theBarnstorming

Posted by bogenamp at 09:25 PM

October 30, 2009

Open Studio this Weekend (and Next)

October 30, 2009
Open Studio this Weekend (and Next)

If you have been itching to see the barn in it's glory, this or next weekend offers a prime opportunity. Of course, we are almost always willing to open our doors to you whenever you might find yourself in Chestertown, but this weekend (and next) is the Artworks Studio Tour, when we and 51 other artists from the area will be hanging out in our studios from 10-5 Saturday and Sunday waiting for people to drop by.

According to the Artworks web site, this is "the most enjoyable studio tour in Maryland." Perhaps you are aware of another extremely enjoyable Maryland-based studio tour and think that Artworks might be overstating things? There's only one way to find out.

The other reason you might want to consider a trip to Chestertown this weekend is that some of the most spectacular tall ships from ports up and down the East coast will be gathering here for the yearly downrigging.

You can look at tall ships, walk on tall ships, sail on tall ships, eat stuff, listen to smart people talk about tall ships, and visit our studio. Here's the schedule.

Oh, and the Chestertown Halloween Parade kicks off at 10:00 tomorrow morning. Alden will not be dressed up as Charlie Brown.

In preparation for the likely hundreds of people who will be forcing their way up our tight spiral staircase and into our studio, Robbi decided to do some interior decorating. In a rare fit of domestic inspiration, she pulled out the Bernina and the long-neglected bolts of cloth from Ikea and started feverishly measuring, cutting, pinning, etc.

What was she up to, I wondered. She would not say.

Alden and I played in the other room while Robbi worked. When she was done, she called us over for a look.

The result was surprisingly competent (in case you don't know Robbi is not known for being a canny seamstress). But what were these things?

No, you are not seeing things. And yes, it is ok to shake your head. It's true. Robbi made printer cozies. I blame it on the pregnancy. I blame a lot of things on the pregnancy.

So there you have it. We invite you to Chestertown this weekend to gaze at art, bask in the glory of tall ships, gawk at the cuteness of costumed youth, and to shake your head in bemusement at the remarkable, unlikely sight of Robbi's striped printer cozies.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:41 PM

October 15, 2009

The Untold Story

It has been one of those weeks. Tomorrow morning I will drive across the Bay Bridge for the fourth time in seven days. My days of late have been long and stimulating. And long. I am grateful to Robbi for so ably telling the story of our weekend at the Baltimore Comic Con. But I must quibble with a few of the things that she did not include.

For example, she did not share our encounter with Mini Batman.

Or our serendipitous sighting of Mario and his brother Luigi.

For baffling reasons, she chose not to show you this photo of Predator and Guy Who Tries to Kill Predator.

Also, you would have had no way of knowing that we ran into this superhero with a mace whose name I should know but somehow can't remember.

And this greenish girl superhero with white stripe in hair whose name I'm also supposed to know and also somehow can't remember.

And, of course, the Joker (even I cannot forget the Joker).

And the ever-terrifying Powdered Toast Man.

And the ever lovable, roly-poly (yet still quite terrifying) Great Big Butterfly Guy.

Perhaps most conspicuous among the many omissions to Robbi's post was the following shot of a rather compelling hero.

Neither heroic nor awe-inspiring, nor physically impressive nor agile nor able to fly nor capable of shooting beams from his eyes nor armed in any obvious way, the hero nevertheless knows how to pose. (And jump, though admittedly the photo provides no evidence of it.)

Here he is with others from his fearsome band of evil-fighting black-leather green-haired hero people.

Inspiring, no? It's why we go to Comic Con, for sights like these.

Can you believe that Robbi had the gall to omit these images from her post? I can only attribute it to an utter lack of vision, an intractable refusal to dream, a prudish unwillingness to dress up in lycra, wield a rubber weapon, and harness her inner superhero.

At least this small-mindedness has not been passed along to Alden, who shows no qualms about dressing up as her hero.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:00 PM

October 09, 2009

Comic-Con, Here We Come!

Hello all - it's Robbi. In Matthew's long VACATION in Kansas City (only Matthew would think to vacation in Kansas City) he was so busy eating bonbons/ribs and getting his nails done/watching football that he forgot to let you all know that we will have a booth at the Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend.
So, if you happen to be in the Baltimore area, and are undaunted by 12,000 people who look like this guy or another 22,000 people who look like this, please come on down. No one ever said it was a bad idea to mix comic geeks and marathoners. I imagine there couldn't be a more unrevealing Venn Diagram.

Hope to see you there.

And the only pictures I have to post are of me, passed out on my keyboard in a pool of drool. Not quite what you're looking for, I'm sure. Charming and attractive is right.

Posted by ribbu at 08:48 PM

October 08, 2009

Charming and Attractive?

We were floored yesterday to receive an email from award-winning, New Yorker-appearing, illustratrix/cartoonista extraordinaire Emily Flake, who was letting us know that she had recently been blogging for Print magazine about the things she saw and admired at this year's Small Press Expo.

We are honored to have been mentioned in the same breath as a comic book about oral herpes, a comicbookification of Wuthering Heights, and a newly released retrospective of Gahan Wilson's 50 years of Playboy cartoons.

Here's what Emily had to say about Idiots'Books.

Charming, attractive married couple Matthew Swanson (writer) and Robbi Behr (illustrator) offer a subscription service to their self-published, spiral-bound books (they also indulge in letterpress, but it costs more. Lead's not free, pal). The funniest selection: The Baby is Disappointing, a lament of dashed expectations: "It's worse than last year's bankruptcy, this baby. It's worse than when the basement flooded. Our shame is blazoned on our brows, chronicled in our ravaged check register." The thread of Swanson's black humor and Behr's delightfully scribbly work runs through all the couple's output, including, one hopes, their own disappointing baby (Ms. Behr is expecting another. Hope springs eternal).

Print magazine, whose tagline is "design for curious minds", is a fairly shmancy publication, with no small degree of prominence and credibility in the world of design. As a result, we are feeling rather shmancy this morning and more tempted then we might otherwise be to believe the nice things Emily had to say about us (except for the bald-faced lies about our appearance and demeanor, which we cannot abide).

Posted by bogenamp at 09:40 AM

October 06, 2009

Gamers

Imagine our surprise when our Google Alerts let us know that we had been mentioned on Game Culture, a blog devoted to writing about all things game-related, including video games, sports, movies (based on games)--and novel-inspired, illustration-based recombining tile projects, it seems.

Follow this link to the most comprehensive, satisfying write-up to date on the Makers project and the associated tile game.

The post reminded me that I have been woefully remiss in sharing the latest Makers tiles with you. Without further delay, here are tiles 29-40.

And there you have it. 40 tiles may be a lot, but in this project is still one tile shy of halfway there--a fact of which Robbi is painfully aware.

Posted by bogenamp at 04:44 PM

Big in Deutschland

We wonder about you, Barnstorming reader. Who are you? Where do you live? What are your hopes and dreams? How often do you bathe? What deficiency compels you to waste your time with us?

As we puzzle through these ineluctable questions, we peer periodically at the network statistics, which provide such useful information as which sites refer people to The Barnstorming. Several times of late, I have discovered posts in a strange and baffling language beyond my comprehension. Luckily, Robbi lived in Germany for a year and retains a workable (read "barely literate") proficiency with its mother tongue.

She was therefore able to read this post.

And translated it for me thusly (with full acknowledgment of halting, flawed understanding of the language):

Thousandpages
The Blog for Unbelievable and Unique Books, Films and Music

"Handkerchief Books"

For the right cut, there are instructions - but it's easier to figure out after the How-To video.

Without this post, I would never have thought to refer to the One Page Wonders as "handkerchief books". Ah, the virtues of globalism!

Just last week, we discovered the following post, again on a German blog. Here is a screenshot of the accompanying comment.

Robbi tells me that the main post is written from a baby's perspective of discovering itself in a mirror (she did not bother to translate it since it has nothing to do with us and she is firmly opposed to doing any translating that is not motivated by narcissism).

Here's a rough (flawed, imperfect, terrible, etc.) translation of the comment from the husband of Nina, who was Robbi's host sister during Robbi's exchange year in Germany.

"Hallo Eike -
here's the correct link: http://www.thebarnstorming.com/

I especially like the Idiots'Books that he and Robbi make, and think that you should definitely take the opportunity to search for "The Baby is Disappointing" - or just go to the site listed here - to get yourself a copy, since we love it so much."

I was, of course, gratified to learn that not only do Germans think my writing is entertaining, but that I look like a pop star.

What say the American masses? You be the judge:

It's uncanny. Other than the fact that he accessorizes with a stogie and I with a baby, we're practically the same person. Which has to explain our appeal among the Germans.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:01 PM

September 30, 2009

Is this Font Dumb?

I posted yesterday about many things, one of which is the album/book collaboration we're doing with our friend Drew Bunting. I posted a link to Drew's site yesterday without realizing that he has recently launched a new one, one which offers a number of intriguing, and heretofore unknown, possibilities.

First of all, you can preview the cover of The New South. In case you missed it yesterday, here it is again.

In case you are wondering, it is indeed a drawing of a bird floating on a watermelon while waiting for the floodwaters to recede in the wake of the glorious but not-quite-all-consuming rapture.

Drew's site also offers a free MP3 download, a live recording of I Want a Flava Flav from our show at Williams College last winter. It's an amazing song, a studio version of which will appear on The New South, and it's yours for exactly zero dollars if you take the time to visit Drew's site.

Perhaps the most compelling reason to visit Drew's site, however, is the contest he is sponsoring in which he aims to answer the eternal question of whether or not Garamond is a dumb font. Whether you have strong opinions on this front, or whether you merely seek the eternal fame of impacting the typeface that graces the site of one of our generation's most rocking Episcopal priests, I encourage you to visit Drew's site and try your hand at web design.

The contest deadline is November 2, so get cracking.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:14 PM

Kansas City, Here We Are

Early this evening, Alden and I left the state of Maryland and headed to Kansas City to visit Dad and Judy for ten days. In addition to communing with the grandparents, we skipped town to give Robbi the time she needs to dive headfirst into a few lingering projects. She will be working on the following:

The new Idiots'Books web site. For some time, we have been dissatisfied with the current site. It is static and dull. People visit occasionally to buy books, which we don't mind, but we know that it could be so much more. The new site will be home to the new Idiots'Blog (yes, loyal readers, The Barnstorming's days are numbered), will have a much-improved store with many new ways to spend money, will host a somewhat regular auction of Robbi's original art, will enable people to read most of our books online, and will (eventually) be home to our web comic. But Robbi is a self-taught web designer and programmer, and many hours of anguished tinkering lie in store for her in the days ahead. If you see her walking the streets of Chestertown with a deranged look in her eyes, hand her a cookie and point her back in the direction of the barn.

Here's a screenshot of the current site

(Are you asleep yet?)

Once the new site is up, we're imagining reactions more like this one:

The rest of the Makers tiles. 81 is a lot of illustrations, and though Robbi has been making steady progress, about 25 tiles remain to be imagined and drawn. Here is the latest, published Monday on Tor.com.

Volume, 24, The New South. So pleased were we with the results of Tarpits and Canyonlands, our book/album collaboration with the band Bombadil, that we have decided to take on a new music-related project. For the past few months, we have been working closely with old friend and musician Drew Bunting to develop illustrations and a companion story for his new album. Robbi has to, like, finish drawing the pictures and do the graphic design and stuff. The production end of packaging albums gives Robbi the fits, and so I am glad to be 1,135 miles away from her right now.

Robbi is here.

I am here.

I feel safely out of range (just barely).

Here is The New South's cover.

Here is Drew's web site and here is Drew.

Isn't he purty?

Work on her response to my web comic ideas. Our concept for the comic is to have me develop an idea and sketch it out in my terrible scrawl. Robbi will then interpret what I've done, adding lovely, legible illustrations that may or may not take a cue from whatever I've done. She is a rebellious sort of collaborator and threatens even to change the words. And how am I to stop her? Occasionally, I am reminded of this photo, and I tremble.

I can't wait to see what she comes up with. What, I ask myself in idle moments, will become of Twilight Man?

What will be the ultimate fate of Paco and his ruffians?

Once she's done, if we still like the comic, we plan to publish her version alongside mine, so that readers can get a better sense of how we work together. So much of our collaboration is invisible in the finished product. This approach will hopefully provide an interesting glimpse into our process.

On the one hand, ten days isn't so long, but I have to worry in what state I will find Robbi upon my return. I wasn't kidding about the need for cookies and other forms of nourishment. Left to her own devices with creative projects on the books, Robbi tends to fall into a sublime hibernation. She does not eat. She sleeps fitfully and at odd hours. I have no doubt that she will create beautiful work while I am gone, but will she remember to bathe? Your guess is as good as mine.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:11 AM

September 27, 2009

Back from the Expo

We have just returned from North Bethesda, where we passed an enjoyable, productive weekend selling books and talking to various book-loving people at the Small Press Expo.

Here is Robbi in the booth. See that winning smile? She was made for retail.

But back to the beginning of the story. Saturday morning, we rose at 6:00, dropped Alden off with our good friends and neighbors across the street, and drove to Bethesda. Rather, I drove to Bethesda and Robbi slept like a log. When we arrived, I loaded up the hand truck with our various books and booth accoutrements.

Once inside, I started to set up the booth while Robbi continued to sleep like a log.

But then I put up our new banner, and something awakened in Robbi's soul. She was suddenly full of vim and chanting the words of our new marketing slogan over and over again, louder and more enthusiastic with each ensuing iteration: Making Books. Seeking Genre. Living in a Barn.

I knew right away that we were going to have a very good weekend.

Because I was in charge of the scheduling, we got to the convention hall early. We were among the few exhibitors in the room as we started setting up our booth.

But as we continued fussing endlessly with our signage and little stacks of books, the room started to fill up around us.

Eventually we were all set up and ready for the public.

Moments later the public arrived en masse. They were determined, these people. They wanted to buy books and they wanted to buy them right now.

People stopped to read our stuff. Some of them laughed. Some smiled. Others burst into tears. (We suspect the people who burst into tears were bothered by other things unrelated to our books, which are generally not tear-jerkers.)

As is usually the case at these shows, Ten Thousand Stories and After Everafter were the big sellers, with The Baby is Disappointing and Nasty Chipmunk close on their heels. Also popular were Last of the Real Small Farmers, My Henderson Robot, and Dawn of the Fats.

In addition to selling books, we were visited by the CinnaBomber, a fellow book-hawker who was handing out fresh-baked treats as an elaborate means of driving traffic to his booth.

Though tempted, we did not feed the Kevin.

From time to time, Robbi fought bitterly with our friend in the next booth, Kenan Rubenstein. If you like smart writing, beautiful artwork, and compelling comics, have a look at his blog and comics.

Near the end of the day today we made an important discovery. I have been having difficulty identifying the particular spark of inspiration that compelled me to write Nasty Chipmunk. At one point Robbi sidled up next to the rotating book display and made one of her usual faces. The similarity was too uncanny to be attributable to coincidence.

I've suggested renaming the book Nasty Robbi, but apparently only one of us thinks that this is a good idea.

It was by far the best show we've had to date, both in terms of number of books sold and number of great conversations, connections, etc. People are starting to remember us from past shows and are returning to the booth to see our latest releases or to buy additional copies of books they've enjoyed to give their friends as gifts. But we keep on meeting new people, too.

We had a nice discussion with a teacher/translator/children's writer named Jane who wrote a really wonderful blog entry about The Baby is Disappointing.

We were interviewed by a guy who claimed that he was going to podcast our comments on After Everafter. I'll be sure to let you know if it comes to pass.

We are back home and have collected our child. By all appearances, she missed us not at all. If anything, she was disappointed to have to say farewell to our friends across the street and return to her own bed. Our stuff isn't as nice as theirs by a long shot.

In disgust, she decided to wear the dog bed as a hat. It's not her fault that her best attempts at protest ended up being nothing but endearing.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:00 PM

September 25, 2009

Getting Ready for SPX

We'll be spending the weekend at the annual Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda. We'll stand behind a six-foot table on which are displayed our various titles. We'll smile and try to look interesting, approachable, and worth spending a few minutes talking to. Sometimes this will work and people will stop to talk or browse the books. Other times, the masses will pass by without looking, leaving us to wonder if we have bits of breakfast clinging to our faces.

We're doing a few things differently this year. For one, we'll be debuting a book for the first time. About a week ago, Robbi frantically started illustrating a book we've been talking about doing for some time--Nasty Chipmunk. For about 12 hours straight, she hunched over her table with her ink and quill.

Fortunately, Nasty Chipmunk is full of endearing woodland animals, which Robbi enjoys drawing. There is a lion, a vulture, a rhinoceros, a grandmother, an elephant, and a homicidal bunny, among others.

In the middle of things, Alden expressed an interest in launching her painting career.

Robbi says the baby has a nice sense of line.

At the end Robbi's artistic flurry, Nasty Chipmunk was illustrated, and in just enough time to scan the images and place them in the layout. We made 50 copies and hope to find 50 people who each want one. Or 25 people who each want two.

All week we have been making books. Now that we have 28 titles in our catalog, preparing for each book show is an ordeal. But Alden has been pitching in, and we've been getting the work done.

In the midst of it all, Robbi designed us some new business cards. We used to each have our own card, but now both of our names are on one, which seems appropriate, given that we are almost always in the exact same place.

In preparation for SPX, we've also tackled one of the most vexing problems we've faced at these various shows--that of finding a way to make a prominent, readable sign to let people know who we are. The biggest sheet our biggest printer can produce is 13 x 19. Not exactly tiny, to be sure, but a size that still gets lost in a huge ballroom. Lots of other creators and small presses have created elaborate signage that hangs from elaborate scaffolds behind the booth. We have never felt quite so bold as to consider this option. But the other day, Robbi got inspired, did some online research, and ordered us a banner.

Before she ordered it, however, we had to figure out what to put on it. It seemed natural that "Idiots'Books" should appear. Also, we added the two illustrations that describe our respective efforts on our web site: a skillet with a typewriter to stand in for the writing side of things and a skillet with an easel for the illustration.

We wondered if we might add an additional layer of texture and interest: a phrase, perhaps, to describe what we do and also raise questions among those browsing the aisles. After a long conversation in which many potential phrases were discussed, critiqued, praised, and mocked, we settled on the following:

Making books. Seeking genre. Living in a barn.

As seen on the finished banner:

We are, in fact, making books. This much is clear. We do, in fact, live in a barn. It's the excuse we offer for our child's poor manners. As for the genre seeking, I can't say that we spend much time or energy trying to find words to describe what we do, but it is true that what we do persistently eludes attempts to be defined. Genre is important for mainstream publishing, because things that don't fit into pre-established categories with pre-established audiences are really hard to sell. "Seeking genre" is a quick way of letting people know that we're not about easy answers, whether the question is about what, how, or why we're doing what we're doing.

Once we had the banner in hand, the next challenge was how to hang the thing. Again it was Robbi who threw herself into the problem. She went to Home Depot and came back with elaborate clamps that hold pipes perpendicular to the surface they are clamped onto. She also came back with two six-foot lengths of lead pipe. Putting it all together, we were able to create two parallel standards between which to display our banner (note that these are two three-foot lengths of pipe; the actual banner will hang 3 feet higher).

Today, fearing that the six-foot lengths of lead pipe (very heavy) might slip from their moorings and crush the skulls of nearby book lovers, we decided to see if aluminum replacements could be found. Robbi returned with eight-foot lengths.

Which were quickly tamed with the help of the hack saw.

This evening we have been packing our books, pens, table cover, clamps, pipes, business cards, and yes, the brand new banner for tomorrow's early morning drive across the Bay Bridge.

It's lucky we have a minivan now.

If you are in DC, Baltimore, or somewhere else nearby, think about swinging by for the day on either Saturday or Sunday. We will be giving out free copies of the Story Circles we created for Urbanite.

Alden will not be with us, however. She has agreed to stay home and answer phones. We figure once the world picks up our new business card, sees our new banner, and reads our new marketing slogan, the orders will come rolling on in.

I think she's ready.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:48 PM

Who Wants a New Mac?

Have a look:

This is the latest and greatest: A 13-inch MacBook Pro with aluminum unibody enclosure, brilliant glass display, seven-hour battery life.

Is your heart going pitter-pat?

