Tuesday, January 10 (cont'd)

I decided to wait until I had more of the book--an outline, for example--to send proposals to Blair and Vanderbilt. I might even wait until I finish writing it to send them a proposal. If I get an agent for BLUE-COLLAR REDENCK I'll let her tell me where to send it.

Is that so far-fetched?

Consider the books Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Teachings of Don Juan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Monkey Wrench Gang.

Would an agent represent a book like that today?

If she could find one, yes. People aren't writing them because they can't sell them. In today's publishing environment.

But that could change overnight. All it would take is for one of them to be published, and sell. Then there'd be a demand for them and they'd find out that they are all over the place. Unpublished.

The people I went to high school with read books. The readers among us read books like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Teachings of Don Juan, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Monkey Wrench Gang. We didn't read Peyton Place. TV viewers read Peyton Place. Or watched it on television.

Readers read On the Road.

America since 1957 has been a duel between On the Road and Peyton Place, and Peyton Place is winning.

Pat Hill, Treasurer
South Florida Bluegrass Association
256 Coconut Lane
Miami Beach, FL 33139

Please send me an advance 3-day ticket to the Everglades Bluegrass Festival. Enclosed find $27. I will be rough camping.

Jack Saunders
Garage Band Books
Box 10501
Panama City, FL 32404

Q: Marketing is, by definition, niche marketing.

You are writing to separate niches, niches that don't cross over.

People interested in underground writing aren't interested in bluegrass music and people interested in bluegrass music aren't interested in underground writing.

A: That's the old split between rednecks and hippies.

Rednecks wore short hair, were pro-war, and were conservative, politically.

Hippies wore long hair, were anti-war, and were liberal, politically.

They didn't communicate. They were antagonistic.

But it turns out they had more in common than anybody thought.

Waylon and Willie proved that.

The music got them together, and, once they started talking, they saw that, in an us-and-them worldview, us, the working stiff, versus them, the goddamn company, they had to stick together. It was in the company's interest to keep them divided, and at odds with each other. What if they compared notes?

This is a long tradition in the labor movement. Divide and conquer.

Think of Nixon's Southern Strategy, where the Republicans, as tools of the corporations, tried to keep poor whites and blacks at each other's throats.

Writing--or art, or music--is a labor issue.

It's the artists--and the fans--versus the people who control the means for producing, distributing, and promoting books, records, movies, paintings, and so forth. Artists and fans need to bypass the superstructure and deal with each other directly, face to face.

To knock down the niches, which are artificial anyway, transcend narrow specialization, reach out to each other. Cooperate.

Solidarity, man.

I made reservations at a Key West Inn in Fairhope, for Friday and Saturday night, and saw that Friday is Friday the 13th.

I'd always thought that Friday the 13th would be my lucky day, but it never has been.

Perhaps this Friday will be it, or something I do this weekend will lead to good luck, down the road.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Michael Basinski
Subj: Submission

Thanks for the submission to ADVENTURES IN THE UNDERGROUND, "Underground AKA Small Press Poetry, Characteristics and Characters."

I enjoyed reading it. It's nice to get a historical perspective. And a sense of the range.

A couple of questions.

• "There are the confessionalits;" Did you mean to type confessionalists, or is this a term you coined?
• "not within the auspicious of Black Mountain" Did you mean to say auspices of?
• "independent editor publisher as" May I set editor publisher as editor-publisher or editor/publisher?
• "almost any of the small press publisher or editor." May I set almost any of the small press publishers or editors, or almost any small press publisher or editor.
• "mitochondrial eve." Should that be mitochondrial eye? mitochondrial Eve?
• "exited as definable camps." Did you mean existed?
• "considerations that make small press poetry, underground small press poetry." I think that reads better without the comma.
• "a select, usually silent or near mute social strata." May I write stratum.
• "is one of the few areas that this literary technique is actively utilized." May I write, is one of the few areas in which this literary technique is actively utilized.
• "sexist, raciest" Did you mean racist?

I remember Judson Crews going in Dempster Dumpsters in search of food, and publishing pamphlets of poetry in editions of 25 copies.

I have published editions that small.

Over the years, I published 172 pamphlets, chapbooks, fliers, and four-page sheets.

I finally quit publishing so much. But I was a prolific writer, and I posted books at my web site.

Recently, I compiled a manuscript called COMING OFF, THEN GOING BACK ON SABBATICAL: POEMS FROM THE DAILY BULLETIN, SEPTEMBER 2003 - SEPTEMBER 2005. 382 8½ x 11" singled-spaced pages in manuscript.

That's a lot of pages for 25 months, while working full-time as a tech writer/grant writer.

The use of fake names, several names, and other people's names was a feature of mail art. I have several different personae. One was Art "Home" Brew, compare art brut. Others were Buck Sergeant, Black McGoon, Large Brown, Hylobates Lar, Parker.

Alpha Male (pronounced mah-lay).

I have written 272 book-length books, published nine books with small presses, or by myself, everything else is unpublished, or published on the worldwide web (over 100 books).

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.