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Patronage, Revisited

We are the democratic patron of those arts deemed commercial—our votes are cast in plastic swipes and PayPal clicks. Why, then, are we so often dissatisfied with those fancies by our favors fashioned?

It doesn’t have to be this way. The 21st century has granted us technologies capable of freeing us from corporate mediation–even as our lives become more and more mediated by those selfsame technologies. So, while we now have commercials on Youtube and targeted advertisement on Facebook, we also have places like Kickstarter, helping independent ventures get off the ground by connecting creative entrepreneurs directly with the people most enthusiastic about their success: you and me.

But before we can get there, we must pick our way back–way back–through the historical relationship that has always existed, sometimes regrettably, sometimes gratefully, between artists and their economy.

Let me put it another way: Any writer you’ve heard of is bound to be a sell-out. Open up the book review—if your paper still has one—and you’ll find a coven of J.K. Rowlings. A cabal of Stephen Kings. A blasphemy of Dan Browns, an orgy of Stephanie Meyers, a litigation of John Grishams, and a scattering of Cormac McCarthys to legitimize the business. They have to be. Either they sell millions of copies, or they might as well not exist.

They can’t help it. Writers, like spirits that fade to dust as soon as they’re forgotten, are only writers when they are being read. Otherwise, they’re no better than hobbyists. I know adults who, educational curricula aside, haven’t cracked a single book outside of the Twilight “saga” in the past half-decade. Their numbers dwarf the adults I know who still consider reading a pleasure, and who bother to scratch below the bestseller lists.

But are the readers really to blame? We’ve been fed up on pulp and crap, Pavlov’d to believe that sitting patiently through over 500 hours of television advertisements per year is time well spent. We can’t read what isn’t published, and we will read only a small percentage of what is—chiefly because, unless you’re following the career of a favorite author, the space beyond that Bestsellers rack gives way quickly to unnavigable void. Every Borders bookstore nationwide either has closed or will soon be closing its doors, permanently. As much of a McBookstore as it could sometimes be, some cities had no other options (independent bookstores either having been choked off by chains or never having existed in the first place) and will soon have no option whatsoever. Our public libraries—which survive, increasingly, on private patronage—have never been more in peril. We may soon find the bookshelf obsolete. Browsing is a dying art.

Growing up near the coast, I never got to experience the awe of seeing the ocean for the first time. By the time I knew what it was, it had always been there. That experience…I think it’s left the menu for good. My generation, and the generations to follow, will never get to see those kinds of horizons with fresh eyes; they’re only a plane trip away, and television and movies have already shown us all there is and more. We’ve been robbed.

Our grandchildren might one day experience that same awe upon visiting their university or federal library and seeing those rows of physical books lined up for the browsing. I take little consolation in that. They’ll be incapacitated by choice. Or are libraries already on their way to becoming an app?

Let’s change the subject. Let’s change something. Let’s talk about patronage. Some patrons are pecuniary. When most of us think of patronage—if we devote any thought to such a seemingly outmoded system—we paint some romantic portrait of a Renaissance artist under commission by a nobleman wishing to alchemize his wealth into legacy.

But patrons are also conceptual, in both a straightforward and less straightforward way. Patrons don’t just say “Here’s some money; paint me something pretty” (those would be dads). Neal Stephenson, in volume 1 of his three-volume, 3000 page historical/science fiction “Baroque Cycle”, describes a scene in which the emergent Royal Society, operating under the patronage of John Comstock, abruptly cease all ongoing experiments in order to fulfill a request from Comstock’s patron (and, by order of hierarchy, all of England’s): “His Majesty had noticed that ant eggs were bigger than ants, and demanded to know how that was possible.” Patrons make things—art, discovery—possible, but in the end they also shape those possibilities in their own image.

Likewise, we have patrons that are purely conceptual, that offer no material support in the making of something but are nonetheless an element of its making. They’re all around us—books, movies, television, and the various other worlds in which we steep long enough each day for their flavors to influence us. In both cases, it pays to be transparent about our sources—those individuals who keep their sponsors hidden tend not to keep them for very long.

