If you are familiar with the Journal of Ordinary Thought (JOT), then their infamous mantra, “Every person is a philosopher,” goes without saying.  In today’s two-dimensional world the adage holds true. From the informational thresholds of the internet and every “www” we enter into our browsers, it seems like everyone is writing.  I mean it’s clear that blogging has become a somewhat acceptable form of creative venting.  People post everything from daily meanderings to poetry collections and short stories.  The fact remains, for better or worse, the internet is lending people a peculiar voice.

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In the United States, “socialism” or “socialist” can be a dirty word. Many people would perhaps rather admit to being a parking-ticket scofflaw, or tearing the wings off butterflies.

But not Alan Maass. In his book The Case for Socialism, published in 2004 by Chicago’s very own Haymarket Books (with an afterword by the late Howard Zinn), he proudly admits his political affiliation. And he wants you to join him.

In a slim 127-page volume (it fit easily into a patch pocket of my cargo shorts, with room to spare), Maass, a writer for the weekly Socialist Worker, pursues an ambitious agenda. He argues that capitalism has to go. It must go today.

According to Maass, not only our economy but our whole way of life is rapacious, based on the principle of winner-take-all, with only a few real winners sitting immovably at the top. The result is a kaleidoscope of destructive chain reactions for those of us farther down the food chain: declining wages, abysmal health care, famine, environmental degradation, wars.

Click here to read on.

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In addition to the Paper Thoughts and Paper Spam that was posted on our Paper Blog at the recent Science of Obscurity event, we had a Paper Discussion Thread raging as well! The subject is a real hot-button issue in the lit world: nerds.

We think so too. <3

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We received this in the Chicago Underground Library mailbox the other day and I could barely restrain myself from ripping it open (wanted to preserve the envelope) and failed miserably at keeping water off of it as I…ahem…took it into the loo with me.

Gabriel Levinson and just one of his lit-related projects, DEUSEXPAGINA, will be at the Printers’ Ball and it should be interesting to see what his “live experiment in literary quantum mechanics and wholly fabricated reviews of wholly fabricated books” should bring. Check out details here. Stay tuned for a typewritten interview with Gabriel and more about, and from, DEUSEXPAGINA.

– Thùy Ngô

Continue on for the literary quantum mechanics and my shame…

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“Dan adds the fact; I add the color.” David Facchini says with a laugh, in describing the symbiotic working relationship that he has with his brother Dan when they put together the book, Muldoon: A True Chicago Ghost Story, with their father, Rocco Facchini. On top of the fact that they are brothers, which creates a whole ‘nother layer of human dynamics, “The creative process and the learning process of how people work is different, you know. Dan works very linearly and I work outwardly.”

Dan, who co-wrote the book, explained his father’s particular aversion to using a machine to record his thoughts. “He wanted nothing to do with a tape recorder. Didn’t want to record himself talking. He couldn’t find his train of thought that way. He said that if he started writing it would start flowing.” Interesting point to ponder when you understand that this all started as an oral tradition of Rocco Facchini regaling his sons and their friends with Muldoon ghost stories, especially around Halloween.

The book was four years in the making, from 1999 to 2003. “There was a lot of road blocks that came up but we got over them.”

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Our Paper Blog at our recent Science of Obscurity event attracted some thoughtful posts, some paper spam, and a few discussion threads, including this one on nerd-dom and the event itself.

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Hello word lovers,

My name is Amy, and I am part of a Chicago lit/art magazine called Two With Water. We may have met at the Chicago Underground Library’s Son of Science of Obscurity event where I probably coerced you into playing a mad-libs game on an overhead projector. Not only did we concoct some intriguing, oxymoronic double entendres, but we learned something too. We learned to expand our mindsets beyond the limitations of superficial language and appropriate word choices. Two With Water, a _______ magazine, uses such a “tagline” because we encourage you- clever readers and writers- to think for yourselves and say what you please! (Stay tuned for photos and text examples.)

But the other thing I wanted to mention is this whole Printers’ Ball coming up!  The theme “Print <3 Digital” got me thinking about TWW’s publishing experience…

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Joe Tallarico works at the Ryerson & Burnham Library at the Art Institute of Chicago. He recently spoke to Anthony Stepter about their comics collection. Be sure to check out the interview here on the blog or pop on over to the Ryerson & Burnham Library and talk to Joe as he can tell you practically anything about comics and art.

You can find more of his art work in digital at his website, Robot Castle. You can find one of is comics in print copy at the Chicago Underground Library, in I Keee You!! A Collection of Overheards (our hyper-productive leader, Nell Taylor, also contributed to that collection). Joe is the comics editor for Lumpen magazine.

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Gag Hag, Jeffrey Brown, Lyonel Feininger, Daniel Clowes’ Eightball, Bijou Funnies, The Hairy Who

Joe Tallarico works at the Ryerson & Burnham Library. He was able to take some time out of his busy schedule to show me a few examples of comics from the collection with strong ties to Chicago. I was given more or less a chronological run-down of the works that he pulled from the Ryerson’s collection, starting with comic strips from the turn of the century and working up to today’s big names like Daniel Clowes and Jeffrey Brown.

Full article and more photos!

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Believing in tomorrow carries a unique sense of nostalgia, too.

<3 Meredith

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