Today I sent a sample copy of Down & Outbound: A Mass Transit Satire to Half Letter Press. a distributor that appeals to me both as an author and as a book shopper. Check out a screen shot of their catalog of books, zines, periodicals and posters. Will they respond? They should. After all, I sent them a self-addressed, stamped postcard, (below) which I include with every book order.
Don't underestimate the power of the pedestrian.
I am always a sucker for intrigued by books that are unconventional by either format or subject matter or some combination thereof:
Cloud, The 3 (2007) by Helen Mirra
Mirra is an artist who defies easy classification - visual artist, sculptor, poet, professor and Cloud, The 3 reflects this. In this book, Mirra has indexed John Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy (1920)and reformatted it as a collection of short poems. Each page contains an index entry or two. Notice in the samples shown on the left (if you click on it to enlarge you will see it better) how they are alphabetical like an index and how their position shifts with each succeeding page. Clever. I liked this book for several reasons: (a) It is fast reading, (b) I used to index for living (films not books) and (c) I appreciate short bursts of meaningful epigrams. Here's just a few more examples:
Being everything, it was
nothing, 66
Class interest and bias, 35
Default is inevitable
and irremediable, 81
Squirm, dodge, evade,
disguise, cover up,
find excuses, 104
Paper Knowledge: Toward A Media History of Documents (2014) by Lisa Gitelman
In this series of four scholarly thought pieces (but more thoughtful than academic) Professor of English and Media, Culture and Communication, Lisa Gitelman explores the significance of often overlooked paper documents. Gitelman focuses more on how the legacy of such documents as: death certificates, fill-in-the-blank forms and a 1936 printer's manual by Robert C. Binkley entitled Manual on Methods to Reproduce Research Materials.
Though it is demanding to read, it's a pleasurable one too as Gitelman looks at how changes in technology and the business of printing has evolved in the last 150 years. She includes stories and anecdotes about ditto machines and mimeograph machines. (For those who went to school in their sixties can you recall the gluey warm smell of the fresh blue ink -- like Proust's madeleine?) In another chapter she focuses on the history of the xerography. Who can forget the early adoption of photocopying, which included xeroxing faces, hands and for the more adventurous -- buttocks. In the chapter she details the watershed moment for xerography, when Daniel Ellsburg removed classified Defense Department documents, copied them and then "published" The Pentagon Papers.
In a last full chapter, Gitelman offers a retrospective of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), which was developed in the 1990s and now has become ubiquitous. But what does this page-as-image really mean? For Gitelman, it reflects the culture of the modern office. In this passage Gitelman quotes from the Adobe's 1993 Acrobat manual, Beyond Paper: The Official Guide to Adobe Acrobat.
"Everyone has either launched their own memo grenade at one time or another or has sighted one lobbed over office partitions and across organizational charts." These are the memos sent up the chain of command -- to complain, criticize, or aggrandize the writer -- that fall flat, "explode" and embarrass him or her instead, with potentially career-damaging results. "And unfortunately, memo grenades will exist as long as there is office communication,"even if Adobe Acrobat exists to deliver them. Employees in this world don't as much bond together at the water cooler and the photocopy machine as they delight in deriding each others foibles and ambitions.
Postscript
For the record, I really resisted trying to scan the couple of pages from the Mirra book. Besides looking kind of horrible, it really doesn't do the book any justice. This book is an art object -- if you couldn't already tell from the word jumble front cover. The Gitelman block quote in Paper Knowledge is from page 127. The quotes within the block quote come from the Adobe manual. I wanted to scan this too, because I am a lazy typist, but two ugly scans in the same posting are verboten in the blog style manual.
On my day off I stopped by The Book as Art: No Jacket Required exhibit at the Art Institute of Atlanta/Decatur in downtown Decatur. The exhibit is being held through September 18th in conjunction with the Decatur Arts Alliance and is part of the AJC Decatur Book Festival.