So, for example, I may never have started thinking about patronage had I not recently cracked the seal on Quicksilver, Stephenson’s aforementioned novel, set in 17th century England at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution. It’s easy to think of patronage only in terms of the Michelangelo and the Medici, but natural philosophy was no less governed by the whims (and purses) of nobles; it’s clear that the great thinkers of the Royal Society would have been doing a lot of daydreaming were it not for their wealthy and politically powerful connections.

By some weird harmonic resonance, these kinds of situations keep turning up in my imaginary life, invisible though they seem to be in my real one. Mason & Dixon, An Instance of the Fingerpost…. While I wouldn’t point to it as a pioneer of interactive storytelling, I’ve been enjoying Assassin’s Creed II, which can best be described as The Da Vinci Code with extra da Vinci. However, Leonardo’s flamboyant enthusiasm for cryptanalysis and man-powered flight can’t compare with the weird authenticity of playing the role of an assassin who receives commissions from patron among patrons Lorenzo de’ Medici—what one writer calls a “Medici Assassin.”

There’s something hopelessly romantic about all this. True, we still have grants, federal and private, in nearly all fields of art and science. The recipients of grants still need to expend some effort to keep their sponsors happy. But there’s no romance in that. It’s nothing like the jeopardous underdoggedness you imagine Boyle must have felt when he wanted to cut up a dog for science, or da Vinci to put a man in the air.

What’s really changed? Only our entire economic and political structure. When the wealth and power were in the hands of the few, even the economy and politics reflected the ideals of the most powerful patrons—the Medici are the perfect example of this phenomenon. We still have a few people—or corporations or interest groups—with a controlling interest in the cultural wealth of our nation. We also, as voters and stockholders, have some degree of control over the allocation of grants. However, if you tune the microscope closer, you’ll see that there are a few Big Daddy patrons with their hands down everybody’s shorts, making us all feel a little dirty. Their names are Consumerism and Democracy, though they may as well be Legion.

How much sway do we really hold over the arts we patronize? Between Borders and Penguin, Amazon and Random House, our votes are mediated at both ends by forces whose eyes, when reading a literary masterpiece or a piece of illiterate mush, will always be distracted by the twinkle of gold on the horizon. They decide what we can spend our money on, and what happens to that money once we spend it. We then fall into the same cycle that has poisoned the fast food industry: our teeth grow soft on digestible, saccharine fare, requiring every meal to be sweeter and more finely chopped than the last, until we’re stuck drinking sugary mush and wondering where all the carrots have gone.

So we begin to look for an alternative. Outside of creating our own insular system of commerce–which I believe ignores the very real, sometimes grim economic situation of many artists, commercial or no, who deserve compensation for the important work they do–our only choice is to rewire the system, bypassing the middlemen who decide what we can make and want made, trying to learn to make those decisions for ourselves.

Donating to a Kickstarter campaign, as many of you already know, is a bit like buying stock in creativity. My first experience with Kickstarter was with Andrew Plotkin’s Hadean Lands project, which had well exceeded its goal by the time I got on board. However, Kickstarter offers enticements for various levels of donations—by pledging $25 or more, I secured myself a “rune-inscribed CD” of the game (the only way to obtain a PC-compatible version of the iOS exclusive); higher-tier backers will have their names integrated into the game as Heroes of the Calcination/Dissolution/Coagulation, while the most coveted prize sees Plotkin flying out to bake cookies and discuss stuff. If Plotkin hadn’t been able to raise enough money to get his enterprise off the ground—a non-issue in this case—I wouldn’t have been charged a cent; backers are only billed once the goal has been met. And, like a real investor, I’ve been receiving monthly updates on the project, so I get to see exactly how my money is being spent (mostly on noodles, as it turns out).

