Renaissance, A Magazine of the Arts #2: Signed by Charles Bukowski and Jack Micheline

This is a fairly important piece of history regarding censorship in America during the late 1960s. What makes this copy very special is that it is signed on the masthead by both Charles Bukowski and Jack Micheline, the men behind the demise of Open City as a result of this issue.

Published on September 26, 1968, Renaissance, A Magazine of the Arts #2 was a literary supplement in Open City, the Los Angeles weekly where Charles Bukowski’s Notes of a Dirty Old Man columns were first published.

Open City publisher John Bryan asked Bukowski to be the guest editor for this second installment of the supplement. Despite knowing what would most likely happen, Bukowski decided to print Jack Micheline’s short story “Skinny Dynamite”. Micheline describes Skinny as a “white jew with a black soul” who begins giving blow jobs at 10 and having sex at 11. Skinny prefers “spades and Puerto Ricans” and the story climaxes with a gang bang at a Puerto Rican gang house that begins with a “Chinaman” performing anal sex on Skinny.

After publication, John Bryan was charged with obscenity and the resulting legal costs would subsequently force Open City to go bankrupt. Bukowski denied any responsibility and refused to take part in subsequent fund raisers by other poets and musicians. As Bryan would later recall, “Bukowski played the editor and I went to jail”.

Bukowski’s contribution to the issue is called “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. It is also erotic, but in Bukowski’s own cynical style. Micheline used “fuck” several times in his piece, while Bukowski used phrases like “orgy butter” and “cunty trick”.

Other contributors include willie, d.a. levy, Gerda Penfold, Steve Richmond, Diane Di Prima and Joel Deutsch.

This copy is intact, but is also fragile. There are small tears along the folds of the first sheet (front and back) and a 1-inch tear on the horizontal fold on all sheets. There are small tears and folds along the edges, mainly the lower edge.

Signed by both Bukowski and Micheline, this one should probably be in a university archive.

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