cbertsch: This is me, reflected in my daughter's eye. (Default)
( Nov. 9th, 2003 03:42 am)
It's the middle of the night, but I'm too wired on the full moon to sleep. I went to a concert at Solar Culture, our fave music spot, tonight to see Numbers. The show started very late, so I went to the Cup Cafe at Club Congress first for a "Homer' Odyssey" burger -- tzatziki, olive tapenade, and feta on an oregano-seasoned patty -- that was truly delicious and a Pilsener Urquell to enhance the dining-alone effect.

I saw Sean and Matt at the concert. We all liked both the opening act -- Die Monitr Batss -- and the headliner Numbers. They were similar in feel, capturing the super-clipped, post-punk tension of the New York "No Wave" scene circa, what, 1980? Die Monitr Batss even had a saxophone functioning as both bass guitar and bearer of the melody, minimal though it was. It's so strange to think that James Chance and the Contortions are now one of the most emulated bands.

After the show, Sean drove Matt home and then took me to the Grill. The service was very slow, though friendly, because the place was packed. But we had a long, interesting conversation.

Then, after I parted ways with him, I drove over to campus and went to my office. I took my new banker's type lamp up and got it working. I dropped off a bunch of papers and books "for work" that I'd had piled up forever. And then I decided that it was as good a time as any to take the "cheerio" rug, as we used to refer to it in Vallejo, out of my office and bring it home to be thoroughly cleaned. Since the janitorial staff won't really clean an office with a rug in it, it has gotten very dirty.

The only problem was that the rug was under my very heavy filing cabinet and almost-as-heavy desk. Extracting it took me a long time, since I had to remove files etc. and then put them back in afterwards.

It's done, though, and I feel better for it.
cbertsch: This is me, reflected in my daughter's eye. (Default)
( Nov. 9th, 2003 02:01 pm)
The new item from my archives is one I've unearthed before, for the members of the Bad Subjects Production Team. But since I've had it laying around for years with the intention of using it for something, I thought I'd better finally put it out there before it gets lost somehow. It's a note I wrote for Annalee when we were discussing the possibility of starting a publication in the spring of 1992, her third and my first year of graduate school. Joe and Elliot were also talking about it, obviously, in conversations in which I was only marginally included. Since those conversations ended up leading to the creation of Bad Subjects in August, 1992, my ideas resonate with a bit more historical interest than they otherwise would. It's interesting that Annalee's new publication, Other magazine, includes the broader range of content -- photos, art, fiction -- that I seemed to have in mind when I wrote this note:
for Annø
notes for our publication:
- We can buy thing that pokes holes in paper -- to do binding
- should be regularly put out; we can compile best material into a Qui Parle-like compact glossy at year's end (or even fish for a book contract!)
- I can print the regular edition
- For regular ones we could do a two or three color cover
- We could 'fake' half-tones or even get real ones from Hunza graphics for a limited number of photo or art reproductions
- regular publication makes room for debate
- 'informal' regular publication makes space for shorter 'readings' not of the sort a more formal journal normally publishes.
While I remember the circumstances in which this note was written, I don't recall the specific day or mindset that drove me to put my ideas on paper. Since I have the note, I obviously didn't give it to Annalee. Looking back on it now, from the perspective of my scholarly work on zine culture, it's interesting how much my thinking was in line with the artier Factsheet 5 publications, even though I was only aware of a few of them at the time. At a later date, I'll post some reflections on how reading zines, particularly Cometbus has conditioned my attitude towards blogging.
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