Kickstarter makes it frighteningly easy to want to spend money. Each campaign is attractively laid out, with a video describing the project and clear descriptions of the project’s goal, projected business plan, and what each level of donation will net you. There’s something slightly suspicious about the machine-pressed design of the individual pages, and the segregation of pages “curated” by places like YouTube and Sundance, but I try to push it to the back of my mind. Finding projects is also easy: click on the word “discover” in the top tab, and you’re immediately shown a slew of projects, broken down into categories such as “New and Noteworthy,” “Popular This Week,” and “Recently Successful.” This is my first time really browsing the site, so it’s hard to tell how deep the rabbit hole really goes (another reason why the e-reader browsing experience will never replace the bookshelf). Sidebars make it easy to search by city or category, as well as to find small projects or projects that will soon expire. You don’t have to dig deep to find something enticing; at the time of this writing, I’m browsing through a cross-cultural puppeteering project that will tour Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma; a short film starring plastic army men and living cicadas; and an anthology comic book featuring work exclusively by women. The front page of the site also has a Project of the Day: in this case, Les Figues Press’s I’ll Drown My Book, a collection of conceptual writing by women such as Kathy Acker and Renee Gladman which has recently met its goal (congratulations!). Were I to pledge the minimum in each of these projects to net myself a copy (or a handmade sock-puppet in one case), I would be out $115–and I’ve barely left the front page.

The front page also shows me Strange Attractors: Investigations in Non-Humanoid Extraterrestrial Sexualities, an art book/DVD that I can practically guarantee would never appear on the front table at Borders. It’s a bit of a coincidence, because my name is listed on the table of contents, alongside fellow CalArts Writing MFA Denise Li, whose contribution, as I’ve said elsewhere, is one of the most hyper-charged, profound, confusing, and hilarious things I have ever encountered—a bit like sex itself. Unlike I’ll Drown My Book, Strange Attractors still has some distance to cover toward its goal–$5000 in the next 25 days. Will they make it? That depends on how many people besides myself find the following description enticing: “this project has gone beyond male and female, beyond queer, beyond any notion of gender, beyond the anthropomorphic to erotic possibilities as vastly varied as the universe itself.”

Of course, Kickstarter isn’t the only corner of the web connecting artists directly with their audience. I was recently published by another one of them. Word Busker: newer, smaller, and generally poorer-known than Kickstarter, but no less inspired. The motto of this literary e-zine (which specializes in <500-word microfiction) is one I think we can all agree with: “sentimentality can only survive on ramen noodles for so long.” Their approach to that problem seems so simple you have to wonder why everybody else isn’t doing it: rather than pay the author a fixed royalty for publication, the reader is encouraged to donate, via PayPal, an amount they consider proportionate to the worth of the story. The donation is then passed on directly to the author. This has increasingly been the model in other kinds of independent art communities, but this is the first time I’ve seen it applied to literature. I have a feeling that, once they’ve caught the attention they deserve, Word Busker will be a Big Thing.

The Word Busker model might not seem so revolutionary at first glance. In a traditional publishing model, the readers give money to the publishers, and the publishers give money to the writers; the writers are still getting paid, so what’s the big deal? For one thing, it’s not that simple: technically, the readers give money to the booksellers, who order from the distributors, who then send a check to the publishers. And then there’s the fact that the writers (and the printers and artists etc.) have (hopefully) already been paid by the time the book hits shelves. What this means for magazines particularly is that, even if the reader’s money can be said to make its way eventually to the authors, it’s getting invested in the next issue’s batch of authors. If you bought 15 copies of Black Clock 11 because you love Chris Abani, that’s great and we love you forever, but you can’t count yourself as one of Chris Abani’s patrons (and I’m not sure he’d want you to).

Of course, this isn’t really a problem if all you love is Black Clock (or BOMB or Harper’s or what have you). But there are times when one piece particularly moves you, or you want to help cultivate an emerging talent, and it’s nice to be able to intervene directly. Word Busker is for those times. It also quite handily does away with any concept of a “shelf life”—a chimera in the world of online publishing to begin with. If you stumble across one of these stories for the first time 12 years from now, you can still reward the author for the very current pleasures induced by their past efforts. You’ll just have to cross your fingers that PayPal hasn’t folded by then.

What’s next? We already have novels written by delegation. The time may come when I can say “Write me a book about an unbound lagomorphologist hitchhiking his way up the Mississippi Delta,” toss a fiver with a patrician flourish at the screen, and the internet will write it for me. I am my own Medici. Magical.

by Byron Alexander Campbell
an Associate Editor of Black Clock preoccupied by dreams and theories of interactivity

PRINT SNOT DEAD: An Interview with Betty Nguyen

Media assassin and cultural glass blower Betty Nguyen makes death-of-print doomsayers eat their words. As a part of the Levi’s Workshop 2010 summer series, Nguyen—whose traditional titles include curator, art director, and founder and editor of First Person Magazine—has created a contemporary library that offers the public “a diverse sampling of anything artists are noting, coming across, doodling, making right now and flipping upside down into your own message… In a backlash to the world of internet, $60,000 Italian art catalogs, or life commitments, it is just to give people the opportunity and window into another’s life, to read something new and connected to a global consciousness of sharing ideas in one place.”

