We all have that conversation, if I won the lottery, I would . . . Well I would become a full time book collector but what I would collect would change a bit. I am hearing that the archiving and collecting of digital archives are a bit of a nightmare. All those author hard drives and flash drives of email are proving difficult for institutions to maintain. Some libraries have stopped taking in hard drives. I heard one author's digital archive arrived with great emails and files but also a set of viruses. You know how tough it is to get rid of a 1993 computer virus?Acquiring, maintaining, making available and protecting a digital archive is a full time job. Maybe private collectors can play a role in this, but maybe this is a role that a corporation, like Google, Apple or Microsoft, can play. It is early in the history of collecting digital archives but there are signs that the traditional libraries and institutions will not have the resources or inclination to do it.
With $250 million in lottery winnings I could do my part. Yet I have a suspicion that it would lead to disaster. I have visions of me frantically creating jerry-rigged machines like those out of Blade Runner in a desperate attempt to read and access thirty year old electronic data like William Gibson's emails to Bruce Sterling or something. I would be like something out of a cyberpunk novel with me spiraling into madness in a room like outfitted like a set of Terry Gilliam's Brazil printing endless reams of paper in hopeless bid to preserve my Library of Alexandria from vanishing into the ether in a worthless pile of malfunctioning hard drives.
Kind of glad I did not win the lottery.
JB
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).
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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.
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