I've got a small stack of zines here. Do you remember zines? Back before the IntraTubes, would-be publishers used photocopiers to make multiple paper copies of whatever they wanted to print, and sent them to people via the U.S. Postal Service (which is still around, by the way, and some people still use it to mail letters to each other). They came in all shapes and sizes: saddle-stapled 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", or 8 1/2" x 11" if you had a budget or access to the office photocopier; sheets of paper stapled in one corner; 11" x 17" single sheets folded into a square; or sometimes just loose assortments of odd-sized, hand-cut paper stuffed into an envelope.
I've got Impetus here, a couple of issues of Bouillabaisse, and Cokefish. The first issue of Rant. Three issues of Struggle: A Magazine of Proletarian Revolutionary Literature (I'm in one of those, actually, which is not surprising, because I'd spewed off an anti-First Iraq War screed and Revolutionaries like that sort of thing), and th'advenchurzza scab boy. There's Mandrake Makes Madonna in Marmelade, and r.l. nichols & faggot friends & poesy pals preferrin' cock (or love 666). Shattered Wig #11. And, of course, Holy Titclamps, which is still around. Lyn Lifshin is in about half of these things. She's still around too, and remains insanely prolific. You can also buy stuff from the Christies, who run Alpha Beat Press and published Bouillabaisse and Cokefish.1
It's a weird little pile of stained and yellowing papers and booklets that always stands out among the more ordered spines of the other books on my shelves. I shuffled through it this evening looking for Feh!, which published my four line epic, "Ode to Rubber." I didn't find it, but I found some ephemera that's probably been moving with me from place to place for well over a decade, hidden among the chaps and zines. A couple of poems that I'd forgotten I wrote, which is just as well. A copy of the 1995-1996 course catalogue for Union Theological Seminary. A reference manual for the tsubos of the twelve traditional meridians (excluding CV and GV). Some reviews of my first and only chapbook.
This little stack of random stuff illustrates the danger of our digital age. We've got papyri and clay tablets that are over 5,000 years old. But if the sun has a bad day and wings a monstrous coronal mass ejection our way, many of our modern online zines are going to vanish in a blaze of scrambled magnetic particles on sparking drive platters.
So, today's public service announcement: back up your data. Not that it will help if the sun unleashes an electromagnetic storm big enough to fry your laptop. But it might make you feel better.
1The last time I saw Dave and Ana Christy, I was at their place in New Hope hanging out with eliott, joe r., Bobby Starr, and my pal Lauren, none of whom you know or have ever heard of. Bobby Starr's photocopied zines and broadsides were dotted with anuses that he'd cut from porn mags. When I left that evening, he was on the floor with his head in an overturned kitchen trashcan, as a ward against incipient vomit. True story.
I've got Impetus here, a couple of issues of Bouillabaisse, and Cokefish. The first issue of Rant. Three issues of Struggle: A Magazine of Proletarian Revolutionary Literature (I'm in one of those, actually, which is not surprising, because I'd spewed off an anti-First Iraq War screed and Revolutionaries like that sort of thing), and th'advenchurzza scab boy. There's Mandrake Makes Madonna in Marmelade, and r.l. nichols & faggot friends & poesy pals preferrin' cock (or love 666). Shattered Wig #11. And, of course, Holy Titclamps, which is still around. Lyn Lifshin is in about half of these things. She's still around too, and remains insanely prolific. You can also buy stuff from the Christies, who run Alpha Beat Press and published Bouillabaisse and Cokefish.1
It's a weird little pile of stained and yellowing papers and booklets that always stands out among the more ordered spines of the other books on my shelves. I shuffled through it this evening looking for Feh!, which published my four line epic, "Ode to Rubber." I didn't find it, but I found some ephemera that's probably been moving with me from place to place for well over a decade, hidden among the chaps and zines. A couple of poems that I'd forgotten I wrote, which is just as well. A copy of the 1995-1996 course catalogue for Union Theological Seminary. A reference manual for the tsubos of the twelve traditional meridians (excluding CV and GV). Some reviews of my first and only chapbook.
This little stack of random stuff illustrates the danger of our digital age. We've got papyri and clay tablets that are over 5,000 years old. But if the sun has a bad day and wings a monstrous coronal mass ejection our way, many of our modern online zines are going to vanish in a blaze of scrambled magnetic particles on sparking drive platters.
So, today's public service announcement: back up your data. Not that it will help if the sun unleashes an electromagnetic storm big enough to fry your laptop. But it might make you feel better.
1The last time I saw Dave and Ana Christy, I was at their place in New Hope hanging out with eliott, joe r., Bobby Starr, and my pal Lauren, none of whom you know or have ever heard of. Bobby Starr's photocopied zines and broadsides were dotted with anuses that he'd cut from porn mags. When I left that evening, he was on the floor with his head in an overturned kitchen trashcan, as a ward against incipient vomit. True story.
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