From an essay by Kurt Allerslev...
“What happens in a book when you're not reading it? A closed book is a treasure trove of wild possibility. The insides of a book when it sits closed on the shelf is not like the light in the refrigerator when you close the door -- you know that light goes out every time. It's designed to do that. Even if you don't see the light go out, you know it has.
The bookmaker, however, creates something that is meant to endure. The insides -- text and/or images -- stay lit up forever. But perhaps they wonder if you have gone out. The inside of the book doesn't know about the continuance of our existence when it's closed. What do we become to the closed book? What does the pollution, the cat, the car alarms and moldy ham sandwiches matter to a closed book? In closing, they are protected from that chaos that seeks to diminish and extinguish the beauty within.
I don't believe that the insides of books have a secret life that takes off when closed, the way we have a secret life when we close our eyes and dream. We are able to escape our everyday reality, exchange it for fleeting moments of other. The book, however is also not statically waiting for us to indulge it, but it grows and matures. The pages yellow, the text grows more meaningful and wise, or more dated and doddering. Every second, it changes as the world around it changes it's context. It is fed by every pair of eyes that fall on it, and it pays homage to the creators by providing a passage to a secret life that can be accessed by us as if dreaming.
You can't open the same book twice. Perhaps you can't even open the same book once. Like a river, it's changing as you open it. As the pages turn. And it changes as it sits on the shelf. A library full of books is a whirlpool of persistent change. We want text to solidify language, but language is too fluid. We are too fluid.”
1 comment:
Reading Kurt Allerslev’s about the nature of books: “…A closed book is a treasure trove of wild possibility…The bookmaker creates something that is meant to endure…” Makes me consider all the “albums” I’ve made since 1979 as cassettes, LPs, or CDs in light of what he writes about books.
A recording in the form of an “album,” that is a collection of music or sound works published in some manner, is similar to the book. It differs from the book in that it is slave to technology in order to be heard, but I believe its form as a reservoir for content is similar. It is a deliberately design and produced form generally created to be shared with individuals.
These recorded albums can be editions of one, like an artist’s book, or in quantities limited by the costs of publishing, or in seemingly unlimited and always published editions perpetually in print through publishing mission or capitalist incentive.
Most listeners to recorded music since the introduction of Victrola albums circa 1906 and up to the time of iTunes, have tended to think in terms of collections of music or sound works.
In the 1970s the means to publish collections of music or sound works became available to anyone with a tape cassette recorder. The “home-taper” revolution allowed artists to record their music and publish it immediately. They can be lavishly produced or bare bones; they can include copious notes, pictures, art works, or just a title scrawled with a Sharpie. With the advent of CD burners and computers, even more control and flexibility is possible.
Each un-listened to or unheard album is a potential treasure trove of wild possibilities. Each publisher, however small or under-distributed, creates the recordings meant to endure. They sit mute in boxes under the bed or in some warehouse or store waiting to be released into the air through the power of technology.
Release them when you can.
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