"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita."
(Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1955, originally Olympia Press)
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Notes from the Library Under the Stairs
Many avid readers and prospective book donors have asked what manner of texts line the Bluebird shelves. The best way to find out, of course, is to get on the bus. But when not traveling, our books are stored in an overflowing library beneath a curving staircase. Tonight we pulled a few selections for those who have not yet caught the tour and need a taste. We hereby offer brief notes on some (but not all) of the genres and titles that represent our style.
Art and Design
This beautiful catalog from an exhibition of Dada Art and Anti-Art at the Goethe Institut (Munich) includes a fold-out cover and fine-art print insert.
One protean figure explores the mind of another in this interesting biography. The two grand icons of machismo, Picasso and Mailer, are well matched.
Fiction and Poetry
We do have a bit of a thing for Bukowski. Maybe a bit cliché, but it’s honest. We just can’t help it. Factotum is par for the course if you know his style, following the misadventures of a seedy, booze-soaked yet oddly poetic drifter.
Counterculture and Feminist Literature
The classic chronicle of the Ken Kesey's Further bus tour, Wolfe's Acid Test is a wild, sensationalist ride of hysterical realism, with Neal Cassady riding shotgun. We’re saving this one for a special event.
One of our more modern titles, published Summer 2011, this edition of the literary magazine Granta features fiction, memoir and poetry exalting the oft-misappropriated F word: feminism. Quoting from the Observer, "Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world."
Unusual Nonfiction
This genre spans a lot of territory. It can be hard to define, encompassing the instructional, the enlightening, and the amusing. Here we find it best to allow you to judge the books by their covers.
Science Fiction and Graphic Novels
We happily embrace the nerd within. Classic Star Trek characters battle alien life-forms in this juicy, full-color illustrated story book.
These often chilling sci-fi stories by the masterful Ray Bradbury weave a portrait of our dystopian future, as in "There Will Come Soft Rains," where an automated house continues to function long after its inhabiting family has been wiped out by nuclear war.
Exceptional Cookbooks
What, pray tell, is an exceptional cookbook? If you'll pardon a pun, it's certainly not the usual fare. Here again we prefer to let the covers speak for themselves.
Books for Children and Young Adults
Roald Dahl's sweet and silly fantasy is a classic for readers of any age. To quote Mr. Wonka, “A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.”
The infamous young detective searches for a lost doll and a missing gypsy violinist in this hardcover reprint. Nancy Drew was "a sure shot, an excellent swimmer, expert seamstress, gourmet cook, and a fine bridge player ... She brilliantly played tennis, rode like a cowboy and danced like Ginger Rogers." Now that's what we call a standout role model.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Taking Flight
Wow. Just ... wow. The opening day of our Kickstarter Tour was a great success, with an excellent turnout at both Sherry's Yesterdaze and Cafe Hey. Many thanks to our community of supporters for welcoming Bluebird with such warmth.
In a rare moment of speechlessness, we tell the story in images (courtesy of Ubernothing Art Review and Literary Magazine, Wayne S. Williams and others):
In a rare moment of speechlessness, we tell the story in images (courtesy of Ubernothing Art Review and Literary Magazine, Wayne S. Williams and others):
Monday, November 7, 2011
Bird in the News
Spreading the word, making some friends, shaking a tail feather. Fall is an avian season. Things are getting downright frisky.
In October, we got our first press in Megan Voeller's lovely Creative Loafing article. And by chance, it was seen by a visitor who brought the news back to Vouched in Indianapolis, IN, a very cool project that promotes small press literature via guerrilla book stores, reading series, and online publishing. So pleased to make their acquaintance! And indeed the feeling was mutual, as founder Christopher Newgent quickly revealed his desire to start up a similar Vouched Bus project. Perfect timing. Let's fly seeds across the land.
What's next? Tomorrow evening, a rendezvous with Stephanie Hayes of the St. Petersburg Times. And the Kickstarter campaign, ever-so-slightly delayed (it takes time to make a good video and such) is expected to go live the week of Nov. 14.
That will be just in time for our first stop on the kick-off tour, at Sherry's Yesterdaze Parking Lot Sale, Saturday, Nov. 19 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Watch for more exciting programs that same evening, when the Ubernothing Big Machine Event takes over at Franklin Street's Cafe Hey.