It's been a tradition of mine to always check out book art exhibits whenever I stumble across them. (See related posts.) Like these artists, I prefer the tactile qualities of the book over the convenience of audio and digital books. However even a funky book of "mixed fibers and found objects" when nailed to a wall like Susan Lenz's Book I, Book V, and Book VII, (shown above) does limit one of the best product features of the traditional book --- portability.
Another favorite of mine among the 33 artists and approximately 40 installations, is Ania Gilmore's Library of Alexandria, (shown left), which is described in the exhibit notes as: an "altered book, (with) rolled and burned pages, wax, shellac ink." From now on, I will think twice before loaning a book to somebody, especially an artist.
If you're going to the upcoming Decatur Book Festival on Labor Day weekend, be sure and check out the Art Alliance gallery on Ponce de Leon. At the DBF, you will need a break from the elements (heat, rain, humidity, maddening crowds of children with sticky faces) and No Jacket Required provides an excellent refuge.
For those of you who either a.) appreciate old books, b.) like maps, c.) relish fine printing, or d) all of the above, make an effort to see the Joan Blaeu's Grooten Atlas, first published in the Netherlands in 1662-1665.
The Grooten Atlas along with framed prints are currently on display at the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking on the campus of Georgia Tech University in Atlanta. Here's the press release from the Museum:
"Georgia Tech’s Price Gilbert Memorial Library and the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking proudly exhibit Joan Blaeu’s Grooten Atlas from February 27 to June 26, 2015. Also called the Atlas major, the atlas was published in Amsterdam between 1662-1665. Blaeu’s nine volume atlas remains the foremost European Atlas published in the seventeenth century. These works are familiar to some faculty and students, but the larger community has been unaware that Georgia Tech has these treasures in the rare book collection. This particular edition is one of the few remaining hand-colored, gold-embossed deluxe editions of the Atlas, bound in Moroccan leather. Original volumes of the Atlas will be on exhibit along with reproductions of select maps from the collection.
Exhibited maps include European views of Africa, the Americas and Asia, depicting important trade routes and ports. Detailed views of European cities and countries provide insight into a continent developing the geopolitical regions known today. The Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking map of Virginia and Florida will also be featured in the exhibit.
Explore how the Grooten Atlas came to be produced in 1660s Amsterdam, the culmination of years of research, the development of papermaking and printmaking, and the establishment of the art of map making. Joan Blaeu, a second-generation mapmaker, celebrates the work of Tycho Brahe, mentor to Blaeu’s father. Brahe’s study of astronomy and contributions to celestial navigation provide a solid foundation to the development of the Atlases.
Considered together, the Blaeu’s Grooten Atlas provides important examples of evolving cartographic technologies and rich material exploring the idea of Europe after the Thirty Years War."
Be mindful of the hours since the museum keeps more "business hours" 9-5, Monday to Friday. But there is free, easy access parking in front of the museum on 10th Street, which is important if you ever tried to park near there. Admission is free but the museum appreciates donations. Here's a few more marginal photos of the exhibit that should not preempt you from attending.
As mentioned in the September 8th posting “Chelsea Lit Crawl,” I wanted to dedicate a specific posting to another bookstore that I visited recently when I was in New York City – Printed Matter, Inc.
Printed Matter, Inc. carries tens of thousands of pamphlets, zines, posters, but mainly they stock what they define as artists' books or “publications that have been conceived as artworks in their own right. These ‘projects for the page’ are generally inexpensive, often produced in large or open editions, and are democratically available.” To say the least, there is quite an eclectric collection and you can shop online if you are so inclined.
When I was there I purchased two books. The first was an illustrated book about the High Line, the former elevated rail line that was converted into a greenway beginning in 2006. Its full title A Field Guide and Handbook of Thoughts, Musings, Observations, Case Studies, and Histories (Alternative, Conventional & Otherwise) on the Elevated Structure Formerly and Now Known as the High Line of the Borough of Manhattan (2013) serves not only as a title but practically as a synopis as well. The book looks and feels like one of those nature field guides that you might find at a National Park gift shop with detailed illustrations of birds, insects and plants that live in this reclaimed habitat. There is a also a brief history of the High Line, which is an example of how local activism can effect major changes.
