Installing the new sign at the Institute for the Science of Identity Temporary Office and Reading Room.

The Ministry of Casual Living generously donated their exhibition space for the duration of the take-over.

Thanks especially to Ministers Marlaina Buch and Ross Angus Macaulay for their enthusiastic support.

This new 40 page catalogue documents the peripatetic activities of the Institute for the Science of Identity as they take over various locations for their temporary office and reading room. Printed by Jo Cook and Wesley Mulvin, this publication is a catalogue of low-tech printing techniques: letterpress posters for various takeovers and makeovers of other institutions’ spaces are cut up and bound within the publication. Deliberately poor quality photocopies sit alongside carefully printed woodcuts with printed pages using both colour and black and white, rubberstamps, Print Gocco and letterpress. An interesting variety of coloured papers is used throughout. A reading room membership card is included in a library pocket on the inside back cover. Perfect bound with stiff cardboard covers and a three-colour wrap around paper dust jacket. 22,5 x 14,5 cm. Perro Verlag, Mayne Island, BC, Canada, 2010. ISBN 978-1-897243-64-0  $20.00 Cnd funds.

Mutanabbi Street is the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. Named after the 10th century classical Arab poet, Al-Mutanabbi, this street is the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community. On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street. At least 30 people were killed and 100 were wounded.

The Mutanabbi Street Coalition––made up of poets, writers, artists, booksellers, printers and readers––was formed soon afterwards, in response to not just the tragic loss of life, but also to the idea of a targeted attack on a street where ideas have always been exchanged. The coalition recognizes the commonality of Mutanabbi Street with any street that leads to a bookstore or cultural institution, in this country or any country.

The coalition’s work benefits Doctors Without Borders, a non-profit agency working to relieve suffering in Iraq and other troubled areas of our globe. If the work of the coalition has moved you, we ask you to please consider a contribution to this fine organization.

The Mutanabbi Street Coalition was founded by San Francisco poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil. The poets, translators, printers and artists of the coalition have given unselfishly to this project, and many others have given much of their time and talents. The coalition wishes to offer special recognition to Kathleen Walkup, Lisa Rappoport, John DeMerritt Bookbinding, The Key Printing & Binding, Rijin Sahakian, Florida Atlantic University Libraries, Lisa Beth Robinson, and John Cutrone & Seth Thompson.

This historic Mutanabbi Street Coalition project––one of only ten in the world––will remain at Florida Atlantic University Libraries, and will be permanently housed at the Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts, 3rd floor east of the Wimberly Library.

Florida Atlantic University Libraries will be digitizing the full collection of broadsides by the Mutanabbi Street Coalition. This digital collection now has a home on the Internet and may be viewed by people around the globe through the Jaffe Center for Book Arts website or through the FAU Digital Library website:  www.library.fau.edu/depts/digital_library/mutanabbi_index.htm

Having recently acquired a Chandler and Price Platen Letterpress, we thought the broadside would be a wonderful project to focus on. The quote we chose for our broadside is from the book Orbis Sensualium Pictus (1658) by the Czech education reformer, Johannes Amos Comenius.  This book was unique in its day for both its conception and appearance and initiated a new tradition in school textbooks designed to be put in the hands of the children themselves. Comenius’ use of numerous illustrations and the vernacular language alongside the Latin were radical innovations that departed markedly from the traditional grammar school textbooks that were written in Latin only, without any illustrations.

In thinking about our broadside we studied a facsimile edition of Comenius’ book and chose the first section titled The World, for our text. Our woodcut illustrations refer to the simplicity and beauty of the book’s images. In keeping with the original appearance of the book, we restricted ourselves to black and white for the text and illustrations. We printed the words Al-Mutanabbi Street in bright blue – closely corresponding, we hope, to the colour of the sky. The broadside is printed on Arches BFK cream and is 18″ x 11.5″.

We found this  Chandler and Price platen letterpress through an ad on Craig’s List. It weighs 1800 lbs and was manufactured in 1915. When this picture was taken it was missing almost all its essential parts: the three rollers, the roller saddles, the roller arms, the small pinion and the treadle.  We contacted a number of people and found the pinion, roller saddles and arms from Dave Churchman at Sterling Press; the rollers from NA Graphics in Silverton, Colorado and the treadle from Joel Brown at Hern Ironworks in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

The press also came with drawers of type, furniture, spacers, quoins and this great little Vandercook Ball Bearing Proof press.

Inking the press and starting to print.

The chase set with type for Brandy and Rebecca’s postcards.

After the fair we will be going to Amsterdam where we’ve been invited by Boekie Woekie to mount an exhibition of work by Perro Verlag artists on the occasion of the launch of our Hell Passport Project. Finished at last. Here is a picture of the box set and you can find all the other information on our website by clicking on Hell Passport on the first page.