POETICKS

Here’s what I got published in Small Press Review about me and Factsheet Five as a guest editorial:

Into the BigTime

By Bob Grumman

Among those of us who compose our masterpieces of prose or verse deep in the hinterlands of the hinterlands, I doubt that there are many who have not dreamed, however pure of heart we are, that there will come a day when something will go wrong, and a beserk minute projection of the BigTime will shoot out in our direction and beyond, then halt, permanently–with us inside it.  That the Bigtime will have accommodated us rather than the other way around, will, of course, allow us to accept the situation.  Insane this dream, without question, but . . . well, I’m here to tell you, my friends, that it has happened to me!

Here’s what’s happened: Penguin Books has published a large-format paperback survey of “the independent magazine revolution” by Mike Gunderloy and Cari Goldberg Janice called The World of Zines and a poem of mine is quoted in full in it.  What’s more, one page later I am cited as an important critic of the scene!  Okay, maybe all that doesn’t quite put me up there with Norman (Mailer) and Danielle (Steele), but I’m certainly not far from them.

How did this happen is not (entirely) to brag about myself but to make a few observations on “success”–mainly for those in the small press world who might want to follow me.  One is that, yes, who you know is probably what counts the most in the success game: Gunderloy is the former editor of Factsheet Five,  and I was one of his columnists for five years.  I never met him in person but we did exchange a fair number of friendly letters.  Of course, it could be argued that Gunderloy’s knowing me was an advantage I had earned since I wouldn’t have been able to latch on as a columnist for Factsheet Five without some kind of writing talent.

Well, I started at Factsheet Five because I knew Miekal And, a crazy multi-media wizard who, with his wife Liz Was, ran a publishing operation called Xerox Sutra (which has since become Xexoxial Endarchy, to avoid trademark infringement).  I knew And because I had bought $90 worth of books through the mail from his firm, and had written, and sent him, some criticism of it, some of it quite favorable to work he himself had done.  At this time (1987) And was peppering Gunderloy with letters reproaching him for not paying enough attention to experimental art publications in his magazine, which was billed as a complete guide to the micro-press.  Gunderloy agreed that he wasn’t and, feeling unqualified himself to treat such material, invited And to.  That was my door in, for And had too many commitments elsewhere.  He suggested I write Gunderloy, offering my services.  I did so, then at his request sent him a few sample reviews–which he thought good enough to use.

This all makes me sound much more self-serving and systematic than I actually was.  I originally bought the books from And because I was genuinely interested in what his press was doing, not to butter him up.  The essay on those books that I subsequently wrote was more a means of investigation than an attempt to further (more exactly at that point, begin) my writing career–although it was partially, and consciously, the latter as well.  The real upshot here is that I made my people-connections only after making my interest-connections.  That is, I first got involved with experimental art because I was genuinely interested in it, and that involvement led to my involvements with And and Gunderloy.

So here’s my advice for making it into the BigTime: develop your interests.

Note: the above was written 15 or 20 years ago.  My stint at Factsheet Five remains to this day the highest in the BigTime I ever got.  As I keep saying, I can’t begin to understand it.

Here’s something about Factsheet Five I got published somewhere, probably in Small Press Review:

Micro-Zine Compendium

Factsheet Five
#47, Spring, 1993, 112pp.;
Box 170099, San Francisco
CA 94117. 6 issues/$20.

For almost two years the bible of the micro-zine world, Factsheet Five, has been an on again, off again, proposition.  It seemed not to have much chance of survival when founder Mike Gunderloy abruptly abandoned it in the summer of ’91 (due mainly, I gather, to overload, and too much generosity with free subscriptions).  Some five months later a personage with the intriguing name of Hudson Luce, who had talked Gunderloy into the rights to F5, managed to publish one fairly decent issue of it.  He then became only intermittently available, though vowing to continue the magazine for at least five or six more issues.  Eventually he sold his rights for a dollar to someone in San Francisco who started an electronic version.  I’m not sure how the present editor of the regular version, Seth Friedman, got in on the act, but early this year, when almost no one thought F5 would ever see print again, he got another issue out.  And now, against all odds, he’s published his second.