Although Printed Matter, Inc. (shown left) handles thousands of books from other publishers, High Line by Mark Dion, Jorge Colombo, Ethan House, et. al was published by the book store itself.
My second pick was Objects in This Mirror: Essays (2014) by Brian Dillon. Admittedly, the book is still in it's shrinkwrap, so I have not read it yet, but I will get to it before the end of the year. (See my December 13th posting.) It is published by Sternberg Press out of Germany and the display copy looked intriguing with its promotional blurb from Wayne Koestenbaum. Moreover, Dillon is the UK editor of one of my favorite periodicals Cabinet Magazine.
As always, my Festival plans and my actual participation did not exactly match (see last posting), but this year's Decatur Book Festival (DBF) had a few moments worth reflecting upon.
I did make it to one of the Civil War panels to hear the discussion surrounding the "nefarious" William T. Sherman and the destruction of Atlanta. I was too shy and too Midwestern to rebuke some of grandstanding by Dr. Stephen Davis (author of What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Burning of Atlanta) even when he was giving John Bell Hood a historical pass on the Confederate general's strategy in defending Atlanta.
And as predicted, the University of Georgia Press did have a copies of Brown and Elwell's Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia for sale. I also found out that they have a new book, The Civil War in Georgia, which was published as a separate piece from the New Georgia Encylopedia.
A late morning beer (a St Bernardius ABT 12) at The Brickstore with a book selling exhibitor friend. It was a little early, but we did beat the crowds.
I chatted with some illustrators and a few self-published authors. Some of those book covers were pretty steamy, especially for such a hot and humid day.
I did make to the Decatur Arts Alliance/ The Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur Book as Art exhibit. Shown here is Diane Jacobs', Hair Talk, Volume II. You can see the exhibit until September 19th. For more details, including a slideshow of the entire collection, visit here.
At the Georgia State booth I picked a free copy of the literary journal Five Points. Near the booth, I met Julia Eichelberger, the author of Tell About Night Flowers: Eudora Welty's Gardening Letters 1940-1949 but unfortunately I missed her and Pearl McHaney's lecture on Welty. Maybe I would have asked my them to comment on the Welty quote that sticks in my mind:
Whatever our theme in writing, it is old and tried. Whatever our place, it has been visited by the stranger, it will never be new again. It is only the vision that can be new; but that is enough.
Then again, I would have been too shy and too Midwestern to talk in front of a crowd --- unless I had imbibed in a second St. Bernardius ABT 12 beforehand. Remember DBF can also mean Decatur Beer Festival
Experiencing books as photographs or art objects is almost as fun as reading them and much less time consuming, unless you're visiting the prodigious Abelardo Morell exhibit currently being staged at the High Museum of Art here in Atlanta through May 18.
"The Universe Next Door" displays more than 100 photographs of the Cuban-born Morell's work including his technique known as Camera Obscura, an optical effect where images from the outside (skylines, trees) are projected on the inside of a room, which is better explained on the artist's own website. I didn't allow myself enough time to see it all, especially since I spent the majority of time on the part of the exhibit dedicated to Morell's detailed photographs of paper, books and maps. I plan on returning.
For more about Book as Art as Books check out the link on the right. Thanks to the High Museum for providing the artwork.
This week's artwork rivals this blog's all time most captivating photograph.* Shown here is the fashionable Liz Goldwyn who was featured earlier this month in the Style Section of The New York Times. Thanks to the courtesy of professional photographer Emily Berl, I was able to post it here. What struck me most was how the books were organized, mostly by the colors of their covers -- especially how the red covers matched her lipstick and the yellow-gold colors complement her mustard-colored dress. I've seen examples in the past where a used bookstore will allow an artist to re-arrange the inventory by color, but the addition of Goldwyn's signature red lipstick takes this experience to a new level.
