<<< Gdynia. „The Second Book Revolution”. The conference. Why „revolution”? Why „the second”? I don't know. Well, this is not a good reason to be upset and worried. Titles and names can be strange. My lecture (if it was a lecture) had a strange title, too. Very strange. MAKING TEXT A SIGN. MAKING SIGN A TEXT. What a bizarre thing it was. I wanted to tell something about relations between text and sign. I wanted also to present my recent book – Road Nonsigns. Of course, what I was telling was not exactly what I had prepared and expected to tell. This is usual that what I tell is not exactly what I want to tell. Frankly writing I shouldn't have opened my mouth. I should have shown page by page on the big screen behind me. Maybe it would have been better if I had clicked through Emeryk – maybe a hypertext would have been perceived as more revolutionary than a signtext. But I didn't do that. I was to read a lot in the train but I only snoozed a lot. A gale could pushed me into the see but it didn't. So, it was not that bad in Gdynia. And I found some new ideas for Liberland. However the most important was an illumination. Yes. I experienced an illumination. I had brought there ten wooden slats almost two meters long to hang on them ten nonsings (A2 size) and thus transform a part of the lecturing hall into a road-like path. Afterwards I didn't know what I had to do with them. I was walking along the street like a primitive hunter carrying a spear or javelin. The wind was roaring, rain was slashing. Rage and despair. And suddenly an illumination: neither a spear nor a javelin I'm carrying in my hand but side faces of the boxes for my books! For five years I have been cutting them out off large pieces of plywood – always askew and twisted – what a toil! rage and despair! - and I can just buy slants! - slants can have different sizes and they are always smooth and even - - - - - I needed five years and five hundred kilometres to get this idea! A revolutionary idea! This is going to be a real revolution! Next revolution of my books! December 2007 For two months several dozen books made myself will be displayed in glass cases in the main hall of the National Library in Warsaw: shut, open, folded, unfolded... Is there any better place for books? Yes. Certainly yes. The reader's hands. September/November 2007 It happened what had to happen, because nothing else could happen and I would be extremely naive expecting anything else to happen. When in spring 2005 End of the World according to Emeryk had been released on CD I was wandering which bookshop's shelf one could find it on. There was no hypertext novel shelf in any bookshop here for nobody had written and published hypertext in Poland until then. And now my curiosity has been satisfied. An audiobook shelf has appeared lately. And there, to my utmost surprise, although I shouldn't be surprised at all, I found Emeryk. Of course not in every bookshop, only in very few – in majority of bookshops it is not available. In the biggest online bookshop one can find Emeryk among audiobooks, too. So, hypertext lovers and hunters had almost no chances to find it. However, we don't need to bother about it. There are almost no hypertext lovers and hunters here. That's why enitre Emeryk can be found in Liberatory since now on. July 20, 2007 My friends were reading aloud my books in the BWA Art Gallery in Kielce. At night. Frankly writing I shouldn't have accepted the proposition, because all my books are banned from being read aloud. The reasons of aloud reading ban are obvious and clear and don't need any explanations. However I said yes for I thought it would be a chance to show my books were after all for reading although with no doubt other than aloud. Many people are convinced my books can only be looked at, because they are unreadable at all. May 2007 I have changed LIBRO2N. I transformed leporelloes into codices. Now the book is more handy. A friend of mine who got recently the leporello version informed me that he had succeded to open and unfold the book, However he mentioned nothing whether he had succeded to fold and shut the book. I'm sure he will succede. He is a great book lover, so he will read it carefully and carefully will fold and shut it. May 7, 2007 The City Library in Krosno. Me on one side of the barricade – two or three dozens of teen pupils on the other. The barricade of books, liberature and hypertext. I'm telling them stories about something they don't know and I don't blame them for it – where and how could they learn about it? I'm telling them about things they don't want to learn about because these are absolutely useless things and this is more difficult and annoying. I can only hope that many years later one of them, to his or her utmost surprise and horror, will wish to find the answer for this tricky question: can sharp and angular things be described with round letters? April 25, 2007 Edinburgh World Heritage. 