NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: SUBJECT

Subject: (n) 1. a person or thing that is being discussed or dealt with or that gives rise to something. What is the subject of this sentence? 2. a thinking or feeling entity; the conscious mind or ego. The relationship between the producing subject and the receiving subject. (adj) (subject to) 1. likely or prone to be affected by (something bad). The subject of my desire. 2. dependent or conditional upon. Subject to this discourse. 3. under the control or authority or of. Subject to this discourse. (v) (usually subject someone/thing to) 1. cause or force to undergo. Subject to this discourse. 2. bring under one’s own control or jurisdiction, typically be force. Subject to this desire.

INNUENDO

From Clifton Meador, “Afterword” to the essay “I (heart) DIY CMYK (an homage),” JAB: The Journal of Artists’ Books #25 (Spring 2009): 23:

[…] where four-color printing has an authority or ubiquity unlike any other medium, learning to take control of that medium and produce work that challenges the transparency of the medium can be seen as a radical gesture. […] When artists produce work that decodes the transparency of a medium, everyone becomes aware of how the illusion is created. Instead of the glamour, innuendo, and the false promises of advertising, we see smears of magenta, cyan, and yellow ink expensively and carefully arranged on a piece of industrially manufactured paper. And once we understand how the magic trick is created, we are less likely to believe the lie. […]

Print media has been killed by digital media in the same way that photography killed painting many years ago. Finally, we can get to sleep. Finally, we can get to work.

EMERGENCY

From Andrew Joron’s incredible essay “The Emergency,” found in The Cry at Zero (Denver: Counterpath Press, 2007) 7-9:

“[…] Within the complex system of language, a word’s meaning is ‘edged’—and chaotically conditioned—by the meanings of all other words. Communication attempts to crystallize this chaos by establishing fixed relations between the meanings of particular words. But such language-crystals melt and reform constantly in response to their (subjectively mediated) surroundings. (Complex systems are typically open systems to which rigid concepts of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ do not apply. Such openness allows them to extremely sensitive to changes in the environment.) In this process, communication proves susceptible to structural failure. The abyssal turbulence of language as a whole, always brimming beneath the surface of stabilized meaning, can initiate a spontaneous phase transition that accelerates words far beyond equilibrium, toward the condition of poetry.

Poetry is the self-organized criticality of the cry.

(The concept of ‘self-organized criticality’ can be illustrated by pouring a quantity of sand onto a tabletop: the fallen particles will build up into a conical pile. This shape is the product of self-organization, for the pile maintains itself around a critical vertex, a balance-point between order and chaos. Once this critical point is reached, the effect of a single particle’s impact on the pile can no longer be predicted. One particle may cause a chain reaction of cascades upon impact, while another may rest where it falls. Not only have the system’s elements spontaneously organized themselves in response to an influx of energy, but the system as a whole has ‘tuned’ itself toward a state of criticality, where single events have the widest possible range of effects.)

A poem tunes itself toward a state of criticality, a condition of language in which single words have the widest possible range of effects. […]”

NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: READ

Read: (v) 1. look at and comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed. I wasn’t able to read while I was underwater. 2. to mentally project a meaningful text over the surfaces of things, places, and/or people. You are so easy to read. 3. to construct a meaning from (an object). Only he was able to read the sacred tablets. 4. An active method of information retrieval. I could not stand up to the constant reading and rereading. 5. a method of information retrieval that gives the receiver control over the temporal object, as opposed to listening or viewing, where the receiver must adjust themselves to the pace of the object. This dictatorial attention.

NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: STABLE SIGNIFICATION (STATE OF)

Stable Signification: the state in which an object achieves or is ascribed a single, set meaning, thus rendering it almost useless in a dynamic system. Usually stable signification is just an illusion and is easily dispelled with time and patience. Belief in an object’s state of being a stable signifier will often lead to the degradation of its form to a style, while simultaneously allowing its fixed meaning to be assigned a commodity value. Objects can only be bought and sold (intellectually, aesthetically, commercially) if quantified. Quantification and stabilization can be counteracted with the steady pressure of the precise science of softness, disruption, and imprecision.

NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: LEGIBLE-LEGIBILITY

Legible: (adj) (of handwriting or print) clear enough to read. The printing of this book could be more legible.

