Cramulus' message to Net:

They're still being edited (to some extent)... and the order is still undefined. Ultimately I'd like to have a PDF which I can upload to lulu.com and then be able to sell a hard copy.

The goal here is to produce a book which with a collage/cutup style similar to the PD, but with a more modern feel. The PD was clearly put together using oldskool photocopiers and stolen stamps and artwork. A whole mishmosh of marginalia, dingbats, one-liners, scribbles, etc. We want to do a more high-tech / high-style version of this.

For my pieces ("the strange times", follow, why I put up posters, and Go OMF yourself) I'm going to print them out, then also print out some art (or whatever), then tape them onto a page, then scan the whole thing. Optimally, you'll see the tape and paste and whatever, giving it a really DIY feel. But that's the only pieces we've discussed layout/design for.

We've got quite a bit of WOMP and Misc art, some of it good, some of it bad, and we're unsure how to present it properly. http://we.dontexist.net/index.php?topic=150.0 and http://we.dontexist.net/index.php?topic=35.0

We have a lot of marginalia: http://we.dontexist.net/index.php?topic=36.0 - this stuff can be included wherever it fits.

We're totally open to creative suggestion regarding editorial or design. The "we" here is me and triple zero.

We'd love to have you aboard no matter what level of involvement you're interested in. If you'd like to mess around with some of the pieces and lay them out, that'd be cool. If you want to try out a more comprehensive overarching style, that's cool too. Anything you can do to help us move towards having a final 8x11 sized B&W PDF would be sweet.

Are you interested? if so, Any ideas?

PS: feel free to make notes right at the wiki I linked to. Might want to start your own page, and we can discuss over there. It's not too private, but very few people know it exists.

Net's Reply

You can count me in.

I typed up this great message but then the WOMP link wouldn't load any images and crashed my window. Which is an interesting experience, not the browser, but the window... my CPU is still being taxed by it.

Anyway.

I had this really great teacher, Gary Cox, who has a creative method that has never let me down. You can find it here. http://www.garycox.com/creative_process.html I think we should do a step, share, discuss, freak out, and then do the next one, share discuss, etcetera until we have a finished booklet.

In my experience, the more thorough the defining, research, and brainstorming, the easier the grunt work.

And here's an idea I just got that could help tie all these disparate discordianisms together: we have a super simple cartoon character that interacts with the text body and images. He or she, it, would always be vandalizing a tiny part of it. Pulling a line out of alignment here, squishing a word there—it's rife with possibilities. On the cover the character could be interacting with the page itself by appearing to rip a part of the cover, with a real rip in the paper. Then at the end of the booklet he could have a large jumbled pile of type (as though a paragraph full of words fell on him from some kind of vandalism that clearly went too far). Oh, and maybe it could start very innocently, like with kicking a period, and slowly escalate into heavy machinery and wrecking balls and whatnot.

So let me know what you think of Gary's methodology. I'll repost this cartoon idea on the wiki later today.

Cramulus Sez

I dig the methodology. It seems to mirror what the Art of Memetics says about Mastermind groups..

you take the signal, examine it, edit it, polish it, turn it into output.

Then the group examines the output. They examine it, edit it, polish it, turn it into output.

Process repeats until everyone is satisfied.

I like the idea of the little character who's messing with the text. A little agent of Chaos that is slowly disassembling the book. I'm not too good with drawing though... any ideas on who this character should be?

Net, if you're going to help with design, what's the most convenient format for us to work in? Is text straight from the wiki easy enough to lay out in InDesign (or whatever you use)?

Net replies

Yeah, there's something about developing an idea of what you want before you actually carry it out that really helps facilitate this sort of design work. Even if the sum of that idea is only 3 adjectives (srsly), it's immensely useful in steering such a massive undertaking.

We could steal a character out of the Principia. If I remember correctly, there's this little gremlin, hairy looking dude drawn in a very rudimentary style. That would provide a nice, not-too-obvious link to it. I think 000 has some cartooning skills, so at the very least, the two of us could do that part. But, the most difficult part of this plan that I can think of is making sure we have an idea per page. So first I think we need to lay it all out and get a sense of how many pages this is going to take.

In terms of manipulating raw text, as long as I can highlight it, it's all gravy.

6/23

• Chloe and Cramulus go through and try to organize pieces into "not in" and "in" categories. This proves difficult. We don't particularly care for a lot of the pieces, and we're worried that in the end, it'll be a bunch of pieces by PD heads. Which is not the goal.
• We're considering writing a fiction piece which includes the people at the Masquerade as characters (a story about something that happens at the Masquerade), so everyone can feel like they participated, even if they don't end up having a piece in.
• We're worried that too many of the pieces are: first person sermons or diatribes which are jaded, cynical, belittling of the reader, and talking about FREEDOM. A little bit too much freedom/free will stuff and not enough LULZ. Any ideas on how to remedy this?

Net: I like the idea for the fiction piece. However, the only solution I have about the cynicism and lack of sheer lulz is to manufacture lulz with the design. Suppose Chloe and Cram made a list in descending order of favoriteness: most favorite at the top, least favorite at the bottom. This would result in the least favorite writings getting the most amount of vandalism by our cartoon character. If they can't take a joke, fuck 'em. I think people will be happy to have their stuff included, even though we're making fun of them.

This could add another interesting layer of meaning to the cartoon character. His or her vandalism wouldn't be wanton, it would be a kind of protection of the reader. It would validate people's feelings of being offended so they might continue reading, just to see how we make fun of the next cynical git.

Does this idea sit well with you?

If so, does it increase your willingness to put more jaded, cynical pieces in?

(It does for me)