NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: DIVYA’S HALF / MATHIAS’S HALF

& here here is the third of three digital archive books being released today, May 5, 2015, for the 15 year anniversary of the NewLights Press. Divya’s Half / Mathias’s Half was the first Say Hello to Your Last Chapbook! chapbook published in the 2014 series. This one is also an accordion dos-a-dos, so like the Anna/Anselm book, the digital version is divided into two separate files.

Divya’s Half / Mathias’s Half
Poems by Divya Victor and Mathias Svalina
40 pages, softcover, saddle-stapled, accordion dos-a-dos, 7” x 5.25”
Digitally printed text pages with letterpress (woven collagraph & lead type) cover
Edition of 100
2014
Out of Print

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: ANNA’S HALF / ANSELM’S HALF

& here is the second of three digital archive books being released today, May 5, 2015, for the 15 year anniversary of the NewLights Press. This is Anna’s Half / Anselm’s Half, the first in the Say Hello to Your Last Chapbook! series, published in July of 2013. This book is bound as an accordion dos-a-dos (see image below), so the digital version is divided into two separate “books.”

Anna’s Half / Anselm’s Half
Poems & things by Anna Moschovakis and Anselm Berrigan
36 pages, softcover, saddle-stapled, accordion dos-a-dos, 7” x 5.25”
Digitally printed text pages with letterpress (collagraph & lead type) cover
Edition of 100
2013
Out of Print

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE NEW MANIFESTO OF THE NEWLIGHTS PRESS (second iteration)

Here is the first of three digital archive books being released today, May 5, 2015, for the 15 year anniversary of the NewLights Press. This is the second iteration of The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press:

The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press (second iteration)
20 pages, softcover, saddle-stapled, 6.5” x 5.5”
Letterpress from photopolymer plates and collagraph
Unlimited, iterative edition
2013
Out of Print

PS: Expect the third iteration, as well as supplement/submanifesto by the end of 2015.

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: 99 WAYS TO DIE

In honor of the Day of the Dead, here is a digital facsimile of another NewLights Press classic, 99 Ways to Die.



We’re calling this a digital facsimile, as opposed to a digitally archived version of the book, because it is not composed of scans of the actual printed pages, as most of our digital books are. The real book is a little more than 200 pages (100+ sheets of paper with the versos unprinted) and that thick spine plus a shoddy hand “perfect binding” means that the book is extremely fragile, and does not open anywhere near flat enough to scan. [I wonder if there any copies of this still out in the world, still mostly intact.] Hence the digital “facsimile,” meaning that the book, with all of its wobbling and inconsistency, has been rebuilt on the computer. Perhaps it is effective, perhaps not. But here it is. & in a way, this is the third version of the book.

99 Ways to Die is, unofficially, the first NewLights Press book. The very first version predates the press, predates even the idea of the NewLights Press. Or perhaps the idea of the press emerged with the book. Although the thing itself was terrible, barely a book at all.

I’ve written before, on this blog & elsewhere, about how NewLights was started during/after a zine/bookmaking class my sophomore year of college. The text of 99 Ways to Die is from an assignment in that class, given by the poet John Yau, to write three poems: “10 Things to Do in Baltimore,” “10 Things Not to Do in Baltimore” and a list poem of our choice. My choice, because my roommate and I listened to a lot of metal, was “99 Ways to Die.”

I had so much fun writing the poem (with input from a few friends) that I wanted to try making it into a little book. I bought some Oaktag [yes!] paper for the covers, carved a tiny linoleum block image of the grim reaper and set up and printed the pages at quarter-sheet size to be saddle stapled. I’m not sure how many copies I tried to do, but not a lot. I hand printed the linoleum with the Speedball brand of water-based block printing ink, which, as some of you cringing readers might know, essentially never dries. So the prints came out okay, but quickly disintegrated into clouds of black fingerprints after repeated viewings. (The grim reaper used on the cover reproduced above is a screenprinted version pulled directly from one of those original block prints.) & the binding, oh the binding. One of the first things I learned about bookbinding was that a normal stapler is not long enough to reach the spine of even a quarter-sheet size book. In tandem with that I also learned not to wait until right before class to try to bind. [Current & future students of mine, this is solid advice.] So I just cut all of the pages down the spine and stapled them to the top of the back cover, clipboard style. It was not pretty.