Unofficially called Print Snot Dead, Nguyen’s project is an oasis in a sea of announcements from across the country of library operation cutbacks and closings due to drastic budget reductions, of bookstores both small and large struggling to survive or shutting their doors, and of articles and editorials bemoaning the death of the printed object which, most recently, is being blamed on the iPad. Which begs the question: What makes Nguyen’s library stand out? Afterall, its intention is on the more humble end of the spectrum; its model of providing a public space where people can read for free is not new and in many communities in danger of extinction; and go into almost any independent bookstore and you’ll stumble upon a section reserved for zines, chapbooks, and other DIY printed matter.

Of course there’s the fact that like placing vintage plastic-framed glasses on the face of Johnny Depp, setting up Nguyen’s space in the newly-renovated Levi’s Workshop revamps the community library’s image from a musty, tan-carpeted, fluorescent-lit glorified waiting room filled with more dust and mean librarians than books you actually want to read, to a place of cool where hip-factor is calculated by geeking-out over a minefield of work vetted by the cultural elite. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the marketing power of a major corporate brand backing the contemporary library. Still, there is more to the project than making what’s old, new again or creating a buzz for Levi’s.

What makes Nguyen’s library exciting is that as much as it applies certain traditional frameworks, it also totally disregards elements that we have come to understand are part and parcel with them. In bringing the library into an art space, Nguyen ignores notions held by a society–which generally still views writing and art as distinct fields–that the library is reserved for “books” not “art” and that the gallery is reserved for “art” not “books.” In presenting work from both visual and literary artists side-by-side in the same space, Nguyen further eschews these distinctions and dares visitors to do the same. In soliciting work that artists are not only creating but excited by and finding or exploring themselves, Nguyen places as much value on sharing uniqueness of mind and passion as on an “original work.” And in presenting the curated works in a library–where everything can and should be handled, read, viewed, explored–Nguyen invites us to abandon the customary reserve of white box gallery culture and actively engage and love the work with unfettered enthusiasm.

Black Clock recently spoke with Nguyen to gain more insight on her library–which opens its doors this Saturday, July 17th in the Levi’s Workshop San Francisco space (aka the old Slanted Door restaurant)– as well as her perspective on art and writing, First Person Magazine, the iPad, Tina Turner, and Celestial Seasonings.

BLACK CLOCK: What inspired your contemporary library and the concept of “Print Snot Dead”?

BETTY NGUYEN: Well, I’ve curated a few “zine libraries” of handmade books, as that format still is popular in the Bay Area and in the United States. And I thought I’d expand the invitation to artists. To kind of bring them back to their punk roots of making zines. And of course, “Print Snot Dead” comes from “Punk Snot Dead.” Punk was a big thing in San Francisco, and I thought of it when I was asked to curate the zine library as part of the Levi’s Workshop here this summer. But the zine library isn’t going to be called “Print Snot Dead”; that was kind of an inside joke.

It’s interesting, as their marketing Levi’s to work with the community, that the creative pinpoint here [in San Francisco] is DIY print. I know in New York, they are setting up a free photo studio. And in New Orleans, a music studio. So, they must have figured the widest audience or most popular medium here to connect with is print media on a DIY level, which I find interesting. It’s kind of a fusion of Beat poet slash letterpress/silkscreen poster art that is kind of still valued when promoting signs here or ads. Like the whole Mission Street art school, seemed like everyone came from sign-making somehow. I guess, because I have a magazine, I have always loved print. I love photography, illustration, stories, relaying, editions. I love holding something in my hands and reading or flipping. I still subscribe to a few things, to support print publications, and I love buying books.

Can you tell us about some of the work in the show?