Oh, we've come a quite a long way. Remember when the bus was yellow? And six hours of scraping turned arms into useless jelly? Those were good times.
In October, we got our first press in Megan Voeller's lovely Creative Loafing article. And by chance, it was seen by a visitor who brought the news back to Vouched in Indianapolis, IN, a very cool project that promotes small press literature via guerrilla book stores, reading series, and online publishing. So pleased to make their acquaintance! And indeed the feeling was mutual, as founder Christopher Newgent quickly revealed his desire to start up a similar Vouched Bus project. Perfect timing. Let's fly seeds across the land.
What's next? Tomorrow evening, a rendezvous with Stephanie Hayes of the St. Petersburg Times. And the Kickstarter campaign, ever-so-slightly delayed (it takes time to make a good video and such) is expected to go live the week of Nov. 14.
That will be just in time for our first stop on the kick-off tour, at Sherry's Yesterdaze Parking Lot Sale, Saturday, Nov. 19 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Watch for more exciting programs that same evening, when the Ubernothing Big Machine Event takes over at Franklin Street's Cafe Hey.
Oh, we've come a quite a long way. Remember when the bus was yellow? And six hours of scraping turned arms into useless jelly? Those were good times.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Annotations (no. 2)
"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
(To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1960)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Required Reading: Philly Fanatic Edition
Our findings these days continue to take a decidedly naughty slant, as subversive, dark or complicated tales dominate the shelves.
It makes sense in many ways. The founding of a new venture always requires a side-step into uncharted territory – explored here with a rather lengthy reading list from Philadelphia (after the image), where a recent business trip was bookended by visits to the best in thrift, book and comic book stores.
We scored so much that FedEx had to assist in the transport home. On the way out of town, this exhibit at Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, about Philly's Prohibition-era radical press The Centaur Book Shop, closed another memorable chapter.
"Up on my back, and I will take you thither."
The Breast
(1973, Jonathan Cape, London)
Cavedweller
Dorothy Allison
(1998, Plume)
Extraordinary. Incantory. Fragile. Tangled. Indomitable. Heartbreaking. Brilliant. Allison.
Sexing the Cherry
(1989, Vintage International)
“The marvelous and the horrific,” according to The New York Times, “… fuses history, fairy tale and metafiction into a fruit of a memorably startling flavor.”
Notice a theme appearing here?
The Acid House
(1994, W.W. Norton & Company)
An anthology of shorts from the Trainspotting author, this caustic volume specializes particularly in “cosmic reversals … [with] a corrosive wit.”
Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957, Grove Press)
The Demon (1976, 1998, Marion Boyars)
Both by Hubert Selby, Jr.
It’s hard to find the right words. We’ve been searching for Selby, and found a bounty. So far Last Exit to Brooklyn feels like the precipice of a roller coaster: excitement and anxiety at gravity’s edge. We’re ready for more, and it can’t be taken in gentle doses. The Demon is almost fear-inducing, a “devastating, dark, perfect novel” (Chicago Sun-Times).
Cock & Bull
Will Self
(1992, Vintage Books)
Clumsy
Jeffrey Brown
(2002, sixth edition, Top Shelf Productions)
This diminutive graphic novel out of Marietta, Georgia, is filled with darling, painful comic vignettes “for everyone who has ever loved and lost.” Check.
Hot Water Music
(1984, Black Sparrow Press)
Thanks again, Black Sparrow, for a torrent of gritty poetic prose, brief glimpses of L.A.’s underbelly provided by one of our favorite dirty old men.
We also bought Bukowski’s novel ‘Factotum’ (1975, rep. 1980, Black Sparrow), a classic edition with a simple geometric cover design fringed by a microscopic spattering of wax drops – accidental candle deposits from the previous owner. How charming are the touches that remind us of other hands and other eyes.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
Gertrude Stein
(1933, 1990, Vintage Books)
This irreverent, conjoined-twin kind-of biography about the infamous pot-brownie-baking lesbian is an unexpected trip.
Kaleidoscope: A Variety of Short Stories
Ed., Ralph E. West, Jr., William Penn Charter School
(1970, Independent School Press)
Dreamtigers
(1964, 1970 E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc.)
The most personal of books by a masterful figure in contemporary literature, crammed with poems, stories and sketches best described by John Updike of The New Yorker: “He represents the skeptical mind that is fascinated by an unending compulsion to isolate and define moments of experience in which the presumed identity of self, of here and now, can be fathomed and recognized as a tragic illusion.”
