Levittown, Pennsylvania could be awarded the distinction of having held the most eclectic collection of oddball characters known in the history of suburban living. One might be so inclined to attribute it to the heavily-chlorinated tap water, the psychological trauma associated with being repeatedly napalmed by the molten cheese in a Julio's...
more »
Levittown, Pennsylvania could be awarded the distinction of having held the most eclectic collection of oddball characters known in the history of suburban living. One might be so inclined to attribute it to the heavily-chlorinated tap water, the psychological trauma associated with being repeatedly napalmed by the molten cheese in a Julio's ginacotti™ or a subconscious indoctrination by the warbly-toned O'Boyle's ice cream trucks that perused the sections of Levittown manned by drivers of questionable character and hairstyle in relentless fashion. Whatever the actual source may be, a fact not debatable is that most people raised in Levittown look at life through a very ripply window.
In the late eighties/early nineties, when good teen fun was summed up by keg parties in the woods, bumper riding cars on icy streets, kicking out lightpoles, not walking on the sidewalk, sorting through the millions of CDs at Positively Records for the millionth time and braving Calhoun Street in Trenton to see hardcore shows at City Gardens, there was quite a literary scene albeit, mostly pronounced upon the pages of what would be known as the "Illegal Pad" circulated throughout the halls of Harry S Truman high school.
While the bulk of the material contained within those yellow pages could rightfully be construed as transient non-fiction graffiti, there were a few dedicated Keepers of the Pad who took seriously the art of bastardizing proper literary form and function in the face of academia at the lunch table over a breadtangle of freshly-unfrozen pizza. Whether individually influenced by the humor of Douglas Adams and Berkeley Breathed, the social-psychology of Ian MacKaye or the ennui of Morrissey and Robert Smith, the writing was a direct result of a peer-based local culture that included a Chocolate Fire, a Guisantes and a Dudeman.
Though the Illegal Pad met its demise at the hands of a flood in a Lancaster basement, many of its works (and later influences) were rediscovered in a pile of continuous form, green-stripey dot-matrix printouts. Once the fun of pulling apart the perforated tabs subsided, the book, Preparation: [H]ead was assembled and Illegal Pad Publishing begun.
« less