This artist from Chiapas found me on Facebook and sent me something. It’s totally crazy. I was scared to actually open the package in the mail–it was so suspicious-looking and it was from Mexico. It’s like his diary from many years. I kind of can’t believe he sent it to me. I don’t even know where to send it back, but it’s like, 600 pages with collage inserts, watercolors, and it’s super-musty. I also got a newspaper made from Frank Benson, an artist friend in New York. It’s got no text. Just black-and-white large photos of a couple of concrete windows that have been covered with random nailed in sheets of metal chain link that creeps in from the walls, and everything’s been sprayed white to interlock the materials. It’s super-creepy, the more I look at it. One artist has promised me a pop-up book!

What has been your approach in curating contemporary libraries?

It’s a bit different, as it’s kind of more open than curating an exhibition. It’s more of an open selection of zines from bookstores and my friend who runs the San Francisco Zine Fest, and inviting artists too who have a bit of extra time for me which is nice. There’s no comment that the show is making, yet… which is something I usually tackle. And it’s not something I am developing with an artist. I am kind of open to surprises and versatility of what someone has lurking inside to put into this format. So far, my approach has been to ask, “What is on your mind?” and “Can you put that into a paper form of some kind?” That has been the only premise.

If print’s not dead, what is it?

Good question. I believe that print is now honored. It’s not over, it’s got more value. Like anything couture, or something cooked in the kitchen rather than industrially popped out of a can, print is the tried and true thing that has passed a lot of time, hands, minds, and because the process is longer, the product has more staying power. Print is permanent, until it’s tossed or burned. I like to have books on my shelves as a reference library. Do you know how many bookmarks are in my computer that I’ll probably never go back to? Maybe that’s an organizational thing, but print to me, is delicious. I like to read out loud in a certain voice to my romantic friend, and share things. I like to give away books, and pick them up. You can send a link, but what if you got a card in the mail? Does it have more of a subtext than an emoticon? Each serves a purpose. Print is tangible. It can appeal to the senses. I just got a magazine that has smells on every page. I nerd-out on the paper quality of my new hardback books. When I select ink colors it’s with total pleasure for the magazine-user. I ask myself, “How will this make them feel, blue over red? Does it emulate the qualities of Summer?” I just had this huge discussion with my Art Director about the user-friendliness of our next issue which will be a newspaper. I want it on panels. I want them to flip through it, and feel satisfied, whereas he was looking at it like a poster and stories were cutting into different sections and I found it confusing. There’s an overall rhythm, and emotion that we are trying to communicate. And he looks closely at his dots, and underlines and grids. Whereas, I step back and look at the creative direction of the entire reader’s experience, and how the placement of features works psychologically. You can’t get this by scrolling.

The separation between “art” and “writing”–particularly literary writing–still seems to pervade in American mainstream culture. As a curator, artist, and editor of First Person Magazine, have you also found this to be true?

I actually find this to be totally the opposite. I find that most of my ideas, how I convey them to artists and my audience, and what I am questioning or presenting in my curatorial work is done completely through writing. Visual work almost comes second as concepts become more important in thinking about art and its execution. In fact, I am constantly reading and writing and researching. Literature is a goldmine for reflecting society. It is imperative to inform yourself of the past, and present events to determine what is current and needs to be presented; from this, I think, “Well, how are these perceptions formed?”

I like to read while I write. And because I don’t have a huge artist community in San Francisco, in contrast to New York, I surround myself with interviews and literature books that I rely on for fleshing out ideas. I wrote before I became a curator. In fact, curating is more an intuitive process for me, that I can’t quite write about until almost the end of my gathering process when I am forced to write a press release or in many cases a proposal for a museum. I listen to my instincts first for why a show should examine what’s going on in the world or my own personal world. Writing is a way to share what’s going on inside my head to the galleries and museums. It’s communication guides the exhibition. I think that artists and curators have a deep respect for those who can write well. Art criticism is crucial to discussion and connecting what we do to the whole rest of the world including pop culture, politics, social phenomena. Conflict and debate, archiving…

What have your experiences been in involving literary text in your work?