Whether you are a longtime Mac user looking to upgrade to the next generation of sleek, elegant, functional Mac laptops or a self-loathing PC user seeking liberation from the sordid depths of computing hell, we are prepared to offer up our grand prize MacBook Pro from the Xerox contest to the first qualified bidder willing to part with $1,000 (we will pay for shipping).

The machine in question retails for $1,199 and has not been removed from its box. The seal is intact. It is just waiting for you to take it home and give it your love. Here are the specifications.

-2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor; 3MB shared level 2 cache
-2GB of 1066MHZ DDR3 SDRAM
- 160 GB 5400-rpm hard drive
- 13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display; 1,280x800 pixels
- NVIDA GeForce 9400M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
- Built-in iSight video camera
- 8x slot-loading SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD+RW/CD-RW)
- Mini DisplayPort
- SD card slot, Firewire 800 port, two USB 2.0 ports
- Optical digital audio output/analog line out; built-in stereo speakers
- Built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet
- Built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking (802.11n) and Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR
- Backlit keyboard and ambient light sensor
- Preinstalled Max OS X and iLife
- Size and weight: 12.78 by 8.94 by .95 inches (32.5 by 22.7 by 2.41 cm); 4.5 pounds (2.04kg)
- Meets ENERGY STAR requirements

And here's the MacBook Pro site, which you may consult if you want to look at more sexy photos of this laptop and its kin.

It kills me that I cannot keep this machine for myself, but I got a new Mac just a year ago, and must gracefully allow this one to seek a greener pasture.

Email me with questions or to claim your newest, best friend.

Remember, Mac users are happy people. People with brand new Macs are the happiest of all.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:13 PM

September 24, 2009

Makers Tile Game v. 5.0: The Funnest One Yet

The 5x5 version of the Makers Tile Game has launched. To much fanfare:

On BoingBoing!

On Tor.com!

On Ephblog!

Here is Cory Doctorow's very own mashup of the first 25 illustrations. Apparently, he likes them.

Play now!

Posted by bogenamp at 03:56 PM

September 22, 2009

Idiots'Books at SPX

This weekend we will be manning a booth at the 15th annual Small Press Expo, a veritable extravaganza of comic artists, publishers, and enthusiasts. If you enjoy the prospect of talking to lots of interesting people and seeing inventive, compelling, and sometimes downright beautiful work that you simply cannot find in any bookstore, you ought to swing by. If only to see us.

Here's this year's poster.

You can click here to learn all about the show, the exhibitors, etc., but I'll list the essential info below.

Where: Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center

When: Saturday, Sept 26 (11:00am - 7:00pm) and Sunday, September 27 (noon - 6:00pm)

How much: $10 for one day or $15 for a weekend pass.

Why?: In addition to the many wonderful things there are to look at, read, and buy, Idiots'Books will be debuting its new banner and marketing slogan and will be offering a first glimpse at its latest title, Nasty Chipmunk.

Warning: don't come to the show expecting to see Alden. In light of her behavior at the last book fair we attended, she has been cordially disinvited to this one. We had almost forgiven her for being altogether wild and unpredictable--and then she did this:

And this:

When asked to apologize, all she had to say for herself was this:

I rest my case. She's staying home with Iggy and the cats. But we will be there. Looking something like this:

Posted by bogenamp at 04:02 PM

September 18, 2009

Big National Debut!

A few months back, we posted about winning the Xerox Solid Ink Print Sample Contest (in the Graphic Arts category). We were pleased to have been recognized by a huge, multinational company and to have won a Mac laptop. Even better, Xerox was going to feature us in an upcoming newsletter. Since then, we have been spending money hand over fist in anticipation of the catapult to fame and riches that was sure to come as soon as we had Xerox's public endorsement.

I should have known better.

Yesterday, Robbi received her copy of the Xerox Office Advisor, a sort of e-newsletter they send around to their customers. We were excited when we saw the familiar banner.

We held our breath in anticipation of what Xerox would have to say about us. Surely, such a large and well-off company would have hired literary critics and art historians to carefully examine and critique the work we had submitted. Surely they would present elaborate essays describing the nuanced ways in which we were exploiting the inherent tension between images and words and the richness of expression that resulted. Surely they would include dozens of screenshots of the work itself, that people across this big round world might have a first-hand look at what we do.

I should have known better.

I should have known that given the opportunity, large, multinational corporations exploit every opportunity to endorse themselves.

I should have known that, given the opportunity, large, multinational corporations misspell the name of the press to which they are awarding the top prize.

Part of the submission requirements was a sheet of short-answer questions. Looks like they were pleased by my enthusiasm for the Phaser, which I must admit, has been a very fine printer.

If you own a large, multinational corporation and would like to engage in a slightly more thorough investigation of Idiots'Books and its many mysteries, please give me a call. As long as you have a Mac laptop you're willing to part with.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:39 AM

September 09, 2009

Makers: The Latest Batch

Makers continues apace. Here are tiles 25-28.

With yesterday's publication of tile 28, the serialization enters its second third. Robbi continues to hunch feverishly at her desk--drawing, drawing, drawing.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:42 PM

September 02, 2009

Idiots'Books in Utne Reader

Imagine our surprise today to find this article about our work in Utne Reader's "Great Writing" blog.

The piece features excerpts from our recent Urbanite interview and uses some rather encouraging words to describe what Robbi and I do. I could tell you more about the post, but I think instead I'll recommend you read it.

Posted by bogenamp at 07:26 PM

August 31, 2009

The Latest on Makers

Late last week, Irene Gallo, the art director at Tor.com, did a nice post on her blog about the Makers serialization. Basically, she writes out the story that the illustrations tell when considered without the text.

Here is the grid to date:

And here is Irene's interpretation of the story, according to what she sees in the illustrations:

Once upon a time there were two dinosaurs. And lots of people that went off to build something. Until it burnt down. They rebuilt it but there was a rat in the mix! (Isn't there always.) They were very industrious and good at multitasking until...Sabotage! And love. And maybe a little crabbiness. The usual ups and downs and ideological wars -- punk rock keepin' it real Vs. Helvetica men in ties. But with marriage in the air and death on the horizon.....

Those of you who are reading along with Makers will notice that the above bears little resemblance to the actual story. Which isn't too surprising, considering what we're up to.

Although some of the illustrations play on the book's major narrative elements, we've also taken a highly conceptual approach in imagining many of the tiles. There aren't any actual dinosaurs, octopuses, or crabs in Makers, for example, just metaphorical ones. So, when considered literally without the text, the visual narrative gets kind of wacky.

Which is, I suppose, why it's called illustration. There's a collaboration going on between Cory's words and our images. Together, they harmonize and make a larger point. Alone, the illustrations might amuse but don't result in the intended narrative coherence.

Though I might argue that narrative coherence is not always a virtue.

Speaking of Makers, here is last week's batch of tiles, the illustrations for episodes 23-24.

For those of you who are counting the days until this project ends (count Robbi among them) so that we will finally stop talking about these tiles, you may take comfort to know that there are only 57 more to go.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:30 AM

August 22, 2009

Look Out, Universe

The serial release of Makers marches on, as does the conversation among mathematicians on Ephblog about how to quantify the number of possible permutations for the tiles if they are removed from the 9x9 grid and allowed to roam free in whatever configuration they desire. The rising consensus seems to be that it might be mathematically impossible to say for sure, but that, in any case, (and I quote directly from the comment thread) "It seems quite reasonable to say, then, that the number of free-form tile arrangements when using all 81 exceeds by many orders of magnitude the number of atoms in the universe."

Little did we know we were stumbling into a proposition of such cosmic proportions.

Picking up where I left off last week, here are tiles 18-21.

We are heading off today for the wilds of central Virginia. My intrepid colleagues and their collective families are gathering for a weekend of hiking, boating, eating, camping, and gun shooting. Yes, gun shooting. I will not be participating in the gun shooting.

I will focus on the eating.

Posted by bogenamp at 07:53 AM

August 18, 2009

Makers Tile Game, V 3.0

Friends, the Makers Tile Game has expanded once again, this time to a 4x4, 16-tile grid.

I apologize in advance for the hours of reckless merriment that will likely now ensue.

Go to it.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:33 PM

August 12, 2009

Catching Up with Makers

We are in Lake George, NY, enjoying life beneath the trees. Fun things have been happening involving babies and swimsuits and photos and movies have been taken. But the internet connection here is weak, and so I will make you wait until next week to see them.

For now, I will post the last few Makers illustrations (the following accompany sections 14-17). I see that I have been falling behind.

I'm off, now, to a shuffleboard tournament. I'm not expecting it to go well for me.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:15 PM

August 07, 2009

A Really Big Number

Yesterday, a nice piece about the Makers Tile Game was posted on EphBlog, a blog that is for the most part authored and read by graduates of (and other people interested in) Williams College.

The fellow who authored the post ended with an invitation to mathematicians (or anyone, I suppose) to offer some clarity on the number of different illustrations that could be produced with the 81 tiles, keeping in mind that they need not be bound in a 9x9 grid.

The post set off a flurry of computation, which I will do my layman's best to summarize.

There seems to be consensus that the number of permutations of the 81 tiles, provided they remain in a 9x9 configuration, is represented by the formula:

81!*4^81

This solution was offered by a reader in the Williams class of 2013, which means s/he has yet to start her/his first year of college.

In response to Robbi's and my bleary-eyed confusion, another reader (this one in the class of 2010) offered an elaboration:

If you're not used to standard math notation, maybe the formula would be clearer as

81 factorial is the number of possible orderings of tiles, since there are 81 tiles, 81 squares, and each tile can only be used once, so there are 81 options for the first square, 80 for the second, and so on: 81*80*79*78*77*...*2*1 = 81 factorial, which is written 81!
Given a particular ordering of tiles, there are 4 possible rotations of the first tile, 4 possible rotations of the second tile, and so on, so the total number of possible rotations of all tiles is 4*4*4*4*...(81 times)..*4*4 = 4 to the 81st power, written 4^81.
This is all (essentially) middle school math - nothing too arcane here. If you plug this into Wolfram Alpha you can get the decimal expansion, which is:
33890036684543440769057774862779477997325787000968328173127424517002031965929221017975069852474193892633
991640448359911591329973070266928563916552273920000000000000000000

Did you catch that number? If we could get a penny for each permutation, I think I'd be able to eat Chipotle for every meal between now and the apocalypse.

The above reader went on to derive a methodology for determining the total number of permutations for the tiles in the case that they were not bound by the 9x9 grid and came up with

5322104461771248733888756294268672420502329732509626654780191251062519166280634799983000941106981640028
4678589873542620401522891642307846173296171051198503843439135688106818076670719846538576638412291828766
2625270487563813106780026905028515211580860660972244763980457160290841275487508600844834730980341935984
8120875254453369923376565452800000000000000000000

Which would, I think, allow me to double my Chipotle consumption between now and the end of days.

But, the reader went on to lament, the formula was flawed (for reasons beyond my ability to articulate) and was providing an over-large estimate.

Therefore, it stands to reason from the perspective of this English/religion double major, that the total number of two-dimensional permutations for the Makers tiles is somewhere between

33890036684543440769057774862779477997325787000968328173127424517002031965929221017975069852474193892633
991640448359911591329973070266928563916552273920000000000000000000

and

5322104461771248733888756294268672420502329732509626654780191251062519166280634799983000941106981640028
4678589873542620401522891642307846173296171051198503843439135688106818076670719846538576638412291828766
2625270487563813106780026905028515211580860660972244763980457160290841275487508600844834730980341935984
8120875254453369923376565452800000000000000000000

In either case, I shouldn't go hungry any time soon.

Perhaps the most reasonable solution was offered by Robbi's and my Williams classmate Jeff Zeeman, who attended Williams back before the kids got so damn smart.

The conversation/debate appears to be ongoing, so join the fun if you have an answer of your own.

As far as I can tell, no one has yet tackled the question of what happens if the third dimension is introduced...

Posted by bogenamp at 07:49 AM

August 05, 2009

Makers Tile Game, V 2.0: Bigger and Badder

As promised, the Makers Tile Game has expanded to incorporate more tiles.

The 3x3 version has just been released, and you probably want to drop everything and play with it. But wait! In addition to containing nine tiles instead of four, the new version has some exciting new features:

1) you can now save your tile configurations to your desktop as a jpeg.

Like this, for example:

Or this:

If you make a configuration you are particularly proud of and send it to me, I will post it here along with your name (or without your name, if you are full of shame).

2) you can now click off of the live area to make the heavy red border along the "live" tile go away

3) you can now toggle between the various versions of the game (from V 2.0 to V 1.0, for example) if you want to, though you won't want to because nine recombining tiles is much more badass than four any day.

Enough blather. Go play. Now. Your boss won't mind. He/she is playing the Makers Tile Game V 2.0 at this very moment!

Posted by bogenamp at 09:46 AM

August 03, 2009

Makers, Part 13

Part 13 of Makers has posted. Today's section marks the beginning of Part 2 of the book.

Here's the related illustration.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:13 PM

August 01, 2009

Idiots'Books in Urbanite Magazine: Story Circles

This weekend, the August 2009 issue of Urbanite (a magazine devoted to Baltimore and the people who live there), will hit the newsstands. The August issue is focused on emerging writers and features an interview and original work by Idiots'Books.

That's right.

You heard it here first.

We are emerging.

Robbi and I are the subjects of this month's "Keynote", a recurring feature interview that frames the central theme of each month's issue. We had a very nice conversation with Urbanite's editor-in-chief David Dudley, who edited our responses and printed them in his magazine. I suspect he was interested in what we had to say in large part due because (as I may have already mentioned) Robbi and I are emerging (and at least one of us is a writer).

The good people of Urbanite commissioned us to do a piece of original work that somehow dealt with the issue's theme. After some stewing, we came up with the idea to riff on the One-Page Wonders series we did with Tor.com this past spring. Working with a folded-paper concept we found in a Cracker Jack box a few years ago, we came up with a two-sided page that contained three circles (or pieces of circles) of image and narrative, which can be combined and recombined in many, many ways. (The formula is not as simple as it was for Ten Thousand Stories).

Each of the three narrative/illustration pairs focus on the angst, trials, and fates of a struggling literary striver, hence the title, The Plight of the Emerging Writer.

Here's the front side.

And here's the back side.

And here is a short video (featuring a song by our friends at Bombadil) that shows you how it works.

Those of you who live in Baltimore (or feel compelled to go there some time soon) may pick up a hard copy of the magazine in locations around the city.

Those of you who live everywhere else, may link to the interview.
This photo appears in the print version, but not online. Why should you, remote reader, be denied the full experience?

Just below the interview is a link you can click to download a PDF of the story circle. Note, however, that you will have to print it out on the two sides of the PDF of the same piece of paper (with the top of both sides oriented in the same direction). This requires advanced home printing skills. If you have difficulty and are very, very motivated, you may take the file to your local Kinkos. (We imagine that few of you will be so motivated.)

But if you do, and if you come up with a particularly pleasing combination, please send us a photo or scan and we will be sure to post it here. And if someone feels that he can identify the correct number of possible permutations, we'd be interested in hearing. We will post any reasonable (or far-fetched) theories, as long as they are based on sound mathematics (or wild, unsubstantiated conjecture).

Posted by bogenamp at 12:34 PM

July 31, 2009

Makers, Part 12

Here's Part 12 of Makers.

It comes at a point in the book in which things are going badly for our protagonists, hence the reiteration of the illustration for part 8 (in which things were going swimmingly).

Posted by bogenamp at 09:22 AM

July 26, 2009

Makers Illustrations: Background and Process

As Robbi and I continue working on the Makers illustrations, some of you have been writing with questions about where the idea came from.

To recap: Cory Doctorow, blogger, author, activist, and cape-wearing modern-day superhero, has written a book called Makers about two guys living in the not-too-distant future who invent things out of junk, start a movement, eat lots of IHOP, and end up having all sorts of dicey legal adventures with minions of the Disney corporation.

Makers is, at root, a celebratory yawp on the relentlessness of human inventiveness, a love song to our unending thirst (and capacity) to manipulate the world around us. Makers' thesis fits nicely with a number of past Idiots'Books projects: the world is full of parts that can be combined to make other, more complex things. From artful manipulation comes innovation, fresh possibility, and sometimes even beauty.

Cory, a leading advocate of free distribution of creative property, decided to do an online serialization of Makers in advance of the print release, which is being published by Tor. The folks at Tor.com (related to Tor proper, but a separate entity, and arguably more badass) are publishing the serialization. They wondered: wouldn't it be cool if each section of Makers could have a related illustration which would be one small piece of a larger illustration that would serve as the "cover" of the e-book?

Enter Idiots'Books. On the heels of our other experiments in creating texts and illustrations with intercombining properties (Ten Thousand Stories, After Everafter, and the One-Page Wonders, most notably), the Makers illustration challenge seemed like the kind of thing Robbi and I might be crazy enough to attempt, so the folks at Tor.com sent us a copy of the book and asked us to do our thing.

Usually when Robbi and I collaborate, we're combining my written narrative and her visual one, challenging the reader to reconcile the contradictions and tensions between the two. With the Makers project, we're working together to digest and respond to someone else's words. My job is to represent the writing (and the ideas therein), while Robbi's is to come up with the right illustration style.

With this division of labor, we started with Tor.com's basic concept, but decided to take things a step further, wondering if we might draw the small illustrations in such a way that each of the 81 would be interchangeable with any of the others. In this way, the various "tiles" could be arranged to create a nearly endless variety of configurations, or even three-dimensional objects (like a breadbox).

The illustrations in question would have to be square, we decided, and each side of each square would have to have a common "crossover". Robbi cut out four squares and started sketching. She came up with the following, which convinced us that an extended version was possible, at least in theory.

After many abortive attempts, gnashing, and near despair, Robbi and I settled on an approach that feels right for the world of Makers while falling well outside of Robbi's usual line-driven style.

Typical Robbi:

Atypical Robbi ("Makers tiles" 5-8):

The real fun comes from manipulating the tiles yourself. Working with a game developer, the folks at Tor.com have put together an online Flash-based game that lets you create your own Makers grid (you can even rotate the tiles).

Give it a try.

That's the background. If you're still with me, you must actually be interested. Of course, there's more to say, but Robbi (who usually knows best) has instructed me to preserve a bit of mystery for a later post.

Posted by bogenamp at 06:14 PM

July 23, 2009

Because We are Very Vain

We cannot resist the opportunity to let you know that Idiots'Books was on BoingBoing again today.

Here, as your compensation for enduring our hubris, is a photo of our child, giddy in the throes of a cheesecake rush.

Posted by bogenamp at 05:32 PM

July 22, 2009

Makers Tile Game Launches

I know, I know. You have been admiring the Makers illustrations as they have been posted. You've been enjoying the odd compositions, the reliance on negative space, and the muted palette. You have been listening to me harp about how they are interchangeable and recombinable, and you wonder what this really means. You want to try it for yourself.

Thanks to Pablo of Tor.com, today you will finally get your chance. Lo! The Makers Tile Game has launched.

Click here to play the game and interact with the first four Makers tiles. You can move them around, rotate them, and play with various combinations.

As additional tiles are released, the live area of the game will grow. The current 2x2 grid will be replaced by a 3x3 grid, and so on, until the final 9x9, 81-tile game is released in its glory. Click here to hear from Pablo himself on his plans for the game.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:50 PM

July 21, 2009

Makers Part 7

Here is the illustration for part 7 of Makers.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:50 AM

July 17, 2009

Makers Part 6

The sixth installment of Makers has been posted to Tor.com this morning. For those of you just want to look at the pretty pictures, here is today's illustration.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:10 AM

July 15, 2009

"Makers" Serial Release Under Way

Dispatches from the tundra will be coming in the days ahead, but for now, I am pleased to announce that the serial release of Cory Doctorow's Makers on Tor.com has begun. In fact, the fifth installment (of 81) was released this morning. This is particularly exciting news for Robbi and me because each of the 81 installments will be illustrated by Idiots'Books (meaning Robbi and I have an engrossing conversation/discussion/argument/wrestling match about what should be drawn and then she draws it while I stand there trying to look busy).

Here is the illustration for part one, which was posted last Monday.

Part two:

Part three:

Part four:

You get the idea.