Legibility: (n) (of an object's discursive affect) a component or series of components in an object which can be read. A legibility is not necessarily bound to any intention of an object’s producer, but can stand separate as the shape of an object’s path (through the reception of individual reading subjects and/or through the culture at large) is traced. A legibility is ongoing and is constantly activated—it only exists in the reading-movement of the object. The printing of this book could not be more legible.

NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: FUTILITY-HOPE

Acceptance of Futility: 1. a condition in which objects can be made. Usually derived from the practice of logical problem solving as a means to create more problems. Can be positive or negative, personal or social. 2. A reason to, or not to, “get out of bed” in the “morning.”

Hopeful(ly): a condition characterized by the belief that “things will change for the better.” Often placed in opposition to the acceptance of futility, although some believe that the two conditions are actually the same thing, represented in two different ways.

NEWLIGHTS GLOSSARY: OBJECT

Object: (n) 1. Some thing that is made, or some thing that can be manipulated, but not necessarily both. Also, some thing that may or may not mean something. I object. 2. A series of effects clustered around or emanating from a single theme. These two objects are connected. 3. A purpose, goal, or focus. What is the object of this sentence? 4. Any thing (usually not living) that is not oneself. The object of my desire. 5. A formerly living thing. The abject object. 6. A living thing reduced to a series of effects or its base materiality. The object of my desire.

ETC.

Publishing Genius has released a new book, MLKNG SCKLS, by Justin Sirois. They are holding a contest related to it as well.

A friend sent me a link to Jen Bervin’s website.

Another friend, James Tucker, has just started a blog.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how next year will be year 10 of the NewLights Press, and about how if I want to do something significant to mark that fact, I should start planning now. But what to do? A reading? An exhibition? Both? Perhaps. Or how about an entire year of sustained, high energy publishing activity? How about 6 chapbooks, one every 2 months? (My first idea was to do 12, one per month, but I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to do much else.) And by chapbooks I mean artists’ books too, but (hopefully) not by me…

SAN FRANCISCO ZINE FEST

Zines have a special place in my heart. I first learned to screenprint, run a Vandercook, and bind books in class about making zines. Our textbook was A Secret Location on the Lower East Side by Steve Clay and Rodney Phillips. At the end of that semester, when the first book was done, the NewLights Press was founded. My life changed. I had found it.

Registration is now open for this year’s San Francisco Zine Fest, which is taking place on August 22nd and 23rd at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. Click here for the official website, including full registration information.

I am on the organizing committee this year, and it is my personal Zine Fest Mission to get more artists’ books and independent literary publishers tabling there. So if you’re an artist book/independent literary publisher, you should get a table. Why? Mainly because it’s fun. I really love doing shows like these (the Zine Fest will be my fourth this year); it’s just great to sit at the table and show people your work. Some get really excited about it. Some even buy some of it.

The second reason: it’s cheap. $90 for a full table, $45 for a half. You can’t beat that price. What have you got to lose? Find a friend and share a table.

Although the event is called the Zine Fest and zines/comix are the primary focus, there will be other kinds of work at the show: printmaking, other art stuff, DIY craft, etc. And I think the show and the people involved benefit from seeing a wide range of work. So come on out and share your books, ideas, and enthusiasm with the larger publishing community.

WE'RE NOT HERE

Facing the terror of the blank, white screen this morning, I thought of the following passage from the “Preface” of Gilles Deleuze’s Difference & Repetition (trans. by Paul Patton. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) xxi:

[…] How else can one write but of those things which one doesn’t know, or knows badly? It is precisely there that we imagine having something to say. We write only at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the border which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other. Only in this manner are we resolved to write. […]

And I think about the necessity of writing and I wonder who this blog, who these books are for. Is this for you, reader, my haphazard electronic shadow? Is this for me, the writer? The I, the me, is not in here. This is not my voice.

This is an object in the ghost world. It is external. Once can see its shape, its flaws.

Form is necessary. Necessary but not static. A channel through time. A translucent window. A perpetually repeating moment of coalescence. But neither of us are here, nor should we want to be, nor should we want us to be. Simply the here and we look on coldly.

We are united in the gaze at this spinning. It is nice to see you again, but neither of us is here. Just this spinning, the void, ever dilating. Nice to see you again.

I am motivated by a strong desire to write, to make books. I have nothing to express, nothing to say. This is not my voice. This is a desire to make external, to see, manipulate, and understand. This is a desire for, a rage for, a reptilian interest in, the reptilian function of thought. This is a desire to see what this can do.

