sweet...

bill roberts at Bottle of Smoke Press recently began introducing limited run hardback versions of his publications, such as Father Luke's book and the upcoming book by Hosho McCreesh, to accompany the larger print run. they are gorgeous and sell out in minutes after being announced. lucky me, big bill decided he wanted a hardback version of my BOSP book; in the mail today I found one of two copies of And Still The Night Left To Go handbound in red cloth boards with the watercolor typewriter painting fixed upon it. I tell you what: for all the talk of online vs. print in the poetry/lit world, for all the talk of readers and hits and such, nothing and I mean NOTHING compares to holding a work of art like this. I mean, assembled by hand, people. a real live motherfucking book. I say: fuck Kindle and etc. you can't hold a candle to an actual book (heh, seriously, don't) and you can't beat the exacting perfection of a true craftsman who loves his work.

and hell, what happens when the trucks stop moving thru the intertubes? whatcha gonna read then? where's your news coming from? your literature? where are your online mags now? I mean, ease and low cost and visibility is dandy, but it is just so fleeting, so illusory. now, don't get me wrong, online is fine for some things, no question, even up to and including publishing poetry. I do it. I sometimes send work to online mags. here is my blog. I use it ravenously for news and information, for communication. I think the internet is one of the greatest inventions the military industrial complex has generated (especially as it constantly bites them in the ass, no matter how easy it is to track our every move and record the minutae of our lives in an NSA database) it's much like the CIA testing under the MK Ultra program in the sixties yielding culture transforming open minds like ken kesey and robert hunter; sometimes the genie won't go back in the bottle. so it's how you use the tools that matters, I suppose, and what you're trying to accomplish. if you want the cave painting that endures and informs whomever may come after us, if you're leaving it behind to rot for maybe one person to find, if it's a record of our passing like a weathered photograph in an old album you're after, you're gonna need a book. words carved into paper with ink sitting on a shelf gathering dust. no question, the internet is great for getting readers of those words, for helping book makers sell their works of art so they can keep doing it, etc. and if the end goal of most writing is communication on some level, then what a perfect tool.

but in the end, you can't beat items like this:


sorry there are only two of em, folks (click the picture; you can almost feel the cloth under your fingers). but you can get on the list to get McCreesh's hardback edition of Marching Unabashed Into The Weeping, Searing Sun... due out very soon (with original painting). there are only going to be 26 of em I believe [oops, see comments for UPDATE on availability from bill himself]...