What a great book fair: sales, interesting humans, and debauchery, oh my!

 Posted by LuxMentis at 8:52 am  Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press
Feb 182013
 

Well, just finished packing out from a great fair in SanFran. Found a few good things to buy…sold some interesting things. Notably I sold the biggest thing in the book (Mazur’s Inferno) *and* it was carried away! This last bit was *huge* as I had picked up a number of additional things at CODEX and the missing Mazur made a huge difference while packing.

Staying with Suzanne’s classmate was great fun…nice visit for a few day and then they left for the weekend, so I’ve the run of this lovely apartment all to myself. As bookfair lodging goes, it would be hard to beat…

I wrapped up the fair in a reasonably surreal discussion/theatre of the absurd performance art piece with My New Best Friend. I spent the final hour of the fair discussing debauched books, printing, and alternative uses for Amazing Tape (or, really, the original uses for AT…). It was a book fair discussing against which future such discussions will be measured and fall short…

Morning flight from SFO to Boston…then home. More to follow….

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Of finishing up, setting up, and opening…all while being blanked.

 Posted by LuxMentis at 6:18 am  ABAA, blogs, Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press
Feb 162013
 

I managed to get another dozen or so new slips printed this morning (just finished cataloguing new books last night) before heading over to The Concourse for the far. Did a bit of cruising books, but even so, finished at a respecatbel 130ish…so had plenty of time to get ready and prep for the afternoon opening. Opening was nice…steady flow. Lots of interested people. Even sold some big books. All in all, not a bad day.

Pleased the day turned out as it did, as I was being blanked all day for not showing up at the K is for Kegger party at the Bookseller Real World house. On one hand, I feel sorry that I missed it (again)…on the other: 1) I have missed it each prior year for various reasons…there is an argument that there is a tradition to respect; 2) I had dinner less than 2 blocks from my place (and with an intervening crepe place on the way)…that is, the idea of moving blocks and blocks *away* from my place when my bed (and work) was so close seemed…er…unwise; 3) it seemed likely that it would be a late night and I was very fearful it would have a bad effect on my ability to get work done and/or get things done in the morn (as I heard people were still there and happy until 4am or so suggests I made the best choice. I am, however, very sorry that I let down people almost undoubtedly put out if I came upon them on fire…I will accept my blanking with dignity.

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SanFran Setup for the ABAA book fair. Chaos!

 Posted by LuxMentis at 6:44 am  ABAA, Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press
Feb 152013
 

The pictures tell the story. Setup started at noon. I managed to actually go eat lunch, I was feeling so cool and collected. The booth is about 2/3 done. We have from 9am until 3pm to finish (and to cruise the hall). Looking forward to tomorrow. Many action shots promised… [It appears I have managed to 'miss' the K is for Kegger party...I had every intent to go...but after dinner and thinking of books I needed to catalogue and slips that needed printing at Fed Ex tomorrow...I just decided to continue my multi-year failure to attend....]

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CODEX wrap up and dinner…Big Show Twitches

 Posted by LuxMentis at 9:18 am  Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press
Feb 142013
 

Spent the day at the CODEX fair firming up new arrangements and looking at still more new books. Ride home notable as Mark Dimunation spent some of it belting out Jefferson Airplane’s, Volunteers for America. On a completely unrelated note, more people than one might think knew all the words to Circle Jerks, World Up My Ass, at the Gala Banquet and we did a pretty good rendition… Long day…and have much cataloguing to do as set up for the SanFran fair is tomorrow and I suddenly have another dozen

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CODEX: Day One. [or] There are Fine Press/Artist Book Fairs…and then there is CODEX.

 Posted by LuxMentis at 5:59 am  Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press, Typography
Feb 122013
 

Exhausted after a remarkable day of extraordinary books (to be fair, also still recovering from last weekend’s book fair). The morning Symposium was (overall) very very good. I had some very good dim sum for lunch and then headed over to the big hall to visit each and every one of the 180 fine press/artist book printers in the venue…I failed miserably. It’s a very good thing that I have two more days to finish working through this room. Quick images below…some detailed thoughts in the near future (when my brain is working).

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Second day of the Santa Monica show, pack out, fly to SanFran…argh.

 Posted by LuxMentis at 9:14 am  Book Business, Bookish
Feb 112013
 

Today was strange at the fair. Very slow, overall…but saved by the children! I had three great conversations with three young kids (two girls 8 and 11 and a boy 10). All three were hyper engaged with books and reading, asked great questions, and absolutely made my day (and, as a bonus, they actually bought, too). I managed to pack everything up in record time (2 hours) and grabbed and Uber to the airport. Interesting conversation with an Irishman abord the plan (arguably the most interesting bookish convo of the last couple of days). Safely ensconced in a lovely place in SanFran. Going to bed now…early BART to the Codex Symposium. Posts/twitter/tumblr to follow.

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Three fairs, two weekends, chaos reigns supreme…

 Posted by LuxMentis at 9:23 am  Book Business, Food & Drink
Feb 082013
 

I am safely ensconced in sunny southern California (leaving poor Suzanne in Maine with a storm coming that is threatening 24 or more inches of snow…for this I shall no doubt pay). Flew Virgin America (far and away the best way to cross the country). Landed safely and let Uber shoot me from LAX to Santa Monica (I truly love Uber, especially in SF and LA (not good cab cities, otherwise)). I used airbnb to find places to stay in Santa Monica and SanFran. Thus far, I’m wildly pleased with it. For far less than area hotels, I’m in a lovely one bedroom ‘beach cottage’, effectively on the beach and 2 blocks to the hall (and my place in SanFran is owned by a classmate of Suzanne’s…the “social filter” on airbnb is *really* very cool). No doubt there is a bit more of a dice roll…but thus far, I could not be more pleased with the results.