As previously mentioned, there is an added dimension to these illustrations that is not readily apparent by looking at them individually. Though each one serves as a standalone companion to the section it accompanies, together, the 81 illustrations form a grid of interchangable "tiles" that can be placed in any configuration and still line up with one another. You can sort of get a sense of what I'm talking about when you see them placed side-by side.

Or, the same four illustrations can be reordered and still line up with one another:

Or they can be stacked on top of one another and arranged in a grid.

This idea will be extended. This should give you an idea of how it will work.

When all is said and done, there will be 81 "tiles" that form a huge, complex 9x9 grid. Tor.com is releasing a new chunk every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the next six months. Sometime in the next few weeks, they will be launching an interactive game that will enable Tor.com readers to manipulate the tiles to make their own illustration landscapes. I'll let you know as soon as it's available.

Here is a link to the series index on Tor.com. From here, you can link to any of the 81 sections as they are released. You can subscribe to an RSS feed if you want to be alerted as each new section is posted.

We would be particularly gratified if you read the introductory post, which has all sorts of nice things to say about Robbi and me.

Here is a link to Cory Doctorow's post about the Makers serialization on BoingBoing. If reading about us on BoingBoing makes you happy and you would like to do it again, you can see Cory's post about our One-Page-Wonders series by clicking here.

Robbi has completed the first 11 illustrations so far. Which means there are only 70 to go. She cringes whenever I remind her of this.

Back to work.

Posted by bogenamp at 06:32 PM

June 20, 2009

Idiots'Books in Urbanite Magazine

In the third of three consecutive emails not centered around endearing photos of my child, I am happy to announce that Idiots'Books will have a piece featured in the August issue of Baltimore's Urbanite magazine.

Urbanite is a free Baltimore magazine that focuses on "the issues affecting the relationship between the city and those who live there." It prizes strong writing, an independent perspective, and really nice design. The August issue has a literary theme, and we have been asked to contribute.

The piece we have been working on is difficult to describe. It is part story, part illustration, and is perhaps most akin to the One-Page Wonders we published on tor.com. The piece consists of three circles of narrative and illustration that recombine with one another to create a seemingly endless number of new stories, but this time, the words and pictures are featured on both sides of the piece of paper. The reader makes a series of folds and an "X"-shaped cut in the middle of the page to assemble the thing, and the number of possible permutations is many. Unlike Ten Thousand Stories, there is no straightforward mathematical formula one can apply to compute the number of different stories one can assemble. Or perhaps there is, and I simply do not know it.

We will post word when the magazine is out on the shelves and available for distribution. And eventually we'll post a version on the site for you to download and assemble at home. For now, though, it's back to work. We need to finish putting this together before we leave for Alaska. Exactly 96 hours from now, we will be en route to Seattle with baby and dog in tow.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:52 AM

June 17, 2009

Cory Doctorow and Idiots'Books

So we've been sitting on some exciting news for the past few weeks and are finally ready to share it with you all. We got a call from the folks at Tor.com a few weeks back asking whether or not we might be interested in a challenging project. We said yes.

Here's the scoop. The great and accomplished Cory Doctorow (journalist, author, activist, and BoingBoing co-editor) is coming out with a new book in the fall. The book, called Makers, is about a couple of guys who invent things out of discarded stuff. They have many adventures with disgruntled goths, kindly squatters, and lawyers from the Disney Corporation.

In addition to the hardback version of Makers, Tor.com is going to release the entire book on its website in 81 sections, starting in early July. Every three days for about six months a new section will be released for your reading enjoyment. And each of the 81 sections is going to be imagined and illustrated by Idiots'Books.

This gets more exciting, though. The folks at Tor thought of us, in part, because of the work we've done with recombining image and narrative in Ten Thousand Stories and the One-Page Wonders series. They were interested in seeing if it would be possible to construct the 81 illustrations in such a way that all 81 would come together to form one huge illustration, like pieces of a gigantic puzzle.

Robbi and I put our heads together and decided that it could be done. And we decided to take it one step further. Each of the 81 illustrations functions as one piece of a 9x9 grid that forms a huge, complex illustration when assembled, but each also functions as a "tile" that is drawn so as to be completely interchangeable with any of the other 80 illustrations. Any side of any tile can line up against any side of any other tile without loss of visual coherence. This means that a person with a printout of all 81 "tiles" could arrange them side-by-side in any configuration (and with the tiles turned in any direction) and create an entirely new illustration each time.

It's difficult to describe this in writing, but in a few short weeks you will be able to go to Tor.com and start reading the story and downloading the illustrations every three days. Additionally, the folks at Tor.com are in the process of developing an online game that will enable you to move and rotate the "tiles" in virtual space, creating new configurations and new illustrations each time you play.

Here is Cory Doctorow. You can learn more about him by reading his blog, Craphound.

Getting the opportunity to work with him is a genuine thrill.

Here he is in goggles and a cape. If you read his Wikipedia article, you'll understand why.

Much more on this to come. For now, we're just excited to get the word out.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:28 PM

June 16, 2009

Congratulations from Xerox!

We were having this sort of afternoon.

Sluggish, lackluster, laconic.

And then I received the following email, and things took a sudden turn.

Dear Matthew Swanson of Idiots'Books,

You recently submitted an entry into the Xerox Solid Ink Print Sample Contest and I am happy to inform you that your entry has been chosen as the winner for the Entry Category of "Professional Graphic Arts!" You have 5 business days to decide if you would like to receive your prize. You have the choice of either a Phaser 8560N Solid Ink Color Printer with 2 months worth of Solid Ink OR a 2GHz Aluminum 13" Apple MacBook.

Congratulations from Xerox!

Sincerely,

Xerox Dude

We had won?! We had to pinch ourselves.

It has been a long time since either Robbi or I won a prize, and we were elated. Especially Robbi.

I was elated.

Alden was elated.

Iggy was still depressed, but had to go through the motions nonetheless.

To explain, we use Xerox solid ink to print our books. Instead of laser toner, which is a fine powder that is affixed to the page in the printing process, solid ink is a waxy chunk that kind of feels like a crayon. The "ink" is melted onto the page as the printing occurs. The resulting images are rich and high-quality, which is one of the reasons we use this technology. Xerox hosted a competition for all materials printed using solid ink. We submitted a handful of books and an essay explaining what we do.

We hadn't had much in the way of expectations, but now we're awfully glad we decided to enter. Now, apparently, we have five days to decide whether we want to receive our prize. I'm trying to think of a scenario in which someone would not want a free printer or a free laptop, but have so far come up dry.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:31 PM

June 08, 2009

There and Back Again

Robbi and I (and Alden) spent the weekend sitting behind the Idiots'Books table at the 2009 Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts show. This year, it was housed in an armory on Lexington Avenue (apparently the building was used as the exterior shot of the place where Toby Maguire wrestles in the first Spiderman movie).

Here, the expectant crowds wait for the show to open.

Alden helped Robbi set up our booth.

Slowly but surely...

...everything came together.

Eventually, we were all set up.

Her work complete, Alden tried to escape into the city. As I chased her, I heard her muttering, "Broadway, here I come..."

Eventually, I convinced her to stay, citing such fun things as puppets.

She was utterly unimpressed.

Eventually, she fell asleep in the middle of the floor behind our table.

We used her as an object lesson to the folks who stopped by, citing her as the inspiration for The Baby is Disappointing.

While she was asleep, Robbi considered trading her for this less disappointing baby, the property of our friend Shawn Cheng of Partyka fame.

Ultimately, Shawn decided to keep his baby, so we nudged Alden further under the table and resolved to wait for her to grow up.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:10 AM

June 05, 2009

Idiots'Books at MoCCA

This weekend Robbi, Alden, and I will be standing behind the Idiots'Books table at the 2009 Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts Festival in New York City. MoCCA is a huge gathering of people who make independent comics and publishing houses who produce high-end comics and graphic novels. It is, according to The Village Voice, ""the best small-press nexus (anywhere!)" In addition to its hundreds of exhibitors, MoCCA offers panels, lectures, and a chance to have books signed by various well-known comic artists.

If you enjoy this sort of thing, the show is open from 11am-6pm Saturday and Sunday (June 6-7). The show is at the 69th Regiment Armory (68 Lexington Avenue, between 25th and 26th Streets). We can be found at table 432, which appears to be pretty much in the center of the room. It costs $10 to get in the door.

Here's the poster.

As for our booth, we'll have all 27 of our titles for sale, plus our very first item of Idiots'Books apparel, a baby onesie that Robbi dreamed up in the middle of the night last week, designed at 4:00am, and had printed later the following day.

If you happen to be in the city or near enough to come in for the day, we'd love to see you. We'll trade books for babysitting.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:49 PM

May 19, 2009

Search Strings

As I like to do from time to time, I had a peek at the Barnstorming logs today. It is fun to see how many people have been reading, how long they spend on the site, and what sorts of search strings they use to find us. I was pleased by the latest batch of phrases, and thought I'd share them with you.

I can't help but feel sorry for those poor suckers who were in the hunt for different types of excitement than the kind we offer at the Barnstorming, where we seem to talk about nothing but babies, books, and murals. But whomever was looking for our friend Jon Kravis would have had something useful to read.

Perhaps when we are in Alaska, I will have occasion to snap some photos of country boys on 4-wheelers (though given that it's usually about 45 degrees up there in the summer, the boys in question are unlikely to be hot).

The other items on this list, I am afraid, are better left to others.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:00 PM

May 17, 2009

The Unveiling

As we suspected would be the case, Robbi worked right down to the wire. Here she is on Friday afternoon, putting the finishing touches on the mural key.

She paid special attention to Kevin Bacon's hair. Given his literary chops, Philip Roth can get away with looking a bit ruffled. But Kevin Bacon's got nothing but his looks and his fancy footwork.

The last thing she painted was the mural's title panel, which was placed on the left side of the sliding door between the mural room and the kitchen.

The last order of business was extracting the ladder/strip of paper sculpture that had been steadily growing and taking on an identity of its own over the week or so of muraling.

When Robbi finally called it quits and left for the airport to pick me up, several of her helpers sprayed the entire mural with a clear coating, meant to protect it from the sweaty forearms of well-meaning wall-leaners.

Saturday came, and we showed up for the Barth reading. It was fun watching people read the mural.

There's really no right way to do it, but pointing enthusiastically helps.

I was so pleased to see it in the flesh after having to take it in by looking at pictures all week.

Eventually the reading started, and Joshua Wolf Shenk got things started.

Then Barth read from his latest book, a book of stories called The Development. He was kind enough to mention Robbi and me and our work (he is a subscriber) in his introduction.

Our friends Dahna and Sarah surprised us by driving in from D.C. for the unveiling.

They joined us for Chestertown's finest pizza and a walk along the water, where Alden suddenly discovered that knowing how to walk brings the accompanying joy of being able to terrorize ducks and geese.

She has gone straight from crawl to jog, and so it was only with a great burst of paternal speed that I was able to catch up with her and prevent her from plunging headfirst into the drink.

As a walking child, she is fearless and haughtily independent. She will not take the hand of one who is trying to help her stabilize or navigate. Instead, she heads across bridges without looking back.

At the end of our walk, Iggy came upon three cats who wanted to do her harm. There was a tense standoff, at the conclusion of which Iggy wisely decided that slinking meekly away was the best course of action.

Iggy almost never recognizes the best course of action, but is such a natural slinker, that she occasionally gets lucky and escapes unscathed.

This afternoon, we began work on Robbi's garden. Our "yard" consists of a tiny patch of grass out front. But Robbi's ambition has not been dampened by lack of real estate. She has been growing tiny plants from seeds near the window in our dining room. Out front, she is using wooden posts to frame out her garden.

I was charged with driving in some stakes to stabilize the corners.

We screwed the posts into the stakes, and the simple frame was done.

On Tuesday, we'll pour in some topsoil. Tomorrow we head to Baltimore to meet with some people about yet another new project.

When it rains, it pours. We're standing outside with no raincoats, aiming for full-on saturation.

But at least the mural is complete.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:20 PM

May 13, 2009

The End in Sight

I just got a new batch of photos from Robbi, who is home from the mural at the uncharacteristically early hour of 10:30pm. She has another project to complete tonight, due tomorrow: some illustrations for our friends at Bombadil. Robbi and I developed a story and illustration that provide the framework for their soon-to-be released album, Tarpits and Canyonlands, and they have asked her to illustrate the extended liner notes that will come bundled with an iTunes purchase of the album. She has developed a series of images that will accompany the lyrics, and the result is much like an illustrated book of poetry. I think it looks quite nice.

Here's a link to the post discussing our collaboration with Bomabdil. And here's the cover of the album, which will be released on July 7.

For now, here the latest pics of the mural. The portraits are pretty much done (except for a last-minute revision or two), almost all of the lines representing the relationships have been painted in, and the arduous process of inking the words is under way (notice how she's had to work around the ceiling beams). Two more full days on top of the ladder and Robbi should be done, just in time to pick Alden and me up from the airport on Friday night. Fingers crossed.

Here is Samuel Johnson, who is critical of just about everyone, with the notable exceptions of God Almighty and J.K. Rowling for whom, it seems, he has a surprising fondness.

And here is Jonathan Swift, who "made an immodest proposal to" J.K. Rowing. Who knew she was such a hit with the old dead British guys?

And here is a pulled-back glimpse at the unconscionable sprawl. Perhaps the best way to view this mural will be to lie in the middle of the floor for an hour or so.

Another view. Continued chaos.

We've aimed to cover every available inch of the room, so much so that we had to coordinate with the Lit House folks to find out the exact dimensions of the furniture they intended for the room so that we could plan around it.

I swear that I have been busy as well, while Robbi has been doing her best impression of Superwoman. I'm busy at work on the concepting for our next big project: a sizable commission that will keep us very busy from now until we leave for Alaska. More on that to come in days ahead.

For now, should you see Robbi, give her a pat on the back or a shoulder rub or hand her a sandwich or utter encouraging words. I wonder if I'll get to see her when I get back home or if she'll be asleep for the next ten days.

But by all means, stop by the Lit House at 2:30on Saturday to hear John Barth and see the mural in its glory.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:33 PM

May 12, 2009

More Faces Emerge

Just a quick post this morning to show more progress. I'll try to stay out of the way.

Emily Dickinson

Jonathan Swift

Dante

Jane Austen

Miguel de Cervantes

J.D. Salinger

Herman Melville

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A handful down, but many more to go. At this point, it's a race against the clock. Robbi is aiming to finish this sucker by Saturday at 2:30 when it is officially unveiled at the John Barth reading.

At first our intention was to include the name of each writer next to his or her face, but as we went along, a couple of smart, trustworthy people suggested that the mural might be more engaging and stimulating if we left the names off and made it the task of the reader to identify the writers by their faces and linking phrases. We came to like this approach, and plan on excluding the names.

But, the relative obscurity of some of the folks we've included compelled us to provide an identification key for those we might otherwise frustrate. But we didn't want the key to be too obvious or prominent. We wanted to have it accessible, but hidden. How to solve this problem?

Robbi had the idea: print it on the sliding pocket doors between the mural room and the kitchen. The doors are almost always closed.

So now you know where the key is hidden when you come to see the mural. But try to use it as a last resort. I'd like to think that every reader of the mural should be required to puzzle the thing out for a few minutes, at least, before consulting with the key. At least until one gets a neck cramp.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:41 AM

May 11, 2009

And Now for the Fun Stuff

Now that the lines have been transferred and the portraits are painted in, Robbi gets to enjoy the most gratifying part of this process, which is painting in the linework. The simple black line is everything, adding dimension and definition to the paint-by-number patches of solid color that provide the background and shading for each portrait.

For example, here is Leo Tolstoy, recently emerged from blobby color blocks into the sharp, odd-looking man that he is.

And here is the newly-detailed Francis Bacon. Notice the linework template taped next to him for reference.

And Allen Ginsberg. What a beard.

And Poe, poor tortured man.

In our mural, he gets to go to a Ravens game with Ernest Hemingway.

Here is the artist at work. Painting on the ceiling is plain awful.

Caroline has continued to be a huge help.

And here is the mural as it is tonight, waiting in the darkness of the sleeping Lit House for the new day and Robbi's return.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:59 AM

May 10, 2009

Working on the Mural, Day 5

Robbi and her stalwart band of students are in the midst of day five of mural painting. Below are photos of days three and four.

For the most part, the students have been working on painting in the 50 portraits while Robbi continues transferring all of the lines and words to the wall. Robbi printed out a color template of each portrait. The template includes just the major color blocks but not the black lines, which Robbi will add at the very end.

Here is Liz painting in Charles Dickens using the Charles Dickens color template.

Slowly but surely, the various portraits are starting to emerge. (Notice the handsome portrait of Edith Wharton, the Lit House cat/mascot/spiritual leader.)

Robbi reports that the portraits on the four walls were the first to be painted. Everyone was somewhat leery of venturing onto the ceiling (where at least half of the portraits appear), as painting on the ceiling is uncomfortable, difficult, and painfully slow. Caroline was the first to take the plunge and attack the ceiling portraits.

She has been boldly painting them ever since (joined by Liz, in this photo).

Here's a long view of the room.

You may have noticed the blue stripes in the photo above. These are the masking lines that will help Robbi and the students paint the crisp gray lines that will connect the various portraits. They are slowly emerging across the ceiling and walls.

And even across doorways.

Robbi has been working from mid-morning to the middle of the night for the last five days. I get the sense that the students are starting to feel sorry for her. Yesterday, one of them baked her a cake.

And today, Caroline made her a grilled cheese sandwich.

As Robbi continued to transfer the strips of words (the phrases that link the various portraits), she worried about throwing any away, in case they might be needed again in the case of some unexpected mural-related emergency (stranger things have happened). Given that they were covered with tape, and bent, and difficult to store in any reasonable way, she started hanging them off of her ladder, creating a piece of inadvertent installation art that she has now grown somewhat attached to.

I expect to find it in the middle of the living room when I return to Chestertown.

Posted by bogenamp at 06:18 PM

May 08, 2009

Working on the Mural

The following is a dispatch from Robbi, who early this morning completed her second full day (and first full night) of working on painting the Literary House mural. She worked from 10:00am on Thursday to 6:00am this morning and still had the fortitude to send these photos and commentary for me to post. With much respect and without further ado:

-----

I laid out the mural in a page layout program in my computer so that I could print the entire thing out and transfer it directly onto the Lit House wall by using transfer paper (kind of like the old carbon copy paper). I also printed out a mini version/schematic to use as a reference, along with a list of things to remember. Here they are.

The schematic, alas, is incomplete, since I lost the two side walls somewhere between home and the Lit House. There were very important notes on those side walls.

The life-sized mural printed out as panels on a grid, and we had to hang them as such. Everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle (except without the little odd-shaped knobbies to let you know that things actually fit properly together). So it took a lot of jiggering and shifting to make things fit. We had, on the previous day, made our first attempt at hanging this grid, but were aghast to find that Kevin Bacon was not where we thought he was supposed to be. He was, in fact, on the opposite wall. I thought I was going to have to totally rework the schematic (again! horrors!) until Joe pointed out that I had just mislabeled the print shop door and the library door and had gotten them reversed. Whoo Nellie. Was that good news. So, anyway. We started with Kevin Bacon and worked our way out.

Note from Matthew: (You may wonder why Kevin Bacon is included in a mural of literary greats. The mural takes its cue from the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and is a satirical take on what might happen if we treated our literary stars in the same manner as we do the stars of the screen. Hence the mural is titled Six Degrees of Francis Bacon, but we felt Kevin deserved to make an appearance. After all, who else would engage in an all-night dance off with the Marquis de Sade?)

The hanging continued across the ceiling.

Things got substantially more complicated once we started across the ceiling. Those crossbeams, for one. The humidity in the air, for two, and the general lack of stickiness in the tape, for three. Things were saggy and sad-looking, but I did not despair.

While I was not despairing at that end of the room, I got Erica and Owen to start hanging paper on the other end of the room. This would prove to be a fatal mistake, but at the time I thought to myself, "There are all these people here who want to be put to work. I must find something useful for them to do. Even if it means that later on, we'll have to move everything, because when the two sides meet in the middle, there will be a 6-inch overlap." Ah well.

Owen and Joe starting to plaster another wall. These tiles were assembled first on the floor by Nick, then taped up en masse. It was a nice idea, and worked pretty well since we had a lot of hands. This idea, unfortunately, only worked on the walls. Once we started having to deal with gravity and crooked beams and lumpy plaster, it was a lost cause. Tile by tile it was.

