This is a video made by a friend, Janice Hudson, for a digital arts class at the University of Washington. She just graduated! Now she is Janoos Hüdson, emerging experimental video artist.

Watching this makes me feel like I’m seeing from a different animal’s perspective. It’s nice to be evacuated from my own animal perspective.

This one by William Kentridge is about a guy who goes to space in his percolator.

If you want an issue of Dewclaw and haven’t ordered one yet, send an email to dewclaw dot mag at gmail dot com with “DEWCLAW RAFFLE” in the subject line. I am not case sensitive.

Next Tuesday, that’s June 30, I’ll write your name on a piece of paper and put those pieces of paper in a pannier. I’ll find a stranger to reach into the pannier and pull out a name. I’ll send a Dewclaw to that person.

+

Dewclaw is here, Adam’s short post about helping edit. Also, a photo of me that includes panniers.

+

If you want to donate to Dewclaw, you can now do that from this blog. There’s a button on the right, under the “buy now” button. A donation can work like a subscription. If you’re kindof interested in that but aren’t sure, email me (dewclaw dot mag at gmail dot com) and I will convince you either that it’s a good idea or a bad idea. Your money will not be used by me to purchase gas, guns, or beasts of burden.

There have been some funny posts to the shit-talk composter.

“I think I am not a good writer” generated a gaga photo of baby.

“We’re both rebounding and it looks like we’re trying to rebound into each other” is a long post about a breakup that made a green chair and a book about porkchops appear.

+

A new issue of Harp & Altar is live.

The proof arrived today.

I’m excited.

I’ll ship orders and contributors’ copies next week, maybe then also give away a few copies.

Thank you, contributors and orderers.

(One thing we goofed: we’d meant to lay out the illustrations so they’d face their titles, but instead, titles are on right pages and illustrations are on the next (left) pages. We learned from this, or, Now time for issue two.)

What bothers more than just about all else in the writing and publishing of words is the felt need (by some) for mystique, a backstage. When I’m in the audience I don’t like being pandered to or protected from what goes on in the making of the spectacle I’m there to engage. I guess because I’m not there to escape–where is there to escape to? What is there to escape?

Most of all I don’t want to contribute to the faking of mystique (unreal/unrealizable context) to surround objects–books are objects. I think that consumer objects and art objects are both mystified–consumer objects mystified by an absent context they seem to come out of, to you, bringing you into that context, and art objects by the mystery of their creation, their artist and his or her “inspiration.” (While I think that plenty in life is mysterious or outside of my understanding, I do not think that the mysteries inhere or gather or thicken in exchanges of product and $. They’re there in other ways.)

For those who want to know, what follows is as precise an account as I can remember the details of about the production of Dewclaw. I’m including personal details (like how much money I made in 2008) for context.

+

The first thing I did was make a page for Dewclaw on this blog, which Adam has helped me a lot with setting up and maintaining. Then I emailed some people whose writing I admire and which I thought would correspond when placed together in a book, asking if they’d like to contribute. All but one said yes and sent something. One person said they would have to see if they would anything to send me in a couple of months.

+

Duotrope soon listed Dewclaw and I got lots of submissions. I haven’t kept a count, but I’ll estimate that for issue one I had about 50, at least 50, unsolicited submissions, some of which I accepted.

+

I searched for a publisher. This part produced the most anxiety for me of any part of making Dewclaw.

I really wanted to use a local printer I could bike to and haul the books home from in a trailer–that’d be ideal, and it did not happen. In April sometime I called 1984, chatted with a nice person there, and said I’d call back after getting more quotes. In early May I called back and left a message, but they didn’t return my call until yesterday, by which time I’ve already hired a different printer. In April I also talked to Eberhardt Press in Portland, and while they seemed friendly the style of their books was not what we were looking for.

Then, at an HTML Giant reading in Seattle, I talked to Kevin Sampsell (of Future Tense) about the printer he used for Chelsea Martin’s book. That’s how I found out about Lightning Source, who we tried and failed to work with because they wouldn’t accept our files, the reason for that being, I think, that the files were converted to PDFs using an open-source layout program (Scribus) that they didn’t support (technologically, not ethically, I think). Adam went to the University of Washington’s library and used an Adobe program (Distiller) that Lightning Source recommended for making PDFs in a format they accept, and even after doing that, after we’d done what they told us to do, they wouldn’t accept our files.

+

So about a week ago I started to look for a different printer.

I liked the quality of printing of Matthew Simmons’ book (A Jello Horse), so I emailed Adam (Publishing Genius) asking which printer he uses. 48 Hour Books. This morning we uploaded our Dewclaw files to their site, and this afternoon, our proof is laid out and ready to order. They quoted us a price of $715 for 150 copies (3 color pages), and 25 free copies. Adam and I are splitting the cost.

(Lightning Source quoted us a price of $4.84 per book for 250 copies with 3 color pages and a 4-color cover. They gave us a 20% discount for ordering 250 copies, which made the price $4.30 or something.)

To make back our money, which I’d like to do so that Dewclaw is sustainable, we need to sell about 72 copies. So far, 14 copies have been pre-ordered.

+

48 Hour Books is easy to work with so far. Our proof is on its way, and shortly after, so will be the Dewclaws.

+

Yet of course it isn’t perfect–

Here’s what Adam (not the PG Adam) said after looking at our proof:

48hrs’ application doesn’t give their files a usable filename when you download them, so you have to rename the files yourself. That’s annoying.

+

My gross income on my 2008 tax return, before taxes and adjustments, is $10,169. In 2007 I made about $16,000. This year, I expect to make something in between those two numbers. I don’t have health insurance. I don’t drive a car, though, which saves a bucket of money.

+

I like knowing where my objects come from, and what their makers need in order to keep making them.

A Dewclaw update–

We’ve decided to switch to a different printer. I’m glad to be switching, even if it does mean Dewclaw will appear slightly later than I had hoped. The printer we’ve been trying to work with, Lightning Source, is just so inflexible about how they want their files. If Lightning Source were a city, there would be spikes on every rail.

A bee update–

There are two dead drones in the photo above. Drones are males, and they don’t do any work. The other bees may have killed them. Isabella Rossellini’s short movie about bees is funny and, I think, accurate.

No one really knows how it happens:

physically and biologically, something is present that was not there before.

I could see the leading edge as a thin line of echo moving NE.

I could feel myself breathing on the other side of the monitor, where there was a swamp.

The hull, breaking, was said to talk.

Caught a tiny fish down there. Took a picture with my phone in the dark. Just black.

+

Lines 1 & 2: from The Transmission of Affect by Teresa Brennen

Line 3: from Cliff Mass Weather Blog, the original wording slightly altered.

Line 4: me, after reading some of the article, “Hostage Hallucinations: Visual Imagery Induced by Isolation and Life-Threatening Stress”

Line 5: me

Line 6: Adam’s status update a few days ago, altered slightly

A review of my story in the current (just released) issue of Unsaid appears here, on the Emerging Writer’s Network. Dan Wickett and Unsaid editor David McLendon say some nice things.

“Hampton breaks me in places I believed I no longer contained.”

(Being called by only my last name reminds me of a rock-climbing guide/guru I had once. He’d stand above on the top of the climb and yell, Hampton! What the hell are you doing down there? Your legs are shaking like Elvis.)

I think I’m going to be in Brooklyn for the Unsaid release reading on June 15th. It’ll be at KGB. It will be my first reading since I won the DARE essay contest in 5th grade. Come see me look nervous.