39) I've got to hand it to Sanders: his Bugger: An Anthology of Anal Erotic, Pound Cake, Cornhole, Arse-Freak & Dreck Poems is one of the most outrageous compilation titles I've ever run across.

There're so many fascinating publishers & publications in here!

"Similar in spirit and philosophy to Ark II/Moby I, the Journal for the Protection of All Beings was one of the first radical ecology journals. The brainchild of Michael McClure and David Meltzer, it melded the anarchist thought of the 1950s (The Ark) with the pacifism evidenced in the very early mimeo journal The Illiterati, published in the late 1940s by Kermit Sheets and Kemper Nomland at the camp for conscientious objectors in Waldport, Oregon. The newest element in the mix was work from San Francisco Renaissance poets. The first issue led off with Thomas Merton's "Chant to be used in procession around a site with furnaces" and included work by all three editors as well as an interview with Ginsberg by Gregory Corso, an interview with Ginsberg and Corso by William S. Burroughs, as well as Gary Snyder's "Buddhist Anarchism." This issue also reprinted two famous documents, Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Declaration of Rights" and the famous statement by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Indians." (p 97)

I was astounded to learn that the "Evergreen Review was typically published in print runs exceeding 100,000 copies and thus was able to deliver the "underground" to a large audience." (p 103) [By the way, the numbering in A Secret Location has the zeros blacked-in as if they were typed energetically on a typewriter or a mimeo stencil - nice touch!] I was interested to learn that Larry Eigner started publishing much earlier than I'd realized: there's one work, From the Sustaining Air dating from 1953. I was also interested to learn that the prolific poetry publisher the Coffee House Press is a descendant of sorts of a magazine called Toothpaste. & Eugene Jolas' Transition made a cameo appearance. Thank the holy ceiling light that Grove Press is in here too:

"Barney Rosset believed in "combat publishing," and his ongoing challenge to mainstream American sensibilities has landed him in court many, many times. He fought and won battles for D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover and Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (for which he went to court in sixty separate state and local prosecutions, six state supreme court rulings, and a U.S. Supreme Court hearing)." (p 101)

Another personal favorite publisher, Dick Higgins' Something Else Press is also featured: "The press began in 1964 following Higgins's break with Fluxus founder George Maciunas" (p 137) - this latter tidbit being enlightening in relation to some of the things I read in Al Hansen An Introspective (see my review here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/323052-al-hansen-an-introspective ). The Something Else Press entry continues: "Higgins's foew&ombwhnw (a 1969 collection disguised as a prayer book) contains his important essay "Intermedia," in which he describes artworks which "fall between media," arguing that the social conditions of the time (early to mid-1960s) no longer allowed for a "compartmentalized approach" to either art or life." (p 137) Shortly thereafter in a section headed Performance Art and Intermedia the editors introduce w/:

"Much of the artwork produced during the 1960s and 70s can be described as "intermedial" in that it falls between media. For example, language and writing show up as the subject and material for many visual artists, while dance, cinema, theater, and sculpture stretch their boundaries in an attempt to create new forms to embody and enact newly emerging lifestyles and consciousness. The works of John Cage, Jackson Mac Low, Dick Higgins, the Fluxus group. Charlotte Moorman, Al Carmines and the Judson Memorial Church performances, Carolee Schneemann, and many others like them are closely allied to new developments in poetry during the intense period of cross-fertilization that this book documents. Illustrated on the following pages are several examples from this generative period." (p 139)

What can I say? Nice try but no exploding cigar! In other words, this is one of the areas where A Secret Location fails the most. Many or most of the publications are basically poetry magazines, rectangles w/ artwork on the cover - there're very, very few (or NO) artists' bks touches evident that might be indicative of an imagination beyond the most banal categories. Something Else Press is mentioned but there's no mention that its Fantastic Architecture bk included a plethora of translucencies. lightworks magazine isn't mentioned at all. Was it too 'slick'? That wasn't a criteria for excluding things like Sun and Moon. Was it too much an arts magazine & too little a literary one? Issue 6, December-January, 1977, features William S. Burroughs on the cover. lightworks wd've been a welcome entry here b/c they did things like have a "Total Art Matchbook" on the cover of number 14/15 - an actual matchbk w/ matches inside. Ok, the isuue's from 1982 but there are other A Secret Location entries that fall outside the 1960-1980 parameters.

Or what about publications like Aspen? I have issue #9 the "Dreamweapon" themed one. Was Aspen too well funded or something? The issue I have is a folio w/ loose pages that includes a fantastic variety of formal presentation & includes work by such folks as LaMonte Young & Gerard Malanga. & then there're things like Egozine - Enlightened Self-Interest (the issue I have might be from 1976 or 1977) - a magazine that falls somewhat outside easy categories.

I reckon the main reason for the absence of such publications is that they aren't included in the New York Public Library research collections that're so heavily referenced here. That's a shame - b/c while the library's collection is no doubt spectacularly remarkable it also appears to be somewhat biased toward more conventional poetic output.