5 Charlotte Square. Two hours long presentation of Liberatory. Very good response, even enthusiastic. So enthusiastic that nobody will think of making something more. For example to make a new edition of Sienkiewicza Street (the day before The Demarco European Art Foundation purchased the last copy). Or to proliferate any other of my books absolutely not miraculously. Myself I still have not enough courage to ask. Anyway, the situation is much better than, for example, the lack of enthusiasm or perfunctory commendations for politeness sake or indifference and disgust. Books are supposed to live their own lives. If so, they should take care of their business themselves. But it may happen they simply don't like to push themselves forward too much. What then? April 2007 Bristol Artist's Book Event. In fact I shouldn't have been there – my books are not artist's book. My books are writer's books. However, so far I haven't heard about any writer's books event, what seems quite strange since there are quite many writers' books. Nevertheless my presence here is not unjustified – in fact I am also a bit of an artist; sometimes I make a drawing. I could really easily take part in any musician's book event. Unfortunately such events occur even more seldom than writer's book events... It's nice to meet good old friends whom I haven't seen for a couple of years. Very nice. I wonder if books have such friends, too. It's nice to see some new places. I have never been in Bristol before. I wonder if the books are pleased, too. I wonder if they can see the same as I can. I wonder if my eyes are their eyes - not necessarily it must as it could seem. January 2007 I took my books from Białko Art Gallery and Ha!Art book store back home. They spent there enough time, I think really enough. They already experienced what they were to experience. They were already seen by those ones who were to see them. And who was to buy one or two of them has already done so. Quite likely. At least I think so. There is always some hesitation and uncertainty: maybe just the very next day somebody came and wanted to purchase all books? Well, if so he or she would be determined enough to contact me while nothing like that happened. So now the books will travel a bit. And relax at home. October 27, 2006 I am in a gallery of contemporary art in the town where I was born. This is to be the beginning of a collection presenting the achievements of various artists living in this region. Among many pictures hanging on the walls I can see two my books. They are imprisoned in tight show cases. They could easily hang on the walls of a musuem of Nature among various butterflies and other bizarre flying creatures. Maybe it would be better... The showcases have been made specially for my books and they are neat and nice - the books look pretty. However this seems the most awful fate books can experience. October 14, 2006 I'm telling about my Treatise on Pageography at the IALS IV Conference [Institute of English Philology, The Jagiellonian University of Cracow]. Just telling – not lecturing. And even this “just telling” is transforming gradually into “just showing my books”. As usually. It could seem my presence among philologists, theoreticians, researches and academics has no sense – we are on two sides of a barricade. It could seem so, but it should not – this barricade is made of books that I (non)write and they (non)read. September 2006 Nondescription of the world continued... After a few years break again in the Book Art Museum in Łódź. An exhibition-reading-room. Tidy, precise, clear, without anything unnecessary. And I succeeded to complete my new book: LIBRO2N. I almost completed it - the CD with pictures was not ready, but I don't suspect any visitor to be so inquisitive. Well, to mislead a visitor's attention I hung on the walls the prints showing how the Norblin gamadelt was created. September 14, 2006 I show my books at the Library in Płock. I talk for almost two hours. Like mad. Can't shut my mouth up. I keep promising not to talk and tell since I'm fed up with this constant explaining why I make so bizarre books and why they are so very few and then I talk like a wind-up toy. A few listeners buy End of the world according to Emeryk. They are going to wander through the wilderness of hypertext. It may happen the intentions will suffice. They look like people who wouldn't replace easily the noise of turned pages with the clicking sounds. However the look may be quite confusing. They may be daredevils and madmen in disguise of ordinary citizens. Summer 2006 Andrzej Metzger second hand book shop in Kielce. The shop window. Notes. Sketches. Copy-books. Manuscripts. Typescripts. Old type-writers. My first dot-matrix printer. My first inkjet printer... An attempt to show the process of book making. Well, to show just a scrap of this process - I couldn't unmount my head and put it there... Also an attempt to show the relations between technology and the ultimate shape of a work... Yes. Just some attempts. Nothing but attempts. Indicating the problem. Drawing the curtain a little bit back. And I had to place there shelves with my books. And I had to hang there the explaining-complicating texts. And I had to put in the background some drawings. The shop window is not so big. But it is astonishingly deep. Really and metaphorically. - - - - - - - - - - |