This is cause for celebration for anyone interested in what’s going on in the off-off-Broadway of the publishing world, for Factsheet Five has been covering that world with almost insane thoroughness since 1982.  During that time, it has been pretty much the sole general source of information in the U.S. on underground comicbooks, punk rock zines, sci fi fanzines, queerzines (as their own editors call them), conspiracy theory pamphlets, experioddica, animals’ rights magazines, and scores of other equally special-interest publications–including, most estimably, political and religious hate magazines (because, under Gunderloy, F5 was always a courageous champion of freedom of speech, even for those with whom Gunderloy was in violent disagree- ment).

The latest issue is as thorough as any of Gunderloy’s, for it contains over 1300 reviews.  It is also indexed, a welcome improvement.  Its paragraph-sized reviews tend to summarize contents, not discuss them, but they are informative and well-written.  Since Friedman has taken charge, F5 has not printed anything but reviews, aside from Friedman’s editorials, and one short article he wrote on food.  Consequently, it can be rather monotonous at times for a non-fanatic.  But it includes drawings, cartoons and wacked-out ads, and I’m sure that with time it will bring back at least some of the kinds of columns and features that made Gunderloy’s F5 so sparklingly more than a data-bank.   In the meantime, it’s reassuring to those of us who publish or write for micro-zines to know that it will continue to be there to chronicle our doings on a relatively visible, national basis.

8:30 P.M.  Friday  28 August 1992 I got quite a bit of  semi-interesting mail, including a form letter from Jim Knipfel  announcing that Hudson Luce sold Factsheet Five to Jerod Pore.  Then this evening Bill Paulaskis gave me a call and we chatted about the latest F5 developments, and Taproot Review, which he’s going to be participating in as well, and other matters.  My mail also included a note from John Byrum, who didn’t have anything to say about his newsletter but did invite me to do a  reading in Cleveland.

9 September 1992  Joe Lane just called me.  He just wanted to know what was  going on with me; he said that apparently the new Factsheet Five has two editors, one of them in charge of the printed version.  His name is Seth Friedman, and Joe thinks he’ll be getting in touch with me soon.  I certainly hope the magazine gets going again, with my column as part of it.

11 December 1992.  A form letter from Len Fulton announcing to past contributors to Small Press Review that he was planning to start a new similar magazine devoted to reviewing small press magazines and inviting comment, and submissions.  I wrote him a postcard note in support of the new magazine and told him he could count on help from me.  Next I hope to send him three 500-word reviews and volunteer for a position as regular columnist on “experioddica.”  It would be a huge step forward if he agreed to that!

Saturday  16 January 1993  I got a form advertisement for subscrip- tions to  Factsheet Five from Seth Friedman–no mention of my column.  I subscribed to F5 anyway.

Tuesday  19 January 1993  Among a largish number of minor letters was one that came in an envelope with no return address.  I tore it open thinking it and and ready to toss it.  Then I saw that it was from Small Press Review . . .  For a few  seconds I thought it was some kind of form letter,  particularly when I noticed that  the second of its two sheets was  a style sheet.  But I then realized that the first sheet was not from Small Press Review after all, but from Small Magazine Review.  It was, in fact, Len Fulton’s reply to my offer to write a column for his new magazine: he accepted!  Naturally, I was delighted–even though he only wants to run my column every  other issue for a while, and is hesitant about using the samples I sent him on the grounds that the magazines reviewed in them won’t be current by the time they appear.  He did say that he should be able eventually to do it more often, and he encouraged me to write regular reviews and features, etc.  In short, he was very positive.  And so am I.  I have now become sufficiently established to become an important part of world culture–if I deserve to.  I will now have to be attended to–if I deserve to be, for I will now be regularly visible.  If I deserve  a significant place in world culture, I will now not be  denied it because I couldn’t gain access to a
large enough public.  From now on all should be automatic, assuming I keep working hard.  Of course, if the  New Yorker comes through for me, things will be even better, but it doesn’t matter that much any more.  And that’s it for this entry.