As an added bonus, Cha Cha Chicken is just around the corner. Beach front lodging, great (cheap) Caribbean food nearby, and a book fair. Shaping up to be a great weekend. Have been relatively productive thus far. Deleted nearly 10K emails on the flight, had some good meetings, visited with one of my most favorite humans. Tomorrow is Set Up Day (more interesting images tomorrow. Fingers crossed for the show…

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Occuprint: A curated portfolio of global Occupy Movement graphic art

 Posted by LuxMentis at 9:40 am  ABAA, Book Business, Bookish, News
Apr 252012
 

We had the extraordinary good fortune to be able to offer 20 pre-publication Special Editions of the portfolio of Occupy poster art. I’ve included a handful of images of some of the posters to be included. This edition includes 35 pieces (the regular edition will have 30) and includes thirty 12” x 18” hand silk-screened artists’ prints on French paper in an archival silk-screened presentation box. The collection has been curated by Occuprint organizer, Jesse Goldstein, BOOKLYN’s Marshall Weber, and various Occuprint editorial committee members including Molly Fair, Josh MacPhee, and John Boy.

Our special edition (Occupy the ABAA) pre-publication set is limited to an edition of 20 and contains , in addition to the above:

  • an original first edition of the Occupy Wall Street Journal’s Occuprint issue.
  • 1 copy of the Alexandra Clotfelter’s iconic “The Beginning is Near” roped bull   image, offset printed on French paper from a limited edition of 160 on French paper
  • 2 Occuprint “General Strike” offset posters
  • 1 Occuprint “General Strike Newspaper”.

While we placed most of the edition, I have a few sets left and, as this project is a fundraiser for Occupy, I’d like to see the entire run placed. Please contact me if you’d to have a set when they are printed (in the next month or so).

“Occuprint emerged when The Occupied Wall Street Journal asked us to guest curate an issue dedicated to the poster art of the global Occupy movement. The Occuprint website is meant to connect people with this work, and provide a base of support for print-related media within the #Occupy movement. http://occuprint.org/

Occuprint showcases posters from the worldwide Occupy movement, all of which are part of the creative commons, and available to be downloaded for noncommercial use, though we ask that artists be given attribution for their work. Our Print Lab is collaboration with the Occupy Wall Street Screen Printing Guild. The OWS Screen Printing Guild is an official working group within the OWS General Assembly. It is an open working group that regularly incorporates new members into its process and can be contacted at owsscreenguild(at)gmail(dot)com.

We look forward to creating and distributing more printed matter by supporting the development of screen-printing labs at other locations worldwide, and by printing more of the wonderful posters that we are receiving.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                     —Occuprint

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New York ABAA Post-Show Wrap-up and related links

 Posted by LuxMentis at 9:07 am  ABAA, blogs, Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press, Food & Drink
Apr 222012
 

The dust is finally settling and I thought I best get some images and links posted about the ever-fabulous NYC ABAA Book Fair. It was, in brief, a wonderful fair and a great weekend (and then some). Melissa Sanders (of Ken Sander’s Rare Books fame) flew out early and both helped me prep for the fair and attended a great outing of the Ticknor Society with me. She also corrected errors in my database as she helped pack, for which I’ll apparently be repaying her on a per-error basis for years (overall, a win for me).

The fair was good fun, in that slightly over-intense and somewhat masochistic way. We sold well (and most of the things I really wanted to sell) and bought even better. The shadow show had some great things and was well worth the trip (though I wish some coordination could be such that one could do both the shadow fair *and* attend the ABAA annual meeting…). The best wrapup of the fair and it’s importance was done by Lorne Bair and can be found here (highly recommend the read).

The ABAA blog has a nice post on celebrity spotting at the fair. I was especially pleased to have Steve Martin actually stop by the booth and look about…and more so that he then posted about his visit as *his post* radically increased the fair’s twitter profile :)

A video of the booth can be found here (a bit too much background noise, but gives you a good overview:

Images are captioned and covers before and throughout…

 

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Debuting Didier Mutel’s monumental new work: Description of Egypt

 Posted by LuxMentis at 8:52 am  Book Business, Bookish, Fine Press, News
Apr 192012
 

Originally published by order of Napoleon Bonaparte and printed between 1809-1828, the original Description of Egypt is one of the masterworks of the printed book. The twenty volumes (10 of plates, 1 atlas, 9 text) were printed by the atelier Rémond, founded in Paris in 1793…the successor in intrest to this historic press is the atelier Didier Mutel, aptly named as it is home to master printer and engraver, Didier Mutel. Approximately 200 years later, Didier is breathing life into a reinterpretation of this historic and remarkable work.

The original was a benchmark in printing of the day, emblematic and historically and technically remarkable. Didier’s intent with this new project is both a homage and an extension…the bite of acid upon copper expanding to envelop digital contextualization. Where the original explored architecture on the grand scale, the new begins with an exploration of faces on the micro scale. For each of the 28 plates associated with the first volume (Blindness), Didier created a unique face…and then engraved 16 iterations of each plate. Though each engraving stands alone, their evolution(s) in series quite literally transforms them [seriously, don't miss this wonderful bit of etched animation].

Didier’s blog posts on the creation of the first book (in two volumes) can be found here (complete with unicorn pictures) and a .pdf description can be found here. It will be an edition of 15 copies and likely to be at least 10 volumes issued over the next 8-10 years. Please contact us if you would like further information about what is very likely to be a defining work of 21st century book art. 

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