First Person Magazine began because I write in a slightly different way about art as an experience. I wanted to convey this mainly because most art publications were just sighting the same theorists over and over, and the rhetoric just didn’t justify the only way of digesting or understanding art. There’s now a huge change with blogging. Everyone writes in first person or more casually about art, and even gets a bit tabloid-y about it. I’m not big on the art gossip pages, but I know they’re popular to view. Another way, I work literature is through First Person Magazine‘s taglines. I worked for other magazines, and more often than not, the titles for stories were tacky derivatives of fashionable songs. For each issue of FP, I choose quotes from one book that I am reading to stand in for the taglines that I think add to the story. Our second issue used Richard Brautigan’s quotes, which are funny and very juicy. Our third injected quotes from conversations from a Mike Kelley book that I thought were sexy and kinda dark. And our Summer Issue, due out July 17th, is filled with David Lynch quotes from an interview book. Initially, I was just into incorporating poetry somehow, and now it’s expanded.

I just recently put together a poetry reading as part of a festival I curated, called No Birds Allowed, and I think it was refreshing to invite poets and playwrights into a gallery setting. So, I guess I like to expand the term ‘art’ or ‘artist’ to anyone who is making something that introduces something new. This is why I ask musicians to also contribute and write for First Person Magazine. I put everyone on the same playing field.

I am also working on curating a contemporary library that I hope will tour. Art books, ones that are handmade by poets, are included; I like how resourceful they can be. The art catalogs sometimes get to be trendy… colored paper is in, or newsprint, or this binding, and they’re really expensive, so it is almost competitive. But when you get a literary artist involved, that stuff is just like from a bookbinding class they took or figured out. I love poetry right now. But it’s kind of this under-the-radar thing. I was invited to a poetry reading by a friend of mine, who’s an absolute genius, and was thrilled to re-enter this arena. But when I asked one of my favorite poets and old friends to read at No Birds, he was actually intimidated to read at an art opening. So, he suggested a friend substitute. Which I thought was funny but worked out. I also got a call recently from Jack Walls, Robert Mapplethorpe’s boyfriend in New York, because he found out I liked his work. I absolutely would love to do a show with him. He wrote this poem which took two years to compose on paper in cursive which is so sensual and, I’m thinking because he’s Black, it was just really direct and no frills. The imagery just pierced into your mind like a film you’ve seen over and over. When I say that comment, about his racial background, I just remember seeing Tina Turner on this Hugh Hefner TV show and she said to Hugh–who commented that “Rhythm and Blues” was coming up as the new American music–she responded, “Well, Black people don’t really mess around with words like that. We like to call our music, ‘Grease’ cause it’s dirty and sexy.” And I just thought, that was awesome.

I also wrote for a catalog I published for Cosmic Wonder museum exhibition, and the opening quote is a line from the music composer Arvo Part that seemed like such a beautiful little nugget of truth. So, I feel like poetry can exist in many forms. Come to think of it, I also had a quote from a Celestial Seasonings magnet about the idea of Wonder. So, if you just look around, I think literature pervades everywhere.

How do you think the internet is changing our relationship with print, the printed object, reading, creating, how we share information?

I guess I think it’s funny that everything has to be more real or personable to give it value since the internet gives access to people on a very intimate level. Like when publications show the “inside” of their books or zines, sometimes their fingers or clips are in them to show the actual books. A lot of photography comes into play when communicating a publication as an actual object that exists in reality as a three dimensional form.

I like the idea of the Kindle, because in college I hated lugging around big books or reading in bed. But at the same time, now as an adult, I find reading away from the internet an indulgence that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I am happy that there is more access, and archiving, but also, some things you read on the internet are ephemeral. My friend just posted that Gmail has the right to delete your account for any or no given reason. So, nothing is ever safe except for print if we hang on to things.

As far as creating… Well, I was just thinking that Facebook or blogs are almost this “how many signatures can I get in my yearbook” coolness, or gossip thing. It’s like a bunch of housewives reincarnated in the form of the world, and everyone’s really aware now of Public and Private domains in our lives. Like the Warhol celebrity thing. So many people archive their lives to create new “content” on their pages. A new profile pic, etc.. I’ve been watching this hack chef make recipes on YouTube that are pretty funny. And I guess people gauge how many comments or hits you get as this value of importance. But like, why are there so many fashion bloggers versus art bloggers? Maybe they have more time on their hands to follow other trends while artists are in their studios making work from scratch? And why isn’t a poetry blog as accessible or attractive as a fashion blog? What makes them tick?