(Note: The was the high point of my bigWorld achievements, I still can’t understand why.)

Thursday  21 January 1993    Around eleven a letter and some copies of the long-awaited first issue of Taproot Reviews arrived from Luigi-Bob Drake.  The magazine looked very nice and did a pretty good job of covering the micro-press scene.  I had a bunch of reviews in it, possibly all the ones I sent him, but he didn’t run my column.  He ran four others’ columns, though.  Oh, well, I’m more than willing to keep on as reviewer, as I told him in the reply I wrote to his letter.

27 January 1993: Mike Gunderloy’s Penguin book about the underground press is now out.  I ordered a copy, eager to see it.  I should be able to do an interesting review of it for Small Press Review.  I’m curious if I’ll be mentioned in it.   Probably not.  Geof, I’m sure, will be, however.

Friday  3 January 1992  I spent over an hour on the phone with David Roberts, who called.  We continued our metaphysical discussion somewhat, coming to a better and more amiable understanding of each other.  The main thing he wanted to tell me, though, was that he called the guy who bought Factsheet Five and although Hudson wasn’t there, the guy answering the phone described a copy of the newest issue, which he had on hand, and it sounded good, for I was in it.  I should soon be getting my copy.  David says he intends to write a letter to Factsheet Five in praise of my column, which would be nice.

Monday  13 January 1992  Jim Knipfel, my Factsheet Five features editor, called.  He wanted to know if I knew anything about the current issue, or Hudson, our chief.  He hadn’t gotten his copy of the January issue and said he was hearing unsettling rumors about the magazine.  I told him what David had found out, which seemed to reassure him.  We then chatted a little about my column.  He seemed to think it fine but felt I had a mathematical point wrong.  I don’t think I did but afterwards changed my text a little for him.  He seemed an okay guy.  I think I ought to get along fine with him.

Wednesday  29 January 1992  Hudson Luce’s first Factsheet Five arrived.  I was relieved to see it but a little disappointed with my column, which appeared sans illustrations, and with a dumb but minor typo that wasn’t mine but which I had a chance to catch when Gordon sent me a copy to proof but missed.  The magazine looked okay.  Marc Bloch, I was a bit peeved to see, ruled over seven or eight pages.  He did a pretty good job, though.  He reviewed David T. Roberts’s last Streetfighting Aesthete, but with a brief summary only that listed the zine’s contributors, including me.  I got mentioned several times throughout the issue, as a matter of fact–and the new Poetry Reviewer favorably but unpenetratingly discussed My SpringPoem No. 3,719,242 as well as Geof’s Ghostlight and Karl’s Charged Particles.  Hudson wrote an informative editorial that said he’d taken over rather than bought Factsheet Five–Mike had simply decided to stop publishing it.  I get the distinct impression that he’s going to have trouble keeping it going–he said he needed to triple (to 5000) the number of paying subscribers in the next few months.  Uhn.

Meanwhile I’m musing over the possibility of trying to get a twice-weekly column into the local paper again, this time because Barbara Whitcomb, one of my buddies in the writers’ club just recently gotten taken as a twice-weekly columnist for the Englewood edition of said paper.  I feel what I’d have to do is get 50 columns done in advance, and submit ten or so.  That’s probably much too much work, but if Factsheet Five were to fold, I should seriously consider it.  Once I got into the swing of it, I could probably do two columns in a day without much trouble.  I’d aim for 500 words or so on a variety of cultural topics, including reviewing local art exhibits, stage performances, etc.

Friday  31 January 1992  Later note: Geof called and we chatted for about an hour.  He said he thought (the second edition of) Of Manywhere-at-Once improved.  He filled me in on his ongoing projects.  Told me Ben Gordon and Hudson Lane had had a fight over a partly negative article on the new Factsheet Five set-up that Gordon got from some Maine editor.  Hudson is very thin-skinned.