We expected nothing less.
Granta: The Magazine of New Writing
Issue 115: The F Word
(Spring 2011 issue, ed., John Freeman and others)
Sometimes we find great new books. And this, with its beautifully tactile cover, entices us to explore new feminist writings by Gillian Allnutt, Laura Bell, Clarisse d’Arcimoles, Maja Hrgovic, Caroline Moorehead, Eudora Welty, Jeanette Winterson and many others.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Special Thanks (no. 2)
October always marks a season of change. This time around proves no exception, and we welcome it openly: the new, the unusual, the unexpected.
We recently contacted artist Josh Pearson about showcasing his book, Alphabhetto, a beautifully-illustrated tome featuring a colorful alphabet of creatures and objects. In the process, we discovered Josh's manifold talents extend into design, fabrication and installation as Creative Director of Creative Arts Unlimited Inc.
A book-maker who also builds traveling exhibits? The synchronicity was almost too perfect.
One look at the bus, and Josh was bursting with great ideas for fixtures and displays. He took us in a surprising direction, recommending autopoles for the interior -- a sort of vertical tension rod system that supports a variety of presentation pieces.
A few weeks later, Josh and brother Mike Pearson (Creative Arts' Installation Captain) laid in the first set of Bluebird shelves.
How did we become so lucky in our friends? These two join a long list of supporters who have donated time, effort and expertise to the Bluebird Books project. Their thorough attention to detail made for a stable and attractive installation. Our gratitude is nigh-inexpressible.
Get your first peek at the shelves (and what's stocked on them) when we go on the road in mid-November to support our upcoming Kickstarter campaign. Follow us on Twitter for breaking news on where Bluebird will soon be perched.
Stay tuned for further news, as the wheels keep turning.
We recently contacted artist Josh Pearson about showcasing his book, Alphabhetto, a beautifully-illustrated tome featuring a colorful alphabet of creatures and objects. In the process, we discovered Josh's manifold talents extend into design, fabrication and installation as Creative Director of Creative Arts Unlimited Inc.
A book-maker who also builds traveling exhibits? The synchronicity was almost too perfect.
One look at the bus, and Josh was bursting with great ideas for fixtures and displays. He took us in a surprising direction, recommending autopoles for the interior -- a sort of vertical tension rod system that supports a variety of presentation pieces.
A few weeks later, Josh and brother Mike Pearson (Creative Arts' Installation Captain) laid in the first set of Bluebird shelves.
How did we become so lucky in our friends? These two join a long list of supporters who have donated time, effort and expertise to the Bluebird Books project. Their thorough attention to detail made for a stable and attractive installation. Our gratitude is nigh-inexpressible.
Get your first peek at the shelves (and what's stocked on them) when we go on the road in mid-November to support our upcoming Kickstarter campaign. Follow us on Twitter for breaking news on where Bluebird will soon be perched.
Stay tuned for further news, as the wheels keep turning.
Annotations (no. 1)
"Camus wrote like a man who had just finished a large dinner of steak and french fries, salad, and had topped it with a bottle of good French wine. Humanity may have been suffering but not him. A wise man, perhaps, but Henry preferred somebody who screamed when they burned."
(Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music, 1983 Black Sparrow Press)
(Charles Bukowski, Hot Water Music, 1983 Black Sparrow Press)
Monday, October 10, 2011
Hot Stacks
It was a fruitful evening at my secret new book-hunting spot. There wasn't much time to shop, but something drew me in for a quickie, an irresistible magnetic pull toward a 15-minute grab-and-go with the headphones on. Not surprisingly, most of the fruit landing in my heavy-handed basket turned out to be of a plump and juicy variety. Tonight's reading list follows the photograph.
Treasures laid carefully in a crate, I flew off to meet a lady. In dim light we pulled off these waxy, paper leaves. They fluttered to the floor like careless-shed clothes. Tape peeled up slowly to reveal a smooth blue skin beneath. She asked if she could touch it.
Yes, of course.
Faithless
Joyce Carol Oates (2001, The Ecco Press)
The prolific author-poet spins tales of transgression with her usual chilling understatement and precision.
Couplings and Groupings
Megan Terry (1972, Pantheon Books)
These interviews conducted in the early 1970s delve into the changing nature of modern relationships, monogamy and sex roles.
Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes
John Pierson (1995, Hyperion)
A revealing look at a decade of independent cinema (mid-1980s to '90s) penned by a risk-taking insider.
C'est comme ca
Jean-Paul Valette and Rebecca M. Valette (1978, D.C. Heath and Company)
It's a French textbook with pop illustrations. French is the hottest of the romance languages. Hands down.
The Book of Aphrodesiacs
Dr. Raymond Stark (1980, Stein and Day)
Potency, enhancement, contraception, fertility ... Dr. Stark explores sex from the herbalist perspective in this concise encyclopedic-style index. Incidentally, the good doctor also penned The Psychedelic's Handbook.
perv, a love story
Jerry Stahl (1999, William Morrow and Company)
The Permanent Midnight author follows his gritty memoir with this nakedly wicked young outsider story, getting props on the dust jacket from Mark Mothersbaugh, Lydia Lunch, and Hubert Selby, Jr. If a book makes Selby laugh, you know it's twisted.
Treasures laid carefully in a crate, I flew off to meet a lady. In dim light we pulled off these waxy, paper leaves. They fluttered to the floor like careless-shed clothes. Tape peeled up slowly to reveal a smooth blue skin beneath. She asked if she could touch it.
Yes, of course.
Faithless
Joyce Carol Oates (2001, The Ecco Press)
The prolific author-poet spins tales of transgression with her usual chilling understatement and precision.
Couplings and Groupings
Megan Terry (1972, Pantheon Books)
These interviews conducted in the early 1970s delve into the changing nature of modern relationships, monogamy and sex roles.
Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes
John Pierson (1995, Hyperion)
A revealing look at a decade of independent cinema (mid-1980s to '90s) penned by a risk-taking insider.
C'est comme ca
Jean-Paul Valette and Rebecca M. Valette (1978, D.C. Heath and Company)
It's a French textbook with pop illustrations. French is the hottest of the romance languages. Hands down.
The Book of Aphrodesiacs
Dr. Raymond Stark (1980, Stein and Day)
Potency, enhancement, contraception, fertility ... Dr. Stark explores sex from the herbalist perspective in this concise encyclopedic-style index. Incidentally, the good doctor also penned The Psychedelic's Handbook.
perv, a love story
Jerry Stahl (1999, William Morrow and Company)
The Permanent Midnight author follows his gritty memoir with this nakedly wicked young outsider story, getting props on the dust jacket from Mark Mothersbaugh, Lydia Lunch, and Hubert Selby, Jr. If a book makes Selby laugh, you know it's twisted.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Required Reading (no. 4)
Good things are happening. Weird things are happening.
Things are happening.
Last Friday, we attended Book As Art: Beyond The Limits, an exhibition at MOSI advancing the book as a contemporary art form, sponsored by the inspirational USF-SOLIS (Student Organization of Library Information Science) under guidance of Cleo Moore.
Attendance felt mandatory after reading this compelling sentence on their press release:
"If you are inspired in any way by the physical presence of the book, as a vehicle for transmitting information, as a personal object or as a multiplicity of ideas, you will no doubt be moved by the visual power of word and image presented."
Vehicle, you say?
The show presented book illustrations, text collage, poetry and various paper works, fabric arts and deconstructed / reconstructed books. Plus a book sale (extreme restraint was exercised), banned book readings (cool) and adorable craft table. After careful observation, we can report that alphabet stamps do consistently appear to cause smiles.
In the gallery area, we were instantly lured in by Claudia Ryan's haunting, circular litany "I am a secret," a prose poem printed on simple white wall panels. But Sabrina Hughes' "Stories in Black and White" revealed a surprise with multifaceted charm.
Each cross-stitched square, meticulously executed and pinned to the wall, was wrought into a QR code -- those blotchy, smart-phone-scan-able barcodes you see cropping up everywhere. Scan these tiny wall tapestries, and your digital device registers a simple line of text: the first line from a famous book. The resulting clever blend of media -- tediously handmade object providing instant delivery of information -- seemed an appropriate statement in the conversation about the future of words in a digital world.
We look forward to talking with the SOLIS folks again soon.
And also cannot stop looking at this art, captured on a quiet night in Ybor City.