This helpful student started to transfer the linework in a very tedious fashion (not her that's at fault for the tedium - the procedure itself is what's tedious). Later, on my own, and in a more practical state of mind, I discovered just how tedious this method was, and made some adjustments. I just feel sorry that this poor soul had to suffer through the tedious way. Boo hoo.

Caroline also suffered through the tedious way. The tedious way is to lift each panel, getting it unstuck from the wall/ceiling, slide a piece of transfer paper underneath, then carefully trace the lines with a pencil, which transfers the line to the wall. What I ended up doing was tracing just the outline of the portrait and then using a ruler to place and draw the lines between them. I still have to go back and transfer the words, but there won't be that pathetic wobbliness to the lines that happens when you're craning your neck trying to draw upside-down and opposite-handed.

Nick observed the tedium, and decided that he had made a good decision by remaining on the floor.

Even Joshua Wolf Shenk, fearless Literary House director helped out. You see, I even trusted him with advanced-level taping technique - the level that involves working around the track for the track lighting.

Actually, I'm telling a bit of a lie. About two seconds after I took this picture, I made him come down so I could work around the track. It was a pain in the ass.

It's hard to see, but at this point the left wall had been all transferred, and the ceiling was close to being all plastered.

This photo shows the state of things at the end of the day on Wednesday. We left the room a complete disaster. We were afraid to throw away any pieces in case we needed them, so the floor just got to be a big pile of paper and tape. Whenever you walked around, you would get a piece of tape stuck to your foot, that would then collect paper, and more tape, and pretty soon you're walking around in a big ball of trash. That got all trampled and torn, but we still didn't want to throw anything away. Since printing this thing out takes a long time, and there's no way I can tell it just to print out one part of the mural (without some recropping etc of the file), I just didn't want to risk it.

This is the sign we left overnight.

Painting started happening on Thursday morning. I was still drawing lines and transferring stuff on the ceiling, but because of all of the shifting that had occurred (and because I hadn't really accounted for the track lights) I sort of had to make adjustments as I went along, which basically meant I was the only one who could be working on it at the time. So I had the students start doing paint-by-numbers on the portraits. Here is Mike painting in Poe. He had to leave early to attend a crab-fest, which was a particularly dirty insult to the rest of us.

Our friend Emily Kalwaitis (who is a real-live painter) came to help.

And mom and dad brought sushi!

It was SOOOOO yummy. I took a picture to make you jealous. You can see the paint-by-number cutouts in the background. The idea is the painters take the cutouts, transfer the interior detail, and paint in the blocks of color. Then I'll go back and do all the linework myself.

Caroline a careful and exacting painter. And she loves Edith. So she got to paint her. I was trying to figure out why our paint was so runny and not opaque. I guess because it's house paint. I forgot that we weren't going to be covering huge areas of color. I could have bought artists acrylics. We did end up replacing a couple colors, but some of the house paints look fine.

Note from Matthew: Edith Wharton the cat is the long-time Literary House mascot. Given her literary name and her central place in Lit House culture, it seemed appropriate to include her among the towering greats of the canon. The other, less beloved (to the Literary House community, anyway) Edith Wharton also appears.

Caroline had to finish Poe because of Mike leaving us for his stinking crab fest.

The portrait painting continued at the far end of the room.

As the day wore on, people started disappearing. Caroline and I were the only ones there from about dinnertime to midnight. She amazed me by painting with one hand and eating a popsicle with the other. Upside-down, no less, because it was a really awkward corner she was in.

This is how the room looked at 4:00 this morning. After Caroline left, I finished transferring all the lines and circles so that people could keep painting in various portraits the next day, while I transferred the writing. I decided it was time to clean up, so I would know which bits of text we needed to keep and how much of the rest we could recycle.

Iggy insisted on helping.

She barked at the cleaning lady like a maniac when she came in a little after 4.

This is how the room looked when I left. Still a lot to do, but we're coming along.

I'm so tired, I have to go to bed now. I'm going to try to get back there for another long day tomorrow. It's gotten light out in the time that I've written this.

Good night.

----

I edited out the mushy stuff, which was mostly directed at Alden, anyway.

I'll post more photos as the work continues. If you happen to see Robbi sleeping on a sidewalk or slumped over her shopping cart in the grocery store, please give her a helpful nudge and a compassionate pat on the shoulder. These are the sorts of responsibilities that would fall to me, were I in Chestertown this week.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:28 AM

May 04, 2009

Six Degrees of Francis Bacon

Robbi and I have been asked by the folks at the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College to imagine and produce a mural in the house's entry room. As is our fashion, we pursued the most complex and time-consuming idea that we could think of. It is titled Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll share the press release, which gives a pretty good idea of what we're up to:

Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr of Idiots'Books are in the process of creating a mural that will greet Lit House visitors with a satirical take on history of the written word. Taking its cue from the popular game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon", the mural functions as an elaborate web of literary associations. Robbi will paint portraits of fifty or so major writers on the four walls and ceiling of the Lit House entrance room. Each writer will be connected to various others with language describing the relationship. For example, Leo Tolstoy will be connected to Walt Whitman with the phrase, "won a beard-growing contest with," and Charles Dickens will be connected to Phillip Roth with the words, "accidentally sang a Christmas carol to".

Please join us at 2:30pm on May 16th, when the completed mural will be unveiled on the occasion of John' Barth's reading.

One of Robbi's tasks while I am in Kansas City has been to render all 49 portraits, to lay out the mural in a page-layout program, and now, starting today at 2:00, to paint the sucker with the help of a small army of Washington College students.

In her fashion, Robbi has been staying up all night to get her prep work done. To give you a glimpse into the mind of the artist, I will document my email inbox as it greeted me this morning.

1:54am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Mark Twain

2:09am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Danielle Steel (containing unprintable editorial comment about the portrait's subject)

2:32am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Murasaki Shikibu (who wrote Tale of Genji)

2:46am: email from Robbi containing portrait of James Joyce

3:05am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Stephen King

3:24am: email from Robbi containing portrait of The Dude Who Wrote Beowulf

4:45am: email from Robbi containing portrait of William Shakespeare

5:10am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Allen Ginsberg

5:53am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Walt Whitman

6:14am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Samuel Beckett

6:28am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Edgar Allan Poe

6:47am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Ernest Hemingway

7:21am: email from Robbi containing portrait of Henry David Thoreau

At this point, the flow of emails suddenly stopped, which leads me to believe that Robbi is slumped in her painting chair in a deep and dreamless slumber. When she will emerge is not known. But what gifts she has left us in the night.

I marvel at the sheer productivity can transpire when you steal an artist's baby, give her a Cintiq, and put no limits on her ice cream consumption.

Stop by the Lit House after May 16th to see these and the other 36 portraits in full painted glory. And come read the story of how they are connected. And if you happen to be in Chestertown at 2:30 on May 16, come hear a reading by the legendary John Barth, one of the most important literary voices of the 20th Century. He, too, has a role to play in Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:05 AM

April 26, 2009

New Tool

A few days ago, a box arrived in the mail containing a new illustration tool for Robbi. Although she was extremely excited about the contents, she told herself that she would not open the box until she had finished painting the illustrations for Volume 21. In the wee hours of last night, she finished painting and so allowed herself to open the box. Inside was the Wacom Cintiq tablet. (Watch the short movie if you're interested in seeing how it works.)

One might argue that Robbi's two 23-inch monitors should be sufficient to meet her needs when it comes to total square inches of screen space. One would be wrong. Given the abundance of illustrator/designer page layout sorts of things she has to do all the time, Robbi covers up every inch of monitor space with a mountain of windows and menus. Indeed, Robbi claimed to need one more screen, and so we secured the Cintiq.

The Cintiq basically functions as a virtual canvas/sketchpad. Its surface is pressure sensitive and interacts with a stylus, enabling Robbi to draw or paint directly onto the screen.

Which makes her very happy.

Robbi is particularly happy to have the Cintiq at this particular moment in time because she has to create 50 portraits of famous writers over the next few days. The portraits will be central to the massive, five-wall mural we have been commissioned to paint in the Literary House here at Washington College in early May. The rendering of these 50 portraits should be greatly expedited by the Cintiq and all of its helpful space-age features.

She is over there oohing and aahing over the Cintiq as I write this. I know in my heart that I will not be able to get her attention for at least two weeks. It is so much more efficient, sleek, and time-saving than I am.

This just in: Robbi's first creation on the new tablet.

It seems that there might yet be room for the Cintiq and me in Robbi's crowded heart.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:59 PM

April 23, 2009

The Time Machine

Our fourth and final One-Page Wonder has been published on Tor.com. Having already exhausted such topics as fights between spacemen and monsters, interplanatary warfare, and deadly love between man and robot, we delve this time into the perils of misbegotten time travel. The Time Machine is without question the oddest of the four One-Page Wonders, but it is perhaps our favorite.

Here are the main characters of this tragic tale.

Click here to download, print, cut, fold, and properly read the tragic tale of Little Dickie, Old Richard, and the wealthy widow. See how time travel leads inevitably to disappointment, how diamonds are not as great as they seem to be, and how bald wigs, though an effective form of disguise, will always get a fellow into trouble. Every time.

If you are devastated to know that the One-Page Wonder oeuvre is now complete, take heart in the fact that we are likely to collaborate with Tor on future work. And if you've somehow made it to this point without viewing Robbi's fun YouTube video with soundtrack by Drew Bunting (and Brian Slattery), put aside your knitting for a minute and have a look.

For those of you who aren't into bald wigs, here is Alden, trying to escape from Cannon's porch, where we went the other day to play in his sandbox.

Realizing escape was impossible, she eventually settled down and decided to enjoy herself instead.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:34 PM

April 15, 2009

What We Like to See

As you may (or may not) know, Idiots'Books is a subscription service. People sign up to receive a year's worth of our books (eight a year at present). Each time we produce a new book (every 6-7 weeks), we send it out to the subscribership--bringing joy, aesthetic bliss, and occasionally confusion to households all over the country (and in four foreign countries). When a subscription expires, subscribers have to carefully weigh the decision of whether or not to sign on for another year.

Some slip away into obscurity. Others return with enthusiasm. Some document their thought processes for our enjoyment.

We thought you might enjoy seeing a few.

For example, the Fantastic Family Haske, (whose blog is worth a look, especially for those of you who enjoy pictures of babies) sent the following postcard as a means of letting us know that they intended to renew their subscription:

Another subscriber from Vermont let his enthusiasm be known by including a note on his envelope:

And this note on his check:

Perhaps my favorite such subscriber contribution is from our friend Drew, who documented the saga of his subscription's end and ensuing renewal with satisfying drama:

In addition to being deft with large knives, Drew is a singer, songwriter, and certified badass. You may be pleased to know that he has recently created a MySpace page from which you can listen to a bunch of new songs. Or you can become a fan of his on Facebook.

But getting back now to the moral of this post: we love it when you resubscribe with a flourish. Life is too short to merely send a check.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:50 PM

April 08, 2009

Unit 31B Incinerates Jon

The latest One-Page Wonder has been posted to Tor.com. You can download it by clicking here.

Unit 31B Incinerates Jon is the tragic tale of love that was never meant to be.

Here is the tremendously desirable Unit 31B, the object of hapless spaceman Jon's unwavering affections.

Unfortunately the shapely mechanic has little use for Jon and his special feelings. She deals with the unwelcome attention efficiently and with ruthless precision.

Here's an excerpt from Robbi's illustration.

If you haven't printed out and constructed any of these yet, it only takes a few minutes, and from what I hear, it is a lot of fun.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:15 AM

March 24, 2009

Revenge of the Moonmen

I am sorry to preempt the post on Alden's first birthday with other news, but frankly something far more important has just transpired. The second of our One-Page Wonders has just been published on Tor.com. Revenge of the Moonmen is now available by clicking here.

At first glance, Revenge of the Moonmen may seem to be nothing more than a silly comic, but look closer and you will see that it is, in fact, a macabre tale of ruthless dismemberment, mindless commercial exploitation, and bloody revenge. Bloody, I say!

Here is one of the hapless Venus People, blissfully unaware of the intergalactic whoop ass that is about to be unleashed upon her.

Take out your scissors and get to work.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:35 PM

March 17, 2009

Idiots'Books and Bombadil: Sneak Preview

At the most basic level, what interests Robbi and me artistically is collaboration: the thing that happens when two minds set themselves the task of wrestling with the same question, problem, or mystery from two fundamentally separate starting points. In most cases, the collaboration involves Robbi's images and my words. Recently, we've had the opportunity to add an entirely new dimension to the equation.

I have written here previously of our friends in the band Bombadil. We met them when they came to Chestertown last winter, and quickly we discovered that we and they shared a compatible sensibility.

We loved their music and they loved our books and so it seemed to them a natural fit to have us design and name their new album. Bombadil let us operate with a fairly blank slate, saying only that the album art should be some sort of story with pictures. They shared demos of the new material and gave us a bit of insight into what they were thinking when they wrote the songs, but for the most part they charged us with doing what we do. And so we did.

The result is Tarpits and Canyonlands (which the subscribership will come to know as Volume 22) an album wrapped in an illustrated story which will be released July 7th of this year. The band has started publicizing the album and has released the cover artwork, which I am happy to share with you today.

We'll post the entirety of the album art after the release, but for now you can savor the anticipation along with the rest of Bombadil nation.

Here's their MySpace page, if you want to listen to tracks from their last album, A Buzz, a buzz (you can download the whole thing via iStore) and see more of Robbi's album art for Tarpits and Canyonlands.

And here is thier website, if you want to learn how to be a better groupie.

These guys are amazing. And they take really good promotional pictures.

Like this one, for instance:

And here's another:

I mean, doesn't this make you want to be 25 and in an up-and-coming rock band?

Posted by bogenamp at 03:35 PM

March 16, 2009

Idiots'Books on USA Today's Pop Candy: Hip and Hidden

Friends, the triumphant march of Captain A-OK continues! Just now, we have been blogged about by Whitney Matheson of USA Today's Pop Candy. Click here to see!

Here is Whitney (isn't she cute?):

Her blog is devoted to:

Following this line of reasoning, Robbi and I must be...hip. Such a thing had never occurred to us. Naturally, we're hidden, by dint of living in Chestertown. But hip? Little old we? Does she know how we dress? The mind reels. Thank you Whitney Matheson for making our day. And for initiating a minor identity crisis.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:13 PM

March 14, 2009

Jericho

I have spent most of the last couple of days in production mode. If all goes according to plan, we will be mailing Volume 20 to the subscribership on Monday. Which means that I have to make 200 copies of it.

The first step is printing it out. This step is more complicated than you might think. The printer is a finicky beast. Robbi has to spend a lot of time making sure that the ink heads don't get clogged and cause unsightly streaks, for example. But fortunately, the printer is capable of collating the pages so that we don't have to set all of the individual pages out on the work table and order them by hand.

Unless Robbi forgets to push the collate button. In which case we do have to set all of the individual pages out on the work table and order them by hand. Robbi really hates it when she forgets to push the collate button.

After printing (and collating), it was time for trimming. Ever since my acquisition of the large, impressive guillotine cutter, my life has gotten a lot easier on the trimming front.

Behold the guillotine cutter:

I put the paper in:

I pull the big lever:

Producing a neatly trimmed stack of pages.

Which I place on the table to admire.

Sometimes I admire them up close.

Next up, I staple each book along the spine. We did not photograph the stapling, though I have to wonder why. Stapling is a very sexy part of the process. My stapler is very powerful. If I asked it to, it could staple through 210 pages at once. I have never asked it to.

After the stapling, I had to pound down the stapes to make them flat. I do this with a hammer and a concrete floor. We did not photograph the staple pounding either. I am glad that we did not. Kneeling on a concrete floor pounding staples is an undignified affair.

The final step in producing this particular book is adding a strip of binding tape to form a spine. This part is best done in near-darkness, by a single bulb.

First I have to trim the strip of tape.

Next I contemplate an untaped copy of Jericho.

And then I place the tape along the spine.

I do this 200 times, and then I'm done.

There is a certain pleasure in seeing the finished books all stacked together in neat piles.

Next up, we prepare the mailing. This is another wholly unphotogenic enterprise.

Which means we will conclude with something that is photogenic, a small child proudly baring her two-and-a-half teeth.

Thanks to friends Peter and Veronica for snapping this shot. And for taking this one, in which the babies in containers contest continues.

Note the backdrop for this shot: Veronica is an ardent Red Sox fan. Peter is a lifelong Yankees guy. Notice the prominent Boston "B" on the side of the bowl. I'm guessing that Peter won't be inviting Alden back to their place any time soon.

No matter. She's needed around home. As soon as she can hold a hammer, she is going to take on the role of staple pounder. Though she tells me that she'd much prefer to write the books.

Posted by bogenamp at 01:03 AM

March 12, 2009

And Now EphBlog!

Capping a three-day string of self-congratulatory posts, we are happy to announce that Captain A-Ok Fights Blug-Glub-Glub has now been posted to EphBlog, a blog dedicated to the dissemination and discussion of all things related to Williams College and its wide universe of people (of which Robbi and I are two).

Click here to read a very nice post by Ronit Bhattacharyya. (Raise your hand if you know anyone else with consecutive "Y"s in his name.)

If you have been a faithful reader and clicker these past three days, the story in question might by now start to seem rather stale . Resist the temptation to let familiarity dull delight. If you haven't actually printed Captain A-OK out yet, if you haven't actually folded and cut the paper to see how the various narrative combinations arise, you might want give it a try. It's really kind of neat.

Be sure to check in tomorrow to see us posted on Drudge Report. After Tor.com, BoingBoing, and EphBlog, what else is there?

Posted by bogenamp at 10:40 AM

March 11, 2009

BoingBoing!

Friends, it has come to my attention that our new story, Captain A-OK Fights Blug-Glub-Glub has been posted to BoingBoing, which is, according to my friend Stella, "the internet's greatest consolidator or DIY, art, news, politics, and ephemera." We are pleased to have been considered worthy of such company.

Even if you've already found the story on Tor.com, feel free to check it out on BoingBoing by clicking right here. Following the principle that leftovers are sometimes even tastier than the meal itself.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:54 PM

March 09, 2009

Captain A-OK Fights Blug-Glub-Glub

HIGH EXCITEMENT. CLICK HERE NOW. (Then read the rest once you've come back down to earth.)

A few months ago, we were approached by the folks at tor.com (major scifi publishing house) about producing a series of stories for them.

Apparently, the folks at tor.com are convinced that the printing of books as we know it (on paper and sold in stores, for example) is soon to come to a crashing halt, and so they have committed themselves to amassing a body of quality online literature/art/comics, etc.

Robbi and I put our heads together and tried to come up with something interesting that would work well in this context. Our solution: a single page of words and pictures that can be downloaded, printed out, cut once, folded three times, and then recombined into ten separate stories (with pictures). For those of you who are familiar with our books Ten Thousand Stories and After Everafter, here is a one-sheet riff on that idea. We call them One-Page Wonders.

Over the next few months, Tor.com will be publishing a series of four of these. We are happy to announce that the first of them, Captain A-OK Fights Blug-Glub-Glub is available now. By clicking here. So do it. And click here to see our glorious prominence (for the short-lived present) on the tor.com homepage.

Here is Captain A-OK.

Isn't he dashing? I think Robbi must have modeled him after me.

Be sure to take a moment to watch the nifty instructional film (with soundtrack by Drew Bunting and mad banjo by Brian Slattery) that Robbi produced to teach the teeming masses the various ways to combine the One-Page Wonders.

Get some scissors. Warm up your printer. Have fun.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:26 PM

March 05, 2009

Model Student

Robbi and I are teaching a class at Washington College this spring. The course, called Pictures and Words, aims to get writers and artists to collaborate with one another, working across media to think about ways in which word and image can work with, against, and in spite of one another to create interesting, interdependent expressions that neither one alone could accomplish. Last week, each writer/artist pairing was asked to pitch three ideas for the major project that will consume the rest of the semester.

One of the groups pitched an idea in which a seemingly lovable teddy bear named Commerce would embody the insidious influence of commercialism on unwitting youth. Or something like that. The main point was that Commerce had Freddy Kruger/Wolverine knifefingers, which delighted me considerably.