2 March: One letter I got today was from Joe Lane, fellow Factsheet Five columnist.  It seems he’s interested in starting a magazine that be a side publication to F5–but it’s a secret from Hudson Luce.  Lane is afraid, as are we all, that F5 is about to take the full count.  I replied after cards with Mother this afternoon.  Basically, I’m interested but want to hold back till we know more.  It’s a delicate situation, to be sure.  Unfortunate to find out I’m not the only one connected with F5 who is in the dark about what’s going on.

23 March 1992 phone call from Jim Knipfel.  He wanted to know if I’d heard anything about Factsheet Five lately.  No.  But he himself had spoken a few times with Hudson over the past month or so and is confident that there will be at least one more issue.   According to Jim, Hudson’s goal is to make another  Utne Reader of the magazine.  Ugh, but if it keeps going, and I am allowed to keep writing for it, I don’t really care that much.  Another thing Jim said is that Factsheet Five is now going to be a quarterly.  He liked my latest column, apparently.  He said he had gotten it and found nothing to change.  The deadline for it won’t be till 1 July, so I’m way ahead of schedule.  The next deadline I need to make, assuming the magazine lasts, will be the first of October.  One piece of gossip from Jim particularly interested me: Hudson was much taken with Mark Bloch, talked a lot about him, gave him a good deal of space in the last issue, and sent him twenty copies of it–but Mark, whom Jim has recently talked to (they both live in New York), is now as cut off from Hudson as the rest of us.  Hudson, by the way, had to go to Kansas for a while to take care of the estate of an aunt who had died.  He’s living there now but is expected to return to Atlanta.  There was more to the conversation, which was a good one, but I can’t remember more than a few bits and pieces.  I feel better about the situation but it still doesn’t appear that  Factsheet Five will keep going too much longer.

6 May: two phone calls, one from Jim Knipfel and one from Bill Paulusakis.  Jim said that the next issue of Factsheet Five wouldn’t be out until June at the earliest, and that Hudson is continuing to make changes.  I’m still in it, though.  Screw magazine has done a bad review of the last issue but Jim knew nothing more about it than that Hudson said it was bad, and that the writer had accused Hudson of using an assumed name.  Two issues hence Factsheet Five will have a new name.  All this doesn’t sound good to me.  And poetry, comic books and something else will be dropped.  Bill, when he got hold of me, said he himself would continue (he’s been the poetry editor), but would be concentrating on experimental poetry, which is okay, I guess– why, I don’t know.  Bill and I gabbed for almost an hour. Mostly bullshit but entertaining enough.  He’s unhappy with the way Factsheet Five is going but intends to hang on.  I think he might have been feeling me out for starting a mutiny or something, but I’m not sure.  We certainly came to no agreements as to future actions, except to stay in touch.  And that was the day.

2 June 1992: a letter from Jim Knipfel saying that Hudson Luce will not be publishing one last issue of Factsheet Five, but will switch immediately to V.  Later: I called Jim Knipfel and this time got him.  Not much new data.  Apparently Hudson doesn’t yet know about this “final issue of Factsheet Five that Joe Lane wants to publish, and which I’d contribute to if it had Hudson’s blessing.  And Hudson definitely has junked Factsheet Five, in part possibly because of postal suits against him for not fulfilling subscription agreements.  It irks me that people would sic the authorities on him for that.  Hudson is now living in Lawrence, Kansas, and Jim has his doubts that he’ll publish any issues of V.  One other tidbit: the Village Voice ran a favorable review of
the last issue of Factsheet Five, but the news of this didn’t sway Hudson.  Jim’s going to send me a copy of the review, as well as a piece on the magazine that he himself did for, I take it, a newspaper.  It doesn’t look like I’ll be contributing to Joe Lane’s spin-off but maybe I should put together some kind of miscellany of reviews.  It couldn’t hurt since I could use them elsewhere if they don’t go to Lane.  In the meantime, I have to start thinking about where to get the two columns I did for  if V doesn’t appear.

