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Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000
To: Dan Wang <danwang@mindspring.com>
From: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>
Subject: Re: Rosa's Argument:
Dear Dan,
"Rosa's Argument" arrived yesterday and is wonderful.
Would
you tell me, please, about the paper and printing?
Did you make the
paper?
Was curious: is the work signed?
Would you and Alan Sondheim be interested at all in having
a
representation of the piece on Archipelago?
I don't know what that
means, exactly. Perhaps something about
it makes sense. Anyway, I can't
stop laughing over the text and think
other high-minds of the '60s would
feel the same; laughing at its humor,
and how much the world has
changed.
yrs.,
Katherine
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000
Subject: Re: Rosa's Argument
From: Dan Wang <danwang@mindspring.com>
To: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>
Katherine,
> Would you tell me, please, about the paper and printing? Did you
> make the paper?
Good questions. It was printed on a Vandercook sp-15 proof press
(manufactured in the early 1960s in Chicago). This particular press
has become the preferred machine among artists doing fine letterpress
work. It was originally used to produce a perfect proof of a handset
form which was then made into a photo-litho plate for eventual offset
mass reproduction. In other words, this machine occupies the very
specific and narrow period in which printing used both manual skills
and photo offset automation. I did not make the paper. The paper is
handmade and called Mouchette Prairie. Full sheets have a deckle
edge,
which I trimmed off.
> Was curious: is the work signed?
No. I generally don't sign stuff.
> Would you and Alan Sondheim be interested at all in having a
> representation of the piece on Archipelago? I don't know what
that means,
> exactly. Perhaps something about it makes sense. Anyway, I can't
stop
> laughing at the text and think other high-minds of the '60s
would feel the
> same; laughing at its humor, and how much the world has changed.
Yeah, I've thought more about the text and the clues that date it. I
think the names Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, especially, give it that
baby boomer nostalgia spark.
Wow, putting it back on the web would really have the project come
full circle! To my mind, such a move is up to you, as an owner of the
work, and as one who, in some sense, has a responsibility to guide
the
work's further evolution. I myself would love to see it happen, and
wonder what reactions it would garner, and how they would compare to
the reactions to Alan's original post. Alan would probably get a kick
out of this thing having taken on such a life of its own.
Dan
Date: Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000
To: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
From: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>
Subject: digital media work
Dear Alan Sondheim,
Dan Wang may have told you about this. I've just received his (other)
printing of "Rosa's Argument," which he had shown at Woodland
Pattern.
I love this piece, for every reason. I love the text,
especially; can't
stop laughing, or at least smiling: those were the
days, how
the world has changed, were we all that young, etc. And
history
behind it. And then, your making the text. I don't know about
the old HP
calculator but an architect friend remembered his, from long
ago; I think
he was both baffled and admiring.
Would you tell me more about your digital media work?
Would you and Dan be interested at all in showing a version of
"Rosa's"
on Archipelago, the quarterly of lit., arts, opinion
which I publish on the web?
Or, perhaps it has appeared elsewhere and I
can see it?
yrs.,
Katherine McNamara
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>
Subject: Re: digital media work
Hi Katherine -
I did Rosa's Argument (and a number of other texts similarly) on a
TI59
calculator with thermal printer - it's still here (at a friend's
house)
and it all still works of course. My current work is at the three
sites
below - I'm a virtual writer-in-residence for trAce at
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk
and the third URL below as well.
You of course have my permission to use anything you want at all...
yours, Alan
Internet Text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html
Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
ROSA’S ARGUMENT
twelve broadsides 17”x12”
wood and metal type on paper
September 1999
was shown in 1999 at
Woodland Pattern Center for the Book
720 East Locust Street
Milwaukee, WI 53212
(go
see!)
Contributors
Rosa’s Argument ©Alan Sondheim, Dan S. Wang
Collection Katherine McNamara
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