Ultimately the Commerce approach was not the idea we selected, but I was so smitten with the idea of this lovable, yet homicidal teddy bear that I pleaded with the illustrator in question to draw me a picture of Commerce mutilating one of his victims. I was merely expressing a wish for the sake of expressing it, in the manner that one will often yearn wistfully for things that will likely never come to pass.

But late last night, even though he didn't have to, Mike sent me the following:

It is cultivating such expressions of intellectual energy that make teaching so rewarding. This is better than an apple any day.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:53 AM

February 12, 2009

Rock Star for Four Days

So the first annual Idiots'Books East Coast Tour has come and gone. We have returned home, aglow with the glories of the road and inflicted with physical distress both abdominal and systemic.

To recap:

We pulled out of town last Saturday afternoon, the minivan full of gear, baby, dog, and Drew Bunting, who had flown in from Milwaukee to make the drive north with us. We landed that evening in Metuchen, NY, home of Brian Wecht and his lovely wife Rachel.

Before heading over to the Raconteur for our gig, the guys warmed up playing Rock Band on the Wii.

While I spent some quality time with Alden.

The Raconteur is an outstanding independent bookstore in downtown Metuchen. We set up in a cozy little nook in the back. The eager crowds got seated a full half hour before the show began.

While we warmed up, Drew got funky with the banjo uke.

And Slattery got all moody on the guitar.

The Raconteur's proprietor Alex got things started with an introduction and a plea to those assembled not to stop buying books in response to the downturn.

As for the show itself, Robbi and I read a few books, Drew played a few songs, and Brian Slattery did a few readings from his new novel Liberation while the band played on.

It was practically a WIlliams class of 1997 reunion. In addition to the band members, Kenny Harmon and Maria Plantilla drove in from New York City.

That night we drove to New Haven to crash for the night before heading on to Williamstown the next day. We spent the afternoon with our friend Gina Coleman and her family, including her son Garcia, who we met for the first time.

The babies got to know one another. By which I mean, Alden tried to strangle Garcia.

And acted like a little punk while playing with his toys.

And then tried to look all innocent about it.

On Monday morning, we picked up the PA and started setting up for the day's events. Although a large part of the spirit of these performances is derived from the mostly improvisational aspect of the proceedings, the band did do a bit of rehearsal.

We were lucky to be joined by Kris Kirby, PhD (Where did your drummer get his PhD?)

Drew led the way on guitar.

Slattery added fiddle (And banjo. And guitar.)

Wecht jumped in on keys.

And Steinway.

And sax.

Rich anchored it all on bass.

That afternoon, we opened the proceedings with a panel focused on our various trajectories from the Williams English major to lives (more or less) in the arts. Many more students came than I had expected, and a handful of professors also stopped by to hear what we had to say. I think that we were at least marginally helpful and occasionally amusing. I'll post the sound file for download once I figure out how.

Then a handful of interested students joined us for dinner.

At 7:30, we unleashed the full dose of rock, joined by teen drumming prodigy Aidan Shepard. Drew led the way with a set of his songs that acknowledge the tension between his callings to be a priest and his callings to be a musician. Then Robbi and I read from our books. Slattery brought us home with a series of readings from Liberation, followed by a spirited reading of the children's book Salmon and a finale that included a death metal interpretation of Little House on the Prairie.

I love my friends and am so glad that we all are able to get together every once in a while to do things like this.

The tour ended, as all good tours should, with two babies in an empty box of Huggies.

Here is the mood shot we took for the cover of their upcoming album of wistful duets.

Which will be released within the month.

Someday when Garcia and Alden are on a tour of their own, may they think back happily on the role they played in their parents' fleeting glory days. May their crowds be even larger than ours, and their roadies more numerous.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:15 AM

Dirty Mouthed Toys

We have returned from our tour, but the entire family is sick and so the comprehensive recap will have to wait a bit.

To tide you over, I offer a photo sent in by reader Neil B of Oklahoma. Apparently he spotted this bin when picking up his small child from daycare a few days back.

This photo needs no clever commentary. I only wish that Neil had thought to put his daughter into the bin before taking the snapshot.

More to come once our stomachs settle and our fevers pass.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:23 AM

February 01, 2009

Idiots'Books Tour, 2009

Yes, friends, the time has come. In five short days, we depart for the first annual Idiots'Books east coast tour. I call it a tour because we are leaving town and will be performing in two separate venues in two separate states. Just as two points make a line, two venues make a tour. If I sound defensive it is because I fully realize that the upcoming itinerary is the bare minimum of public performances that could feasibly constitute a "tour". Yet I am not above stretching a bit for the sake of glory.

Here is what lies ahead.

This coming Saturday, February 7, at 8:00pm, Robbi and I, along with Brian Slattery (novelist and musician), Drew Bunting (punk rocking preacher), Rich Flynn (bass playing bacon enthusiast), and Brian Wecht (string theorist and musician) will be performing at the Raconteur, an independent bookstore in Metuchen, NJ.

The aforementioned gentlemen:

Go to this link and scroll down to see the posting on the Raconteur schedule of events, or just read this blurb (written by Brian Slattery) to get the gist of what we'll be up to:

A couple of years ago, a husband & wife named Matthew Swanson & Robbi Behr decided to live in a barn in Maryland and make books. He wrote the text; she did the illustrations. What are these books you're making? the townspeople said. They weren't children's books. They weren't comics, either. The duo shrugged and said they did not know. They just kept making them. Thus was Idiots'Books born. Around the same time, a public policy editor living in New Haven, CT published a novel. What is this book you wrote? the towns- people said. It wasn't exactly literary fiction. It wasn't exactly science fiction, either. He shrugged and said he did not know, but he wrote another one, and that was published, too. Thus did Brian Francis Slattery change from the name of that kid you knew who went to Catholic school (though he did not go to Catholic school) to weird science-fiction author. Swanson, Behr, & Slattery all happened to know each other. They also happened to be pretty good musicians and know a bunch of musicians who were even better--bass player Rich Flynn and clarinet/saxophone/keyboard player Brian Wecht, among others. All of them shared a flair for the dramatic. So they decided to join forces and do readings from their books, accompanied by projections and a backup band. Like the Beats in their heyday might have done, except with more rock and a projector. The results are unrehearsed, unpredictable, and, according to those that have seen them, thoroughly entertaining.

The second part of the "tour" takes place two days later (February 9) in Williamstown, Massachusetts, home of the alma mater of all of those mentioned above, the small, understated college known as Williams.

The Williams event was the impetus for the tour, and so it called for professional marketing materials. Here is the poster/postcard Robbi designed to advertise the happening:

And here is the back of the postcard, which goes into greater detail regarding the lineup (click image to enlarge).

Basically, we're going to have a panel in which we will describe for current students our various routes to lives in the arts, explaining that being an artist sometimes means finding a way to pay the bills by non-artistic means as a way of subsidizing the creative habit. We will then eat dinner with any of them who might enjoy the proposition before returning to the stage for a performance that will include music, literature (variously defined), and images. It will be a boiled-down version of the lineup at last February's Idiots'Fest (though sadly without a National Book Award finalist in the lineup).

We will once again be joined by teen drumming sensation Aidan Shepard.

Iggy will be coming on tour as well, though her role in the act is yet to be defined. It might involve some sort of dramatic reading while wearing her blue polka-dotted bathrobe, but then again, it might not.

She'd like to preserve a bit of mystery, if you don't mind.

So if you find yourself near Metuchen or Williamstown on the appropriate evenings, we'd love to see you. And if we aren't coming to your city this time around, know that we will try to make next year's Idiots'Books tour even longer and action-packed than this year's thrill ride.

Stay tuned.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:48 PM

January 18, 2009

Unbridled Enthusiasm

For the most part, Robbi and I make our books for the sheer pleasure of creation. Unencumbered by the profit motive that drives most commercial printing efforts (and free from the accompanying editorial scrutiny), we are at liberty to do whatever the heck we want to. The pleasure comes from the act of expression and not from any accolades or sales figures.

But occasionally we get letters like this one (from two subscribers making the valiant decision to renew their subscriptions for another year in spite of the sour economic climate). Letters that so overflow with enthusiasm and gush with adulation that we remember the other side of the equation: we make books so that they may find readers whose lives are changed for the better by having read them.

Thank you R2 and T for reminding us why we do this.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:17 PM

January 13, 2009

Containing the Beast

We have heard from subscribers that our books present a problem. Due to their widely varying sizes, formats, shapes, and binding methods, the books are difficult to shelve. Some people have vented bitterly on this front, though these same people, when asked if they would prefer uniformity of size, format, shape, and binding method, have been quick to protest that in fact they love the variety of size, format, shape, and binding method, and that they enjoy opening their envelope each month wondering what we will have come up with this time.

It is a conundrum, impossible to reconcile.

But one creative and enthusiastic subscriber sent us this photo today, her solution of the problem of how to store our books.

Needless to say, Robbi and I were honored to learn that Anne had gone to such trouble, but at the same time it pained us both to know that Volume 19, which will be sent out in about two weeks, will not fit into Anne's Idiots'Books box. Nor will it arrive in an envelope.

If I have managed to create some small element of suspense, I am delighted.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:24 PM

December 11, 2008

A Dark and Stormy Night

It is stormy tonight in Chestertown, as it is up and down the entire eastern seaboard. We went to a party that was literally across the street tonight and were soaked by the time we arrived. I love rain, but can't help but thinking how nice it would be if the temperature was below freezing...

I have discovered an entirely new application for Facebook today, that of facilitating collaborative authorship. I sat down to try and write a new story this morning and didn't get very far. I lamented to the void via my Facebook "status." Moments later, I received encouragement and prompts from a number of my online "friends." I decided to change my status to the following:

Matthew wants any interested party to contribute to a collaborative story.

I then commented on my status with "It was a dark and stormy night..."

And then something wonderful happened.

Over the next twelve hours, thirteen authors contributed to the story in 42 separate segments. An amazing narrative unfolded. I'll share it for you below:

A Dark and Stormy Night
By Matthew Swanson, Sam Sommers, Jessica Ralston, JA Chong, Beth Duncan, Don Schulz, Natasha Stanley, Maria Plantilla, Maggie Adler, Aidan Shepard, Sarah Altschuller, Michelle Crouse Needham, and Jeff Zeeman, Matthew Rouse, and Dahna Goldstein (so far)

It was a dark and stormy night...

More importantly, I saw what had been inside, and was now set free. I couldn't believe what I saw. At first, I thought maybe my young daughter had left one of her toys out on the floor, but then when I saw it moving, I realized that it was . . .

-------

It seems to me that this story is not yet complete. If you are inspired to contribute, please go to Facebook and do so. I trust that someone will know when the story is finished and will inform the rest of us.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:31 PM

December 10, 2008

After Everafter

Idiots'Books Volume 18, After Everafter, was mailed out to the subscribership yesterday.

Those of you who have been with Idiots'Books for the long haul will recognize the format as a reprise of the one used in Volume 3, Ten Thousand Stories.

Like Ten Thousand Stories, After Everafter is wire-bound, and each page is cut into four horizontal sections. The content consists of ten full-page illustrations corresponding to ten related narratives. By flipping the sections of each story/illustration, the illustrations and stories can be recombined without loss of visual or grammatical continuity. The pleasure (hopefully) comes from the resulting loss of visual and narrative sense. According to at least three mathematicians we know, there are ten thousand possible combinations.

Ten Thousand Stories consisted of ten unrelated episodes. After Everafter consists of ten stories that pick up where the major fairy tales leave off. What happens after Cinderella finds her prince? What is the fate of the Seven Dwarves after Snow White finds true love?

Here are a few sample spreads, but this is one book that really can't be appreciated online. Lucky for you, we made a few extras that we might be willing to part with.

Here is Alden demonstrating how the pages divide into four equal strips while also providing an object lesson into what happens when you drop a huge stack of said strips on the floor before successfully binding them together.

If you happen to be in or near Chestertown this weekend, swing by Book Plate on Friday evening around 6:00pm. Robbi and I will be doing a reading of After Everafter and other books from the vault.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:28 PM

December 08, 2008

Letterpress Obama

As we speak, Robbi is over at the Washington College Literary House printing a limited-edition version of one of our books on the College's antique Vandercook press. Robbi will post actual pictures of the actual press and the actual printing soon, but for the time being, here is what a Vandercook looks like.

The book in question is a joint project between Idiots'Books and the Lit House Press. It is being produced in an edition of 75, and will be bound at Campbell-Logan bindery in Minnesota. If all goes according to plan, it will be a beautiful, dare I say exquisite piece. My only hope is that the presentation doesn't wholly overshadow the contents. The book is titled Jericho, and will be produced in much less grand fashion for general distribution to subscribers as Volume 20. I'll post when the limited-edition version is available to let you know, in case any of you out there want to shell out the big bucks for some serious craft.

On the subject of letterpress, when we were down in Savannah for Robbi's grad school years, we went to a presentation by the good folks at Yee Haw Industries, a letterpress outfit out of Knoxville, TN, who do incredible, funny, spirited work that you should definitely have a look at.

Here are a few recent works.

You can buy this poster on this Etsy page.

This one shows their range of skill as humorists as well as printers.

You can buy it here.

Although I haven't spent much time here talking about the technique of letterpress, it is a fascinating process that produces a result not possible on any other printing technology. Robbi will do some explaining when she posts on her progress with our book.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:06 AM

Home Again

This weekend Robbi, Alden, and I took New York City by storm. We caught up with old friends, walked many blocks in Alden's first snowstorm, met an octegenarian rapper, and spent many hours manning our booth at the 21st Annual Indie and Small Press Expo. More on all of this to come when the hour is not so late.

For now, here's a sad photo of Alden at the restaurant where we went with friends to eat piles of Texas barbeque on Saturday night. Alden's fare: a Japanese soy cracker.

It's so hard to be a baby.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:08 AM

December 04, 2008

Alden's Ice Cream

Given Robbi's love of ice cream, I'm a bit hesitant to show her the following photo, which might blur the important line between her child and her vice with unfortunate consequences.

I'm sharing this photo in part because it is in the paternal fiber to be excited by products that bear the name of one's child, especially when said child has a relatively uncommon name not often found printed on commercial food products.

But I'm sharing this photo also because of the unusual nature of its delivery to me. That is, it was posted on my Facebook page. As many of you already know, I took the plunge a few weeks ago and joined Facebook. My life since then has been a whirlwind of reconnection with people from my past. I have always been somewhat skeptical of Facebook, embracing the Luddite's sense that I was already too old for such newfangled things. But it has been genuinely fun to glimpse into lives that have been going on without me for ten or fifteen years.

Anyway, the Alden's ice cream package was posted on my Facebook page by my friend Jessica Ralston, who, long before her name was changed from White, was my eight grade earth sciences lab partner back at Indian Woods Middle School in Overland Park, Kansas.

Although I have been having fun catching up with friends long-forgotten and far-flung, the reason I joined facebook in the first place was to create a fan page for Idiots'Books. If you are a Facebook user, and if you want to be kept in the know about what we are up to, just do a search for Idiots'Books and become a fan.

Join the 58 people who have already made the plunge.

And here's a photo to compensate you for that uninterrupted flood of words.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:10 PM

November 25, 2008

Industrial Revolution

When Robbi and I made our first book A Bully Named Chuck in the spring of '93, we trimmed all four sides of every single page with an x-acto knife. The book is nearly 200 pages long. Making each copy was extremely time consuming.

For the past years, we have been using a Carl rotary trimmer, a nice desktop device capable of trimming 20 or so sheets of paper at once.

A clear improvement, but still a rather slow proposition when thinking about producing a long book, or a whole pile of long books. I estimate that we have produced approximately 10,000 copies of our various books over the past two years, all of which have been trimmed by the Carl. I do not have the strength to estimate how many hours of paper trimming that number represents.

Let's just say I was extremely happy to open my early Christmas present from Robbi the other day, my very own professional quality heavy duty guillotine cutter, capable of slicing through 250 sheets at once.

As shown:

For a test run, we put four old copies of National Geographic in the slicer.

It was like a hot knife through butter.

I was struck dumb at the ease and wonder. I was thrilled. I was bitterly resentful of the wasted hours of my life. But only for a second. Mostly I was pleased as punch thinking about the hours to be saved in the years ahead.

The new cutter is an epiphany. Thank you, Robbi. Anyone who wants to see a demo, just bring your old magazines by and we will cut them into tiny, tiny slices.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:47 PM

November 23, 2008

Partyka

One of the main reasons Robbi and I go to shows like MoCCA and SPX is to meet the other people who do what we do, or at least the people who do things in the same universe of what we do. There are a lot of people out there who feel compelled to create and produce books, and it turns out, we like some of them a lot. Case in point: Shawn Cheng, who draws things like this.

And Matt Weigle, who draws things like this:

They are two of the guys behind Partyka, a group of artists who create and promote narrative graphic art, though those are my words, not theirs.

They are talented, imaginative guys who make a lot of wonderful books.

I would particularly recommend Matt's Is It Bacon?, (which, at $1 might be the best money you have ever spent) and Shawn's The Would-Be Bridegrooms.

You should go check out partykausa.com because these guys are doing great work and are worth a close look. But if you need additional incentive, This month Idiots'Books is Partyka's featured artist. Click here to have a look at the home page.

And here to check out our guest page, with thumbnails, bios, featured books, etc.

Thank you, Shawn and Matt, for allowing us into your midst, if only for a month.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:54 PM

November 19, 2008

What I Do for Art

I was minding my own business this evening when Robbi came over to me and asked me for a favor.

"Sure," I said, unaware how soon I'd come to regret it.

"Great," she said, "So...lie down on the floor, kind of on your side, and...cross your legs in a ladylike way, and..."

At that point, I knew all hope was lost. I tried to be a good sport. It was not easy.

Robbi continued, "...put your right arm out in protest and drape your left hand across your brow in an overt show of dismay." Or something like that. It took a lot of subtle direction, but eventually I made it into this winning pose.

Why did I consent to such abuse, you ask?

I did it for the sake of art. Robbi is working feverishly on Volume 18, which will mail out some time in the next week or so. For reasons that will soon enough be revealed to you subscribers, she had to draw Goldilocks (of The Three Bears fame) in various poses of supplication. She was having a heck of a time trying to capture one of these poses and so required a model. For one shining moment on Wednesday, November 19, I got to be Goldilocks.

Isn't it every man's dream?

I'll post the finished image when the book is done so you can see how very inspirational I was.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:58 PM

November 03, 2008

Animal House

Though Robbi and I do intend to vote tomorrow, as the voice of Idiots'Books, it is not our intention to make an overt endorsement in tomorrow's presidential contest. Instead, I will present a rough approximation of our latest book, Animal House, and leave it to you to interpret as you see fit.

Here's the cover image:

The dedication reads: Because this country is going to the dogs

And here's the rest. There aren't any words.

To clear up a few points of potential confusion: George is a dodo, Hillary is a badger, and Sarah is a praying mantis. If, on the other hand, you are having trouble figuring out why a given person is represented by the animal Robbi has chosen, feel free to write us an email and we'll do our best to explain ourselves.

We hope this careful examination of the candidates and their supporting casts has cleared up any remaining questions you hordes of undecided voters may have been weighing over the past weeks and months. Feel free to email this link to anyone else you think might need our cryptic counsel on this very important day. If you know anyone who needs a copy of Animal House, it can be found here.

But whatever you do, please go vote. (Especially if you happen to be a dog lover.)

Posted by bogenamp at 11:00 PM

November 01, 2008

The Costume

More to come on tonight's reading and the other Halloween-themed activities, but it seems only fitting to post a picture of Alden in her costume before the night is done.

Last year we got two pumpkins and Robbi and I each carved one. This year, we settled on one big one and let Robbi do the honors.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:22 AM

October 31, 2008

Radio Free Chestertown

For those of you with absolutely nothing else to do at 12:30pm today, Robbi and I will be interviewed on Chestertown's own WCTR, 1530 AM on the subject of Animal House, Idiots'Books in general, and our reading at Bookplate this evening.

Here's the opening image of Volume 17.

Four more days and we'll know what the next chapter looks like.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:48 AM

October 27, 2008

Going to the Dogs

Volume 17 was sent out to the subscribership today, and at the risk of dampening the surprise of its arrival, I am happy to let you know that we will be doing a reading of the book (and several others) this coming Friday evening, Halloween, at Chestertown's Bookplate.