My friend David Enos has a blog on Tumblr that is hilarious. My Tumblr community kind of provides me with my daily laugh or smile, but as far as sharing information, there isn’t a lot there to grasp onto. I guess you can look up diseases without consulting a doctor which is kind of cool. But nothing on the internet is fact. Or has to be. It’s like everyone became an expert. The democracy is kind of confusing. And Yelp, I think is totally paid employees or a bit passive aggressive. I guess information just gets shared faster. Like, did a lot of important creative people die this year more than any other, or is it because we have the internet that it becomes more sensationalized?

Thoughts on the iPad?

I really want one for my bookshelf.

It seems that your contemporary library is as much about creating a space for face-to-face community and physical interaction, as much as it is about providing a place for interaction with the printed object. With that said, what are your thoughts on Neen’s Miltos Manetas’ assertion that “real space is usually bad taste”?

A neen is a space. It’s just for people who are tech. They try to imitate life. I think they should use their lexicon to encourage their own system of imagery and language. Kind of like animation. You have this whole other world you can create, and for the most part, those people are trying to show the public, “Look how much we can make fur or water or people look REAL?” Who cares. We can see what’s real. You have the capacity to make a complete fantasy with your tools and you make a dog? I’m not interested. So bad taste, is obviously a funny pisstake. Or maybe they can’t function socially and have to poke fun. I love going into a bookstore and reading for a bit. Because I know once I leave with the book, the only other place I’ll have that same tranquility is on the train.

How do you think the floundering public libraries has/will affect our relationship to reading and sense of community?

I don’t think that public libraries are floundering at all. In fact, with the recession tons more of the public have become members to take full advantage of this loan system that is such a generous thing. It’s rare for the U.S. to offer something still for free to the public, so I think they are thriving. And they are also going online and allowing access to downloadable materials. Public libraries also work with university libraries to loan materials. So, there is a wealth of information that the public is accessing.

Perhaps “floundering” is the wrong word. I’m referring to the massive budget cuts in funding for both public and school libraries, which has forced many to cut hours, close their doors several days a week, or close altogether. And then there’s the closing of all these independent bookstores across the country–thoughts on how that’s changing the landscape?

I haven’t heard of any independent bookstores closing. In fact, there always seems to be one opening here in San Francisco.

Sounds like bookstore heaven. In Los Angeles, Dutton’s, Equator Books, Other Times, A Different Light, Bodhi Tree, and Wilshire Books all closed within the last three years—and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Though San Francisco sounds pretty idyllic, I’m curious to know if you’ve observed the development of any movements or scenes offering an alternative to independent bookstores?

Independent magazines are still starting, and maybe we’re being more resourceful about our finance models, but magazines are producing more events and showing their creative wares and sustainability. First Person Magazine has been invited to over five international publication fairs this year alone.

Where do you see print in ten years? What about the relationship between “art” and “writing”?

I’ve never been able to project that far in advance for anything. I hope for things and make goals for myself. But I think that people who do print aren’t just about paper and words. What fuels those publications, like First Person Magazine, is our interest in life, culture, art, so we are creating communities and produce projects. I hope the direction of things moves towards partnerships. That our creative energy will be recognized and not just utilized to get “reviews” or “exposure.” As a publisher, I have a lot of creative energy to synergize everything in the magazine to life–into festivals, exhibitions, editions, design. We know what’s good, out there, and next, so we are great consultants with ideas and artists unto ourselves. Gone are the days of the journalist-hack as wannabe or hanger-on. Writers are great observers. Sensitive and full of wild fictions that come from real experiences. Writing and art are symbiotic. They need each other to exist. Artists, critics, and writers love to write about what’s happening, because we do what we do because we think it is important. That sounds egotistical, but it’s not. In my “First Word,” in the upcoming issue [of First Person Magazine,] I talk about creatives being out of love with the ordinary. Writers are the thinkers of our times. And artists manifest our times into memoirs.

Betty Nguyen’s contemporary library opens this Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 7pm (Levi’s Workshop, 580 Valencia Street, cross street 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103) in conjunction with the launch of First Person Magazine‘s Summer Issue, Discomfort of Sculpture.

by Kyoung Kim
who is currently nomadic

image of Betty Nguyen by David Enos

Posts Tagged ‘Public Libraries’—

Patronage, Revisited

PRINT SNOT DEAD: An Interview with Betty Nguyen

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