It snakes.

Ghosts of Old Sam. All that fall. Not my voice.

It snakes. The fingerprints on the window.

MCBA PRIZE FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

The Minnesota Center for Book Arts has announced the five finalists for the inaugural MCBA prize. You can view the list of winners and images of all the entries here:

http://www.mnbookarts.org/events/mcbaprize.html

Congratulations to all of the winners!

IN SILENT PRAISE OF SILENCE

Nothing like a long, holiday weekend. Emerging from an existential fog. The Noise in the System. I’d like to take a moment and apologize to any readers of this blog for what I feel has been a decline in the quality of the writing lately. Is it bad to admit this weakness? Perhaps. At any rate, I have not been satisfied.

[do not read this, space for contemplation, do not read this]

So, a few things about a few things:

The deadline for the first issue of Et Al, the new experimental, jet set, trash and five-star journal of the arts, is this coming Sunday, the 31st of May. Click here for more info. We have already received some very intriguing submissions.

The writing thread of last week, about issues of display & reception with artists’ books will continue, most likely with a few digressions. Museum visits always get me thinking about scale, scope, and ambition of artworks. (For those of you in the Bay Area, the William Kentridge show at the SFMOMA is incredible. I was, honestly, surprised by how much I liked it. The show closes this weekend. Go see it if you haven’t, and make sure you block out at least 2 hours so that you can watch all of the films.) So more on that old thing. Hopefully it will cohere into coherence.

The NewLights Press has made an official decision to return to painting, or, perhaps, more specifically, to intervene in the discourse of painting. What this actually entails is the execution of several (old, developing, marinating) ideas for hand-mechanically painted books. The crucial difference that is they will officially be referred to as “paintings,” and talked about/shown as such.

The bookarts critic and scholar Betty Bright has started a new blog to document her research. Here.

A few other things, swirling: a new essay (sub-manifesto?) for the third issue of Mimeo Mimeo, a book of poems by Kyle Schlesinger, a new book of concrete-performance-hand-mechanical-printing poems by NewLights, aforementioned paintings, the second volume of (De)Collage, the world tilting madly towards itself, and the brilliance of days.

DISPLAY, DISTRIBUTION, RECEPTION, part 2

The first provisional solution to the books-in-gallery problem is to set up the gallery like a reading room or library. (This is an option that many of us have seen, participated in, and one that NewLights has used (and may very well again.)) The premise is simple—allow the books to be handled and read. Break the traditional “look but don’t touch” rule of the gallery, which has been done with various forms of experimental, interactive art since the 1960s. The gallery has become a kind of generic framing device that tells the public that whatever is inside, being it a series of paintings, a person living their daily life, or a bunch of flies and rotten meat, is art. So if anything else goes in the gallery, why can’t we just read books in there and be satisfied with that?

The gallery-as-library has many advantages. I think first and foremost is the fact that galleries are spaces that are open to the public, and shows often last for at least a month. So that is a large amount of time for people to come in, sit down, and read the books (and even a completely visual book with no words needs to be read). A show in a gallery will provide more time for engaged interaction than most other commonly available experiences with artists’ books—book fairs and library special collections. (Private ownership allows for a great deal of time to spend with the work, but inherently excludes the idea of public access.)

But books are often an awkward fit within the gallery. Artists’ books shows that are meant to be handled are often littered with tiny signs that encourage visitors to do so. Often shows will have a mix of work, some to be handled, some in glass cases, some out on shelves or pedestals and NOT to be touched, all of which can get confusing. Another danger of the “mixed show” is how display cases affect the work that is inside as well as outside. The case lends the books inside of it an aura (in the Benjaminian sense) of preciousness and authority. The book under glass is positioned, posed, preserved and unknowable, a mannequin and/or an image, glowing with the soft light of monetary value on display. The display case functions as a sort of auratic lens, gathering and focusing that discursive glow on the objects inside of it and rendering the books outside of it, radical in their denial and dismantling of the preciousness/untouchability of art, as decidedly ordinary objects. Books—we all are familiar with them. And indeed it is in that very familiarity and ordinariness, that common touchability, that makes the book form an excellent vehicle for the perpetual circulation of meaning, power, and authority. Which is why we love it so much. Which is why we believe that there is something at stake in the form.

