There was a literary magazine at my high school in Larkspur, but it was difficult to have one’s work selected if one wasn’t on the staff, and it was difficult to get on the staff if one was new to the school and not getting along well with the teacher in charge, both of which applied to me.
It was a four year school, and I arrived late in the October of my junior year. I don’t know why the other kids nicknamed our English teacher “Stretch.” I never called her that, but I despised her taste in literature, loathed her personal style, and deplored her method of attempted discipline.
So a year later, I formed a district-wide literary magazine. I did it with Kit and a few other friends, we named it Gyre & Gimble from the Lewis Carroll poem, we managed to acquire at least one member from each of the other two high schools in our district, and we put out a handmade, linoleum-block-printed little folio of high school poetry, with no ads and for little money. It kept us busy enough for awhile, and we certainly never did it again.
I have souvenirs from that project. There’s a typed note from the Office of the District Superintendent, dated 10/12/66, wherein Mr. Neumeier spells my name correctly, exclaims that the idea is great, and announces his intention to attend the meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday, October 18. In the same envelope is a Hall Pass with my name misspelled, for 10/13/66. The date stamp on the back reads 11:31 AM.
There’s a longer note from Mr. Neumeier, undated, with my name misspelled on the handwritten envelope and also on the typed contents. He sends congratulations for getting the project off the ground. He offers to serve as overall advisor. He gives discouraging information about financing, and he closes modestly: “And what’s ‘Gyre and Gimble’? I’m really out if it, you know.” (I remember being disappointed that he didn’t understand the title, but that was way better than adults who tried to be cool, like the (other) English teacher at Redwood, the male one who made a point of “grokking” us. (Stranger in a Strange Land was popular then, but the best of us were into Ayn Rand, really, and one of us had a Dymo-label reading “Who is John Galt?” on his corduroy cap.))
I also have one copy of the magazine, and the linoleum block that Kit carved for our title stamp. The inside cover is inscribed “To Dad – who made it possible. Love, Mar.” So maybe this copy was his. The fifth item within is a co-op piece by me and the wearer of the labeled corduroy cap. In a small circle are my words: “Perhaps we’re fools/We take our tools/And search for jewels/In dirt.” Next to them and in a bigger circle, Rick wrote “Eve walks to me/holding forth the chocolate covered/cream lined essence of Nirvana/Cherry filled it is:/But cherries rot, with time…” And outside the circles, squeezed around the bottom edge of the smaller one, is Rick’s final “Oh, god, where are the ‘EXIT’ signs?”