Judging from the titles, I guessed correctly that most of the books were used. Following up with Ms. Berl, she said that she took the photo on the second floor of the The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, which is dedicated to used books. One of the used book sections was already color-coded and Ms. Berl said she only had to switch a few titles around to make it work. It does!
* James Benning's re-creation of the Unabomber's Home Libary (May, 2009) draws the most attention to this blog.
Looking at the combined offerings for November and December (things really shut down for the holidays after the first week of December), I ask myself this question: “Who makes more author visits to Atlanta, Pat Conroy or Anne Lamott?" Well, there is no end in sight, as they are both coming to town again. Conroy is here as part of the Marcus Jewish Community Center Center Book Festival and Lamott will (once again) be at the Decatur First Baptist Church. Admittedly, I did see Lamott once, but not Pat Conroy yet, unless my vacation to Beaufort S.C. (where Conroy lives) counts.
There are other non Lamott-Conroy activities offered between now and the end of the year.
One event of personal interest is
Georgia State history professor John McMillian discussing his book Beatles vs Stones, the ongoing
debate between the bad-boys Rolling Stones and the lovable Beatles. I have no
expertise in rock 'n roll of the 1960s, since I thought the Dave
Clark Five was the most talented band of that era.
McMillian is just one of the authors being hosted by the Georgia Center of the Book. William Sessions will be there as well talking about a new book he edited: A Prayer Journal by Flannery O'Connor. Although she has been dead for decades, books about O'Connor rival the notoriety of Conroy and Lamott in these parts. What will be next? The Grocery Lists of Flannery O'Connor (eggs, bread, Velveeta...)?
Humbler Fare
For those who prefer a more intimate setting, Emory University has a few writerly events in mid November, including a reading by David Samuel Levinson, the new Creative Fiction fellow at Emory.
The Carter Museum and Library is hosting several events of interest: Russell Shorto talks about his new book Amsterdam: A History of the World's Most Liberal City. Bill Minutaglio and Steven Davis will be talking about their perspective on the JFK assassination with their new book, Dallas 1963, and Bret Witter will do a reading and signing on his book, Monuments Men about the men and women who rescued cultural artifacts after World War II.
You can also sign up for a paper making course at the Georgia Tech paper making museum. Book and paper art makes great Christmas gifts for me at least. Check out Brown Dog Paper and Press. I bought a new journal from them at a local craft show last month. I plan on recording my activities in a To Do List Journal, which I hope to publish in 2014. (Sweep garage, fix running toilet, blog...)
After the sweaty, inky, commercial mayhem known as the Decatur Book Festival ended, I revisited the Decatur Arts Alliance and Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur's exhibit on book art in downtown Decatur. Originally, the 47 selected works (one of the jurors was Brian Dettmer) was part of the festival, but those like me, who are adverse to crowds can get another look through September 20th at the Art Institute's Decatur location. Shown above is a hand sewn book by Candace Hicks, called Common Threads Vol. XLVI. Below right is Chris Perry's 123 Ripples: pressure.
Because I haven't had my fill of unusual books, I will probably head out to Cobb Civic Center in Marietta for the annual Georgia Antiquarian Book Association Book Festival, on Saturday, September 28th or Sunday, September 29th. I always find something interesting to read or someone interesting to talk to while there. It's worth the trip, even though I always seem to get lost as soon as get OTP.
And finally, on the Monday, September 23rd, Atlanta Braves vs Milwaukee Brewers game, it is The Book Shopper Blog Night at Turner Field. Bring any old raggedy-ass baseball book to the ticket window and you are eligible to buy a select Terrace View ticket for only $8. A few book shopper blog contributors and I will be there. I'll be easy to find. I am the fan yelling mercilessly at Dan Uggla.
