Daily Thoughts 11/30/2010 (Lynd Ward, Publishers Weekly)

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy resting in the forest. Oil on canvas. 60 × 50 cm. The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. 1891

Daily Thoughts 11/30/2010


This morning, on the train, I started reading First Break All The Rules What The World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.
It is about what makes a great manager.

Today has been relatively quiet, I checked the displays to see that they were in order, read the latest copy of booklist, and handed in the monthly schedule.  It has been one of those days where you do what is necessary because that is what makes you professional.  I am thinking about how to rearrange the ordering schedule and possibly get the Elite Street ordering system for bestsellers from BWI.

I read some more issues of Publishers Weekly.  It is a solid distraction while two more new people are let go.  I also took a few minutes to look at Lynd Ward volume II, Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, and Vertigo.  This is a collection of wordless woodct novels.  They were done in the 1930s.  Art Spiegelman is the editor. These are considered by many to be the precursors to the modern graphic novel.

I am feeling quite tired right now.  For me coming in and doing my everyday work helps me face up to the changes occurring around me.  One of the things that determines professionalism is the ability to work under pressure.

On the way home, I looked through the wordless novels of Lynd Ward, it is a beautiful book, the woodcuts have a very stark Germanic feel to them with strong dark lines. They remind of the art from the Works Project Administration.  I learned that the books were made in a printing cooperative based on democratic principles which was interesting.  Most of the drawings are set in the great depression.  People are living their lives in a very stark time.  There is a sense of the poetic and the biblical in the art.  This is a link to a review from NPR.  It is a very beautiful set of books. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130915507

Good Morning

John Singer Sargent Boston Public Library (1895). I am not sure why I chose this image, it just stuck.

Good Morning

Yesterday, I spent some time at the laundromat doing writing exercises. What does fear mean? Risk mean? Chance mean? Change mean? from the book Writing Begins With the Breath. I wonder what it will be like attempting to do writing exercises on the subway.

I noticed that my review of Rebel Visions has been circulating among blogs, unfortunately, it has been attached to another group I belong to, Society of Midnight Wanderers, not my blog Book Calendar. I am wondering what it will mean. It is a rather interesting mix up. I kind of like it in a way. It seems like serendipity.

I am going to visit the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan, New York today. I intend to buy a membership so I can sort through their library and find some interesting things for our library to purchase. I will be a cartooning scholar. :)

I got on the train to the museum and found out that one of my neighbors works for http://www.royalflushmagazine.com/ Royal Flush Magazine. It looks like a cross between an indie rock and roll magazine and Mad magazine or Cracked. The style is very interesteing. It clearly seems to draw a little bit from Ed Roth.

I also did some writing exercises on the train from Writing Begins With The Breath Embodying Your Authentic Voice. I wrote two short poems as part of the exercises.

Fascism

I march in lock step
Holding the blazing flag high
Goosestepping brown hate

Trillionaire

To own the whole world
Clenched fistfuls of dollars
You are my bondsman

When I got to New York, I found the museum was closed. I went next door to Housing Works Used Book Cafe. I bought two books which I found quite interesting. Then I sat down and had a chicken gyro.

The first book I got was an old Daw paperback, Gordon R. Dickson, Naked to the Stars. I had never seen it before. It was about the conflict between diplomacy and military expansionism when people contact alien cultures. Gordon R. Dickson is a very interesting writer.

The other book I found was a book by a radical political artist who focused on the issue of labor. Lynd Ward is famous for his novels composed completely of wordless woodcuts. Wild Pilgrimage a novel in woodcuts combines art deco style and german expressionism.
http://paganpressbooks.com/jpl/LYNDWARD.HTM This is a link to some of his illustrations for the novel Frankenstein.

Wild Pilgrimage is a very stark novel with strongly drawn lines. A working man leaves hellish factories to work in the fields. He watches the hanging of a black man. Then he gets a job working on a farm. The color changes from black to orange as he imagines seducing the farmers wife. He travels from farm to farm. The drawings are very stark. Then he sees guards breaking a strike. His thoughts turn violent orange and he thinks of exploitation. He attacks a guard and gets killed.

Even though there are very few words, the emotional impact is strong enough to explain what is happening. It reminds me slightly of Charles Burns' work, Black Hole.

On Saturday September 27, 2008, Housing Works Used Book Cafe, in Manhattan, New York, is hosting an open air bookfare where they are selling used books, dvds, and cds for $1. This is the fourth year they are doing this. It is listed on their events page. I won't be able to go, but I thought it might be interesting.
http://www.livefromhome.org/events/