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It's a monochrome Monday outside the little Beyond offices with snowflakes slowly falling from an overcast sky. So it is with great relief that we post photos from Vancouver where a reader tells us she moved her "indoor source of sunshine" outside for a quick morning picture.
And a re-interpretation of our Verdant Green post. We love seeing our little Beyonds nestled inside of reader homes. Too fun.
Beyond desk with windup of the day
We are fond of little creative workspaces of all kinds. In this issue's editorial, I talk about the two small rooms that help us carry out the work of Beyond. We'll show you some of the things that float around Beyond spaces in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, here are a few spaces and studio ideas that make our hearts all a twitter.
On My Desktop: Creative Folks Share the Stuff on their Desks.
A Collection of Cool Workplaces
Spaces for Writers: The Office (L.A.), Writer's Room (Boston), Workspace (Vancouver co-workplace)and Writer's Rooms (The Guardian)
and for perspective, Sad Cubicles.
(Begin public service announcement)
When people ask, "Where can I find Beyond?" we usually say, "Right here." (Unless of course we happen to be in the pool and don't have a Beyond tucked in our water wings.)
Naturally, most people expect magazines to be at their local bookstores amidst hundreds of other magazines. But here's the problem. Unless you have a massive print run where you can afford to put thousands of magazines into bookstores, it can actually cost you to be distributed there.
Here's how it works:
First, you ship your magazine off to a distributor - if they'll take you. Distributors of course want to make money off of the titles they stock and prefer large (think of a 000,000,000 number) magazines. Like those that end in -prah or -eople.
Next, distributors take your magazine shipment, break it into smaller shipments, and send those smaller shipments off to bookstores. Then your magazine gets put on a bookshelf and waits for someone to notice it. "Yoo hoo, over here!" says your cover. (Yoo hoo is underused in our opinion. Never underestimate the power of "yoo hoo!")
Some of the magazines sell, and different people get paid from those sales. The bookstore takes its cut. The distributor takes her cut. You get what's left - but remember, only SOME of those magazines that you originally shipped out sold, and what DIDN'T sell gets pulped. That's right, destroyed. Which means the magazines that sell have to pay for the magazines that get destroyed. And in the magazine industry, it's not unusual to destroy 60 copies to sell 40 (meaning that out of 100 copies shipped to bookstores, 40 sell, and 60 get pulped). Yes, it's an incredible waste of resources - trees, ink, time and money. So why do magazines do it at all? Because some that operate based on an ad-revenue business model make enough money from advertising to subsidize destroyed magazines. And because the "that's-just-the-way-it-is-in-this-industry" mantra has so far stopped anybody from coming up with some kind of distribution method that works better.
So, in our case, what's left from each sale of an ads-free Beyond in bookstores is LESS than what the magazine costs to produce. Which means bookstore distribution costs us money. Which means it doesn't make much sense to distribute Beyond through bookstores. Which means we send very few copies to them. Which means, your best bet is to get Beyond here.
Tell the world!
(End public service announcement.)
We called Issue 14 Possible Worlds and it became a collection on what hope could create. The voices were varied - from incredible photographers, illustrators, musicians and writers to the birds in our alley -everyone had something to say about seeing what was possible.
Contributing Editor Deegy continues the conversation. He lives in Vancouver, working at a crisis shelter for youth. He is a lover of community, music and art and can't kick the habit of cooking all things Jamie Oliver.
I dwell in Possibility -
A fairer House than Prose -
More numerous of Windows -
Superior - for Doors -Of Chambers as the Cedars -
Impregnable of Eye -
And for an Everlasting Roof -
The Gambrels of the Sky -Of Visitors - the fairest -
For Occupation - This -
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise -Emily Dickinson, American poet (1830-1886)
I escaped to a greasy spoon diner after work yesterday, had some eggs, sausage and toast, and finally cracked open the book, The Impossible Will Take A Little While, this time to forge past the introduction. Diane Ackerman's essay A Slender Thread, around a call she fielded at a suicide hotline, really encouraged me. She writes:
As Emikle Sola once said, some mornings you first have to swallow your toad of disgust before you can get on with the day. We choose to live. But suicidal people have tunnel vision - no other choice seems possible. A counselor's job is to put windows and doors in that tunnel.