The owls are not what they seem:
Each cross-stitched square, meticulously executed and pinned to the wall, was wrought into a QR code -- those blotchy, smart-phone-scan-able barcodes you see cropping up everywhere. Scan these tiny wall tapestries, and your digital device registers a simple line of text: the first line from a famous book. The resulting clever blend of media -- tediously handmade object providing instant delivery of information -- seemed an appropriate statement in the conversation about the future of words in a digital world.
We look forward to talking with the SOLIS folks again soon.
And also cannot stop looking at this art, captured on a quiet night in Ybor City.
The owls are not what they seem:
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
It Takes a Village
This story tastes of grit and blood and sweat. It is crusted with dust-coated candy and hairballs, faded gaming cards and valentines. All things unearthed in the removal of bus seats. Including the inevitable fossilized chewing gum.
Of course, there is a happy ending. We have been so lucky in our friends. A humbling, steady rally of support keeps this project going, with painters, electricians, fabricators, teachers, videographers and accountants each lending expertise to the pool.
Today we are especially grateful for Scott Avoy and Shanna Gillette. Scott brought in the serious power tools and showed us how to use them, embracing some real mechanic up-to-the-elbows, face-in-the-undercarriage dirty time.
Shanna caught these stylish shots of the work in progress. Now the once-crowded bus interior is stripped down to a blank page, where we can draw shelves and lights to make a cozy reading room.
This village keeps growing. Two electricians, an architect, and a library designer have offered to contribute to the fixtures plan, and on Friday our best-read friend will sit down to help draft reading lists after we scout local poetry chapbooks from Yellow Jacket Press.
Recurring reference to Confederacy of Dunces lately, perhaps a reminder of the good turns from Fortuna. Wheels turning all together. Last weekend a blue jay feather landed in our path, and cerulean cyanotypes appeared in the mailbox.
Everything in this story is true.
Of course, there is a happy ending. We have been so lucky in our friends. A humbling, steady rally of support keeps this project going, with painters, electricians, fabricators, teachers, videographers and accountants each lending expertise to the pool.
Today we are especially grateful for Scott Avoy and Shanna Gillette. Scott brought in the serious power tools and showed us how to use them, embracing some real mechanic up-to-the-elbows, face-in-the-undercarriage dirty time.
Shanna caught these stylish shots of the work in progress. Now the once-crowded bus interior is stripped down to a blank page, where we can draw shelves and lights to make a cozy reading room.
This village keeps growing. Two electricians, an architect, and a library designer have offered to contribute to the fixtures plan, and on Friday our best-read friend will sit down to help draft reading lists after we scout local poetry chapbooks from Yellow Jacket Press.
Recurring reference to Confederacy of Dunces lately, perhaps a reminder of the good turns from Fortuna. Wheels turning all together. Last weekend a blue jay feather landed in our path, and cerulean cyanotypes appeared in the mailbox.
Everything in this story is true.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Sneak Preview
August was a long, blue month. But we're back.
In action!
This Sunday, it's time to do some demo.
Who's with us? Grab a wrench, we're pulling up our sleeves and pulling out the seats.
In action!
This Sunday, it's time to do some demo.
Who's with us? Grab a wrench, we're pulling up our sleeves and pulling out the seats.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Required Reading (no. 3)
Exploring the short form right now. It seems an apt reflection of this flickering-attention-span world. And the low commitment can pay off with high returns.
Two favorites from anthologies we're reading now:
Orange by Neil Gaiman
Featured in: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales
Edited by Kate Bernheimer, 2010
A modern book with a moth-eaten soul, this compendium features fairy tales re-told and re-imagined as never before, by authors such as Aimee Bender and Neil LaBute. Orange unfolds the story of an annoying-little-sister-turned-21st-century-deity in unusual and mesmerizing form: through responses to a written investigator's questionnaire.
how I contemplated the world from the Detroit House of Correction and started my life over again by Joyce Carol Oates
Featured in: Anti-Story: an anthology of experimental fiction
Edited by Philip Stevick, 1971
Another work exploring the boundaries of form, Oates' disturbingly raw and disjointed outline of a narrative leads us down an adolescent girl's dark, delinquent path. As relevant today as it was decades ago, Anti-Story is structured into sections such as Against Mimesis (fiction about fiction), Against Reality (the uses of fantasy) and Against Meaning (forms of the absurd). Can't wait to read more.
