grundig : a zine

Another space loop back through the DIY sphere; this one leading to Portland, Oregon. To a store called "Q is for choir" and a time distant enough past that the dust only appears on the hand of the holder and not the pages themselves. Michael, whoever Michael was, made this zine happen. This is #2. At the beginning of this grand adventure. Into collage and zinedom. Into traveling and consequences. The world is a roadmap, a compass to follow, a north star to find. Zines like these need an archive too. Need to be collected. Replaced in the 21st century with blogs and twitter and "every-which-kinda-next-new-format-mattcha-you" but zines like these, staple-bound physical somethings are going quick into the heap of time. Like wall posters in busy city make overs. One week there and the next plastered over or stripped bare and painted over.All the same, "over" they are. Whatever was inside is forgotten by the end of the next news cycle. Our attention spans shrink to nothing. A zine like this, gone without notice. Someone lands a stash - posts on ebay - and a dunderhead like me decides to collect more relics of the past. 1980's - 2000's. Like I collect mimeos. Like I collect mix tape cassettes. Like I collect Punk/grunge era zines.

Letters to Proust by Barry Gifford (1976)

Letters to Proust
Barry Gifford
White Pine Press
Buffalo, NY
(c)1976

I have written before about White Pine via the trove of material I received from poet Steve Lewandowski. The Press had been in Buffalo and then moved. It's interesting to me that while most of the country thinks of Buffalo as a frozen waste, because of the college there - it really is the opposite of a wasteland for literary types. A number of small presses and well known poets have spent time there. Robert Creeley and then Charles Bernstein were there as teachers. Influential in their own ways.

This particular item was illustrated by Mike Neff. It's the 4th chapbook that White Pine put out. Unpaginated. Handsome little "sliver of nothing". Now it's quite possible that the name Barry Gifford is not unknown to you - he's a screenwriter and novelist. He wrote David Lynch's 'Wild at Heart' as well as the Sailor and Lula novels. This had to be an early work of his. Highly collectible.

Deeper Into Woody Chaos by Walt McLaughlin (1997)

Deeper into Woody Chaos
Walt McLaughlin
Wood Thrust Books
Burlington, VT
(c)1997

This 24 page chapbook by the guru of Wood Thrush, Walt McLaughin, shows all the promise of this small press. Glad to know that they are still around and doing great work. It's refreshing to write about a book so dedicated to the earth on Earth Day!