TO BE CONTINUED

DISPLAY, DISTRIBUTION, RECEPTION, part 1

The problem of the display of artists’ books is a well-known and much discussed one. Briefly, the problem lies in the fact that books are meant to be handled and read, but art objects, traditionally, are not. So a very expensive and/or fragile book is displayed under glass, completely inaccessible, and the would-be reader becomes a viewer, having to be content with a single page spread. Ultimately, a reader-become-viewer is blocked from ever knowing the book.

A few solutions exist and have been implemented, ranging from acceptance of the glass case to the complete refusal of it, with the books always being shown for gallery visitors to handle. Other provisional solutions include the use of white gloves for reading, the creation of “display copies” (difficult for unique works), and/or limited, supervised reading time for the books in the show. It seems that at least 30% of the various calls for entries are for shows where the work is meant to be handled. But I see just as many books locked in glass coffins. Sometimes it seems that artists aren’t thinking about/dealing with this (fundamental) problem, that we simply acquiesce to whatever the terms of the show, usually set forth by the venue/curators.

But the point of this series of posts is not to go over all of those old arguments again. What I would like to think through is the various conditions of presentation/reception set in place by the traditional gallery, how those terms are complicated by the book, by book (or art) fairs, and to look at the possibility that galleries are not the best venue for showing artists’ books.

TO BE CONTINUED

CLASSES AT SFCB

This morning I was making notes for my upcoming classes at the San Francisco Center for the Book, so I thought I'd use today's post as a chance to plug them:

Basics of Boxcar Plates: May 27th, 6:30-9:30 PM. Learn to use the photopolymer system made famous by Boxcar Press: a transparent, plastic-backed photopolymer plate that is adhered to a gridded aluminum base. You will learn how to make the plates, and the many advantages that these plates provide on the Vandercook, from registration to changing your layout while on press. This class qualifies you to rent time on the Center's photopolymer platemaker. Prerequisite: Letterpress I.

Heavy Metal Typography: June 23rd, 6:30-9:30 PM. This class will introduce you to the finer points of typography and setting lead type by hand. We will cover design history and basic theory so that you can start to set complex, elegant compositions entirely in lead. You will learn tips for handling and composing type for easy lock-up and registration, how these ideas translate into digital typography, and more. Prerequisite: Letterpress I.

Production: The Sophisticated Chapbook: July 24th, 10 AM-5 PM. Learn how to design and construct structurally sophisticated chapbooks efficiently and cheaply. We will cover a series of simple binding techniques as well as how to "upgrade" them to make more complex books. There will be discussion centered on relating form, function, and content, and other design issues, as well as the practical nuts and bolts of chapbook publishing.

DISCIPLINE (NOT PUNISH)

On the train ride this morning I was thinking more about discipline, about having it in order to get one's studio work done on top of having a full-time job and trying to have some semblance of a social life. When I was in NYC my friend Sara told me an alternative definition to the word discipline that she had been using. I'm not sure where it comes from:

Discipline: Patience with and faith in the physical world.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMIN

I literally peeled this out of a book yesterday. It’s a quote from Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street:

[…] Printing, having found in the book a refuge in which to lead an autonomous existence, is pitilessly dragged out into the street…. If centuries ago it began gradually to lie down, passing from the upright inscription to the manuscript resting on the sloping desks before finally taking to bed in the printed book, it now begins just as slowly to rise again from the ground. The newspaper is read more in the vertical than in the horizontal plane, while film and advertisement force the printed work entirely into the dictatorial perpendicular. […]

PRINTERESTING

My friend Max showed me this blog the other day. Not only does it have a portmanteau name, it’s also smart, funny, and about contemporary printmaking:

http://printeresting.org/

Enjoy!

SMUDGING THE SURFACE

Translucency instead of transparency/opacity. Transparency is the ideal of the crystal goblet. Opacity is complete illegibility of the text. (Note: we are assuming that what is being printed is meant to be read as text.) Translucency makes the surface of the goblet visible. We can still see the contents, taste them. But we can see our fingerprints as well. We feel the fragility of the stem. The proper movement could destroy the whole thing. The drop of water on the camera lens. The fingerprint on the window, on the surface of the page. How does that fingerprint extend the work (the work of the artwork in question) into the broader field?

PCBA PRINTERS' FAIR THIS WEEKEND!

