WORD ON THE STREET
by Holiday Dmitri
The Booster - Wicker Park
April 17, 2002

Lumpen's Legend: The Story of One Man and His Zine By Holiday Dmitri

Edmar understands words. Ed Marszewski, his proper name, knows their power. He has seen change happen before his eyes. Not merely as observer (for who isn't), but as principal participant.

More than a decade ago, he and a couple of friends created Lumpen Magazine as a xereoxed, stapled-together zine -- a political and cultural medium covering "alternative" America.

The word "Lumpenproletariat," as was the basis behind the magazine's title, was a term in German used to describe displaced people cut off from their socioeconomic class -- the lowest section of the proletariat. It has come to be associated in modern day Wicker Park, with the hip revolutionary capitalists. Those who, as Edmar puts it, "refuse to have their lives determined by the hegemonic forces of monoculture."

"I want to know which freaks in town are doing interesting projects," says the editor-in-chief, explaining Lumpen's purpose. "I want to warn readers against the corporate monopolization of our lives. Lumpen provides a living example of another medium. We want to encourage living an independent way of being."

Marszewski has, in fact, helped to mold the contextual face of Chicago's new-crew of progressives, cultivating a novel subcultural connotation of those crazy lumpens, or fellow "freaks," as is his term for independent cultural producers.

He has done it with Lumpen; with Chicago's first pirate radio station -- WPBR -- that Marszewski co-founded; with the compilation CDs and DVDs he releases; with the well-crafted Select Magazine (his latest editorial endeavor) and the mega-webzine Supersphere.com (his financially-failed online joint effort); with his much-raved launch parties brought to life by associate Brien Rullman of OVT Visuals; with his filmmaker club PAL that meets every Wednesday evenings at Wicker Park's late-night juice bar, Square One; and now with this weekend's Version02 festival. Marszewski is a living example of his own goal.

But how does he do it all? Where does the energy, the will power, the motivation come from? Is Edmar man or machine?

"I just do it," he states matter-of-factly. "People like me, we have to do it. I started meeting people in town and collaborating. I believe that if you can create alternative media, you have at this point in history, an obligation. You must do it, or we lose collectively."

Marszewski was raised in Chicago's South Side, and after earning a political science and history double-major degree from University of Illinois at Champaign, moved back to the Windy City and got an editorial internship at In These Times.

"That's where I learned how not to do a magazine," Marszewski says. "If you wanted to do a radical publication, you can't use that same boring, theoretical style that most leftie magazines were using. You need to learn to communicate issues without sounding didactic or sounding like a lunatic or a commie."

At 33, the Polish-Korean Marszewki looks like any other in-scene indie rock kid in the neighborhood -- sporting t-shirt, jeans and black-rimmed glasses. I couldn't tell he was any different. But maybe that's just it. Maybe that's his point.

Marsewski, who subscribes to author A.J. Liebling's dictum that "freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one," believes he isn't any different from the rest of his peers. He believes that anyone can do what he has done.

"If Lumpen wanted to be financially successful, we wouldn't do the same magazine," he says. "We all tried to make a living out of it, but we failed in making enough money via advertising as an income source." Like the rest of the Lumpen staff, Marsewski also works other gigs to make end's meet. He runs a design/desktop publishing company.

"We wouldn't be able to alienate our advertisers or the business community with the business model that we have -- which is advertiser-based, with a free circulation. We'd have to kiss every advertiser's ass. But, I am satisfied with working with the clientele that we currently have. I don't accept ads from anyone, which is probably why we don't make money -- we piss off people whom we think are assholes."

Publishing of Lumpen dwindled in 1999, when Supersphere started. An Internet company headed by Marsewski and privately funded by investors, Supersphere.com contains more than 2,000 streaming videos, plus streamed DJ sets, independent films, zine database and interviews with artists and filmmakers. It was an online guide to Chicago's underground scene that, like many of Edmar's other projects, was provided free-of-charge.

But Supersphere was primarily geared toward broadband users -- at a time when there weren't so many of them -- and fell victim to the Dot Com bust. While today the site is still functioning, its 14 paid employees were laid off less than two years later and the office space closed.

"It has been the best and worst thing I've ever done," Marsewski admits. "The site was like a secret history of our culture, and we did an awesome job exposing what Chicago is about to the rest of the planet. I learned some valuable lesson, which has translated into what we are doing today. It was a natural progression of all these things that should be happening at all times. These different types of media, these different labels, different film distribution clubs. Everything."

"People ask, 'How do you it?' But come on now, we live in the most opulent empire in the world. We have access. Anyone can create oppositional media, you just need to have an idea."

"It's funny," he adds. "It's usually the poorer countries that come up with more creative forms of protest."

Critiquing and commenting, technology has given many of us the tools we need to do our own thing. Be your own medium, as Edmar would say. And it's quite awesome, really, that he is really doing it.

Side Note: The Version02 Fest investigates the future of today's digital environment, exploring the hottest issues in digital arts and technology with live concerts, panels and interactive A/V lab. Festival is from April 18-20 at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Concert tickets are $10 in advance, $13 at the door. 3-day pass to all films, panels and installation is $10 (concerts not included). For tickets, call (312) 397-4010 or visit www.mcachicago.org. Complete schedule listing at www.visionfest.org.

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