Debut of Tuli Kupferberg
[SANDERS, Ed (editor).] Fuck You: A Magazine Of The Arts: Number 3. New York: Fuck You Press. 1962.
4to. 20 tangerine mimeographed leaves, unpaginated, staples running the length of the left edge. Minimal closed tear to lower edge of front page, otherwise a fine copy.
During the period of Ed Sander’s mimeograph endeavour, the underground publishing enterprises rarely exceeded their primary issues- or were fleeting dreams of revolution that even failed to materialise at all. Fuck You: A Magazine For The Arts however, defied this fate, and succeeded in publishing as many as thirteen prominent issues between 1962-1965. These featured contributions from the dominant characters of the period’s counterculture scene. It is now recognised as one of the main links responsible for binding the end of the Beat Generation to the beginning of the Yippies
In Ed Sander’s own words (and quoting the first lines of Ginsberg’s Howl); My vision was to reach out to the ‘best minds’ of my generation with a message of Gandhian pacifism, great sharing, social change, the expansion of personal freedom (including the legislation of mariguana), and the then-stirring messages of sexual liberation”.
The important contributors to this edition, God Thru Orgasm, include Bob Kay, Nelson Baar and Ed Sanders himself. Significantly, Tuli Kupferberg, an essential voice in the counterculture scene, makes his debut contribution in this edition. Tuli was also a co-founder of Sander’s band, The Fugs~i~, an underground protest combo whose output included songs such as ‘Homemade Shit’, ‘I Shit my Pants’ and 'Coca Cola Douche’.
Around 500 copies of this, and each issue, were produced, initially on the Catholic Worker’s Speed-O-Print and afterwards, on an A.B Dick stencil duplicator. These editions were then distributed by Sanders for free.
The survival rate of any issue of this magazine is extremely scarce; copies of early issues such as this, No. 3, are rarely discovered- particularly in such fine condition.
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