As you can see, there will also be a "discussion" and "snacks". Between now and Friday we will hopefully come up with something to discuss. As for the snacks, Tom always puts out a good spread.

We hope that you can join us. And for those of you who don't live in Chestertown, keep an eye on your mailbox.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:50 PM

August 03, 2008

Trying Again

About one week before Alden was born, Robbi and I began a new creative endeavor. Alternating days, one of us would send a prompt to the other (Robbi would send me an illustration or I would send her a piece of writing) to which the other would respond.

You can click here to go back to that innocent time.

Or if you hate to follow links, you can instead read the following. On March 19, I sent Robbi the following text:

Boneman Travis cut a stark profile among the pretty girls of Evars Street. He was thick as a tree and mean like two snakes. He ate daydreams and laughed. He coughed and favorite teacups flew from narrow shelves and shattered. He was a big man in a small space and that was how he liked it.

It was a crooked tango that they danced.

To which Robbi responded:

It was the first in five or so days of back-and-forth collaboration. It was fun and spontaneous, a welcome change of pace from the kind of careful thinking we do when we work on our books. We planned on doing it each and every day, if only a quick and dirty piece of writing or sketch on the back of a coaster, just to keep the creative cogs turning.

But then the baby came and we found ourselves obsessed with other kinds of creation. For a long time I wondered if we would ever get back to our game.

And so I was pleased this morning to discover the following image in my inbox:

To which I responded:

When the city got too deep and wide, he sometimes thought of the island. Just a few miles off the coast, almost hidden by the swells, its slopes were steep and its trees were full of fruit.

But he had never been there. No one had. The ferry waited empty at the docs, idling and anxious like the rest of us.

Four months after the fact, Robbi's drawing serves as an indicator that perhaps things are starting to get a bit closer to normal.

However we're describing it these days.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:17 PM

July 10, 2008

The Baby is Disappointing

We have been fishing hard of late, every tide, in fact, when the pattern so far has been to fish every other.
So life has been reduced to a cycle of fishing, sleeping, eating, fishing, eating, sleeping, fishing, eating. I love two out of three of these things, so I suppose it could be worse. But there has not been time for merry chronicling of our lives among the bears and rottweilers.

So I'll take a moment to do a bit of Idiots'Books promotion. For those of you who have not already received your copy in the mail, Volume 15 was sent out just before we left for Alaska. The book is titled The Baby is Disappointing. It focuses on how awful babies are. How they produce noise and consume money. How they impinge upon freedoms while offering no useful services in return. How utterly foolish it is to have a child when one could simply go to the movies instead.

See how awful and spiteful they are?

Here's a page from the book.

It's the perfect gift for someone who has recently had a baby. Or better yet, for someone who is thinking of having one and who might still be persuaded not to.

Posted by bogenamp at 02:58 PM

May 14, 2008

USA Today, Canada tomorrow?

Well, something has finally happened in our lives that has nothing do with our child. And just in time. She is on the brink of becoming remarkably conceited.

Still beaming from our recent mention in Pop Candy, the USA Today blog of hipster Whitney Matheson, our feelings of fulfillment were even more pronounced upon receiving a copy of Canadian hipster/literary magazine Broken Pencil in the mail yesterday.

Here is the cover.

Note that the ultra-hip semi-Asian chick on the cover is not Robbi.

And here is the article on page 9 (click on the thumbnail to get a larger, almost readable version).

"Product of the Month?!" Who knew? Idiots'Books has been noticed in the great land of our northern neighbors.

For those of you who only read this blog to see pictures of babies, here is Alden aloft.

What might seem like good old fashioned fun and games is actually a very useful way to rid her tiny abdomen of gas, thus improving her mood and creating delightful baby-sized burping sounds.

As for you fine people at Broken Pencil (especially Norah), thanks for the notice.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:24 PM

April 02, 2008

Hip and Hidden

I'm going to disappoint most of you right now by talking about something other than Alden. Yesterday we received a new subscription order from a woman in San Francisco, someone whose name was not familiar to us. I wrote her an email asking how she found out about us. She replied that she had read about us on Whitney Matheson's blog Pop Candy, a USA Today publication dedicated to "unwrapping pop culture's hip and hidden treasures." Whitney had been running a monthly series on comics in weekly installments. The fourth installment was a list of her top 25 "personal favorites" and friends, we appear as number nine. This fact leads us to a number of conclusions:

1) we are hip (did you suspect this?)
2) we are hidden (no surprise here)
3) Idiots'Books is part of pop culture
4) if Whitney Matheson has her way, we are in the process of being unwrapped

We were delighted to be included along with the likes of Lilli Carre and Renee French, real live figures in the indie comics world.

If this external affirmation compels you to subscribe to Idiots'Books or just buy a book or two for your loved ones, who are we to stop you?

And here's a baby picture, just for the hell of it.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:00 PM

February 25, 2008

Better than Nothing

Perhaps you are thinking that it is odd that I, who can ramble on and on about nothing much at all has been so silent in the wake of perhaps the most thrilling festival to hit Chestertown in decades. Believe me when I say that I want to write about the weekend and the fun we all had, but that I simply haven't had the time.

We are heavy into production of Volume 13, a book about nuns. We thought it would be nice to make the book in a rather complicated way and now are paying the price for our ambition. In 52 hours or so we will pull out of town in the predawn hours of Wednesday morning, en route to Philadelphia for the flower show.

For tonight, I will leave you with two things. This link to Robbi's blog sheds some light onto the first night of Idiots'Fest.

And this image of the ribs in mid-smoke give you a true glimpse into the steaming heart of what you missed if you made the grave error of choosing not to join us for the Fest.

I will post the rest of the story in days ahead, as well as pictures of a strange new baby-related device we were given the other day. Robbi grows ever more profound. 37 days to go...

Posted by bogenamp at 01:25 AM

February 14, 2008

Hot Off the Presses

The Chestertown paparazzi has discovered our little fest. I will let the following speak for itself.

Click on the images to get a closer view.

Note: contrary to appearances, there will be no boy scouts at Idiots'Fest.

Ming Weigel, you fool. Some things are worth getting fired over.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:48 AM

February 13, 2008

Ready to Rock

There has been far too much talk of babies on this blog of late. I'm sorry about that. The thing has yet to arrive and already it's dictating the conversation. Fortunately for all of us, a monumental event looms on the near horizon, an event of such intrigue and significance that even if the baby were here, we would leave it unattended in its baby contraption while we headed off to Idiots'Fest in all its glory.

What's that, you say? Idiots'Fest?

Yes, my friends, the festival is upon us. If you still need convincing, you just haven't taken a close enough look at who is performing and what they are going to be doing:

In case you are the sort that is swayed by pictures of grown men playing rock band in someone's basement, here's a little behind the scenes look into a festival rehearsal that went down in Williamstown in January.

Here is Rich Flynn, in his glory.

And Brian Wecht, master of the improbable.

Yes, he can play both instruments at once. He can and he will.

Here is Brian Slattery, uncertain what to do with my harmonica mic.

Rest assured, his uncertainty was short-lived.

Here is Aidan who, at 16, has at least 40 years of hard-driving drummer's angst stored up in his hard-driving drummer's heart.

Aidan is the core of the rock. Just you wait and see.

Of course, the other festival performers, Jim, Victor, Drew, Robbi, and me, aren't even pictured here. Your heart is racing with just this tiny taste of what marvels await. I'm pointing this out to save you the soul-numbing disappointment that you will surely feel if, come Sunday morning, you wake to find the Rock has passed you by.

I'm talking to you, Ming Weigel. If you are a no-show at Idiots'Fest, I will have to go on believing that you do not actually exist.

I'm talking to all of you who are not Ming Weigel, too.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:57 AM

January 26, 2008

Collaboration

When Robbi and I first proposed to teach our Winter Study class at Williams, we were mostly curious to know if others would be interested in trying their hands at producing the kind of books that we have been working on. We were pleased that enough students were interested to meet the minimum enrollment numbers. But we arrived on campus in early January with decidedly low expectations. A number of factors were working against us.

First off, Winter Study is really only three weeks long. Not enough time, we worried, to generate collaborative creative content with a partner one had never worked with before. Surely not enough time to piece together an attractive, interesting, coherent narrative.

Also, the general idea of winter study is to provide a low-key, low-stress outlet for students between two intense academic semesters. Many of the courses are neither rigorous nor time-consuming. To work according to plan, ours would have to be both.

Finally, collaboration between writers and artists is a pretty novel concept. Typically, especially in college, writers workshop with other writers and artists critique with other artists. We had no idea how quickly our students would be able to adjust to the mixed media aspect of the course.

We had 12 students, evenly divided between guys and gals. We had a fairly even mix of class years. We had six writers and six artists.

Given the short time frame, we had sent our students homework to complete over the break. We emailed them three paragraphs and three images. The writers were instructed to "respond" to the images and the artists to the paragraphs. On the first day of class we looked at the responses together as a group. It was interesting to see how stunningly various were the responses to the same prompts. Our hope was that it would give our students, and us, a good sense of aesthetics and interest to the end of helping us come up with compelling collaborative pairs. We gave our students the opportunity to write us an email that night letting us know who they might like to partner with, not along the lines of who they liked personally, but along the lines of creative compatibility. We took this info, added our own judgment, and assigned pairs. The next day we spent most of the class period looking through an anthology that was the course text, looking at and discussing the work of established indie comics makers. At the end of the class, we announced the partner pairings and sent them off to spend the weekend starting the conversation about a collaborative project.

The rest of the course was essentially a workshop to discuss and develop their works. We met three times a week for two hours as a group, and each pair met independently with Robbi and me for an hour long tutorial session.

Our biggest worry was that the groups would have difficulty getting off the ground with the initial idea from which to depart. Not a single group struggled in this respect. Their ideas were interesting and surprising. The creative direction seemed drawn from a place of genuine collaboration, not from one person's aesthetic or agenda overriding the other.

I'll cut to the quick:

Our students were amazing. They worked their butts off. They took risks. They articulated their ideas with passion and eloquence.

We were so pleased that we took them bowling. Writers versus artists. In a match to the death.

Here is Robbi's crew.

And here are some of mine.

It was a well-contested match, but I am happy to report that the writers prevailed by a slim margin. Our victory can be attributed to a general lack of will among the artists. I cite this example: at one point one of our more audacious writers, name of K-Town, stole the 8-pound pink ball that many of the artists had been using. The act was overt and witnessed by various members of the artist camp, but beyond minor protest, the theft went uncontested, the result of crumpled spirits. From that point, my people cruised to easy victory. We aren't above a little necessary sabotage.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the purchase and consumption of the "cod roll", a curious item from the snack bar that fascinated one member of my team.

The month continued and the work continued to exceed our wildest dreams. We had hoped for not much more than good thinking on the topic of cross-media collaboration. But complete narratives were emerging, complete with strong, thoughtful syntheses of writing and images.

The six projects were, in a nutshell:

1) a mock-academic piece on Emily Dickinson that gradually but unflinchingly pilloried the life and work of the misunderstood Belle
2) the tragicomic tale of the dawning of consciousness of Moshe the "just add water" Tyrannosaurus Rex, complete with questions of ontology and the premature onset of epistemological gloom
3) a process piece on the inner narrative of a superhero/assassin, who, in the end, is revealed to be just like you and me, an honest average Joe who goes to bed in his suburban house each night
4) the quiet, yet powerful story of a disabled woman trapped in her upstairs apartment, taking the voyeur's long look at the world passing by outside her window
5) the story of two college lovers poignantly reunited on the occasion of a wedding told in an alternating narrative of photograph and prose
6) a quirky, knowing voicing of male insecurity that unfolds across a 96-inch accordion-fold dreamscape of self-aggrandizement and surreal fantasy

Further, our students seemed motivated to actually produce finished books, formatted in InDesign, the professional page layout program we use for our books. Robbi did a two-hour seminar on the software and expected that the students would be overmatched by the new technology. Instead, each group created sophisticated layouts, which would enable them to print and assemble multiple finished copies of their book.

We set up a bookmaking lab in our classroom and spent a full day printing, trimming, folding, scoring, gluing, and stapling.

They were tireless and amazing.

In spite of the usual fare of errors and delays on the part of the printer.

It was incredibly gratifying to see the care they took in assembling their finished books.

And the pride they obviously felt in beholding them.

On the last day of class, this past Wednesday, we had an open house for the public. I would have been happy with a dozen or so visitors. Instead, over the course of two hours, 50-60 people came through to see the finished books, students and professors alike.

Perhaps it was the spread of delicious cheeses that drew the crowds, but our students' work spoke for itself. They were absolute stars.

Inspired by the spirit of collaboration, one of our artists penned the following illustration, which I may have made into a poster for the benefit of generations of collaborators to come. It speaks volumes, I think.

I am reluctant to ever teach another course for fear that no other group of students could match up to the ones we had this month. For those of you who care about the place, it seems that Williams is in very good hands.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:05 AM

January 06, 2008

Idiots'Fest Web site

Friends, it is time to make your travel plans. Idiots'Fest 2008: Subscribers that Rock is a mere six weeks away.

Robbi has built a rather nice festival Web site. Check it out by clicking here.

It can also be seen here.

Or here.

If you must, you can see it by clicking here, but if you click here, consider yourself unwelcome at the festival. We try to be reasonable, accommodating people but we do have our limits.

Know this: Idiots'Fest is going to be a pretty wonderful thing, if only because of the extraordinary cast of characters who will be strutting their stuff for your enjoyment.

It may not seem convenient to travel to Chestertown in the middle of February, but if I were a betting man, I'd wager that you would not regret it.

Unless you dislike things that rock. If this is the case, you might be better served by clicking here.

Posted by bogenamp at 02:47 PM

November 28, 2007

Idiots'Fest 2008: Subscribers that Rock

On our recent drive to Georgia to see my brother graduate from boot camp, Robbi and I started planning a small dinner party for a group of friends in Chestertown. Three hours later we had laid the groundwork for a full-blown gathering of writers, musicians, and friends. The idea was that the performers would all be drawn from the Idiots'Books subscribership and that the entire subscribership would be invited to spectate. We have been planning and scheming for a few weeks now, and the general outline of the weekend is set. It is our great pleasure to announce that the first annual Idiots'Books literature and music festival, Idiots'Fest 2008: Subscribers that Rock, is in the offing.

Although the majority of the festival will take place on Saturday, February 16, we're going to kick things off the night before at the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College here in Chestertown.

Robbi and I are going to do a reading/slideshow from a couple of our books while two musician friends, Brian Slattery and Drew Bunting, provide underscoring in the vein of old school filmstrips. We intend not to practice but to try it and just see what happens.

Afterward, Brian and Drew will perform an acoustic set, the two playing some combination of guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin, and both of them singing. It is possible that I might join them on harmonica for a song or two. There will likely be folk, blues, bluegrass, old-time, and possibly some speed-metal to be heard.

For those that do not know, here are Brian and Drew.

Brian Francis Slattery

Brian is an incredibly versatile (and badass) musician who specializes in clawhammer banjo and old-time fiddle and who can credibly navigate the guitar, mandolin, and a few other instruments, from what I understand. Here is an awesome depressing song that Brian recorded with a group of friends. Brian is the one singing and playing the banjo. If you aren't tempted to do yourself in after hearing the song, you probably weren't listening closely enough.

Michael Andrew Bunting

Perhaps no one more seamlessly integrates punk rock and the life of the cloth than our friend Drew Bunting, musician and Episcopal priest. I wish I had a link to some of Drew's songs so that I wouldn't just have to tell you what a gifted songwriter, musician, and singer he is. From being the most beloved musician in our college class, to fronting bands that range from old-time to punk to gospel, Drew has rocked the music scene in every town in which he has lived. He has released two albums (Treat Your Buggy Well and I Want to Believe) and is currently working on a third. It is Drew's general preference only to be pictured standing behind rowdy children.

Drew, Brian, another friend Ilya Garger, and I formed the core of an old time band called The Motherpluckers during our Williams years. We used to perform in party dresses, big hats, and shit-kicking boots. Do I need to say more?

Hearing Drew and Brian play together is a rare opportunity. I know you won't miss it.

On Saturday, things will move to Bookplate, a used bookstore on Cross Street in Chestertown run by our friends Tom Martin and Sarah Myers. We have done several readings there over the past year and all of the Idiots'Books are for sale there. And they have a huge empty back room that we are going to fill up with you all on Saturday, February 16.

My friend and stand-up comedian Victor Wishna will kick things off mid-afternoon. I have it on good authority that Victor is "the third-funniest Jewish comedian in New York."

Victor gave the main toast at Robbi's and my wedding, and he used the opportunity to expose my many weaknesses, character flaws, and embarrassing moments. Those attending Subscribers that Rock can reasonably assume that I will be publicly depantsed again. If you think you might enjoy this sort of thing, by all means add it to the list of reasons to attend the festival.

(It is worth noting that I have never in my entire life seen Victor look as serious as he does in the photo above. He is, in fact, a friendly, gentle guy.)

ADDENDUM: This just in from Victor, anxious to shed his "stern guy" image. Here he is in the midst of telling a hilarious joke. If you could see the audience, you would note how rapt and delighted they were at this moment.

After Victor does his thing, Robbi and I will do another Idiots'Books slide show/reading, premiering at least one new book in the process. Provided the experiment from the evening before has not gone horribly wrong, Brian and Drew will add music.

Next up will be Brian Slattery once again, this time in the guise of writer. This past August, Brian released his first novel, Spaceman Blues: A Love Song. Click here to read a bit about the book and peruse some of the incredibly positive reviews.

Here's the catch: Rather than merely "read" from his book, Brian will be singing from it while being accompanied by a slate of musician friends (all subscribers, I assure you).

They are:

Brian Wecht on sax and keyboards. Brian is a college classmate. We have recently decided to become best friends.

Rich Flynn on bass. Rich is awesome. He is so awesome.

Aidan Shepard on drums. I knew Aidan when I lived in Williamstown and he was not yet the accomplished percussionist he has become. He is a mysterious fellow, powerful, terrifying.

This photo really says it all.

Drew Bunting will join the fun on guitar and/or mandolin. Here's another look at Drew, sans child. See how unhappy he looks?

And, potentially, I could play harmonica. We'll see.

In case you're worried, Brian has done this sort of thing before, and that time, at least, it worked pretty well. Click here to listen to some cuts from his reading at Barbes up in Brooklyn a few months ago. It's really something to behold.

After a short break, the aforementioned Brian Wecht, a fellow who has been studying mathematics and physics basically nonstop since the day he was born, will give a short, riveting lecture on an esoteric topic that will probably make your brain ache. From what I hear, he will be accompanied by musicians. I can provide no further details at this time.

After Brian W's lecture, our featured guest, novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and film critic Jim Shepard, will be doing a reading.

Jim has been my literary mentor since college, and is one of the greatest teachers I've ever had. He is a finalist for this year's National Book Award for fiction for his story collection Like You'd Understand, Anyway, and we are deeply honored that he has agreed to join us.

You may read the New York Times review of Like You'd Understand, Anyway -- by none other than Lemony Snicket -- here.

You may peruse and purchase Jim's six novels and three story collections here.

You can read a nice interview on the topic of Jim's latest novel, Project X, here.

After Jim's reading, Brian Slattery, Jim, and Victor Wishna (who has released a book of interviews with the greatest American playwrights) will be on hand to sign their books and make pleasant small talk while we set up dinner. Although the plan is still a bit hazy, we plan to serve barbeque and appropriate side dishes in vast quantities. The food will be available for a small donation.

Around 7:00, or whenever we get done eating, Drew will gather the musicians for a full-blown concert. In addition to playing a hearty stable of original tunes, Drew is likely to dabble in far-flung and unexpected corners of the musical universe.

There are likely to be contests and prizes. It is even possible that Drew and the others will perform Free Bird. I cannot say.

Eventually, we will all go home, but there's no predicting when this will be. All that can be said for certain at this point is that this is going to rock. And that you are all invited.

We're hoping that you are taking out your pen right now and circling February 15 and 16th on your calendar.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:46 PM

November 05, 2007

Chesapeake Life, take two

Loyal readers will remember that we were mentioned in the February 2007 of Chesapeake Life magazine. An exciting proposition, to be sure, the only downside of which was the editor's fundamental misunderstanding of our core. Indeed, we were described as "children's books", which caused us to worry about the delicate young minds that might inadvertently read our books and be forever scarred.

