Glog

Glenn Fleishman Interrogates the Past

Publishing

Publishing

Live Commentary on the Invention of the Linotype?

Tune in this Friday, June 10, at 5 pm PDT to listen to a live commentary on Park Row, a film about newspaper wars that includes the little-known type lice initiation ritual and purports, as a side plot, to show the invention of the Linotype by Ottmar Mergenthaler! I convinced Shelly Brisbin, host of the classic-movie podcast Lions, Towers, & Shields at The Incomparable network to be the home of this event.

You can listen to us live on YouTube and ask questions in real time or download the episode later via the podcast page or any of the links for feeds on the page. Park Row can be watched free on YouTube.

Third Anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule Project

Crowdfunding

Third Anniversary of the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule Project

On 29 January 2019, I launched the biggest artistic, writing, production, and commercial project of my life: the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule. Conceived of months before with Anna Peterson (formerly Robinson), who provided the woodworking expertise and case manufacturing, I envisioned the Tiny Type Museum as a way for people with an interest in type, typography, or printing to obtain a collection of actual artifacts, historical and modern, that they could use to educate themselves, share with others, or use as a teaching tool. We would make about 100 of these museums, each containing their own unique set of dozens of items.

I talked to a number of people I knew in the letterpress and museum world to get their take on whether this was an interesting idea and to be sure I could acquire the stuff I needed. I felt positive enough to move forward. In addition

Bambi: the Forest and Copyright Are Both Cruel

Copyright

Bambi: the Forest and Copyright Are Both Cruel

Over at Meh, a site that offers implausibly great bargains on overstocked and discontinued items that are perfectly good and didn’t find their original market, I wrote about Bambi. This might seem an odd connection! But the folks at Meh have quite active forums and asked me a few years ago and then again recently to write some provocative researched articles about quirky points of interest.

I’m restarting these articles with a serialized four-parter about Bambi, which has a complicated backstory. The book was written by the Austrian newspaper journalist, playwright, and novelist Felix Salten (not his original name) and its history ties in underpayment, the Alger Hiss trial, Nazis, Walt Disney, and alleged copyright misdeeds.

In the first part published today, I look at Bambi’s early publication history and reception, and how Walt Disney got his hands on the rights to make an animated movie. In

Bookselling

Seven years ago: The Magazine: The Book: The Launch: The Party

Lynn had a note pop up on some social media service I am no longer part of reminding her that the book launch party for The Magazine: The Book (Year 1) was seven years ago today! This was back when I was running The Magazine, and thought one path to longevity was to produce a beautiful book each year that would appeal both to subscribers to the digital edition and to people who were intrigued by the variety of subject matter.

Food and general non-fiction writer Matthew Amster-Burton did a magazine-themed comedy set (seriously, and it was hilarious). Marian Call and Seth Boyer performed her music, along with accompaniment on harmonica from her stepfather, a noted advocate for eating (cooked and prepared) bugs. The event was at the wonderful Ada’s Technical Books and Café, at which I hosted several talks in podcasts over the next few years.

The party

Gratitude for a Year Finally Ending

Publishing

Gratitude for a Year Finally Ending

I’m grateful this year is nearly over and I’m grateful my family has remained safe during 2020—and that we’ve all managed to keep ourselves occupied. It’s a hard lift, and I know exactly how privileged we are, as I can read and see around us how many people are struggling. That fact keeps me hard at work, knowing what a gift it is to have a purpose, and thankful to all editors, patrons, podcast networks, product purchasers, and colleagues I’ve had the chance to work for and with this year.

A Little Help by Taking Control

I put at the top of my list of 2020 achievements releasing two free ebooks with Take Control Books. Joe Kissell is the stalwart publisher, running the business with his wife, Morgen. Not only did Take Control provide a significant percentage of my 2020 income, as people are

Publishing

New Book on Suddenly Having to Work from Home (Free)

Sometimes you have to shout into the darkness. Last week, after I tweeted a semi-joke about newly minted work-from-home telecommuters needing to find a freelance buddy for advice, I realized that I could something useful with myself during this period of anxiety and isolation.