Her thoughts struck home, as our shelter encounters many suicidal young people every month. A few of my co-workers have even chased some clients from the door to the nearest bridge and pulled them to safety. Thankfully, like Ackerman, we do have the opportunity to punch some holes of light into these tunnels of despair, and on the odd occasion have a chance to hear that some of these youth, at some point, do move beyond their suicidal ideations with some help and counselling. Last night, one youth I had worked with months earlier, who still drops by for food and to talk from time to time, stopped by in a drunken stupor to thank me for helping him find a counsellor who he really connects with. It was a strange encounter, knowing he was still dealing with much pain but was a little farther along since he first came to us, when he was so eager to jump off the nearest bridge.
Photograph: Janine Vangool
Green days remind us of the last two pages of our Beauty issue with lyrics by the then-named Jane Siberry:
and everything the dappled
everything the birds
everything the earthness
everything the verdant
the verdant green
The All About feature in our issue on Beauty with an illustration by our friend Aaron Leighton.
Neuronatomist Jill Bolte Taylor talks about the insights gained during her own stroke. (18:44)
Savant Drawings (5:12)
The final two films in the conclusion of Doug's series on world animation:
• Motion Painting No. 1 (Oskar Fischinger, 1947)
Fischinger was a pioneer of experimental, nonrepresentational
animation (he was a major inspiration for Fantasia, a film he
worked on before parting ways with Disney), and this final
masterpiece is available on a DVD entitled Oskar Fischinger: Ten
Films, an excellent introduction to his career. Motion
Painting No. 1 is like an oil painting come to life, with
graceful lines and shapes growing and expanding frame by frame to
Bach's majestic "Brandenburg Concerto no. 3." In 1997, this visually
arresting 11-minute short film was added to the US National Film
Registry for culturally, historically or aesthetically significant
films.
• Le Roi et l'oiseau (aka The King and the Mockingbird) (Paul Grimault, 1980) I kind of fibbed at the beginning of this article; I'm sneaking a European DVD in here for adventurous readers. This film hasn't been released on video in North America, which is a crying shame since it's not only an exhilaratingly surreal fairy tale, but it was also a major influence on Takahata, Miyakazi, and legions of other filmmakers. Witness the film's elaborately stylized castle, giant robot, sweet romanticism and lyrical beauty. Sometimes copies of this show up on Ebay, or if you have a multi-region DVD player, you can order the French DVD from any number of e-tailers, but know that the DVD does not contain English subtitles. However, the visual and narrative sweep are so compelling, they probably won't be missed.
My afternoon orange is a dude. With a backwards ball cap. And Dude is Health. Don't you forget it.
Part 1.
Part 2.
Doug Cummings of Film Journey, the Beyond magazine feature and the blog, continues his recommendations on world animation.
• The Man Who Planted Trees (Frederic Back) Like ever-shifting color pencil sketches, Canadian Frederic Back's work comprises some of the most beautifully rendered and thematically sensitive filmmaking around. This is merely one of his masterpieces, an enchanting fable about a man who single-handedly, through long years of quiet toil, reforests an entire region in France, which immeasurably improves the lives of its inhabitants. Based on the story by Jean Giono, this classic short film boasts a sensitive English narration by Christopher Plummer.
• Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984) Many Westerners know Miyazaki through his Academy Award-winning Spirited Away, but that's only the tip of the iceberg, and fortunately Disney has released a whole series of his films on DVD with good English dubs (for the little ones) as well as subtitles. My first exposure to his work was Nausicaa, his second feature and a sprawling science fiction epic of a post-apocalyptic world in which humans compete for dwindling resources against giant insects and destructive technologies. So many of Miyazaki's themes are here: ecological harmony, the need for human cooperation, flying ships and air battles, and a messianic figure uniting the world. The film was based on his manga, which he continued to write and illustrate well into the Nineties, which is available (and highly recommended) as a massive, much more elaborate seven-volume comic series.