But it worked. & the enthusiasm about that “prototype” version among my peers & friends & professors led me to maybe get more serious about this bookmaking thing. & after that, my life was quickly & wonderfully ruined.

Oh, & in case you’re wondering about the title and the epigraph:
 

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: CLERESTORY

Otherwise known as “the JAB book,” or “as-of-yet untitled.” This is a tricky one to translate to digital form, because the book is dependent on the reader being able to really stick their nose into it to read the pale text, and to be able to turn the book to read it in its multiple directions. So to help out a bit, here are two versions of the finished book, in different orientations. We highly recommend using the zoom feature on the reader to get to all of the text. & the thing in the middle is an all-digital study using the original photographs in sequence.

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Image/Text by NewLights Press: Aaron Cohick, et al.

16 pages, saddle stapled

4.0625” x 8.125” (closed)

CMYK offset of digital photographs (printed by Brad Freeman, Jenna Rodriguez, & Claire Sammons at the Center for Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago), letterpress from photopolymer plates

Edition of 600

2012

This book was made as an insert for the Journal of Artists’ Books #31. More info (including how to get yourself a copy) here.

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE DROWNABLE SPECIES by BRIAN EVENSON

& this post is the fulfillment of another long-term goal for the NewLights Press Digital Archives: in the spirit of The William Blake Archive, not one, but three complete copies of The Drownable Species by Brian Evenson.

Why three? Because the process of making these books (detailed here) was rooted in chaos and variability, taking advantage of the unpredictability of water and the often unnoticed physicality of inkjet printing. Each book in the edition is different, and three seemed like the right number to allow readers to see how those differences emerge from copy to copy.

All of the other archived books on this blog are either out-of-print or unique. The Drownable Species is still available for purchase. It originally was published in late 2008 (right around Halloween actually) after 3 years of on & off labor. I am still very proud of this book. & now it’s more accessible. & if you enjoy the story, it was very recently published in Brian’s newest collection of short stories, Windeye (buy here and reviews here and here).

The three copies that have been digitized are numbers 6, 29 and 34. 

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Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

The Drownable Species
Short story by Brian Evenson with images by Aaron Cohick 


48 pages, hardcover, casebound, 8 ¼” x 5 ¼” 


Letterpress printed text, digitally printed images with hand manipulation 


Variable edition of 40 


2008

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: ART INTO LIFE

It is really exciting to finally get a complete version of this up online. As was mentioned in the previous “Faking It & Making It” posts, the idea of doing some kind of reproduction or archive copy came shortly after this book was completed in 2005. And when I first realized that doing online versions of the book was finally a real possibility, this book was the big goal. & now here it is.

Due to limitations on file size I had to divide the book into three sections—I didn’t want to sacrifice image quality. It is actually one 180-page book. There is one fold-out section towards the beginning, which will look strange when you come to it, but hopefully it will make sense. Be sure to click on the pages to zoom in and read the footnotes!

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Open publication - Free publishing - More altered books

Open publication - Free publishing - More altered books

Art Into Life
Altered book with text and images by NewLights Press: Aaron Cohick, et al

180 pages, case bound, 8 ¼” x 5 ¾” 

Digital printing, collage, delamination, and mixed media drawing 

Unique

2005

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: WHAT YOU WILL by KYLE SCHLESINGER

I've been spending a great deal of time with these digital "reprints" lately, and there are a few issues with them that are becoming more apparent—small ones, tiny details—but things that can change the entire experience of reading/viewing the books. Something about verisimilitude. But we’ll save that for later in the week. And now:

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Poems by Kyle Schlesinger
44 pages, double signature pamphlet stitch with folded jacket
4.375” x 8.75” (closed)
Letterpress printed in three colors from photopolymer plates
Edition of 100
All copies are signed by the author
2011

PRODUCTION IS RECEPTION (43): THE HEADS (2)

THE HEADS

*

OF MY FAMILY:

