Among the pleasures to be had at the Red Rooster’s Last Big Party last night was this little xeroxed oddity laid out for free distribution on the side counter:
These two precariously stapled sheets include a piano composition by NSU sophomore Isaac Seaton, a version of the three-legged chicken joke that leaves off the punchline, an assortment of random images, and call for creative submissions.
The publisher provides no name or location, just the e-mail above for proposed creative works.
I see potential. Submit your creative weirdness, neighbors! Let’s see if we can get Issue #3 up to three sheets!
A man is driving down a deserted country road when he has a blowout. Not having a spare he finally finds a house and asks the lady if he can use her phone to call for a tow-truck. As she opens the door for him to come in, a Three Legged Pig runs out.
He asks “why does that Pig only have three legs?” She says that they had a fire and the pig woke everybody up and then went back and brought the dog out. He said “but why does the Pig only have three legs?” She said well another time my son was playing on the ice and it broke and he fell in and the Pig ran to the barn and got a rope and saved him. Again he asked “why does the Pig only have three legs?”
After all the Pig did for us, it didn’t seem right to eat him all at once.
I love efforts like this. These small community efforts to birth more creativity into the world reminds me of what many folks in the 60s were doing. I like that this isn’t on the internet and that you can hold creativity in your hand and page through it. It makes it real and immediate. On the other hand, I only would learn about this through this blog.
I do quarrel, though, with the idea of being “an extraordinary person in an ordinary world.” Maybe it’s because I’m older that I’ve learned how extraordinary the world is. But I understand when you are high school/college age you see the world as “ordinary” a lot of the time and that it takes “extraordinary” people to break through. I hope they keep trying to break through.
This reminds me of underground comics from the 1960’s. Anybody remember those? They were full of politically and socially unacceptable critic and ideas for the time. While the heart of the underground comic district was San Francisco, versions of these zines appear all over the country. It is good to see that creativity still exists in Aberdeen.
BCB … I remember. :0) Aberdeen used to be the most creative town in SD. Between ’68 and ’74. All the boys who got drafted (that survived) came home and got free college and Northern was rockin’. You remember. When your brother had the teepee at Nemo and Red Willow was hot. Aberdeen was christened “The Chosen City”. What’s happened? How did people like “you know who” and the Islamaphobe cop get elected? Aberdeen is about one good election from regaining it’s artistic voice.
Porter, ahhh the Nemo concerts – we camped under a WWII parachute converted into a makeshift tent by my cousin. The ground was so thick with empty beer cans on Sunday morning one could barely walk across the campground.
Along with Red Willow, a young Singlejim (RIP) and Shep the Wonder Dog (his macaw, RIP) entertained the crowd with Singlejim’s deep Johnny Cash style voice, playing brilliant manolin and guitar with Shep roller skating, walking the tightrope and swinging round and round from Singlejim’s huge bullet holding pierced ear.
I am not sure if there was an official Rapid City underground zine at the time but Singlejim’s outstanding comical drawings were often seen on a variety of posters and other written material circulating the area. He was our own local underground comic artist at the time and for many years afterwards. Singlejim illustrated a local book published in 2000 by Steve Parker titled “Postcards from the Deep – A Humorous, Witty, and Theraputic Descent, Into the Depth’s of Despair.”
Meanwhile, the Nemo events were always jam packed with hundreds or perhaps over a thousand young people (eat your eyes out Trump). I sure miss Singlejim, Shep and their pet tarantula. Thanks for bringing up the Nemo memories!
Hippy litterers in Nemo. I remember those days.
Mr. GoatNick … Your memory, like your politics, is 180 degrees off. Hippies don’t litter. We leave only footprints.
I wonder what ever happened to Jim’s old IH wagon? The first time I saw that AA gun sticking our the back it caused a double turn of the head.
Last time I spoke with him was at Kelly’s (Used to be “The Moose”) was at least ten years ago maybe longer. We talked about writing songs. Strange but cool.
My stepfather taught English at Northern from ’68 to ’73, from when I was three until I was eight, and we moved from Ohio to Aberdeen. Like many of his colleagues, he’d been hired thanks to the draft-and-war-inspired explosion in student enrollment. When the draft ended, however, he and a third of that newer faculty were let go and we returned to Ohio (one of my greatest life regrets is not growing up in SD).
I may have been young, but I remember just the kind of artistic, creative, innovative, intellectual atmosphere several of you are describing; my stepdad was a poet and short story writer and taught creative writing, among other English classes, so we always had parties and gatherings in our small rented two-story house on 3rd Ave SW. He was, after all, only a few years older than the students themselves, so he really related to them and vice versa. I’ve often wondered what happened to many of them, as does my mom.
It may have taken me several more decades, but I finally ended up back in South Dakota (although not, unfortunately, in Aberdeen). I have such wonderful, formative memories of that time and the creative fire it inspired inside me. Sadly, my stepdad passed away from a form of dementia several years ago, but my mom back in Ohio still also remembers, and we’ve continued friendships from that time. This little mag is really fascinating to me, and I’m glad to see such efforts continuing. I hope it continues to prosper.
Laurisa … Excellent story. Thanks for sharing. :0)
I went to NSC, 71-76. I’m curious about the prof Laurisa, because there was a particular man who has always stayed with me. I was in his novel class, I believe. His initials were JW.
What I recall was the untamed Days of ’76 in Deadwood. The parade, hanging out upstairs Main Street windows watching it go by. Sleeping in a pasture, waking up next to puzzled livestock.
Also the A.I.M. protests in Aberdeen in ’73. They took over Wylie Park and circled the courthouse. Powerful and strong experience.
Yes, it’s good for a town to have those little underground free zines. That part of the town’s life needs to see the light of day too.
I’m fascinated by the memories of creativity in Aberdeen. I’ll keep an ear out for the author(s) of this zine to see what connections he/she/they may have with past creative movements. There is a lot of artistic activity in this town (community theater, civic symphony, Betty Sheldon’s painters group); I hope this zine can add to that creativity.