We also geeked out at Old Tampa Book Company this past weekend and picked up some fun items to stack the shelves:
Star Trek Concordance has amazing costume and scenery sketches inside, plus a working cover wheel allowing fans to look up original episodes by Air Date or Star Date. We're using "geeked out" in the literal sense here.
Live long and prosper.
Two favorites from anthologies we're reading now:
Orange by Neil Gaiman
Featured in: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales
Edited by Kate Bernheimer, 2010
A modern book with a moth-eaten soul, this compendium features fairy tales re-told and re-imagined as never before, by authors such as Aimee Bender and Neil LaBute. Orange unfolds the story of an annoying-little-sister-turned-21st-century-deity in unusual and mesmerizing form: through responses to a written investigator's questionnaire.
how I contemplated the world from the Detroit House of Correction and started my life over again by Joyce Carol Oates
Featured in: Anti-Story: an anthology of experimental fiction
Edited by Philip Stevick, 1971
Another work exploring the boundaries of form, Oates' disturbingly raw and disjointed outline of a narrative leads us down an adolescent girl's dark, delinquent path. As relevant today as it was decades ago, Anti-Story is structured into sections such as Against Mimesis (fiction about fiction), Against Reality (the uses of fantasy) and Against Meaning (forms of the absurd). Can't wait to read more.
We also geeked out at Old Tampa Book Company this past weekend and picked up some fun items to stack the shelves:
Star Trek Concordance has amazing costume and scenery sketches inside, plus a working cover wheel allowing fans to look up original episodes by Air Date or Star Date. We're using "geeked out" in the literal sense here.
Live long and prosper.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Tired + Inspired
The Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project stopped off in Winter Park, FL, this year, to our great pleasure. Artists from around the world contributed some 10,000 sketchbooks to this mobile art library, permanently housed in Brooklyn, NY. At each stop on the road tour, visitors signed up to receive library cards and check out hand-crafted volumes, two at a time.
Our first discovery: Christina Choffe from France interprets sleeplessness.
A lovely, minimalist book by Samantha Sng from Singapore, on the theme of Secret Codes, fell into our hands by chance:
Our first discovery: Christina Choffe from France interprets sleeplessness.
A lovely, minimalist book by Samantha Sng from Singapore, on the theme of Secret Codes, fell into our hands by chance:
Sng writes, "Fight not what is in front of you, but what comes from behind. Weariness is but another intangible notion. When one is invincible, it is hard pressed for one to ever be knocked down. Down or out."
The sketchbook stacks seemed endless. Children, seniors, artists and students flocked to Full Sail University to dig into them. Soon we'll show and tell you more about Art House Co-op's inspiring project, including our plans to bring it to the Tampa Bay area next year. But for now, sleep beckons. Weariness has become tangible. Close the book.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Scrap Paper
At The Globe tonight, a lovely young woman in a long, petal pink dress was reading Richard Dawkins. Couldn't see the title. She had a pile of books spread out across one of JoEllen's dinette tables. Very much wanted to tell her about the bus and give her a card. It just doesn't pay to be shy sometimes.
For you, pale reader, a Dawkins quote from our notepad:
"It feels good and true to know as little as I do about the true nature of the world. At least what little I do know, I can truly believe."
Later, we navigated a packed house at The Bricks to pick up a copy of Tony Patino's book The Road, a compendium of punk-rock memories from the touring circuit. A Tampa native now hailing from Kentucky, Patino appeared in Ybor tonight for an unusual book-signing and concert.
" ... A first-ever collection of real accounts detailing life on the Rock & Roll trail." One signed copy, please!
For you, pale reader, a Dawkins quote from our notepad:
"It feels good and true to know as little as I do about the true nature of the world. At least what little I do know, I can truly believe."
Later, we navigated a packed house at The Bricks to pick up a copy of Tony Patino's book The Road, a compendium of punk-rock memories from the touring circuit. A Tampa native now hailing from Kentucky, Patino appeared in Ybor tonight for an unusual book-signing and concert.
" ... A first-ever collection of real accounts detailing life on the Rock & Roll trail." One signed copy, please!
The stories are down and dirty, short and wild excerpts from the likes of Superchunk, Bad Religion and Gwar. Creative Loafing's Julie Garisto further explores the writer and his work in this article.
Tomorrow, we journey to Full Sail University in Winter Park to experience the Sketchbook Tour 2011 before it rolls back to NYC. This exciting project, put together by the good people at Art House Co-op, is "like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks."
