[Imc] the next level

[Paul Kotheimer]

William K Gillespie for Editor-in-Chief!
William K Gillespie for Poet Laureate!
William K Gillespie for Eclectic Guy!

this concludes my editorial

paulkotheimer:)

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001, gillespie
william k wrote:

> 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
> 
>  w w w .
>  w o r d
>  w o r k
>  . o r g
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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