Notes From The Underground

Zines And The Politics of Alternative Culture 
 "Although I knew about zines from my days spent in the
punk scene, I had never really given them much time or thought. Now, with plenty of time, I spent hours going through them. I was awestruck. Somehow these little smudged pamphlets carried within them the honesty, kindness, anger, the beautiful inarticulate articulate-
ness, the uncompromising life that I had discovered (and lost) in music, then Stephen Duncombe later radical politics, years ago. Against the studied hipness o f music and style
magazines, the pabulum of mass newsweeklies, and the posturing of academic journals, here was something completely different. In zines, everyday oddballs were speaking plainly about themselves and our society with an honest sincerity, a revealing intimacy, and a healthy "fuck
you" to sanctioned authority - for no money and no recognition, writing for an audience o f like-minded misfits. Later I picked u p a thick journal crammed with
zine reviews called Factsheet Five, leafed through their listings, and sent off for
hundreds of zines. I discovered tens of thousands more at the zine archive
housed in the New York State Library. I even began t o publish my own zine and
traded mine for others. As I dug through mountains o f these piquant publica-
tions, a whole world that I had known nothing about opened up t o me. It was
incredibly varied: zines came in more shapes, styles, subjects, and qualities than
one would imagine. But there was something remarkable that bound together
this new world I had stumbled upon: a radically democratic and participatory
ideal of what culture and society might be... ought t o be.
I n a n era marked by the rapid centralization of corp"