Here's the story: Cindy Shelton, Barbara Meier, and I were sitting around 1812 Canyon (now condos) in our funky apt., (after Cindy and I had decided to do a magazine) trying to think of a title, and there was a bottle of Bombay Gin around, and as I remember it, it was Barbara's idea first, but we all loved the label, as well as the title, and so that's what we chose! It was 1976. 1974 was when the first Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics summer session happened (the first Naropa summer)... but the magazine didn't come until later.

The printing of the first few issues was cataclysmic at times. I “rescued” a printing press from a closet at Naropa, and brought it up to Ward and printed the first and second issues on it. Later, I moved the press to a basement in the shop of a leathermaker friend of mine and remember printing with gloves on, trying to heat the ink with a small stove. Eventually Renaissance Press came to our rescue—I worked 2 days a week on an early typesetting/computer machine for them and in return I got a free day on the machine to do my own work (including my book and the magazine).

   --Bonnie Shulman