Working on the book cover of my forthcoming Roof Book, Kluge: A Meditation, and other works. Some stuff from my Brown days of yore (including a play and two short essays) and some older things that are offered as proof of my artistic decline (er, awakening).

“The Further Adventures of Oedipus Mess in the Countess’ Second’s Flat” is the long opening poem, symptomatic of oh about everything. Kind of in the “What Does It Matter?” mode, but more astract expressionistic — lots of page splatter.

The guy in the photograph is me. I didn’t talk some young man to strip to his blue underpants for my camera (but with no air conditioning in sweltering summer, when I thought air conditioning was bourgeois, it was not hard to convince myself to strip).

Photos taken in my Williamsburg days prior to moving to Providence when I was still very excited about taking photographs (alas, some of that is coming back).

I’ve been playing around with Lulu.com, a print-on-demand publisher, for the past several months, making little books, experimenting with cover designs, having them printed and sent to me, etc. Kind of testing the waters to see if I want to be a print publisher with Arras again, since I’ve been enjoying print design much more than web work lately.

It’s been fun if a bit solipsistic considering I’ve been using early and “uncollected” poems of mine. Yes, vanity indeed. But I’m done now, just “finalized” this collection which I guess is available for purchase at Lulu. I’ve tried to keep the shite out.

Don’t tell Charlotte Rampling–I know she’s on your Facebook account somewhere–that I’m using her face for the back cover. It’s a promotional still for the science fiction big budget B-bonanza starring Sean Connery and a number of British extras called “Zardoz,” which is probably a better name for an anti-anxiety medication than “Xanax” IMHO.

 

I’m updating this post just to mention how much I love this typeface. It’s called A.D. Mono and it’s available for free here:

http://www.getfreefonts.info/free_font.admono.html

Click the poster below to enlarge if you can’t read it well:

 

Here are two poster designs I found on my hard drive today… never really used except for one letter-sized test print of the colorful one. I still think they’re kind of funky… click to enlarge.

Here are four designs I’ve come up with for a new book of mine. Just FYI, I don’t have much else to report except my move to Philadelphia, hopefully to be completed by late August. I’m going with the last one… click to enlarge.

Here’s the cover to the forthcoming book of poems from Factory School’s Heretical Text Series. Photograph by Tim Davis. There appear to be some dust or scratches on this which, from what I understand, do not appear on higher resolution versions.

You will ask why there are no hairless cats or ugly fish on the cover… well, one must have variety, and this is my vegetable course. (Click to enlarge.)

My latest poster design, for a literary conference I otherwise had nothing to do with. It’s a photograph of Alexandra Sears as a child doing something very strange on the side of a hill. Click to enlarge.

Check out the poster I designed… click to enlarge.

The idea was inspired by two things: 1) a visit last semester by David Lynch in support of his new Transcendental Meditation / World Peace foundation, and 20 the “Frankie Says” t-shirt campaign that happened in the eighties centered around the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Perhaps Apple’s “Think Different” campaign was behind this also.

My idea was to attract students from many different disciplines to the class, so I used major figures in various genres to throw their weight behind us. For good measure, I included Frank Sinatra and a splat of paint.

If you ever get the urge to proselytize for electronic writing – and I know you do, frequently – these are easily printable, so you can poster your campus, office or local coffee shop. Click to enlarge.