I Have a Little Monkey . . .
As I understand the chronology, the Amalgamated Printers' Association began its containment of the mass field within the heavy metal addicts around 1958. Now, using modern math I have been able to deduce that this will be the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the APA. Thus I will expect a flurry of activity as members of the 
organization take time out from their usual pursuits to print tons of ephemera &c to fill the bundles with signs and symbols of gratitude.
In other words (an paraphrasing my favorite Norteña band, Grupo Exterminador,) "Somos mas peligrosos que el menta'o chupacabra . . . ¡Ya veo el parillon para celebrar nuestros escales!"
I, myself, am planning on a series of printed pieces, none of them particularly spectacular – even to my self-absorbed critical faculties – which will make mention in various ways of the grand clamor. I did this act for the 50th anniversary of the American Amateur Press Association back in '86 by summarizing and reprinting in a style set up by my father years earlier a little book of stuff about who and what and when.
No biggie. Just a couple odd pages of hand-set eight point & some advertising-stylee cutwork. I think I ran it off on the 10x15 but I might have done it on the Pilot or maybe even the Gordon, back when I had a Gordon press. No, a real Gordon press from the Gordon press works. One of thems.
The worst part about my plans – should they all come to fruition (paraphrasing a Muslim-stylee interjection) – will be having to decide how many over I print for the bundle. And if I want to do color cuts on any of the pages, sheets or whatevers. Or whether I really want to go to the effort of reproducing my youngest's "dancing monkey" drawing of some years ago.
Not a bad monkey, really. And a perfect piece of art to put on the cover of a book of limericks about dancing monkeys, even if the monkey cut itself will be run off in a batch on my wife's photo printer and subsequently pasted on the cover of the intended booklet.
As long as the innards of the booklet are all letterpress, right?
See, that's where we get to the real problem: rules. And yes, I know: rules that we can live by and all that. But the game of the APA is letterpress, like continuing letterpress, teaching letterpress and preserving letterpress work in general. Bunch of old guys and young kids sittin' around dressin' up for the Civil War re-enactment spectacular out on some park land in Arkansas, set up so the Confederacy wins this time.
Maybe.
Like that.
If I do the monkey book the way I'm thinking, it'll be just fine. I've done such goofy stuff before (don't even ask about Ez-Aha) and, for the most part, it's all been the sort of stuff that archivists and historian types look at and wonder why I spent so much time on it.
Which gets us back to the question of the challenge of art to psychology, which I've already covered and which I will not divert myself into again.
In the end everybody has to ask themselves what the hell they're doing that they think it's so important that they have to buy special paper just for something that only 200-odd fellow sufferers are gonna see, let alone appreciate as relevant. That's the nature of hobbies anyway. That's why Mikey got into ham radio and still hasn't gotten on HF. That's why I have 18 radios in one room and seldom do more than turn them on now and then to make sure I still know how to reprogram the memories. Or talk to Gary in Indiana, for that matter.
As if missing a chance to put a slip of printed paper in a bundle were the capital crime.
And to many it is. Which is why I have to really work hard to get calmed down when I think that I've taken a big chunk out of my garage real estate so Cid can park her car with the front license plate less than a foot from the flywheel of the 10x15. Now that, that does bother me.
But not enough to make me not want to do something totally silly for the anniversary bungle and any bungles leading up to it. And if you don't know what a bungle is, go to the APA site and look up the info on the "bundle."
And remember: "Somos mas peligrosos que el menta'o chupacabra . . . ¡Ya veo el parillon para celebrar nuestros escales!"
organization take time out from their usual pursuits to print tons of ephemera &c to fill the bundles with signs and symbols of gratitude. In other words (an paraphrasing my favorite Norteña band, Grupo Exterminador,) "Somos mas peligrosos que el menta'o chupacabra . . . ¡Ya veo el parillon para celebrar nuestros escales!"
I, myself, am planning on a series of printed pieces, none of them particularly spectacular – even to my self-absorbed critical faculties – which will make mention in various ways of the grand clamor. I did this act for the 50th anniversary of the American Amateur Press Association back in '86 by summarizing and reprinting in a style set up by my father years earlier a little book of stuff about who and what and when.
No biggie. Just a couple odd pages of hand-set eight point & some advertising-stylee cutwork. I think I ran it off on the 10x15 but I might have done it on the Pilot or maybe even the Gordon, back when I had a Gordon press. No, a real Gordon press from the Gordon press works. One of thems.
The worst part about my plans – should they all come to fruition (paraphrasing a Muslim-stylee interjection) – will be having to decide how many over I print for the bundle. And if I want to do color cuts on any of the pages, sheets or whatevers. Or whether I really want to go to the effort of reproducing my youngest's "dancing monkey" drawing of some years ago.
Not a bad monkey, really. And a perfect piece of art to put on the cover of a book of limericks about dancing monkeys, even if the monkey cut itself will be run off in a batch on my wife's photo printer and subsequently pasted on the cover of the intended booklet.
As long as the innards of the booklet are all letterpress, right?
See, that's where we get to the real problem: rules. And yes, I know: rules that we can live by and all that. But the game of the APA is letterpress, like continuing letterpress, teaching letterpress and preserving letterpress work in general. Bunch of old guys and young kids sittin' around dressin' up for the Civil War re-enactment spectacular out on some park land in Arkansas, set up so the Confederacy wins this time. Maybe.
Like that.
If I do the monkey book the way I'm thinking, it'll be just fine. I've done such goofy stuff before (don't even ask about Ez-Aha) and, for the most part, it's all been the sort of stuff that archivists and historian types look at and wonder why I spent so much time on it.
Which gets us back to the question of the challenge of art to psychology, which I've already covered and which I will not divert myself into again.
In the end everybody has to ask themselves what the hell they're doing that they think it's so important that they have to buy special paper just for something that only 200-odd fellow sufferers are gonna see, let alone appreciate as relevant. That's the nature of hobbies anyway. That's why Mikey got into ham radio and still hasn't gotten on HF. That's why I have 18 radios in one room and seldom do more than turn them on now and then to make sure I still know how to reprogram the memories. Or talk to Gary in Indiana, for that matter.
As if missing a chance to put a slip of printed paper in a bundle were the capital crime.
And to many it is. Which is why I have to really work hard to get calmed down when I think that I've taken a big chunk out of my garage real estate so Cid can park her car with the front license plate less than a foot from the flywheel of the 10x15. Now that, that does bother me.
But not enough to make me not want to do something totally silly for the anniversary bungle and any bungles leading up to it. And if you don't know what a bungle is, go to the APA site and look up the info on the "bundle."
And remember: "Somos mas peligrosos que el menta'o chupacabra . . . ¡Ya veo el parillon para celebrar nuestros escales!"
posted by the printer at 6:38 AM
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