[Imc] the next level

[gillespie william k]

The following message represents my own opinions, presented in a fairly
undecorous manner, to serve as the beginning of a discussion.

Since my walking into the IMC to pick up Paul has turned into the words
"help head up" I feel like I should make it clear what my
interests are and are not. My interests are in helping to coordinate print
production, perhaps in the form of a print studio, perhaps in the form of
relationships with printers.

My interest in these matters has to do exclusively with my desire to
create books and chapbooks of creative writing, poetry and fiction, my own
and that of writers I choose to represent. I'll return to this point later
and explain how it might overlap with more IMC-like goals. I see the IMC
as a part-time conduit for art produced outside of it, but not an arts
organization.

Prove me wrong.

In other words, I am not that interested in working on a newspaper per se,
though I applaud but also interrogate the idea. To the extent that the
goals and aims of IMC-sters overlap my own, I think I could bring a fair
amount of energy, a slight amount of expertise, significant enthusiasm, a
great deal of interest, and tiny slivers of strained time to the idea of
print - the IMC Dead Tree Committee.

THOUGHTS ON THE OCTOPUS

I have heard unconfirmed and unverified rumors that the Octopus is
folding. I have heard some talk of the IMC "buying" the Octopus, and also
talk that that would mean buying a bunch of the Octopus' debt, which I
won't pretend to understand.

The advantages of buying the Octopus over starting something new seem to
involve what Peter described last night over Guinness as "buying
relationships" - with advertisers, printers, and a distribution network
which is extensive and in place (those little Octopus racks all over
central Illinois). Some of those relationships are not, in my opinion,
worth shit - I am referring specifically to the sex ads which have
persisted despite the Octopus' readership complaining about them,
sometimes launching terrorist attacks against them, for the entire
duration of the Octopus/Optimist's lifespan. It seems pretty clear that
the Octopus could not sustain itself financially without such suspect
revenue. Here we see what happens when a newspaper mistaken by many
leftists as a left-wing newspaper ("alternative" is meaningless, every
newspaper is an "alternative" to every other) tries to survive in the
market. We also see that happen when the editor and founder is dismissed
for publishing possibly flawed but genuinely provocative journalism -
Paul Young's expose on La Bamba. I can't really address the economic
issues, because they don't interest me, but to buy the Octopus would seem to
entail buying relationships which are not conducive to having a genuinely
worthwhile publication. Also, those people who put out the Octopus are, I
suspect, paid, and are maybe full-time employees. Are we proposing that
some of the IMC's already-busy volunteers, some of whom already have
(ahem) draining full-time jobs, take over the Octopus' enterprise in their
spare time for free? Ouch. I'm moving to Canada.

My opinion is that the Octopus is an advertising sheet noteworthy only for
its complete entertainment calendar. The disasterous La Bamba article, and
a little article on the assassination of Gregory Eugene Brown are the only
moments I can recall of journalism that posed a direct challenge to the
News-Gazette/Champign Police/business community's hegemony. If we were to
buy its relationships, I would hope that there would be such a radical
shift in content (this includes advertising) that it would jar exactly
those relationships that we bought. I don't think an alternative newspaper
is a real alternative unless it PISSES OFF IMPORTANT PEOPLE, a strategy
which is not conducive toward accumulating advertising revenue, a broad
liberal readership, or bigtime financial backers like the one who seems to
have carried the Octopus for many years.

In fact, the only reason I can think of for continuing the Octopus on its
present course would be to raise money to use for more worthwhile IMC
projects. But if its in debt, then obviously that's not going to work.

I should probably add that while I am big Estabrook fan, I think most of
his articles are unintelligible to anyone who doesn't already agree with
him, a problem that an editor (like me) could solve, provided that he's
not too proud to take a little criticism from a whippersnapper.

I can take or leave the Old Curmudgeon. When he gave the false statement that
Nader would have to win 15% of the vote (in actuality 5%) to get matching
funds, he let his opinions race blindly ahead of inarguable facts. Obviously I disagree with
his opinions, but what bothers me more is that most people would agree
with his opinions. Attacking Nader's campaign is a bland and marketable
gesture.