So with the support of my publisher, Take Control Books (Joe and Morgen), and the input of tips all the way through chapter drafts from Take Control authors, TidBITS writers, and social media friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, I wrote a 66-page book that we’re giving away. You can read an excerpt on work-life boundaries and the inevitably of a toddler dancing into view of a videoconference at Fast Company.

(It’s totally free. We’re using the Take Control site to distribute it so people can choose to get updates if we revise the book, or never hear from us again after downloading.)

Take Control

Publishing

New Book, New Podcast, Finishing Museums

A quick update on the latest in Glenn!

I launched the Tiny Typecast, interviews on location and remotely about how type, design, and printing’s past informs the present and guides the future. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app; if you can’t find a listing, paste this podcast URL in your app.

The topics will be wide-ranging, but I launch with an interview of the folks at Letterform Archive in San Francisco. It’s an incredible collection of graphic design history that’s in active use by modern-day designers as well as historians. I loved it and can’t wait to visit them in their upcoming new location. The second episode is a talk with Keith Houston, author of The Book, about the long-running success of the book format (the codex), and how little has changed, as well as our expectations of what a book is

Publishing

That's Bananas©

On January 1, 2019, the 1923 song, “Yes! We Have No Bananas” entered the public domain after a long wait. Due to congressional maneuvering, Disney’s greed, and other factors, nothing “new” had entered the public domain between January 1, 1998, and January 1, 2019. Every year for the next several decades, another year of material published in the U.S. 95 years ago enters the public domain. I wrote a lengthy article in the Smithsonian magazine last December on the topic.

To celebrate the re-opening of the public domain, I had guests at our New Year’s Eve party sing, “Yes! We Have No Bananas” and then uploaded the performance on YouTube.

I literally titled the video, “Yes! We Have No Bananas, now in the public domain.”

A few days ago, I received this notice from YouTube.

Now, this wasn’t a takedown, in which the video was removed.

Print

The Typewriter Is Not a Typesetter: the 1919 Magazine Strike in New York

On October 1, 1919, typesetters and printers at job shops in New York said they were taking a “vacation” and walked off the job. This wildcat strike hit dozens upon dozens of magazines, which largely relied on job typesetting, as opposed to newspapers who had composition in house. The international unions didn’t authorize a strike, but “Big Six,” a powerful New York typographers’ local, found a way to cause one in effect.

The reason? These printing plant employees wanted a $50 wage for a 44-hour week, up for $36 for 48 hours—“50–44” was the slogan.

Publishers were aghast, but some thought they had a plan: Replace typesetting with typewriting! It worked, to a degree, but publishers and anti-union advocates promoted the method as a way to replace typesetters and break an effective monopoly. That didn’t happen.

At my Patreon site, I just published a 5,000-word

Books

Ebook out for Six Centuries of Type & Printing

The ebook edition of Six Centuries of Type & Printing is now out and available for purchase! The letterpress edition is moving towards hot-metal composition and printing in the near future. You can pre-order a bundle of the print and ebook editions, and receive the ebook edition right now.

What’s the book about? If you ever wondered how the craft of printing was invented and how it evolved, this book answers that question and many others. Starting with Gutenberg, Six Centuries of Type and Printing traces the development of type design, type manufacture, presses, and printing through the present digital era with many stops along the way. The book explains how many aspects of printing and type remain the same, despite a shift from metal to photography to bits, across almost six centuries of constant improvement.

The book download is a bundle of three formats: PDF, EPUB, and MOBI

History

A Type History Talk Featuring the Tiny Type Museum

I was in San Francisco in early June, and the Grabhorn Institute invited me to give a short talk in their gallery about type history and the Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule. The institute preserves the practical history of type casting and fine-art printing by perpetuating it, fulfilling orders from letterpress printers and producing new books, while running an apprenticeship program, regular tours, and inviting speakers (like me!).