Book Magazine Book

Issue/Edition 52: book magazine book

2007-11-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

This is the last bookmagazinebook.

Its theme is the bookmagazinebook project. It won't be viewable until the others are all done.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Home.

Issue/Edition 51: Reasons

2007-11-12T22:07:00.001-08:00

Issue/Edition 50: Heart (Unfinished)

2007-11-12T22:06:00.001-08:00

Issue/Edition 49: ~ destroy ~

2007-11-12T22:04:00.000-08:00

Issue/Edition 48: ALL JUST FANCY FOOTWORK

2007-11-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

Issue/Edition 47: Noise and more Noise

2007-11-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

Issue/Edition 46: Worn

2007-10-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Reykjavik, Iceland

Issue/Edition 45: Vital and Intriguing Scientific Discoveries of a Lesser Order

2007-09-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Glasgow, Scotland

Issue/Edition 44: Where the Light Left You

2007-09-22T23:10:00.001-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Rio de Janiero, Brazil

Issue/Edition 43: Evening Stories

2007-09-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Chennai, India

Issue/Edition 42: LATE ARRIVALS

2007-09-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Kuopio, Finland

Issue/Edition 41: heavy light weight sight

2007-09-10T20:29:00.001-07:00

Issue/Edition 40: Wind

2007-09-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Issue/Edition 39: there are things lacking but all that will change

2007-08-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

A single page. A DIY edition. With additions.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Vancouver, Canada

Issue/Edition 38: Traces and Erases

2007-08-15T02:14:00.001-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Richmond, Australia

Issue/Edition 37: Still. Life.

2007-08-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Darlinghurst, Australia

Issue/Edition 36: Items Detached

2007-08-06T03:47:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Highgate, Australia

Issue/Edition 35: Irresponsible

2007-07-18T03:45:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Greystanes, Australia

Issue/Edition 34: This Much is Certain

2007-07-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Gothenburg, Sweden

Issue/Edition 33: Unsung Songs

2007-07-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Northcote, Australia

Issue/Edition 32: re:Collect

2007-06-28T20:20:00.001-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: East Melbourne, Australia

Issue/Edition 31: Still Moving

2007-06-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Melbourne, Australia

Issue/Edition 30: Everything and Always

2007-06-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

30 is probably the most organic and textured bookmag yet.

Part of this project's brief is of course that we don't know much of what happens once these books are on their way. But from what we at the Top Secret underground BMB headquarters know so far, the average time it takes for a first contributor to make their mark and pass that baby on is around a month, and that figure is frequently closer to two - that is, a sixth of the year each book is in circulation. That's fine, of course, since a blank book returned was always a possibility, and editions unreturned a distinct probability. But we'd like at least one busy bookmagazinebook to return highly decorated for readers to enjoy, so this issue has one of our infrequent conditions: every day the book is in your possession, a minimum of two (facing) pages must be utilised.

Feel free to go over that limit, clearly. It's a big ol' book.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: London, England

Issue/Edition 29: Robots, Just Relaxing

2007-06-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

A terribly low-tech, somewhat ugly issue. We'll see if that can be remedied.

Otherwise, it's robots, just relaxing. As is their right.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Glebe, Australia

Issue/Edition 28: The Complete and Annotated History of the Invisible Pleasant War

2007-05-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Composed of various texts and fragments potentially including but not limited to interviews, diagrams, maps, recollections, revisions, scholarly accounts, extracts from the popular press, blueprints, photos, interpretations and hypotheses, presenting in total a full and detailed account of the great but still largely unacknowledge Invisible Pleasant War.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: London, England

Issue/Edition 27: Happy + Accident

2007-05-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: North Sydney, Australia

Issue/Edition 26: Reasonable Demands

2007-05-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

Well now then, here we are exactly halfway through this little project with bookmagazinebooks making their merry way across the globe. In celebration, this edition will give more power to the contributors who will not only shape their own additions to the work, but will be allowed to make demands of others. Off we go.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Melbourne, Australia

Issue/Edition 25: Shelved

2007-05-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Brunswick, Australia

Issue/Edition 24: The Last Cookbook

2007-04-25T22:41:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Hawthorn, Australia

Issue/Edition 23: Travel

2007-04-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

The second in a series of three Lovely Books (see last issue), this one is a real stunner (also - the first bookmag with magnets). There are things which connect certain bookmags - this one shares with No. 22 (and to a lesser extent No. 12) a really beautiful packaging. Others are Difficult Books (14, 18, 21) or Ugly Books (6, 8, 17) or Books That Won't Come Back (won't know that for a while). Some themes will reoccur, and of course there are Special Instructions Books such as the Bounce Back edition No. 13.