• My Neighbors the Yamadas (Isao Takahata, 1999) Back to Takahata, who offers this brilliant and affectionate tribute to the modern nuclear family--think of it as The Simpsons with less scatological humor and much more heart. Drawn with a wonderfully minimalist sketch style, this examination of the pratfalls, surprises, iconic situations, and paradoxes of family life manages to be hilarious without resorting to cynicism, and inspirational without resorting to sentimentality. If you've ever wondered what daily life is like in Japan, you might be surprised to discover how amazingly similar it is to your own. A very special film.
(This series wraps up tomorrow.)
Artwork by Katie Radke
As you may have noticed, every Tuesday our thoughts turn to Uppercase's Type Tuesday offerings - an eclectic and joyful offering of type of every kind. We thought we would post Uppercase's flickr set of some of the pages of the latest Beyond in case some of you needed a) to see something purty and b) another reason to get your own Beyond in your own purty little hands.
Doug of Film Journey continues his recommendations on world animation:
• Haibane Renmei (Yoshitoshi ABe, 2002) If Fireflies sets the standard for dramatic anime features, this astonishing 13-part miniseries--made for Japanese television--is the most novelistic anime I've seen. It's also a highly sophisticated spiritual allegory with a quiet lyricism worthy of such master filmmakers as Yasujiro Ozu and Robert Bresson. The protagonists are young girls mysteriously hatched from cocoons into a rustic village with its own system of rules, and the plot revolves around the girls coming to grips with their barely-remembered pasts, their relationships with each other, and their ultimate purposes in this new world. This is essential viewing; the series' creator, Yoshitoshi ABe, is definitely a filmmaker to keep an eye on. (For more info, check out Beyond friend John Torvi's review, here.)
• The Hand (Jiri Trnka, 1965) Moving, for the moment, outside the Japanese film industry, this classic 18-minute short film by by a great Czech stop-motion animator is a scathing, allegorical critique of totalitarian orthodoxy. It's available as part of a collection of films entitled The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka. "Puppets" in this case are highly intricate figurines, and in The Hand, Trnka's last film, an anonymous Artist wants to create his art but a giant Hand demands that he sculpt a replica of itself. (If you'd rather watch the film online, click here.)
• Time Masters (aka The Masters of Time) (Rene Laloux, 1982) French animator Laloux made a name for himself with the psychedelic political allegory Fantastic Planet in the early '70s, and this later space opera (largely produced in Hungary) teams him up with the famed comics and movie illustrator "Moebius" (Heavy Metal magazine, Alien, TRON). A young boy is stranded on a remote planet buzzing with giant hornets, but an adventurer traveling through space comes to his rescue. The plot is perfunctory, but the imaginative settings and rich designs are combined with a funky art house vibe that lends it thorough originality.
From Contributing Editor, Doug Cummings:
With every Film Journey article, I find myself in a space battle. That is, what to add and what to cut, to be brief but informative, in-depth but accessible. And my latest article was no exception. In
"Original Frankensteins," I comment on seven giants in world
animation--Ladislaw Starewicz, Lotte Reiniger, Alexander Alexeieff,
Yuri Norstein, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, and Don Hertzfeldt--but
could have included so many more major figures. Consider this post
an addendum; here I briefly mention (alphabetically) ten more films
currently available on DVD that represent the work of animation
masters. (So get your Netflix or Zip.ca or whatever queues
ready...and don't hesitate to share your reactions and comments with
Beyond.)
• Barefoot Gen (Mori Masaki, 1983) This adaptation of Keiji Nakazawa's famous autobiographical manga is based on his experience as a child in Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb was dropped. Though it doesn't shy away from relaying its share of eye-witnessed horrors--strikingly and nightmarishly illustrated--it also contains a surprising amount of broad, earthy humor and a strong critique of Japan's wartime political structure.
• Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Though Takahata was co-founder of the popular Studio Ghibli with
Hayao Miyazaki, he still remains the lesser known of the two
filmmakers, which is unfortunate. Without downplaying Miyazaki's
brilliance, it's safe to say that Takahata (who has a degree in
French literature) has focused more on everyday subjects, mature
themes, and visual experimentation, often to spectacular results.
