Review: Fug You: An Informal History of the Peace Eye Bookstore, the Fuck You Press, the Fugs, and Counterculture in the Lower East Side

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

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I just finished reading this amazing retrospective of the 60s by counter-culture icon Ed Sanders, of The Fugs and Peace Eye Bookstore. It's a lovely, signed hardcover edition my wife got me two birthdays ago. I thoroughly enjoyed this arc of history from The Beats to The Family, and now I need to read [b:The Family|135892|The Family|Ed Sanders|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348084087s/135892.jpg|130960]. I really appreciated learning about Sander's scholarly side: Egyptian hieroglyphics and ancient Greek drama and how this informed his art and antics. In these days of Photoshop it was also fascinating to learn of the obsession, effort, and detail required in his early publication days when the model of print machine he had was as much a hallmark of the era as the music. In New York at least, it was interesting to learn of this intersection of proto-hippie world changers and ardent Catholic activists. The fact that The Fugs shared the stage with The Grateful Dead and The Velvet Underground shows how Sanders, apparently inventor of the term "punk" helped to usher in one era and see the birth of another.

One thing that that leads me to an imagined possibility that is too good to fact-check: Is the lyrics "Transylvanian Transvestite Time Trap" in any way an inspiration to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show"?

Also, when will the manuscript of the memoir “The Perfect Agent: An Autobiography of the Sixties” by Allen Katzman be published?





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