If you are in the Bay Area on Saturday, come on down to the Pacific Center for Book Arts Printers' Fair. The NewLights Press will have a table & I would love to show you some books. There will also be some letterpress prints from my friend & colleague James Tucker. Here's the official text:

This annual event features dozens of vendors (45 tables this year!) presenting their finely made books, papers, prints and more. An array of printmaking, bookbinding and paper decoration techniques will be featured by various artists. There will be a children's book arts area, hands on printing demonstrations, and mini-workshops by PCBA members. The event is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

PCBA Book Arts and Printers' Fair

Saturday, May 9th

9-4

Ft. Mason Center

Building A

San Francisco

For directions please visit:

http://www.fortmason.org/directions/index.shtml

SOME NOTES ON LEGIBILITY

How to construct a thing (a book, printed) both badly enough and goodly enough. How to make making it count. Bend the process towards the surface of legibility. The printing becomes the text. What is says, how it says it, how the how says what it says, & how what is read by the reader. Infinite elusive figure. Recedes. Unlimited offerings to an unknown force. Unknowable? Unpredictable? Thus the how of reading. Thus the irruption of form into content, process into reception. Always the principle of uncertainty. This is certain: it moves.

“What you see with new outbreaks is a series of smaller outbreaks.” Some part of the object twists inside the subject. They unite. Production, vomitous or accretious, ensues. In this we twist. Ah, the object flows and surrounds.

MORE LINKS

Inter-webbing turned these up yesterday:

Projective Industries: http://www.projectiveindustries.com/

Interbirth Books: http://www.interbirthbooks.org/

Good stuff!

INDEPENDENCE DAY

The NewLights Press is nine years old today. Thanks to everyone out there. It seems worth reiterating the end of the "official" mission statement:

The NewLights Press represents only one of the many geographical/historical meeting points of a vital and diverse community of active, thoughtful people, and our work would mean nothing without that community. The production of books is our own way of telling the rest of the world that we believe in them.

LEGIBILITY

Taking notes, playing in the stream of the dictionary. All definitions from the 10th Edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary:

Legibility: adj. (of handwriting or print) clear enough to read

Print: v. 1) produce (books, newspapers, etc.) by a mechanical process involving the transfer of text or designs to paper. produce (text or a picture) in such a way. publish. produce a paper copy of (information stored on a computer). 2) produce (a photographic print) from a negative. 3) write clearly without joining the letters. 4) mark with a colored design or pattern. make (a mark or indentation) by pressing something on a surface or soft substance. 5) fix firmly or indelibly in someone’s mind.
n. 1) the text appearing in a book, newspaper, etc. the state of being available in published form. [as modifier] of or relating to the printing industry or the printed media. (informal) a newspaper. 2) an indentation or mark left on a surface or soft substance by pressure. (prints) fingerprints. 3) a printed picture or design. a photograph printed on paper from a negative or transparency. a copy of a motion picture or film. 4) a piece of fabric or clothing with a colored pattern or design. a pattern or design of this type.

Handwriting: n. writing with a pen or pencil rather than by typing or printing. a person’s particular style of writing.

Clear: adj. 1) easy to perceive or understand. leaving or feeling no doubt. 2) transparent; unclouded. free of mist; having good visibility. (of a person’s skin) free from blemishes. (of a color) pure and intense. 3) free of any obstructions or unwanted objects. (of a period of time) free of any commitments. 4) free from disease, contamination, or guilt. 5) (clear of) not touching; away from: the lorry had one wheel clear of the ground. 6) complete: seven clear days’ notice. (of a sum of money) net.
adv. 1) so as to be out of the way of, away from, or uncluttered by. 2) with clarity: I heard the message loud and clear.
v. 1) make or become clear. cause people to leave (a building or place). [chiefly soccer] send (the ball) away from the area near one’s goal. discharge (a debt). 2) get past or over (something) safely or without touching it. 3) show or declare officially to be innocent. 4) give official approval or authorization to or for. (of a person or goods) satisfy the necessary requirements to pass through (customs). (with reference to a check) pass or cause to pass through a clearing house so that the money goes into the payee’s account. 5) earn or gain (an amount of money) as a net profit. 6) (of a person’s face or expression) assume a happier or less confused aspect.