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OF MY FRIENDS:

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OF MY COLLEAGUES:

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For Rodchenko/For Travis/For J (again):
Working Notes Toward The Heads #FFFFFF
NewLights Press: Justin Sirois & A. Cohick
3 digital books, 64 pages each, 8” x 12” (open)
Pure RGB colors
Edition determined as viewed
2012
Free

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE BOOK 1: THE MOVEMENT-IMAGE

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Text and images by Aaron Cohick-Gilles Deleuze-Eadweard Muybridge

56 pages, softcover with printed dustjacket,
double signature pamphlet stitch, 8” x 5”
Letterpress printed dustjacket and covers with digitally printed text pages
Edition of 50 

2007 
Out of Print

You might notice a bit of strangeness in the middle of this one. The double-signature pamphlet stitch puts a flap form the covers in the middle of the book. They turn like pages in the real thing, but I had to “fake it” for this digital version.

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE INFERNAL METHOD

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Text/object by NewLights Press: Aaron Cohick, et al.
12 pages, no cover, saddle stapled, 7” x 5.5”
Letterpress printed on newsprint, with additional elements added by hand
Edition of 350
2009
Released as part of Issue #3 of Mimeo Mimeo.

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: 7:8:1

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7 one word poems of 8 letters or less by various authors 
Including contributions from: Lauren Bender, Anselm Berrigan, Aaron Cohick, Jeremy Sigler, Hunter Stabler, Nate Wilson, and John Yau

24 pages, softcover, saddle stapled, 4 ¼” x 9”

Letterpress and screenprinted cover with photocopied text pages

Edition of 100 

2003
$3 – currently unavailable

This is an older book, from 2003, before I really had a clue as to what I was doing but having a good time trying to figure it out. The roughness of this and the other older books has a certain kind of charm, at least for me. But perhaps I’m just getting nostalgic.

You’ll notice at the end of this book that it says “tin woodsman editions” along with “NewLights Press.” Tin woodsman editions was a second imprint that I was using briefly, that was supposed to be for cheap, fast books in large editions. At the time, I think I was thinking of NewLights as making “nicer” books and thus felt the need for a second imprint. Tin woodsman was abandoned when I came to the conclusion that NewLights is and was a press that produces many different kinds of books.

I do like this “one word” idea though, and it may be making a comeback very soon….

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: SOME BEES BY LAUREN BENDER

& another "digital reprint," this one of a NewLights classic, Some Bees, by Lauren Bender. These are erasure poems, written by selectively crossing out words from a dictionary. 

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Poems by Lauren Bender
32 pages, softcover, saddle stitched, 8” x 5”
Cover is letterpress printed and hand painted on handmade sisal paper, text pages are laser printed
Edition of 50
2005
Out of Print

KNOWLEDGE/POWER

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INFORMATION!

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: SILVER STANDARD BY JUSTIN SIROIS

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Poems and images by Justin Sirois
56 pages, softcover, with printed and stapled dustjacket that adheres to book through a series of magnetic strips, double signature pamphlet stitched, 8 1/8” x 5 1/8”
Letterpress dustjacket & cover, digitally printed pages, staples, magnets
Edition of 100
2006 

The middle of this book has two fold-out pages. We did our best in translating them to this digital version. The image below shows what they look like and how they work in the real thing:

According to the website of Apollinaire's Bookshoppe, they still have some copies of silver standard available for purchase!

& the original post about this book can be found here.

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE COLLECTED BOOKS OF JACK SPICER

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You can see the initial post about this book here.

FOR RODCHENKO

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Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

Open publication - Free publishing - More artists books

For Rodchenko/For Travis:
Working Notes Toward The Heads
NewLights Press: A. Cohick, et al
3 digital books, 96 pages each, 9” x 12” (open)
Pure RGB colors
Edition determined as viewed
2011
Free

NOW (NON)LIVE ONLINE: THE NEW MANIFESTO (FIRST ITERATION)

The first digital version of a NewLights Press book (The New Manifesto of the NewLights Press (first iteration)) is now here and available for your reading pleasure. More out-of-print (and probably some in-print) titles will be added as the days get shorter.

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