There is a scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High where the students smell the handouts distributed in class. Many people have fond memories of the smell of mimeo but the smell is really that of a spirit duplicator (rexograph, hectograph, or ditto machine) not a stencil duplicator (a mimeo machine). Mimeo ink has a slight smell but the ditto machine, which did not use ink, used an alcohol-based duplicating fluid, a mixture of methanol and isopropanol. See http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_89955.asp. This solution has a distinctive smell.
If you remember the smell of homework and it was printed in purple, it was created on a ditto machine, not a mimeo machine. Ditto machines were far more common in schools than mimeo machines. So the contact high from mimeo ink is one of the myths of the 1960s like smoking banana peels. Yet I like to think that Jeff Spicoli was the da levy of Ridgemont High, slaving away at his ditto machine in his basement printing a surf mag with his friends. Surrounded by methanol fumes and pot smoke, Spicoli would enjoy the cool buzz of print and printing.
Check out 3:22 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rSRNVXKZc
It puts a new spin on Douglas Blazek's Open Skull Press.
MIMEO MIMEO #8: CURATORS' CHOICE features 16 bibliophiles on 6 highlights from their personal or institutional collections. Contributors include Steve Clay, Wendy Burk, Tony White, Brian Cassidy, Thurston Moore, J.A. Lee, Michelle Strizever, Adam Davis, Michael Basinski, Joseph Newland, Alastair Johnston, Tate Shaw, Michael Kasper, Steve Woodall, Molly Schwartzberg, Nancy Kuhl, James Maynard, and the Utah posse (Becky Thomas, Marnie Powers-Torrey, Craig Dworkin, Emily Tipps, Luise Poulton, & David Wolske)
MIMEO MIMEO #7: THE LEWIS WARSH ISSUE is the first magazine ever devoted in its entirety to poet, novelist, publisher, teacher, and collage artist Lewis Warsh. Warsh was born in 1944 in the Bronx, co-founded Angel Hair Magazine and Books with Anne Waldman in 1966, and went on to co-found United Artists Magazine and Books with Bernadette Mayer in 1977. He is the author of over thirty books of poetry, fiction and autobiography, the Director of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and as you’ll soon discover, so much more. Includes an introduction by Daniel Kane, an interview conducted by Steve Clay, 10 new stories, 5 new poems, dozens of photographs and collages, and an anecdotal bibliography.
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MIMEO MIMEO #6: THE POETRY ISSUE is devoted to new work by eight poets who have consistently composed quality writing that has influenced and inspired generations since the golden era of the mimeo revolution. Contributors include Bill Berkson, John Godfrey, Ted Greenwald, Joanne Kyger, Kit Robinson, Rosmarie Waldrop, Lewis Warsh, and Geoffrey Young. Cover art by George Schneeman.
OUT OF PRINT
MIMEO MIMEO #3: THE DANNY SNELSON ISSUE examines the relationship between structuralism and the poetries of the mimeo era by presenting a detailed analysis of Form (a Cambridge-UK magazine published in 1966) and Alcheringa (a journal published by Boston University in 1975), two exemplary gatherings that illuminate the historical, material and social circumstances under which theory informed art (and vice versa) in the early works of some of today's most celebrated experimental writers. Also includes a special insert, The Infernal Method, written, designed and printed by Aaron Cohick (NewLights Press).
OUT OF PRINT
MIMEO MIMEO #2: features Emily McVarish on her artist's book Flicker; James Maynard on poet Robert Duncan's early experiences as an editor and typesetter; Derek Beaulieu on the relationship between the influential Canadian poetry journal Tish and Black Mountain College; and an extensive interview with Australian poet and typographer Alan Loney conducted by Kyle Schlesinger. Cover is by Emily McVarish.
OUT OF PRINT
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