Read v. (past and past part. read) 1) look at and comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed. speak (written or printed words) aloud. (of a passage, text, or sign) contain or consist of specified words; have a certain wording. 2) habitually read (a particular newspaper or journal). 3) discover (information) by reading it in a written or printed source. [as adj. read] having a specified level of knowledge as a result of reading: she was well read. 4) understand or interpret the nature or significance of. (of a piece of writing) convey a specified impression to the reader. 5) proofread. 6) present (a bill or other measure) before a legislative assembly. 7) inspect and record the figure indicated on (a measuring instrument). indicate a specified measurement or figure. 8) [chiefly Brit.] study (an academic subject) at a university. 9) (of a computer) copy or transfer (data). enter or extract (data) in an electronic storage device. 10) hear and understand the words of (someone speaking on a radio transmitter).
n. 1) [chiefly Brit.] a period or act of reading. 2) [informal] a book considered in terms of its readability.

THE FIRST 1OO POSTS

This is the 100th post of the IDE(A/O)(B)LOG(Y/UE). How anti-climactic.

NOTES ON PRODUCTION/TEMPORALITY

What follows is some text that was generated while the New Manifesto of the NewLights Press was being made and written. It is a couple of attempts to describe the metonymic, repetitive chains that turn the gears of “the book.”

The book, as it commonly appears, is a repetitive, rhythmic structure. It is built out of a series of overlapping, synchronized, chains of movement. The text moves from letter to letter, word to word, image to image, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, chapter to chapter. The book itself moves from page to page. The meaning produced from this reading-movement is of a staccato linearity, flickering, gathering in density at certain points, thinning out at others. Meaning is at once explosive and implosive, connecting out and gathering in.

The book, as it commonly appears, is a repetitive, rhythmic structure. On one side, its inherent temporality seems to make some kind of narrative structure or progression unavoidable—the book, like time, passes. It is (structurally) finite, possessing a clear beginning, middle, and end. We, as readers, expect a book to “take us on a journey.” We, as readers (and viewers), expect books (and all other art) to do what we expect.

But the book, while locked into its endless progression towards the end, constantly frustrates its own temporality by staging exactly the same event over and over again. Each page turns the same as the last. Imagine a story describing, physically, a person reading a book. Could it even be a story, with each occurrence exactly the same as before, maybe slightly recontextualized each time? [footnote 5] The repetitive structure of the book, of its reading, undermines its own progression, nullifying and occupying time at the same time.

FORM VS. FUNCTION

Figs. 04.09.04-05
Two forms, one for general correspondence (Fig. 04.09.04) and one purchase record/invoice (Fig. 04.09.05). More of the “Bureaucracy of One.”

THEY ALWAYS MAKE ME COME BACK

I spent the end of last week at the Celebration of the Chapbook, at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. It featured a bookfair with various publishers of chapbooks and chapbookish things, panel discussions, and workshops. As mentioned briefly in my previous post, I had a great deal of fun, and I am really glad that I went.

The whole thing was well-organized. Turn-out was good. There was the usual bookfair conflict where as an exhibitor one is torn between going to the panels and staying at one’s table. That is a problem that it takes specific planning to avoid. The panels, one on the history of chapbooks, one on chapbooks nowadays, were interesting. I did not attend any of the workshops.

There was some great work on the tables. Highlights (for me) include:

Ugly Duckling Presse is a publishing collective that is putting out tons, tons of great work.

Portable Press at Yo Yo Labs is the publishing venture of Brenda Iijima, and they are releasing books from a variety of interesting writers.

X-ing Books/Booklyn: Booklyn is an artists’ books group in NY. X-ing Books is a sub-sect that is doing some literary publishing. Mark Wagner (of both groups) was kind enough to show me some of his decidedly unchapbook, high end artists’ books.

And of course there was Cuneiform Press (say no more).

I came home with a bunch of new books—bought, traded, and gifted. I also unloaded a bunch of work (see post below) and spread the word about Et Al.

My favorite thing about doing these fairs is the amazing, kind, generous, intelligent, and engaged people that I get to meet and hang out with. Incredible.

GONE, GONE, ALL THAT GONE

The Collected Books of Jack Spicer and The Book 1: The Movement-Image are now officially out of print. The Chapbook Fair in NYC was a lot of fun.

ET AL, FOUND

In order to make the pertinent information readily accessible for all you soon-to-be contributors out there, a new, separate blogsite has been started for Et Al., the journal that we will soon be starting. The site will grow as work begins on the journal, but for now it is just submission and contact info. I can't wait to see what you send. Visit the site:

http://www.etaljournal.blogspot.com