This, No. 23, has vague instructions too. Send it as far as you can. As an issue devoted to travel, let's try to see how many frequent flyer miles we can rack up, shall we? Yes, let's.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: New York, USA

Issue/Edition 22: An Unnecessary Machine

2007-04-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Vermont, USA

Issue/Edition 21: Because of the Increasing Disorder

2007-04-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Brunswick East, Australia

Issue/Edition 20: Dark Association

2007-04-01T22:54:00.000-07:00

Do not adjust your set.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Melbourne, Australia

Issue/Edition 19: Eye Witness

2007-03-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Berlin, Germany

Issue/Edition 18: Animal

2007-03-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

Off to the land of the long white cloud.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Auckland, New Zealand

Issue/Edition 17: The Overlooked Numbers

2007-03-08T21:13:00.000-08:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Parkside, Australia

Issue/Edition 16: What You Forgot and Perhaps Why?

2007-03-01T19:11:00.000-08:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Curtin, Australia

Issue/Edition 15: Truth and Lies

2007-02-25T18:09:00.000-08:00

Two books: one true, one false. They travel together.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Turner, Australia

Issue/Edition 14: Anonymous

2007-02-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

This one's anonymous. No names. All secret. Pass it on.

It's also very, very tiny.

You could hide it in the palm of your hand.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Goulburn, Australia

Issue/Edition 13: All We Share is Monsters

2007-02-08T15:15:00.000-08:00

Be careful, 13! Monsters! Next stop, Poland!

As this issue marks the first quarter of this nonsensical experiment, it will also be our first Bounce Back edition.

What, pray tell, is a Bounce Back edition? you ask. Or so I imagine.

Simple: when it reaches the halfway mark (6 months from now), the contributor who holds it will send it back to the person from whom they received it. That person will then send it back to the person who'd posted it to them, and so on, till it makes its way back home, following the same route by which it had come.

SO... everyone gets to see the book twice, and contribute twice. Moreover, they get to see the work of the people who contributed after they did, and more importantly - alter, comment on, respond to, annotate, edit, censor, expand or draw further inspiration from it. They can go back and add more to their own work, with the benefit of all that added thinking time, or they can see how others interpreted their work and respond to that.

That's a Bounce Back issue.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Nowy Sacz, Poland

Issue/Edition 12: One of These Mornings, Bright and Free

2007-02-04T17:53:00.000-08:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Barellan, Australia

Book, Interrupted

2007-02-01T20:00:00.000-08:00

This week's bookmagazinebook posting will be a little late, as I seem to have misplaced my camera. Rest assured that it is a lovely soft-covered number in pastel pink and green with nice stitched borders and a sparkly silver ribbon divider.

But while we're here, let's take pause to consider this whole thing.

A few questions that have occurred to me in recent weeks:

Firstly, and most obviously, where are all the bookmagazines? I followed Issue/Edition 1 for about 7 or 8 people, but I don't know where it is now. I haven't heard a peep from any subsequent books. Which I kind of like, while being equally concerned by.

How does each person's contribution affect those afterwards? Are people responding to what they already find, whether consciously or not?

Are people writing sequentially, for instance, beginning on page one and moving forward from there? Or are people working against what they find, trying hard not to repeat?

How is the momentum different for each bookmag?

And such things.

But mostly: where are all the bookmagazines?

Issue/Edition 11: Home Made

2007-01-25T16:09:00.000-08:00

Our first North American destination: Santa Maria, California. Fly, my pretty!

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Santa Maria, USA

Issue/Edition 10: Regret

2007-01-21T16:15:00.000-08:00

It makes the world go round, it does.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Canada (unconfirmed)

Issue/Edition 9: A Street Scene

2007-01-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

Now we are nine.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Adelaide, Australia

Issue/Edition 8: Judgment

2007-01-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Chifley, Australia.

Issue/Edition 7: Nothing Can Stay This Way

2007-01-01T20:13:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the dark image. This bookmagazinebook is pristine white, but we'll see whether it can stay that way for 12 months. I have my doubts. It is, after all, a bookmagazinebook, and we are all susceptible to the ravages of time.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Woolloongabba, Australia

Issue/Edition 6: WORK! WORK! WORK!

2006-12-21T18:08:00.000-08:00

No time to chat. Work!

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Sutton, Australia

Issue/Edition 5: Miseducation

2006-12-14T19:07:00.000-08:00

The things they thought they knew all turned out wrong, but what they'd never suspected did in fact come to pass. Sometimes, they got fat on the richness of their learning. Sometimes it left them wasted with grief.