We were much happier with our mention in the November issue of Chesapeake Life, the focus this time being on the release of St. Michaels, the Town that Somehow Fooled the British.

Here's a closer view, for anyone who might want to read it.

And here's a link for anyone who might want to buy it.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:28 PM

November 02, 2007

One Night Only

Tonight (and only tonight) at 6:00pm at Chestertown's Bookplate, Robbi and I will be reading from Idiots'Books Volume 11, George Washington Slept Here. The occasion is the first friday of the month of November. There will be cheese and wine and crackers. There will be pre-holiday cheer. We will be, as is our custom, projecting the images while reading the text. If the crowd demands it, we will also read St. Michaels, the Town that Somehow Fooled the British as it shares Volume 11's Eastern Shore theme. If the crowd demands it, we will do a second reading at 7:00. And another and another until the crowd grows weary and stumbles home.

Here is the ad from this week's copy of the Kent County News.

Note that George Washington and his pals do have boots. Alas, the boots are black and, on the newsprint, blended into the black background, the gentle white lines that defined them "plugged" by ink spreading freely in the loose fibers of the newsprint.

Which is all the more reason to come to the reading where the boots will be seen against a white background.

We hope to see you there but acknowledge that it would have been prudent to give you a bit more notice.

I blame Robbi.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:35 PM

October 23, 2007

Calling Suburban Maryland

With the recent mailing of Volume 10, The Clearing, to the Idiots'Books subscribership, year one of Idiots'Books officially came to an end. This meant that the 100 or so people that signed up in October 2006 for full-year subscriptions had reached the end of their allotted bookage. As all subscription services do, we sent out a series of reminders, gentle at first, then slightly more urgent, then downright manipulative. Our final ploy was to design a postcard featuring a variety of lame excuses for not having done something accompanied by a phrase meant to cast he who had failed to resubscribe in an unflattering light.

The postcard was accompanied by a pre-addressed, stamped envelope, thus compelling the reluctant resubscriber to spend $80 so as not to waste $.41. However counterintuitive, the strategy has been moderately successful. Until yesterday, when an envelope arrived with the postmark "Suburban Maryland."

Let's reflect on that for a minute. Suburban Maryland? Not a very helpful geographical distinction. There are, for example, several cities in Maryland, all of which have outlying suburban areas.

The contents of the envelope were even more cryptic: our resubscription card had been filled out with the following phrase, an obvious allusion to Idiots'Books Volume VI.

The mystery was completed by what was missing from the envelope: namely, a check. The question now is whether this unidentified denizen of "Suburban Maryland" intended to confound us or merely forgot to include the check (and the accompanying identifying information) in the envelope.

Only time will tell, I suppose. But if you are he who intended to resubscribe, know this: you will receive no further books until you identify yourself and submit payment in full.

And you're not getting another free stamp.

Posted by bogenamp at 05:44 PM

October 16, 2007

George Washington's Bare Butt

The following ad appeared in this week's copy of the Kent County News.

Yes, friends, we have now stooped to making light of the father of our nation. For those of you willing to join us in this irreverant pastiche, Idiots'Books is offering a 2008 calendar which features no fewer (and no more) than 13 full-color paintings of our first president in a variety of compromising positions.

Subscribers will be sent a copy in due course, but those non-subscribers who want to purchase one for their kitchens, bathrooms, or local houses of history, will be given a chance to do so online soon. The calendars will also be available at Chestertown's own Bookplate later this week.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:06 PM

October 14, 2007

SPX 2007

As was the plan, we set off for DC Friday morning, taking a wild swing through the heart of the city to deliver some art and finding ourselves eventually in Bethesda, where the Small Press Expo has been happening for many years now. We arrived and checked in. We found our table. We started to set up.

SPX was being held, as these things often are, in a hotel ballroom.

Our table covering had grown rather linty. And hairy. Damn cats.

It didn't take too long to set up.

The thing started at 2:00. While waiting for the crowds, we had some lunch.

Eventually, people came to look at our books.

Even Pete came. Pete Everett. Perhaps the nicest guy I know.

The first day of the show was satisfying, but not extraordinary. We sold some books, met some folks, saw some other work we admire. In fact, as soon as I have the time to do some sorting and scanning, I'll do an entry featuring some of our favorite stuff from the show.

After the show ended, we drove back into the city to the house of a friend, Stella, who had prepared some truly excellent crispy toast/tomato/mozzarella/prosciutto/balsamic/olive oil thing.

Living without a kitchen as we do, we sometimes forget that such things can be prepared, and often are, by people not that much different than ourselves. So struck were we with the aesthetics of the treat that for a while we sat, content just to look, unable to actually eat. And then we got over it and ate with enthusiasm. It had been a long day.

After dinner we played with Stella's very small dogs.

Ethel

And Frank

Combined, the two of them probably weigh the same as one of Iggy's legs, and yet they terrorized her relentlessly. Iggy is a huge wuss. Takes after me.

In the morning, we stopped by a neighborhood farmer's market.

The tomatoes were nice and red. The apples were nice and firm.

Back at SPX, we decided to try a new strategy for day 2. A lot of comics have really colorful, graphical, vivid, exciting-looking covers and are entirely black and white inside. Our covers, on the other hand, are rather spare, employ lots of white space, and are generally less visually arresting than the insides of our books. At a place like SPX, getting people to stop and open the books is the biggest challenge. And so we displayed a number of our books open on the table, that Robbi's illustrations might have a chance to catch some eyes.

The strategy worked. We got a lot more traffic the second day, and a lot more sales. Like this one (actual sale, not simulated).

And look at this happy couple, dreaming of the ways in which their lives will improve as a result of having been introduced to Idiots'Books. It warms the heart.

I had to take a picture of this gentleman, who apparently wears only purple suits.

He wore a different purple suit on Friday. I wish that I had thought to take a picture.

Sales were so lively that we actually sold out of a few titles. Facial Features of French Explorers was the first to go, followed by Understanding Traffic. Ten Thousand Stories was the top seller, however. By the end of the show, people were coming by the table telling us that they had been directed from earlier browsers to check our stuff out. It made us feel good.

Back at Stella's, we took the dogs for a walk.

I decided to do some experiments with the wide-angled lens.

The results were satisfying.

We went to downtown Bethesda for some dinner. On the way back, we came upon this upsetting sticker on the back of a sign.

For those of you who cannot read, the sign says, "I hate Duke." This statement is directed not toward European royalty, but toward my beloved Duke University Blue Devils, and if I may conjecture, most pointedly toward their very fine men's basketball program. As a Duke fan, I found the sticker hurtful. I looked to my companions for support. What I found was Stella, leaping with delight.

Stella is a fan of the Maryland Terrapins. Maryland fans tend not to think much of Duke or Duke fans for that matter. It is amazing that Stella and I are on speaking terms. Or should I say, were on speaking terms. After her latest display, I might have to reconsider.

We headed back over the bridge this morning and stopped on the way back at the outlet malls not far from the 50/301 split. Robbi has begun to feel somewhat confined by her clothing, and the time had come to consider some wardrobe enhancements.

After being turned away by Old Navy, we found our way to Gap, where there was a small, yet serviceable maternity section. At this point we were too caught up in a whirlwind of choosing, trying on, and evaluating to take any photos, a thing that I very much regret. For those of you who have not seen maternity pants, they are demoralizing garments. Though remarkably useful.

As was the case when we returned from the Museum of Comic and Cartoon festival last June, we have an enormous box of books and comics that we acquired at the show to go through. There are a lot of people doing really wonderful things out there. I'll share some of my favorites in days ahead.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:46 PM

October 11, 2007

Idiots at SPX

I suppose I could have given you all more notice, but in case it is of interest to any of you, Robbi and I will be in Bethesda, MD, at the Small Press Expo tomorrow and Saturday. SPX describes itself as "America's premiere independent cartooning and comic arts festival." We will be standing behind a six-foot table peddling our wares along with hundreds of other people who make books and self-publish or have their work produced by small presses.

The majority of the other folks will be selling books that fall more neatly under the "comics" umbrella. As has been discussed here before, we are outliers to this genre. In fact, the organizer of SPX wrote me a cautionary email indicating that, even though our books were "rather nifty looking", we weren't exactly comics, and so might be disappointed by the lack of interest displayed by comic purists.

We are prepared for potential ostracization.

But it would be swell to see some of our ardent fans (and friends) there, strolling the aisles, lunging toward our table with lusty consumer desire, yelling loudly and with enthusiasm about how much they like our books and how, had they ten thousand dollars hard cash, they would spend every penny on Idiots'Books, again and again until we ran out of ink.

Any takers?

Anyway, the SPX is at:

Marriott Bethesda North Hotel & Conference Center
5701 Marinelli Road.
North Bethesda, MD 20852
301-822-9200

The hours are:

2pm-8pm on Friday, October 12 and
10am07pm on Saturday, October 13

The price is $8 for the day or $15 for the weekend.

We hope to see you there.

Posted by bogenamp at 03:53 PM

September 25, 2007

Words Without Pictures

I've wanted to post these last few days but have felt disadvantaged by the lack of photographic ballast. As much as I value words, I know that people really don't much care to read them. At least not without some goofy pictures of my dog to look at when the prose gets tiresome. The new camera has been ordered but has not yet arrived, and I have been hesitant to venture forth alone. I have grown accustomed to collaborating with Robbi. Naked words seem much less appropriate now than they did were before.

I have just consulted the FedEx tracking information and am gratified and relieved to find that our new camera will arrive tomorrow. I am a bit wary of the camera because it represents a departure from the run-of-the-mill point-and-click that has served us so well for years. This camera has two lenses: one a regular sort of lens and the other a wide-angle lens. Robbi has coveted this camera for some time now, ever since she saw one owned by our former colleague. The crushing weight of her envy nearly ruined the friendship.

Here is the camera in question.

I am unnerved by its odd shape and extra lens. I am not predisposed to embrace change and am fundamentally skeptical. If the camera is not to our liking, I'll grumble a lot and give Robbi a really hard time. If it turns out to be a great camera, I'll probably take all the credit and hog the camera so that she never gets a chance to use it.

In other news, Volume 10 is finished and printing. For better or for worse, I spun a story around the series of odd, disjointed illustrations Robbi sent my way. I'm far too close to the story right now to cast a reliable vote as to whether it's any good, but I do think that it's lovely to look at. And sometimes that's enough for a book.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:24 PM

September 21, 2007

Some Good Ink

The last few days have had their share of ups and downs. On the last day in Chicago, our camera (which has admittedly endured such insults as being placed on top of a car that we then proceeded to drive away) made a horrible noise and died dramatically. Though I suspected that the camera was not well when I heard the noise, I hoped for the best and slipped it back into my pocket. It was not until hours later, when my traveling companion Matt noticed the warm late afternoon sunlight on the red paint of the turbine under our engine's wing, that I dared to test the camera's will. I pushed the power button. There was a defeated grinding of tiny, tired gears, and although the camera agreed to turn itself on, the thing refused to focus. It was with some nostalgia that I took this final picture, already too late to catch the fleeting light.

The camera has served us well. I am tempted to recite a poem on this, the occasion of its last hurrah, but I know none fitting to commemorate the loyal workhorse it has been. Rather, I shall let it slip into graceful obsolescence in the back of some drawer of neglected miscellany. I cannot bring myself to actually dispose of it. But neither do I have an urn appropriate to hold its compromised remains.

All of this is to apologize in advance for my failure to document the dramas of the past few days. I spent most of the week in Baltimore, but found, attempting to drive home to Chestertown late Wednesday night, that when the battery light comes to life on one's dashboard panel, engine death is soon to follow. But the battery light was just the beginning of the excitement. Between that moment and the utter failure of all vehicular systems that followed a few minutes later, the brake light, the "check engine" light, and the airbag light also lit up. And so I took out my cell phone to call AAA. Since we seem genetically predisposed to car failure, we have the really special level of AAA coverage and may be towed up to 100 miles without being charged. I called AAA and was informed that I would be picked up within 63 minutes, and I cannot help but wonder what byzantine algorithm was responsible for the estimate.

While I waited, my good friend Christian came to keep me company. And to bring the two suitcases and five pillows I had left on the third floor of his home. Did I mention that neither of the suitcases had yet been packed. He is a good friend.

Eventually the tow truck came. If not for the death of the camera, I would include dramatic photos of the Sentra being loaded on to the back of the truck, which was, I later learned from the driver, less than one week old. The man was proud of his truck. And with good reason. It was a beautiful rig, and in it we traveled across the Bay Bridge as midnight passed.

If I had my camera, I would also have taken photographs of tonight's excitement, the official book launch reading for St. Michaels, the Town that Somehow Fooled the British at Artiste Locale of St. Michaels. There was fanfare and excitement. Many copies of the book were purchased. Robbi and I engaged in banter. You would have loved it.

Here is the postcard we sent out to advertise the arrival of the book.

Some of you may already have received it. Others may not have on account of our having run out of mailing labels. Sorry about that. We have ordered more.

The day's most exciting news was the very flattering review we received from the Star Democrat, the main paper for the Eastern Shore. The woman who wrote the review really understood what we're up to, and did a great job, so we think, of pointing out what is funny and interesting about the book.

You can read the review here if you are interested.

And now I must go play Scrabble with Robbi. For a long time we played "make interesting words" Scrabble, because trying to be strategic by placing one's words on the various bonus squares seemed too onerous and time-consuming. But we just got a computer Scrabble game that makes the whole thing go faster, so for now at least, we are back to cutthroat score-based Scrabble.

There will be no photos of the Scrabble.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:52 PM

September 05, 2007

In a Funk

My trip to New York City came and went without incident. I was unharmed by the city, and really not even very seriously harassed. For whatever reason, the traffic flowed, the train was on time, my meeting ended on time (early even). Shocking, yes, but I don't want to be the naysayer that won't then admit it when something goes better than expected. So I grumble today not about New York but about the daunting task of writing Volume 10.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Robbi and I have decided to invert the normal course of things this time around. Usually I write and then she illustrates. As was the plan for Volume 10, she has produced a body of illustrations that it is now my task to transform into a viable story. The drawings are vintage Robbi: visceral, messy, caustic, intriguing. They are wonderful and interesting, and yet I cannot say what I will do with them. I had thought a story would leap into my mind the moment I saw the illustrations the way that words flood the page when I sit down to write with an empty screen. But I must admit to being a little beside myself. I want to do her illustrations justice, but my ideas so far are dull, predictable, and at best, merely "cute."

And so I will stew, as Robbi often does upon receipt of one of my manuscripts. I will let the characters churn a bit, see what significance rises from her cryptic configurations. I will see what story I can tell that refers to what she's drawn without quoting it exactly. Our best work lies in the place where words and pictures conspire to create something implied in the space between. At least that's what we tell ourselves. All of this is to say that I'm suddenly empathetic with Robbi and the terrible moods she carries about sometimes between our meeting to discuss a new book and the Eureka moment when she sits down with the pen to realize the hard-won idea.

I am trying hard to resist the funk. But it really isn't working.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:26 PM

August 31, 2007

New Ways to Waste Your Money!

It's been a while since I posted anything Idiots'Books related.

To catch you up: we finished and sent out Volume 9, The Contented between returning home from Alaska and leaving for England. We have been pleased by the volume of positive responses to The Contented, Robbi especially. As those of you who have read The Contented know well, it contains only six words. And while they are very powerful words, thoughtfully conceived, and eloquently crafted, Robbi feels quite smug about the success of a book of mostly pictures. We have received several really excellent essays in response to the Volume 9 essay competition. These will, of course, be published when we send out Volume 10 sometime in September.

Volume 10 is an experiment of sorts. Our usual approach is to start with a text of mine, discuss it in depth, figure out what we want to do with it, and then return to opposite sides of the barn: Robbi to illustrate and I to revise. For Volume 10, we thought it might be interesting to let Robbi take the first stab. She is in the process of creating a series of illustrations from which I will construct a story. Though she has not yet finished her drawings, there are a number of very interesting characters emerging, and a world is being defined. I have no idea if I'll be able to wrap a satisfying narrative around her visual skeleton, but I am looking forward to giving it a try.

But onward to money wasting, the subject of this entry. Robbi has spent the entire day updating the Idiots'Books Web site. Perhaps it will not look much different when you click here and have a look, but that's because you have no idea just how taxing and horrible it is to try to do anything with a Web site. I'd post a picture of Robbi's current state of rage and high dander, but it would haunt your dreams for weeks to come. Needless to say, she was successful, but at quite a price. I now must speak to her in calming tones and give her sedatives if she is to have any hope of getting to sleep tonight.

Come to think of it, those things are not going to work. Not this time. It might be time for the stake, garlic, and silver bullet,

In spite of the trauma suffered by Robbi, I do suggest that you have a look at the site, if only to see how the eyeballs of the terrified British captain dance back and forth when you touch him with your mouse.

The real point of all this is, of course, that our very first hardcover, professionally printed book is now available for purchase by you. Yes you. St. Michaels: the Town that (Somehow) Fooled the British is here.

If you happen to be on our mailing list, you will receive a glossy oversized postcard drawing your attention to the availability of St. Michaels, but bleeding-edge blog reader that you are, you have the power to order it right now. Without even stopping to consider whether your money might be better spent on bread or antibiotics.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:03 PM

July 31, 2007

Kind of Like Robo Cop

I have this nagging injury in my left ankle, a sharp kind of pain that flares up from time to time and eventually goes away. In the course of our fishing this summer the pain returned, and likely due to the hours upon hours I spent uncomfortably kneeling in the small rubber raft while sitting on my feet, the pain became pronounced and has yet to recede. According to my mother's husband Dean, who is an ER doc, this particular brand of tendonitis can be difficult to shake on account of its being used in every step we take. More drastic measures might be needed, he suggested. What kind of drastic measures, I asked?

Behold the medial boot.

Please, please resist the urge to envy me. I know how incredibly cool and fun the medical boot looks, but in fact, it makes getting around a bit difficult. Especially up and down the stairs. The medical boot encases one's foot in a comfortable bed of foam rubber with lots of velcro helping to keep things snug. Around the foam is a hard plastic shell that prevents the ankle from moving and protects it from people who, in sheer envy, kick peevishly at your foot. But perhaps the most ingenious feature of the medical boot is not evident with a casual glance.

The medical boot, like those expensive sneakers I was never cool enough to wear, has air pockets that fill, with the help of a small pump, and hold one's ankle snugly, as if the medical boot was giving your sore ankle a hug and saying, "Get better, man. Get better soon."

It's a compassionate little thing, the medical boot.

Perhaps the most envious was Iggy, who can scarcely leave the medical boot alone, so compelling does she find it.

And so today, as we printed many copies of Volume 9, I was encumbered by the medical boot. It is my cross to bear.

How long will I need to wear the medical boot? None can say. I'm supposed to be icing the ankle as well, but one of the things we lack in the barn is ice cubes on account of there being no ice cube trays. Something we could remedy, to be sure.

I will keep the medical boot at least through this weekend when we board the plane to England. Is having a medical boot the kind of thing that qualifies one to get on the plane early with the first class people and the children flying alone? We shall see. No pain, no unfair advantage.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:08 AM

July 29, 2007

Connecticut is Burning

I have returned from my whirlwind trip to Massachusetts. Intact.

Robbi did not join me on the trip, mostly due to the fact that she had a lot of painting to do for Volume 9. She looked like this when I left her at noon on Thursday.

And the house looked like this.

The state of the household could not be described as "thriving" at present.

The drive up was an ordeal, though it started out with such promise. I had no problem with the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the New Jersey Turnpike or the Cross Bronx Expressway through New York City.

The problem, my friends, was Connecticut, perhaps, after Texas and Florida, the most loathsome state in the union. I drove the first 15 miles of i-95 into Connecticut in exactly 93 minutes. I was completely demoralized, shuttling back and forth between despair and rage.

Iggy did her best to look cheerful, trying anything to pull me from my brooding funk.

To no avail. There is nothing that enervates me quite like traffic. All seemed to be lost. I was almost certain to be very late in picking up my sister at the Hartford airport. I had just resigned myself to long misery when...lo!...Connecticut redeemed itself by catching on fire.

"Serves you right, Connecticut," I said, driving past the impressive plume. Moments later the roadway cleared as Connecticut, defeated, allowed us to drive freely once more.