Wonderful. Expect a full report.
Artists and writers, sign up by Oct. 31, 2011 to participate in the 2012 Sketchbook Tour.
On Sunday, we clear-coat the bus. No rest for the wicked this weekend.
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Work, Day 11
Take this 30 seconds of airbrushing, multiply by about 6 blue-soaked hours, and it soon becomes clear how no fiscal or verbal show of gratitude can ever begin to express thanks to Joe Griffith, the bus painter and artist without whom our project would be impossible:
And yes, that is a dent over the wheel well. It adds character, don't you know?
We are swiftly nearing the end of exterior work and gearing up to install fixtures. This bird will have wings in no time. We cannot wait to take flight.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The Work, Day 10
At last, after patiently sanding, scraping, taping, wiping, filling and caulking ...
today was a blue day.
today was a blue day.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Required Reading (no. 2)
Wonderful to see an exhibition like this one at the Tampa Museum of Art:
Syntax: Text and Symbols for a New Generation: Selections from the Hadley Martin Fisher Collection (above, Sean Landers' In the Garden of Gesthemane).
TMA describes the show as examining the "current generation of artists' interest in text, symbolism and means of information transference." Those are all things we love. On display through September 25.
Go, explore, translate and share.
Syntax: Text and Symbols for a New Generation: Selections from the Hadley Martin Fisher Collection (above, Sean Landers' In the Garden of Gesthemane).
TMA describes the show as examining the "current generation of artists' interest in text, symbolism and means of information transference." Those are all things we love. On display through September 25.
Go, explore, translate and share.
Rumors, Unsubstantiated
By which we mean the bus is still white. A rather lovely shade of white, we don't mind saying.
Tune in again Saturday for momentous occasions, true blue. Not the least of them: a visit from Dean the Wonder Mechanic, who's taking a look under our hood. Oh mercy.
Tune in again Saturday for momentous occasions, true blue. Not the least of them: a visit from Dean the Wonder Mechanic, who's taking a look under our hood. Oh mercy.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Work, In Progress
Stay tuned tomorrow for exciting top-secret photos of the Bluebird Bus. Rumor going around: the bus might actually be blue.
Preparing to wax nostalgic: "Aw, remember back when the bus was yellow? And Joe sanded it and we all tasted powdered school bus?"
Our assistant Jenna demonstrates the proper application of safety gear:
Preparing to wax nostalgic: "Aw, remember back when the bus was yellow? And Joe sanded it and we all tasted powdered school bus?"
Our assistant Jenna demonstrates the proper application of safety gear:
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Required Reading (no. 1)
Bluebird
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do you?
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Chrysalis
A primed white ghost, ready for next phases:
Transformation can be a slow process, and for every step forward there is a diversion. Don't talk to me about the engine, just keep stepping. Around the windshield, another layer to scrape off. Silicone caulk today, revealing rust beneath. To be re-caulked and ready for touch-ups by Tuesday. And then, the first trim stripe goes down and I know it will look brilliant blue.
Transformation can be a slow process, and for every step forward there is a diversion. Don't talk to me about the engine, just keep stepping. Around the windshield, another layer to scrape off. Silicone caulk today, revealing rust beneath. To be re-caulked and ready for touch-ups by Tuesday. And then, the first trim stripe goes down and I know it will look brilliant blue.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Special Thanks (no. 1)
I want to share a small bit of this colorful and inspiring 20-page art book by Joe Griffith of Experimental Skeleton, created as part of our Bluebird logo study:
Kym O'Donnell contributed photographs and more. Two talented folks, they have both been extremely supportive of the bus project, for which I am grateful. The book appeared in my mailbox shortly after we began brainstorming. It's filled with sketches, transparencies, spray paint and tape.
The worms design idea (above, right) never fails to bring me a smile. I particularly enjoy how they travel the full course of the digestive system.
These two-page spreads didn't fit on my scanner very well. It's hard to do the book justice here. I certainly plan to display it when the time comes.
Joe is instrumental in the Bluebird Books bus painting and build-out process. I chose the colors, but Joe ordered the paint. We spent about nine hours scraping industrial-strength reflective tape off the vehicle. Joe is power-sanding it and getting ready to lay down a primer coat. But first, we finish taping off the windows and trim. With any good paint job, preparation is key. Tomorrow will be a serious work day.