Fireflies, which tells the tragic story of two young WWII
orphans trying to stay alive in firebombed Tokyo, is widely
considered his masterpiece. With a depth and sensitivity equal to
the best live action, this unforgettable film is a dramatic high
point for the animation genre.
(More recommendations tomorrow.)
Sometimes there is only so much that we can place in the paper version of the magazine and we are happy to continue to share our content here at the Beyond blog. All this week Doug Cummings our Film Journey writer adds to "Film Journey: Original Frankensteins" which appeared in Issue 16: Small. Enjoy and feel free to add your thoughts.
A lovely Beyond Reader let us know in her twitter feed that she had posted some pictures of Beyond saying that she wanted to "place her most beautiful magazine in her most beautiful magazine holder" which just makes us feel all warm and ready to face Monday.
We liked the title of this one too called "art on art #1".
Do you have a picture of your Beyond floating somewhere in your place of work or living? Let us know and we'll share the fun.
You'll probably catch us putting many a paper-y thing on the Friday round up since paper arts are near and dear to our hearts. Here's just a few bits that we've gathered this week.
Avri's photo above comes from a giant flckr pool - over 11,775 and counting - called pasted paper.
Robert J. Lang origami . One of the presenters at 2008 TED.
Timelapse of 72 hours to create Howl's Moving Castle (thanks John.)
Papercraft and downloadable models at Flying Pig (I think I thought of this because someone at lunch was talking about roasting a pig and then having to clean up the carcass including the head which was "warm and heavy".)
As much as we like the word grassroots, it can be hard to get people to notice a little patch of lawn in the wide field of making and sharing good things. We often ask folks (like you!) who like us to mention us on their blogs or to show us to their friends in grand show-and-tell fashion. It's one of the only ways for small things to grow - by creating buzz. A publisher at a previous conference told us that his magazine grew person by person. It was that small but also that great because you could see the connections.
It's really hard to know how to get folks involved in an increasingly busy and fragmented society. We're open to hearing about ways that you think might create buzzy feelings around Beyond. Have you been involved in other grasroots initiatives that have been great fun? Buzzy. We're thinking bees. But not killer bees. That would be bad.
One of the key conversations occurring in the magazine industry centers around digital content. In the future, will magazines be entirely replaced by online versions? What happens to a paper object in a digital world? Many publishers look on with fear and trepidation wondering if much of their experience and hard work will disappear into bits and bytes.
The workshop I am sitting in takes a different view. Magazines, like many enjoyable objects on the net, can take advantage of new technologies like blogging software for updates and continued content, social networks for building community, and online programs for developing content or events over a wide network.
I don't think magazines or books or print objects will disappear. As our reader community knows, Beyond is big on beautiful objects as per the Small Art Revolution (see our latest issue). If anything, digital content will not only help us make new connections but will make publishers of all kinds up their game. Our magazine content - visual and text - needs to be more unique, suited to the printed page, and worthy of the time- and money-intensive print process.
For small publishers like Beyond, the digital world adds an extra challenge. Time is short at low staff or no staff volunteer-run magazines. And digital content can be just another thing on the to-do list. As a reader-built print magazine, we know our readers often enjoy being involved in online connections (more chances to connect coming soon!). For now, you can sign up for our online newsletter list.
(This workshop was run by Issa Breibish from Veer, a very cool company that offers elements for professional creativity, and Milena Radzikowska, a researcher and instructor from Mount Royal College.)
Update: Issa has kindly offered a copy of this presentation at his lovely website, www.issabreibish.com. I completely forgot to mention the idea of moving your Me to We on the net, something that fits nicely with what we are trying to do with Beyond.
Janine has a collection of fantastic videos for Uppercase's Type Tuesday this week. If you don't have a lot of time, try the first one That's Life.
I'll be attending and helping with the Alberta Magazines Conference at the end of this week. If you're in the neighborhood and needing to know about all things magazine, this is the place for you. I have threatened all year to pop up in tap shoes and belt Wind Beneath My Wings during my intros so if you are attending and see someone being wrestled off the stage, that's me.