As I may have mentioned, I was driving north to visit my sisters and mother. Alas, I only saw one sister, Lindsay, who surprised me greatly by being married, and recently so.

Lindsay, who lives in Portland, was back in Massachusetts to be a bridesmaid in one of her friends' weddings. Hence the little coral number she is wearing in the pics.

The dress was a bit long. Fortunately, my mother is like a samurai with a sewing machine and removed three inches in no time.

Which created an opportunity for Iggy.

As people do when weddings have just happened, we took many combinations of photos.

Mom, Lindsay, and Me

Dean and Mom

On the way back home on Saturday, I had no problem with Connecticut, still reeling from its recent defeat.

I did pause to feel sorry for this church. I don't go to church much, but I feel bad for this one having to be situated right next to I-95. And to have to be in Connecticut, to boot.

And while we're railing against the way of things, does it seem appropriate that we drivers of cars should have to occupy the same road as trucks? At one point I was so literally surrounded that it was like I was trapped in a small room. A room that happened to be moving at 70 mph.

Home again, and we're putting the finishing touches on volume 9, which will be sent out later this week. Volume 9 has a lot of pages, and so we had to spread them all out and have a look this afternoon, trying to figure out what should go where.

Eventually, I think, we got it right.

It's the kind of book in which the order of pages is not a given. You will see. Unless you aren't a subscriber, and then you won't.

In which case, perhaps Connecticut is the best place for you.

Posted by bogenamp at 11:35 PM

June 23, 2007

MoCCA, Day 1

This entry will be short because I am weary, but I promised updates from the show, and so I shall report.

We rose and drove to the Puck building (named so for the gilded statue of Shakespeare's energetic fairy on the premises). Robbi dropped me off with a big pile of books and a white wooden shelving unit and went to park the car. Immediately after she drove away, the long line of eager vendors started to move, and I was left to tug the precariously-laden handtruck with one hand while doing my best to lug the shelving with the other. In other words, it was great fun.

Here are the way too many books we brought. We are dreamers. And fools.

Eventually Robbi showed up and we rode the freight elevator up to the seventh floor.

"Was the ride up to the seventh floor in the freight elevator an important part of the day?" you might be wondering. "Not especially," I say in reply. "And why, then, did you think it important to show us a photo of this unimportant moment?" you might rejoinder. And to you, I say that the Barnstorming is all about dull moments and the quiet dignity they portend, that this is the motto of the Barnstorming. "I did not know the Barnstorming had a motto," you say, surprised and disappointed by the lameness of the motto. Alas, this motto is born, like so many mottos must be, I fear, of postrationalization. An unimportant photo is posted on a blog and suddenly a team of bureaucrats is hired to justify its existence.

Eventually we got to the seventh floor.

We found the seventh floor largely deserted and wondered if we were, perhaps, in the wrong place. But we found table S44 and proceeded to set up the booth.

Until realizing that we had left the black sheets that cover the table and the rather shabby looking white shelving unit back at David's apartment. And so I descended from the seventh floor to the ground level (note that I have spared you from having to view a photo of this important moment from my day) and walked the mile back to David's apartment to pick up the sheets. And the mile back to the Puck building. And up the elevator again to the seventh floor. When I got there, I found Robbi, uncannily, in the same position in which I had left her.

We set up the booth.

Robbi felt empowered.

We mugged with the booth.

And then the show opened. The main exhibit area for MoCCA is on the ground floor of the Puck Building. The seventh floor, known lyrically as the Skylight Ballroom, is for the unlucky rabble who did not sign up on time, and so we are situated far, far from the main hubub of commerce that is the first floor. In some ways this was pleasant in that it was quiet and relaxing compared to the riot of the ground level, but in other ways it was disappointing in that the crowds were fairly thin throughout the day and were, even at their heights, not what one would call a din or a riot. But still it was satisfying to stand behind the table while people looked at our books.

We did not sell a great number of books for much of the day. People read and smiled, chatted and admired, but only a few shelled out actual bucks. We kept our chins high. I shilled from time to time, trying to create the appearance of an enthusiastic mob.

The strategy was not what you might call a roaring success.

We did make some new friends, trade our books for the books of others, sign up one new subscriber, hand out many other subscription forms and free postcards, collect a healthy handful of names on our mailing list and catch up with old college friend Jason Liang, who happened to be strolling by.

But we did not sell a lot of books. We dug deep into our marketing background and came up with a brilliant strategy that we will try tomorrow: dramatically slashing our prices! I mean, it's pure genius.

Comparing our prices to those of many of the other folks selling books on the seventh floor (bastard stepchild floor, to be sure), we were a bit higher across the board. A big reason for this being the fact that we print in full color (most comics are black and white or else consist of an extremely limited color palate), but when folks are wandering around MoCCA with limited funds in their pocket, it suddenly becomes a matter of competing for limited resources. And so we will gamble profits for exposure tomorrow and see if we can lure a few more fans into the fold.

At 6:00 the thing ended and we went back to David's apartment to collapse and watch TV.

The miracle of the day came later. Robbi found this, a mutant cherry, that she claims "looks like a butt."

Her words, not mine.

Posted by bogenamp at 10:52 PM

June 22, 2007

Before the Storm

We are lying in bed, still and silent for the first time in what seems like weeks. We are gazing out the window of the bedroom of our friend David's apartment in New York City. He is in South Africa filming a documentary and we are here resting on the eve of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts festival which begins tomorrow morning.

Here is the view as of a few hours ago:

This is the view from the bed itself. If you walk toward the window and look down, you can see a pleasant park below and the coming and going of life in a big city in several directions. A moment ago we were drawn to the window when a large group of people in strange costumes started singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at the tops of their lungs. This sort of thing seldom happens in Chestertown.

The last few days have been busy ones. Late Wednesday night, Robbi framed her monoprints.

Here is a shot of the finished version of the print she was working on the other night:

And here it is framed.

The prints really come to life when framed out by the clean white lines of the mat. Robbi does her own framing, but orders the frames themselves online from a place called Metroframe. They do a great job and have fantastic customer service, so if you want nice frames but can't afford to go to a nice frame shop, Metroframe is a great resource.

Here are the three finished pieces. For this show, she did one medium-sized and two small prints.

And here is one of the smaller ones up close:

Thursday we drove to Baltimore to dispense with our various pets. The cats hate travel. And somehow they can tell when we are planning to force them to get in the car and go somewhere else. In the 10 years of life with me, these cats have moved 13 times. And so they are well familiar with the subtle happenings that precede a major life change. Doing his best to mount a resistance, Oscar crawled up inside the box spring of our bed. We spent a long time looking for him around the barn and outside before I practically tore the bedroom apart, knocking our shelving unit from the wall in so doing.

Eventually the cats were crated and put in the car along with two months worth of litter and food:

Oh, how they hate it in the crate:

Back when I had no money to speak of, I used to take the cats to the vet in an orange crate with a cookie sheet on top. I stopped doing this when the vet started looking at me like I was a foul abuser. Now that I am a lowly bookmaker, I was tempted to return to the orange crate method, but I doubt that Oscar's girthy midsection would fit. He is a large, large cat.

We crossed the Bay.

And took the cats to the home of Supi Loco. I've mentioned it before, but Supi has a cat with whom she shares her home. His name is Scooter. He is very polite. He is soft and small. He and Susan have a special relationship built on trust and mutual regard. Enter Jabba the Catt and his sister. Things got a little testy.

Lily behaved like a total pill and was immediately banned to the basement. Oscar, (bulging, rotund) gentleman that he is, spent some time getting to know Scooter. Scooter didn't know what to make of Oscar's terrifyiing luminescent eyes.

Scooter made some horrible, mournful sounds.

But they worked it out. Or else Scooter got completely demoralized and gave up. I can't really tell which.

We ate dinner with Supi and our good friend Beth Duncan.

And then hit the road.

We had successfully rid ourselves of two animals, but one remained. Iggy was to be left with Christian and Emily...and Ruby, who always enjoys company.

I don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but Christian and Emily have recently joined a cult that espouses, among many other strange beliefs, the benefits to health and mind of sitting directly on the floor. I kid you not. Furniture of any kind is strictly forbidden.

I was mocking them considerably (as I am prone to do to anyone whose beliefs differ in any way from my own) when Robbi decided to join the cult as well.

Which put me in a funk.

We said our farewells to Iggy and headed home. It was about 11:00 by the time we got back to Chestertown, but there was much to be done.

Books to pack into boxes:

More books to make:

There was also clever booth signage to construct, dishes to wash, recycling to go out, and a barn to clean.

Eventually we were done. And calm returned to the hayloft.

We saw the floor for the first time in weeks.

After catching a few hours of sleep, we loaded up...

...and headed north, but not before stopping at the farm stand to not touch the ducklings...

...and stopping in Middletown for gasoline and awesome action photography.

Over the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

And up to the big city.

Perhaps this is a reflection on us, but this is how Robbi and I prefer to spend our time in New York, gazing pensively through a window at large buildings while reclining on a bed in an air conditioned room. We have neither big buildings or air conditioning in Chestertown. But we have lots of time for being pensive.

We did venture out to pick up our MoCCA name badges and get some wood-fired pizza for dinner. We even splurged on an exquisite-looking cheesecake from a fancy bakery, another thing that we do not have in Chestertown. After putting the spine cloth on 26 more copies of My Henderson Robot, enjoying some cheesecake, and staring pensively through the window at the lights of the nighttime city, we will go to sleep a full six hours earlier than we did last night and hopefully be more sprightly tomorrow for it.

Check back for photos from MoCCA tomorrow. I cannot promise that there will be ladies with battle axes and tight leather pants, but people, we can always dream.

Posted by bogenamp at 08:57 PM

June 16, 2007

A Whole New Look

I've alluded to it here, but it bears repeating that Robbi and I are headed to the Big Apple next weekend to peddle our wares at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Fest. Here is the festival advertisement, provided to us by the organizers with the purpose of luring enthuisastic mobs. Are you easily persuaded by such marketing? We shall see how it works on you.

If you are in New York next weekend and would enjoy swinging by to see what the MoCCA Fest is all about, the essential information about where to go and at what time can be found by clicking on this link, but the basics are that the Festival runs from 11am-6pm Saturday June 23 and Sunday June 24 at the Puck Building (293 Lafayette at Houston in Manhattan). We will be on the seventh floor standing behind a six-foot table, trying our best to explan what we are and why our books represent a solid reason to part with one's cash.

We leave for New York next Friday morning, spend Saturday and Sunday in the big scary, loud, expensive, terrifying city, and then leave for the airport at 4:00 Monday morning. From the airport we will travel to Seattle and then on to Anchorage. We spend the night on the floor of the Anchorage airport and then take a short flight across the tundra to King Salmon. From King Salmon we hop into a 5-seat bush plane for the final leg to Coffee Point, where we will spend four weeks fishing for sockeye salmon with Robbi's family (as every member of Robbi's family has done for 30 summers running).

There will be much more talk about the salmon fishing in days to come, but for now it is enough to know that we are coming down to the wire, not just in terms of getting ready for the MoCCA Fest, but also for getting our lives in some sort of order before leaving the lower-48 for four weeks. There is a long list of tasks to complete and seemingly not enough days in which to check them off.

As for the title of this entry, I am referring to the Idiots'Books site, which got a minor face-lift today. In the case that we are able to convince a bunch of new people at the MoCCA Fest that Idiots'Books is something worth learning more about, we have added a new illustration to the homepage, an image that will hopefully both explain the frying pan metaphor (which seems to be a source of no small puzzlement to people at our readings) and nicely capture the spirit of Robbi's and my collaboration. Perhaps I'm giving the image too much credit, but I think Robbi did a fine job. Check it out here. And then check out Robbi's rather thoughtful explanation of our process in coming up with the idea.

In parting, I will tell you that Robbi and I went on a hot date tonight. We walked the 300 yards to the Prince Theater, where we attended the "Pasta Fellini" event. This involved eating delicious Italian fare prepared by the folks at the Imperial Hotel (adjacent to the Prince) and then watching Fellini's La Dolce Vita. It is an excellent movie. I'd like to understand it better by reading a good critical essay if any Fellini fans out there care to recommend one.

It also involved being the only two people under 50 years old in the entire place. I'm not exaggerating. I love Chestertown.

Posted by bogenamp at 02:05 AM

June 14, 2007

Good Riddance, Dawn of the Fats

I really hate to be that guy whose blog is overpopulated with cloyingly cute pictures of his various animals, and yes, I remember that just yesterday you were subjected to photos of my fat cat lying on his back and my exceedlingly shy dog cowering in the depths of her new travel crate. And yet I have little choice but to include photos of an episode that took place not two hours ago. Both of them in a surprisingly frisky mood for 11:00pm, Robbi and Iggy were playing with the dog frisbee. Robbi would throw it. Iggy would fetch it. That sort of thing. This simple equation was suddenly disrupted when Iggy got attacked by the dog frisbee, as shown.

At first, she was highly agitated and tried to extricate herself.

Eventually, she adopted a more sanguine position.

And for those of you who think I put the dog frisbee on Iggy's head for my own amusement, I tell you no, the dog did this of her own accord.

While not taking pictures of Iggy with her head stuck in the dog frisbee, I spent most of the day stuffing copies of Dawn of the Fats into envelopes with the corresponding letter, placing postage on the envelopes, and sealing the envelopes by licking each one. I am glad to be done and a bit queasy from the glue.

Be not fooled by Iggy's theatrical lounging by the mail bins.

She would have you believe that she was instrumental the envelope-stuffing, but I have it on good authority that she and Oscar spent the majority of the day not moving, both striving through inactivity to win the ongoing competition to see which of them can get the fattest.

Oscar is winning.

Posted by bogenamp at 12:21 AM

June 03, 2007

Dada, Here We Come

Yesterday Robbi and I dug deep into the closet and pulled out our closest approximation of "hip" clothing in honor of our reading at H&F Fine Arts. Understand that when I say "hip," I use the word in the relative sense. I'm not really capable of true "hip," but by donning a vintage shirt and a pair of polyester pants, I am able to pull off a weak imitation of someone with legitimate claim to the word. To her credit, Robbi is capable of looking hip. Until she opens her mouth. At that point she, like I, are exposed as the unfortunate clods that we are.

With our newly purchased projector in tow, we headed for DC, stopping along the at the New Carrollton rail station to pick up friend David Turner, who had taken the train down from NYC to attend the event. We arrived at H&F Fine arts a full 90 minutes before the start of the reception that was to precede the reading. A full two-and-a-half hours before the reading itself. My obsession with being places early is something Robbi graciously endures, though her preference would be to arrive breathless in the waning moments before something is scheduled to begin.

Our early arrival allowed for such activities as:

Admiring the mural.

Posing in front of the mural in "hip" art gallery garb.

Posing stylishly by the new projector (perhaps we'll send this shot to Justin P.)

Posing stylishly in front of the projected Idiots'Books logo.

It took us about 5 minutes to set up for the reading. Which left us an hour and 25 minutes to busy ourselves. While we busied ourselves Cheryl and Karen sliced cheese and salami. Yes, salami. There seems to be an Idiots'Books reading theme.

Eventually a wonderful thing happened. People started to arrive. Lots of old friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in years. Even the kind, wise, and humble Peter Everett showed up, accompanied by his lovely wife Veronica (who, it turns out, has the good sense to be a Red Sox fan). Scanning the crowd, Robbi and I were pleased. There were more than six people present. We would break the previous weekend's attendance record handily.

At 4:15 we ushered the crowd into the workshop room (yes, the same room in which Robbi and I spent one short, restless night in the midst of painting the H&F mural a few months ago) and got started.

We gave some opening remarks.

Were we cogent? I cannot say. Did we say interesting things? I dare not speculate. I can only say that we spoke for a few minutes before taking our position behind the projector. Our friend J.T. was kind enough to snap a few shots as we read.

We started with Facial Features of French Explorers before moving on to Unattractive and Inadequate. Then, to lighten the tone, Robbi read My Henderson Robot. There was some intermittent laughter that gratified us. In honor of the gallery mural, we read selections from For the Love of God and then ended with Richard Nixon.

Here is a shot of the crowd.

Do they seem to be enjoying themselves? People seemed attentive in spite of having to stand and in spite of the heat that grew each moment that the air conditioning was not turned on (out of respect for our gentle voices that might not otherwise have carried over the din of the compressors).

After the reading, we took some questions. To our delight, people had questions, even some really thoughtful ones. We did our best to answer them. Hearing interesting questions and being forced to articulate answers to them helps us understand ourselves better. Our friend and subscriber Dawn asked the most interesting question: what would the appraiser on the late 21st century's version of the Antiques Roadshow have to say about a collection of Idiots'Books, both in terms of their monetary value and their relationship to the Dadaist/Surrealist movement. I was delighted and a little stunned. What do you say in response to something like that? Later, at dinner, Dawn explained that the Dadaists/Surrealists used to get together and hang out and talk about "weird stuff", thus influencing and informing one another's ideas and work. Since we live in a barn in the middle of nowhere, Dawn pointed out, we are conducting our version of this conversation through letters and contests and the responses of our subscribers. She added that this type of thing doesn't often happen outside of the internet these days and that there was something different and worthwhile about the model of conducting our business with paper in epistolary fashion. At least I think that's what she said. Dawn, you may feel free to contradict or elaborate. [It is worth nothing that, in spite of this incisive observation, Dawn has yet to participate in any of our contests, citing her doctoral disseration as an excuse.]

After doing our best to answer various questions, we signed books, shook hands, talked to people, and had a fine time.

We drove up the road to Franklin's and had dinner with friends.

Today we have been like slugs. The rains have come to Chestertown, and with them the air has cooled.

Next weekend we head to Williamstown for our ten year reunion. Next Saturday we'll have our third reading in as many weekends at the town bookstore, Water Street Books. If you happen to be in the area, we'd love to see you there.

Thanks to our friends for coming out to support us yesterday. It was a real pleasure to share our work with all of you.

Posted by bogenamp at 09:18 PM

May 30, 2007

The End

Only two days over schedule, we have completed the mural. The last hurrah was painting in the words.

Painting the words was entirely Robbi's purview.

The far left and right ends of the mural are dark and the middle is light blue. So Robbi had to paint the words in white against the dark background and switch to black in order to stand out against the blue.

After the words were all in place, the time came to remove the masking. This is an incredibly gratifying part of the process.

Suddenly all of the edges become crisp and the image really assserts itself on the wall.

After we removed the masking, we thought it would be a great idea to get Iggy to pose with a ball of tape on her head. She really didn't like this plan. It took a lot of failed attempts to get even this lame blurry shot.

I don't know how Wegman does it.

In our attempt to get the "perfect" shot of Iggy with the tape on her head, we filled up the camera's memory card, so there is no "definitive" shot of the finished mural. Though I'm not sure that we would have been able to capture the thing with all the film in the world. The mural is a mixture of big (20 feet wide) and small (12 inches high for much of it), and so it's impossible to photograph the entire thing at a scale that captures the detail needed to understand what's going on.

And so you will have to visit Bookplate at some point and examine the mural the way it was designed to be appreciated: up close while winding one's way through stacks of books.

That being said, we've presented the whole thing piecemeal over the past few entries. All of the narrative elements are in place. For those of you who want to try and puzzle through the meaning, here is the text.

The people are dancing on the tables. "Now that the revolution has ended," they say, "we are free to speak our minds. Let's have a holiday!" Jubilant motorists drive the roads at speeds well exceeding the legal limit. "Where are the policemen when we need them?" the people complain. "Where is the structure in our lives?" A vigilante mob digs a hole in the road. All the cars fall in and pile up. Alone and enlightened, the mob becomes orderly and invents a new set of rules based on liberty and justice for all. "I think that we can make this work," they say.

I don't like to "explain" what we do, and so I won't. But Robbi and I agree that this is probably the most political of our pieces (murals and books included) to date. And we're not sure how we feel about that.

Posted by bogenamp at 05:08 PM

May 29, 2007

Time for the Words

First off, as promised, here is the scene of revolutionary glory. Who among you can name the famous painting being quoted here?

Next Robbi outlined the scene of colonial rampage. There is no specific reference here. Pick your favorite conquest! We've strived to be inclusive.

And the ships of the marauding white man. Finally outlined for your viewing pleasure!