Books, Arts & Manners: What’s Up Underground

The world of underground newspapers is divided into two parts: The People and people. To the former, all power. The streets belong to them. To the rest of us, hard cheese. But if it’s really underground, it’s been down so long it looks like up to me.

“It is an open conspiracy,” wrote Ethel Romm. “The revolution is taking place in public, on the newsstands, through the U.S. mail with second-class mailing privileges.” She estimated 1968 circulation at a million, pass-around readership at six million. It’s probably more now, with sheets springing up like locoweed. Why? The duller lumpenleft say city desks filter the action to fit supposed prejudices of their readers, creating a classic economic demand for alternative media.

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John C. Smith

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The world of underground newspapers is divided into two parts: The People and people. To the former, all power. The streets belong to them. To the rest of us, hard cheese. But if it’s really underground, it’s been down so long it looks like up to me.

“It is an open conspiracy,” wrote Ethel Romm. “The revolution is taking place in public, on the newsstands, through the U.S. mail with second-class mailing privileges.” She estimated 1968 circulation at a million, pass-around readership at six million. It’s probably more now, with sheets springing up like locoweed. Why? The duller lumpenleft say city desks filter the action to fit supposed prejudices of their readers, creating a classic economic demand for alternative media.