Kym O'Donnell contributed photographs and more. Two talented folks, they have both been extremely supportive of the bus project, for which I am grateful. The book appeared in my mailbox shortly after we began brainstorming. It's filled with sketches, transparencies, spray paint and tape.
The worms design idea (above, right) never fails to bring me a smile. I particularly enjoy how they travel the full course of the digestive system.
These two-page spreads didn't fit on my scanner very well. It's hard to do the book justice here. I certainly plan to display it when the time comes.
Joe is instrumental in the Bluebird Books bus painting and build-out process. I chose the colors, but Joe ordered the paint. We spent about nine hours scraping industrial-strength reflective tape off the vehicle. Joe is power-sanding it and getting ready to lay down a primer coat. But first, we finish taping off the windows and trim. With any good paint job, preparation is key. Tomorrow will be a serious work day.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Exposition
This is the story of a dream.
A dream ... about stories. Or rather, a dream about books.
When I was six years old I used to make my own books. Mostly they were Halloween stories, because I really liked Halloween. Being that I was only six, my plot lines were not too advanced. "A ghost and a witch and a skeleton were friends, and they hiked up to a haunted mansion," and so on. Nor were the books very well-made objects: construction paper covers, lined paper folded to make the guts, finished with a few staples along the spine. But I got the greatest enjoyment from making these tiny volumes, re-reading them, flipping through their rough-bound pages. The book as an object held me fascinated.
These were the first stirrings of my love affair with tomes, and my first grasp at the simple and powerful mechanism of printing. You put some ideas down on paper, you fold the paper into a book and it becomes portable, a little carrying-case for thought. Even when blank, the notebook has a fresh feeling, the magic of possibility, with all those pages waiting to hold characters, drawings, secrets.
Later comics, and then zines, drew my teenage interest. Zine makers clearly capture the passion to share an idea, be it instructional screen printing or political rant. The authors use their time and hands to craft hundreds of volumes, each detailed one a small piece of art. They are carried out to local bookstores or coffee shops and into the hands of others, who absorb their contents.
I realized young that I wanted to be a part of that whole process, and still do. I have read voraciously, written all variety of stories for newspapers and magazines and blogs (and for myself), played with words in rhyming notebook rambles never intended for reading. I have shipped and collected books, stacked them tall along my wall, taped their pages into paper chains strung across my studio. The love affair continues.
In 2011, now 35 years old, I am founding Bluebird Books.
It is part vintage bookstore and part mobile art house. It is locomotive and emotive. A place to learn about bookmaking. A passion for words and ideas, illustrations and the book-as-art, put on four big bus wheels and headed your way. Stay tuned.
A dream ... about stories. Or rather, a dream about books.
When I was six years old I used to make my own books. Mostly they were Halloween stories, because I really liked Halloween. Being that I was only six, my plot lines were not too advanced. "A ghost and a witch and a skeleton were friends, and they hiked up to a haunted mansion," and so on. Nor were the books very well-made objects: construction paper covers, lined paper folded to make the guts, finished with a few staples along the spine. But I got the greatest enjoyment from making these tiny volumes, re-reading them, flipping through their rough-bound pages. The book as an object held me fascinated.
These were the first stirrings of my love affair with tomes, and my first grasp at the simple and powerful mechanism of printing. You put some ideas down on paper, you fold the paper into a book and it becomes portable, a little carrying-case for thought. Even when blank, the notebook has a fresh feeling, the magic of possibility, with all those pages waiting to hold characters, drawings, secrets.
Later comics, and then zines, drew my teenage interest. Zine makers clearly capture the passion to share an idea, be it instructional screen printing or political rant. The authors use their time and hands to craft hundreds of volumes, each detailed one a small piece of art. They are carried out to local bookstores or coffee shops and into the hands of others, who absorb their contents.
I realized young that I wanted to be a part of that whole process, and still do. I have read voraciously, written all variety of stories for newspapers and magazines and blogs (and for myself), played with words in rhyming notebook rambles never intended for reading. I have shipped and collected books, stacked them tall along my wall, taped their pages into paper chains strung across my studio. The love affair continues.
In 2011, now 35 years old, I am founding Bluebird Books.
It is part vintage bookstore and part mobile art house. It is locomotive and emotive. A place to learn about bookmaking. A passion for words and ideas, illustrations and the book-as-art, put on four big bus wheels and headed your way. Stay tuned.
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