ENOUGH ABOUT THE OCTOPUS

[gasping for breath]

THOUGHTS ON STARTING A NEW PAPER OR RESUMING THE OCTOPUS IN A FORM THAT
DOES NOT RESEMBLE ITS CURRENT ONE

Start small, have no fluff pieces, feature provocative articles written by
truly intrepid and gutsy volunteer journalists willing to march right up
to important people, stick microphones in their faces, and piss them off.
Also (I don't know how this would work) printing good articles written
elsewhere about uneasy non-local subjects like the strangulation of Iraq.
I don't really give a rat's ass about Tom Tomorrow, in that all it does
is make light of things that are in no way funny. It would be nice to
cut Dave King a check once in a while, but I digress. I'd rather see a
single mimeographed sheet of paper with an article about nuclear weapons
development at the U of I than a professional-looking newspaper filled
with restaurant reviews (sometimes the restaurant reviews are even
front-page stories, as in Boltini's). And don't get me started on the
Cynthia Plaster Caster piece. Hey, I like rock star dick as much as the
next guy, but what the hell are we doing with American culture? Why is
there an article on something that vapid, but never an article on local
novelist, MacArthur genius, and genuinely nice guy Richard Powers? For
example.

Let's pretend that we live in a country, or county, with a high rate of literacy.

ENOUGH ABOUT THE OCTOPUS. AGAIN.

At this point my thoughts degrade gracelessly into bullets:

IMC PRINT STUDIO

- a saddle stapler
- a paper cutter capable of cutting > 100 sheets at a time
- Quark, Pagemaker, Adobe Type Manager, a decent library of fonts
- a computer-controlled digital copier which can do double-sided 11*17
- a dedicated print computer (Mac), a Gaddis to Brian's Sergei
- a scanner
- other binding equipment
- a variety of papers, stored such that nobody is tempted to use them as
scratch paper
- a group of people
 + dedicated to learning about all of the above, and training people
 + committed to studying book design, typography
 + committed to distribution outide Urbana
 + not afraid that to do things well is to acquiesce to bourgeousie
culture

IMC PUBLISHING

- relationships with printers
- selling books from the IMC
- relationships with local booksellers
- setting up spinelessbooks.com as an online bookstore, selling things
through the IMC's site
- efforts made to make connections in the small press world, conferences,
distributors

SPINELESS BOOKS

I'm going to publish books of innovative poetry and fiction and/or die
trying. The biggest obstacles seem to be

- too little time
- no money
- no collaborators
- no idea or drive regarding fundraising (every worthwhile literary press
in America that I know of is dependent on state, government, or university
support)
- impaired and underdeveloped mental faculties regarding business
structure, tax, and law, but a reluctance skip these details and
publish as a sole  proprietorship because I would like to publish things
(the Newspoetry book) that invite lawsuits
- lack of community interest in serious literature despite lip service
given to art and attention to language (prove me wrong, but if you expect
me to head up your newspaper, the least you can do is read poetry. is it
true that you charge poets to give readings in your space? i'm moving to a
civilized country, like Cuba.)

SOLUTIONS?

Spineless Books might be able to function under the corporate/legal/fiscal umbrella of the IMC.

Spineless Books could share resources and knowledge with the IMC, making
both groups better off.

The SDAS has not done a good job (as far as I know) of documenting
itself. Therein lies a lot of content and energy, and occasional attempts
to make small books on permaculture and cybernetics,
generally produced through Kinkos, which is the weak link in any
publishing endeavor, due to cost, poor range and quality of services, and
that taste you get in your mouth when you drink Starbucks coffee.

A book-making studio could serve both Spineless Books and other community
print projects (from brochures, to leaflets, to a small paper, to
flyers, to handouts for protests, to internal documentation, to chapbooks
("Zines", if you insist) on any topic anyone wanted to make a book on).

A combined publishing endeavor could ensure that some of the more
ambitious publications are published such that they could be sold through
bookstores (ISBN numbers, UPC codes), and put into libraries (LOC
numbers), which would promote the IMC, maybe make money, and give everyone the
satisfaction of a job done properly.

QUESTION

Can anybody think of any content?

FINALLY, THAT PRINTING PRESS MIKE WAS TALKING ABOUT

Was used to make Herbert's _My Words_ among other books. Is deteriorating
in the basement of 203 East Oregon. Would be REALLY DIFFICULT to move,
REALLY DIFFICULT to use, it might even be impossible to use without
someone with experience. The only person I know in town who might have
experience struck me as reluctant at best to help resuscitate it when I
asked her, given that she burned herself out on the joys of bookmaking at
a time when the press was already running.

It uses some kind of photographic plates. It does have, or had, a manual.

It's a beautiful idea, but I can't gauge whether the idea of using it is
has been rendered silly by technological advances such as digital
printing, or whether it would be worth it. I'm pretty sure its messy and
difficult.

There was a message from Paul Kaiser that suggested that he knew about
this stuff. I'd be happy to meet this Paul Kaiser and show him the press
in question.

Well?

William Gillespie
Spineless Books

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