"Lord, save little children. You'd think the world would be ashamed to name such a day as Christmas for one of them and then go on in the same old way. My soul is humble when I see the way little ones accept their lot. Lord, save little children. The wind blows and the rain's a-cold. Yet they abide...They abide and they endure."

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Downer, Australia

Issue/Edition 4: Big Time

2006-12-07T17:12:00.000-08:00

Away with you. Begone. But be sure to be back in a year.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: North Melbourne, Australia

Issue/Edition 3: The Ways We Will Save You

2006-11-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

Wherein are described the Various Means by which we will Save, Redeem or Liberate you from Challenges Real or Imagined, outlined in Forms more (or less) Literal, sometimes Figurative, often Oblique and occasionally Contradictory, through which may be Inferred the Causes of Said Problems and the State of the World which has, to them, given Rise. There may be Parachutes involved.

First stop: Tokyo.

On another note, you may view the inaugural contribution to Book One here.

Which, circuitously, led to Book Magazine Book being listed on Crikey's email newsletter yesterday.

And partly as a result, partly not, there has been a spike in interest from potential contributors. There is a waiting list for the next few issues, so here is a proposition: if you receive a copy of Book Magazine Book and don't have anyone to send it on to, contact me and I'll pass on the details of one of those eager to add something themselves.

Their ranks are legion and mighty.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Tokyo, Japan

Issue/Edition 2: The Lines Not Crossed

2006-11-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

So...

Off you go then.

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Berlin, Germany

First Issue/Edition: STAR(t)/LE

2006-11-15T22:18:00.000-08:00

Goes out tomorrow. I wonder what it'll look like in a year?

LAST KNOWN DESTINATION: Melbourne, Australia

Book Magazine or Magazine Book

2006-11-08T20:32:00.000-08:00

WHAT IS IT?

SHORT VERSION
There will be 52 copies. Each week, I'll post a copy of a blank book (each book will be different) to somebody, who will contribute whatever they like to it. Writing, obviously, and drawing and painting and music and cut-outs and pasted objects and origami and coffee stains and pieces torn out and lamination and essays and plagiarism and photographs and stencils and so on, it'll all be welcome. Every edition will have its own theme, though these can be interpreted widely. It's a pretty open brief. And when its recipient has added (or subtracted) as much as they want, they'll post it on to the next person.

CIRCULATION
The book/magazine will travel wherever it wants; hopefully it should go some way around the globe, though some copies may not travel very far at all. Each recipient must be willing to post it to another once they're done, however. I hope that contributors don't hang on to their copy for more than a few days - remember, the faster it moves, the more contributors each edition will have, and the more contributors the better.
I also hope that some people post images of the book as they receive it, so we can watch them develop.

CONTENT
Contributors can add or subtract anything they like to their copy. Though there will be a theme to each edition, contributions don't need to stick to that theme at all.
For instance, upon receiving a copy, a contributor might decide to: drill a hole through the middle; paste a picture of their great-great-grandparents; write a poem in invisible ink; draw a comic strip that travels along the base of every page; paint their first memory; put the magazine in the freezer for 48 hours; write an essay explaining the mechanics of the moon; write the word "baby" in small print covering an entire page; paste small black squares over every eighth word of somebody else's contribution; number the entire book, only out of order; record a song onto CD and glue it on the cover; allow a loved pet to play with the thing; record a conversation overheard at a cafe; let a teabag slowly soak through several pages; place the book on one of the drums in a kit while they play a gig; paint several pages yellow; do nothing.

CONTRIBUTORS
Contributors can be anyone, from artists of whatever persuasion to people who've never expressed themselves creatively before. Each recipient will choose the next person to whom they'll be posting their book/magazine, and instructions will accompany each edition so that they know exactly what to do.
Those interested in contributing can also make themselves known via this site, and we'll do our best to make sure a copy passes their way during its travels.
The only requirement is that contributors are willing and able to keep the book in motion. I imagine there will be some that end up languishing on someone's coffee table beneath a pile of junk, or get put out with the recycling, or are stowed in the bag that gets left on the bus, but with 52 copies in circulation at least some should make it home.

CONCLUSION
Each book will be marked with its date of release, the day I send it out to its first recipient. Exactly a year to this day, the book should be returned to me, which will mark the moment of publication. I believe this will make the books unusual, as most books are released after they're published.

CAUSE
I'm not really sure what the outcome of the project will be, since that won't be evident until it's actually done with. But the reason I've begun with it is simply to create the conditions for others to produce something interesting. Since it requires very little effort dispersed over a vast number of people, it's lazy art that should nonetheless result in something valuable.

CONNECT
Post a comment if you'd like to get involved; I'll set up an email address in the next few days.