Saturday  22 August 1992 Geof wrote that Hudson Luce had turned Factsheet Five over to some guy in San Francisco.  Luce had called Geof about it and  asked him  to tell me and Mark Bloch, which makes me suspect I’ve been dumped and Luce didn’t want to be the one to tell me.

Thought of 12 September: that to become a Great Writer one needs to do five things: master one’s craft; achieve a reasonably full under- standing of existence as a whole; become an expert in at least one significant field of knowledge; fashion a reasonably large body of work (whether published or not) and, last, get a position in the world where one can be heard by a reasonable number of people.  If one was born with sufficient gifts, recognition must eventually follow.

This thought occurred to me because, after Hudson Luce’s call I’ve been feeling like I’ve finally gotten to where I must become successful as a writer if I have the goods, which I of course believe I do.  If I haven’t yet mastered my craft, I never will.  I certainly have as full an under-standing of existence as anyone in the world, unless there’s a hugely greater gap between such an understanding and the deeds resulting from it than than I believe.  I am also, I believe, an expert in the field of literature (which is different from being able to write)–and one in esthetics and psychology as well.  There are many other fields I would count myself a near- expert in, too, including even economics, though my expertise there only amounts to common sense and the ability to think about goods and services without being muddled by some political bias.

My body of work is objectively large, consisting as it does of the equivalent of ten unpublished, full-length plays, a published book, published essays and poems, and scattered other pieces that haven’t been published.  Lots of letters, too.  And, with my position at Factsheet Five secure, and other avenues to visibility opening up such as the space won at Modern Haiku and Small Press Review, I feel I have a position in the world from which I can be heard by a reasonable number of people, too.  So it’s just a matter of time before I’ll be recognized.  Urp.

Saturday  12 October 1991  The big excitement of the day was getting a letter from my new Factsheet Five editor, Ben Gordon.  It arrived with an edited version of my column.  At first I didn’t like what he’d done to the column at all, but I gradually changed my mind.  He made some good deletions, and few so-so changes, and one or two slight blunders, but did a good job.  Of course, he missed some nuances I intended, but the hell with ‘em.  He also seems more concerned with punch than full responsibility–for instance, he changed a line I had about Kaldron and Lost & Found Times‘s being the only magazines doing otherstream material that were older than Mallife–“that I know about.”  He, in Time/Life fashion, chucked “that I know about.”  He doesn’t like my interjections of self-descriptions for comic effect, either.  Oh, well, I can live with that.  As for the irresponsibility of some of the things the column will now be saying, I can blame it on my editor.  I called said editor (Ben Gordon) about my changes to his changes and ended talking to him for about a half an hour.  He seems bright and enthusiastic.  Also young.  I enjoyed the talk, though, and think we should get along fine.

(2) The only magazine I’ve been doing a regular column for changed hands, and the new editor kept only two of the old columnists, out of ten or so: me and another guy.  A minor triumph, for sure, but reassuring.  The magazine is Factsheet Five and is actually sold in record shops and bookstores.  It’s not too certain how much longer it will last.  The first issue to be published by the new owner has not yet appeared and it was due out last month.

Tuesday  17 December 1991  One other item in the mail was a form letter to “all columnists” from a guy named Jim Knipfel who is abruptly my new editor at Factsheet Five.  Ben Gordon “flew the coop,” according to Knipfel.  No word as to whether the latest Factsheet Five has hit the streets yet or not, but I found out that my next deadline is 20 January, which is a relief.  All in all, I wasn’t happy to hear Gordon had severed ties with F5, for I felt I would have gotten on well with him.  I have no idea how I’ll get along with the new guy.  He sounds like he wants to leave the columnists alone to do their thing–but he also said something about not trying to find new columnists to write about things nobody understands as, Knipfel says, Gordon was doing.  This suggests he might not be as keen on my far-out intellectualism as Gordon was, or appeared to be.  What a world.  I just hope the magazine keeps going, and that my last column will be in the forthcoming issue as scheduled.