&, THEN, there's my typical BIG pet peeve: why does BalTimOre always get such short shrift?!! In the section on "Language Writing (pp 42-44) e pod is correctly listed & has the editors correctly listed as Kirby Malone and Marshall Reese. Then it has the cover of Hannah Weiner's Clairvoyant Journal shown, presumably as an example of a Language Writing bk. Heck, I like Hannah Weiner's work, I even read w/ her at the Ear Inn in 1982, &, yes she was lumped together w/ Language Writers but I disagree w/ her inclusion. She probably belongs in a category all her own - wch is no mean feat. Then there's this: "located primarily in San Francisco and New York, with a smaller group active in Washington D.C. Magazines and presses such as L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, This, A Hundred Posters, E pod, Hills, Vanishing Cab, Miam, Roof, Sun & Moon, The Figures, Asylum's, Tuumba, The Difficulties, Poetics Journal, and others" (p 44).

Ok, note that Washington D.C. is credited as one of the places w/ an active smaller group but not BalTimOre. Why?! Well, my theory has always been that the 3 cities listed are considered to be 'cosmopolitan' cities & BalTimOre is just written off as a working class hellhole - ironic considering Language Writing's political pretenses. Consider this: not one of the publications listed was from DC but e pod was from BalTimOre. Sun & Moon started off in College Park - that's near DC but not IN DC. Making matters worse, in Charles Bernstein & Bruce Andrews writing re L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E they mention the same 3 cities listed above &, once again, leave out BalTimOre. That's interesting considered that at least 4 of the BalTimOre writers connected to Language Writing are published in The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book: Kirby Malone, Marshall Reese, Chris Mason, & myself - as was cris cheek who lived briefly in BalTimOre. Shit! Bruce & Charles shd've known better! After all, Marshall & Kirby's pod books published something by each of them & they're both mentioned in this bk. Ok, Some of Us Press was based in DC & it published Andrews' bk Edge. Even James Sherry's acct excludes BalTimOre & includes DC (p 251). James shd know better!! BalTimOre really was a hell-hole but it still had a fantastic underground culture & the non-supportiveness of the environment made it even more remarkable. Imagine how frustrating it is to be from there & to've been a major participant in many cultural movements & to be completely neglected by historians of those movements. For that matter, IMO, David Franks, another BalTimOre based poet, did very strong & original work but only one of his publications is in A Secret Location: Touch published by Duende (see my movie of David here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOUigEfApi4 ).

Why are e, e pod, & pod books given so little mention? I'm looking at a great issue of e right now from 1976. At least CoAccident, the performance group associated w/ the Merzaum Collective that the preceding were also associated w/, is listed in the "A Chronological Timeline of the Literary Underground, 1950-1980" that's the fold-out of A Secret Location. Why aren't the audio cassettes connected to this scene, Widemouth Tapes, mentioned at all?! Widemouth put out what's arguably the earliest published Language Writing recording: "Public Language" (1982). The yr being 1982 might seem to exclude it from here but there're many examples of work post-1980 that're obviously included b/c they're considered to be too significant to exclude. HOW(ever), eg, is included, as a feminist magazine even tho it started in 1983. The Black Mountain Review (1954-1957) & Divers Press (1953-1955) are included b/c of their obvious historical importance.

This, a magazine I've always liked very much (I have issues 4, 6, 7, & 8), is credited by Bob Perelman here as ""the first self-conscious journal of what would become known as language writing"" (p 239). That might very well be accurate. Barrett Watten & Robert Grenier were the editors. It seems to me that it was either Perelman or Watten who were outraged by the positive critical reception that Marshall Reese's bk, Writing (published by pod), rc'vd. Most, if not all, of Writing was made from "slugs", the cast-off text from the printer that Marshall worked for in the 1970s. That seemed very Language Writing to me - but, apparently, it offended the more conventional authorial position of at least one other Language Writer. I thought that was funny.

Then again, maybe Tottel's deserves more credit even than This, having been founded a yr earlier. Ron Silliman was the editor & I've always liked Silliman's writing. "Named after the first anthology of English poetry, Tottel's Miscellany of 1557" [..] ""there can be no such thing as a formal problem in poetry which is not a social one as well."" (p 243) "The first gathering of individuals who were to become known as "language poets" was edited by Ron Silliman under the title "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets." Published in Alcheringa, it included work by Bruce Andrews, Barbara Baracks, Clark Coolidge, Lee De Jasu, Ray DiPalma, Robert Grenier, David Melnick, Silliman himself, and Barrett Watten." (p 244)

I was happy to see so much great stuff in A Secret Location: both stuff I'm very familiar w/ & stuff I'd like to know more about: Steve McCaffery's remarkable Carnival, Alan Davies' A Hundred Posters (erroneously listed as having only 38 issues - I was in the last issue, #40) & Occulist Witnesses & Other Publications, Segue, Spanner (I have issues 14, "January 1981: A Painting", 20 Supplement, & 23 - I'd really like to see other issues - esp 9! - focusing on Dick Higgins & Something Else Press), & Station Hill (one of my all-time favorite presses: SubGenius blessings to you, Susan & George!). To people like Eileen Myles who're dismissive of mimeo publications I say: look to the Spanners of Allen Fisher or the publications of cris cheek & see what the creative possibilities of mimeo really were. They're fantastic!

All in all, A Secret Location is well worth keeping around. SUPPORT GRANARY BOOKS! (&, of course, all public libraries!) What I perceive as its shortcomings might have more to do w/ the tastes & interests of the collectors who donated to the New York Public Library. I suspect that my own personal collection of small press publications might just be considerably more eclectic & unusual. Now who will preserve it after I die?!

Go HERE for the full review: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/324762?chapter=1 ( )