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Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side
by
Ed Sanders
Fug You is Ed Sanders's unapologetic and often hilarious account of eight key years of "total assault on the culture," to quote his novelist friend William S. Burroughs.Fug You traces the flowering years of New York's downtown bohemia in the sixties, starting with the marketing problems presented by publishing Fuck You / A Magazine of the Arts, as it faced the aboveground'...more
Hardcover, 448 pages
Published
December 13th 2011
by Da Capo Press
(first published January 4th 2010)
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In the first pages of Fug You, Ed Sanders recalls the City Lights Books publication of his Poem from Jail, composed on toilet paper during his 1961 incarceration for attempting to swim aboard a nuclear submarine and “conduct a peace vigil atop its missile hatches.”
After this, we will follow him anywhere. (He was not rehabilitated.)
Sanders gamely squires us to the streets, parks, and stages where he and a host of captains courageous, including Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and Jean Genet, courte...more
After this, we will follow him anywhere. (He was not rehabilitated.)
Sanders gamely squires us to the streets, parks, and stages where he and a host of captains courageous, including Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, and Jean Genet, courte...more
I've always liked the Fugs, but kind of more as a concept than actually listening to them a lot - except for the materpieces "Nothing" and "CIA Man" of course. I also haven't read much of Sanders' poetry, but this book is an incredibly well written, passionate look back at the '60s in New York that gives you an informed insider's view of a lot of the major poetry, rock music and radical political activity that went on.
Sanders knew all the great poets of the time and published them in his homeg...more
Sanders knew all the great poets of the time and published them in his homeg...more
To disclaim, I admit that The Fugs are one of my Top 5 favorite musical groups and I also enjoy the poetry and prose of Ed Sanders. Both share a feral irreverence combined with transcendental vulgarity, a style close to my heart. Fug You: Etc. is filled with mad pranks, merry jests, Dada engagements with The Man, junkie perils, lowbrow trash art, balling, group gropes, culture-jamming and traveling the country with a subversive hippie-punk band. The Fugs, through their style and association with...more
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I feel like Ed Sanders gets overlooked as one of the great 60s poets, esp. when I go back to his works and see just how much he extended that fantastic Ginsberg discourse found in "Howl." Just who else did that with such fervour and weirdness - "group grope"; "Times Square gobble scene"; "freak over the border." Sanders is the ultimate Beatnik prose master. "Fug You" is a more thorough discussion of events found in his "Tales of Beatnik Glory" and "1968" - so it's familiar territory for students...more
Fug You is great on many levels. Sanders took a concise period of time, packed it to its edges with period details, hilarious and also difficult stories, illustrations & photos... it's a mammoth tome. It took me about a month(!) to read the first hundred pages (acclimating to the micro-sections within each chapter -- a perhaps unnecessary way to break up all the information) but I crushed the last 250+ pages in about 24 hours! One of the most enjoyable sections was a transcript from a televi...more
Ed Sanders' memoir of the Lower East Side in the Sixties, when the poet published a literary magazine, Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts, owned the Peace Eye Bookstore, and organized the rock band called The Fugs, as well as founded the Yippies, is an enthralling and even dazzling tour of a madcap period of activity in anarchistic letters -- one in a long line of demonstrations that, as Laura Riding once averred, anarchism is not enough: my link text
"We blew it!" Captain America (Peter Fonda) te...more
"We blew it!" Captain America (Peter Fonda) te...more
Ed Sanders is an American Treasure. In this memoir, he describes the literary-artistic-musical-political community of the 50's and 60's as only he can since he knew everyone from Joplin to Ginsberg from Rubin to Bobby Seale.
His writing is clear, funny, poignant and his archives of the era - which is illustrated throughout the text - is exhaustive.
A fantastic must read for anyone who wants to understand the culture of mid 20th century America.
His writing is clear, funny, poignant and his archives of the era - which is illustrated throughout the text - is exhaustive.
A fantastic must read for anyone who wants to understand the culture of mid 20th century America.
This is one rollicking good time. The stories race by, each touched upon quickly but with enough detail and flashes of insight that it has the feel of a great introduction to many new people and stories, with Sanders' inimitable wit and city-savvy guiding you through. I read it compulsively, and recommend it highly. I docked a star only because I wanted it to keep going! The book ends right as Sanders is beginning the research on the Manson family that really turned his life upside-down and resu...more
Apr 17, 2013
Hortense
added it
Recently I saw and held an LP by The Fugs, "It Crawled into my hand, honest" - My mom's "record collection" contained a copy of their "Virgin Fugs." It was rained on and the edges of the cardboard were eaten away by little basement mice or moldy time, maybe both. I liked to listen to it as little girl. I would twirl to Kill Kill Kill for Peace! I know how to get turntables to work with big rubber bands and change diamond needles. I can take the apparatus of them apart and fix them. Because when...more
Another great NYC book. Tells of a former age when NYC was not so user friendly
Phenomenal, quirky, funny and engaging.
Nice to have all the stories in one place.
An essential '60s document, and with Sanders as your guide you have reason, gentleness, passion, and abandon and balanced doses. What an epic time; what a resounding tragedy.
A social history of the Counterculture well worth reading. Sanders is unpretentious and a surprisingly vivid writer. I especially enjoyed the first half of the book. Tighter editing might have improved the book.
A real hero from the 60s counterculture.
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Ed Sanders is an American poet, singer, social activist, environmentalist, author and publisher. He has been called a bridge between the Beat and Hippie generations.
Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jail...more
More about Ed Sanders...
Sanders was born in Kansas City, Missouri. He dropped out of Missouri University in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City’s Greenwich Village. He wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail," on toilet paper in his cell after being jail...more
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