Not only wasn’t Of Manywhere-at-Once helping me up to whatever the next level of literary visibility in the BigWorld was, my literary career started downhill in 1991.  As readers of volume one of Manywhere-at-once will know, I began, in may 1987, to write a regular column about otherstream literature, mainly visual poetry, for Factsheet Five, a nationally distributed periodical whose goal was to review the micro-press in its entirety.  I actually got paid.   In my diary entry of Thursday,  14 February 1991, I reported, “I got a check, my biggest yet ($54.64!!), from Mike Gunderloy.  A note accompanying it said it was definitely not the right time just now for my column to become an every-issue feature.  It turns out that Mike is so strapped for space that he is considering having all his columnists appear only every other issue.  Phooey.  But I understand.  F5’s reviews of the micro-press encourage the foundation of new micro-presses which F5 then reviews, which encourages the foundation of new micro-presses which F5 then reviews, which . . . ”  That probably was the last payment I got from Mike.  Abruptly, in August of 1991, his magazine began to fold.  Other excerpts from my diary tell the story:

Saturday  24 August 1991 A rather disconcerting form letter arrived in the mail from Mike Gunderloy: he’s sold Factsheet Five–and dumped his columnists, or so it sounds.  We columnists are to submit “samples” of our columns to the new editors.  Since I got no personal letter from either Gunderloy or the new editors, it doesn’t look good for my column.  I’m sad about it–it looked like Factsheet Five would be y only potential avenue into knownness.  I plan to go ahead and write my next column as planned and send it in.  If it is accepted, fine; if not, I no longer have any deadlines to worry about (and I have a good piece to try elsewhere); and I have interesting material for volume two of Manywhere-at-Once.  I’m disappointed with Gunderloy, though; up to this point, he’d seemed the most considerate of bosses.  I feel he ought to have sold the magazine with the proviso that all his employees are kept on.  Why not?  Surely the columnists aren’t holding the magazine back.

3 September 1991  A letter from Len Fulton turning down my offer to do columns for his magazine, Small Press Review, but saying he’d like to run an slightly extended version of the sample column I’d sent him as a guest editorial.  Sounds okay to me.  I also got a short form letter from some editor wanting a response to Mike Gunderloy’s getting rid of Factsheet Five.

Tuesday  10 September 1991 I had a Very Important Phone Call: Hudson Luce, the new proprietor of Factsheet Five called at around five, just as I was finishing a nap of about a half an hour.  He said that he’d been reading my columns, was very interested in mail art, and wanted to continue the column.  I liked that, needless to say.  I made sure he understood that the column wasn’t just about mail art, though, and he said he was also interested in experimental art, and thought it was important that Factsheet Five continue covering it. Somewhere along the line, fairly early in the conversation, I mentioned that I’d been doing the column in every other issue; how often would he like it in–every issue he said without hesitation.  And he wants it the same length it has been.

So, onward and upward.  We talked about several other things,  too, and I voiced a few opinions, even disagreeing with him mildly here and there.  I hope I didn’t go too far.  Looks like I and Joe Lane, who will be writing on the technical aspects of publishing fanzines, are the only columnists he’ll keep on the staff, so it’s a fair-sized compliment.  I was pleased that I’ll stay and Mark Bloch won’t but was a little disappointed that Annie Ackner will be dropped–though, as I told Hudson, I don’t think her column really is appropriate for F5.  (He had asked, “I suppose you’ll be disappointed that I won’t be keeping Annie Ackner’s column,” or something close to that.  I said I liked her writing and felt a kind of solidarity with my fellow columnists but that . . .  Felt a bit of a schmuck about that.)  He plans more interior color but isn’t too eager to cover poetry, and is against comic books entirely.  (Turns out he has a Ph.D. in chemistry, of all things.)  Interesting situation.  The analogy to corporate changes, and anxiety among department heads, and reactions to firings and non-firings struck me.  I felt pretty good about it, though–and hope to get cranking on my upcoming column tomorrow.