I'm at my desk on this gray
December morning. Today’s writing ritual honors Gary Custer who is far
away in Michigan in an intensive care unit. It's 10:15 in my California time
zone and I have another good hour to go. Gary lays in a bed, intubated
and semi-conscious, I am told. His devoted brother, Ed, sits nearby. Ed waits for a sign of communication from
crotchety Gary.
Gary edits and publishes the East Village Magazine, a monthly news
magazine published in Flint, Michigan, since 1976. The eight-page publication---all 620 issues of it---is Gary’s life work. In thirty-eight years he has never missed an issue.
The magazine is part of a nonprofit entity called
the Village Information Center. According to Ed, the term "village" came from Marshall McLuhan's concept of a global village in the 1960s. Gary is that kind of village man.
As Gary describes it, the magazine
began “as an information co-operative, a group
of people working together to provide the group some of the information they
needed to protect and improve their neighborhood.” [1] Confidence in a changing composition of an “information
co-op” where each person provides something toward the production of the
magazine---reflects the idealism of the
founders. Gary is one of the last of them.
Contributions
and several small grants and keep the magazine afloat, bobbling atop red ink
waters. Unclassified ads supply some revenue. Contributions from local
supporters and from all of us writers help.
It’s a slim publication, but when
I see the glossy East Village magazine cover downtown at the Farmer’s Market or
at the Lunch Studio I think I’m in New York. A slick urban sensibility emanates
from the black and white cover photographs done by Gary’s brother Ed. In recent
years their subjects often have been local architectural compositions that
arrest the eye. An artist and photographer,
Ed provides stark shots that render the magazine distinctive, instantly
recognizable in the sad stacks of flyers slipping off tables and falling
through racks in cafes, markets, and campus lounges around town.
My home town, Mill Valley, had characters
like Gary---people defined by one pursuit, monothematic, and indefatigable. Characters tend to sturdy and long lived,
immediately recognizable by trademarks of dress and language and concerns. It
takes time to acquire the distinction of being a local character. When they disappear we suddenly realize how essential
they are to the place we love.
Gary fills the character bill in baggy jeans
and a denim or flannel shirt. A beard. His
transportation mode is bicycle. He lives in the Village Information Center at
720 East Second Street which is also the magazine office. He works seven days a week, sixteen-plus
hours a day. The office walls are
stacked with old issues. There’s an
antique computer, a couch-like piece of furniture, a table and a couple of chairs. Toward
the back of the room a partition screens a stove or hot plate and a
bathroom. A bottle of Bushmill’s sometimes
emerges for Sunday proofing sessions, though he does not imbibe. Gary is, not surprisingly, a beer man.
When I retired from teaching, people
congratulated me. They said, “Now you
can travel and relax. Enjoy life.”
Gary said, "Good. Now
you can write."
I told Gary that I wanted to write
personal essays for my blog. “Fine," Gary said. "You can send them to me first.”
And so I did, but not enough to
satisfy Gary. He is the copy omnivore. Every few weeks the new East Village Magazine gets ready to go
to press. Layout and proofing finished,
Gary can begin to think about beefing up the online version of the magazine where
space is limitless. He shoots me a
cryptic email. It's usually something like, "Anything for our discerning
readers?"
I kick it back with a metaphor
like, "Got a couple of pots on the back burner. One is almost
ready." Gary will answer "Stir and send." He will
not be sucked into imagery. Gary wants copy; I want to procrastinate. Gary supplies
the nudge an amateur writer needs. More
like an elbow to the ribs. “Just write,” he says.
Gary is an old school newspaper
man. After an essay of mine reaches him,
he makes few changes, but the changes are telling. Titles, definite articles,
verb forms, and paragraph length are his blue pencil territory.
My submissions carry a title---some
enigmatic phrase that sparked my idea for the essay, a reminder of the notion I
want to reprise in its conclusion. My titles mean something to me.
Gary prefers curt and
telegraphic titles. He extracts them
from the body of the essay and discards what I’ve sent in. Whenever
possible he omits definite and indefinite articles. Once he removed a definite
article in a poem title. The poet was
offended; staff writers went on the warpath. It was all over by the next deadline; we gave
up, and the poet mailed in a check.
Gary is not big on the subjunctive---to
which I am academically inclined. I studied foreign languages; teachers drilled the
verbal nuances of wishes and doubts, or the counterfactual and the
hypothetical into my brain. He is a man
of the indicative mood.
Nor is Gary much of a clause man,
as in subordinate clauses (where subjunctives may lurk). One of my happy
grammar school experiences was to diagram compound and compound-complex
sentences on a blackboard. Later, as a
scholar, I learned the utility of the semicolon. Syntactical variety is not
Gary’s metier. "Subject, verb,
object," he says.
Gary likes short paragraphs---punchy,
you might call them. I was trained in
the topic sentence followed by development tradition. When I first see my writing in print or
online, it strikes me like a kid with a bad haircut. Over my five years writing for Gary, however,
I have capitulated. When I re-read what
he has printed I like it better than what I’d submitted.
After Gary puts an essay online,
he will send another cryptic email. “Good essay” or “very good,” he will
write. I am happy. And then he will add, “Any
corrections?” This is Gary’s amalgam of editorial
exactitude and making nice. I sigh. Unless I detect an error of fact, I am
resigned. Titles, articles,
paragraphs---I bow to Gary’s blue pencil.
Last November, in a moment of
uncharacteristic effusion, Gary described the current staff the best he’s ever
had.[2] The magazine was poised to move from eight
pages to twelve. We writers were elated.
Now, however, we meet in emergency session, stunned and sorrowing. The most important member is not likely to
return.
Gary believed that “there are
always people who don’t contribute, but we provided them the magazine in the
hopes they would change their mind when they found out the value of the co-op.”
[3] He lived this conviction
with a mind over matter determination. The
hospital ICU will do its best for Gary’s heart and lungs, but the magazine is
up to us now.
[1] Gary
Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial:
Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014
[2] Gary
Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial:
Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014
[3] Gary
Custer (GPC) East Village Magazine Editorial:
Your information co-op could use your help Saturday, November 01, 2014
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