New Books

It is a six weeks off from the winter equinox in the southern hemisphere. The sun's arc aint so bold and the wine is almost ready to be mulled. What is the place of hibernation for a publisher? Is it anything but - for large mammals in their man and woman caves need nought much more than a good keen book. Let us take a moment to remember this quote from Peter Sloterdijk's Bubbles: Spheres 1 (and let us also anticipate Globes: Sphere 2 and Foam: Spheres 3):

"Even those who do not believe in angels or doppelgangers can rehearse the secrets of pre-personal friendships with their closest sleep-helpers, and whoever has no friend can at least have a blanket. The theory of With-projections will not least permit a psycho-historical deduction of bed cultures."

The irony being that it was in a bed, with a book, where I read those words. And so without further ado  I shall hint at books to come. Three for later in the year. There are strong hope for Brannavan Gnanalingam to have completed his Parisian novella in time for production, and we will see what bolts from other stables.

AND

What is this culture that we draw from? These people - their climactic bios revealing themselves in some inoffensively packaged tomes. What is this thing? What is this thing that is happening right now, Lawrence and Gibson?

Lawrence (l) and Gibson (r)

ATTA boy

The collective’s book club has, of the last month, been ensconsed in the works of Jarrett Kobeck. From an interview with 3.A.M., J.K. sums it up:

“As the entire history of experimental literature is about getting stupid reviews in between rounds of laughter with your clique of haughty, good-for-nothing friends, this (review in TimeOut London) seemed just about right.”

POA

Meros was keeping his political writings a bit quiet and it took a friend of a friend to point out to us that he had written a reply to a Sue Bradford penned piece on anonymity and political groups. You, friends and fans, can find that discussion at the Political Organisation Aotearoa website here. And lets not have any harking back or suggestions of this and that between Meros and a former MP, my goodness, lets not rehash old themes, lets strike afresh.

Short sweet

Sometime after a gnarly review or two, our staff feel a bit like Blanche DuBois when facing a google-suggested hyperlink to a new review. We shuffle about on our office chairs, looking one deep in the eye and affecting a southern vulnerability (not the bellicosity of the modern Southern Man, but the qualities of the Southern Belle). After the batting of an eyelid, we expel: "Lawrence & Gibson has always relied on the kindness of reviewers".

Steeled, we go forward. After the act, the reading as it were, we bat our eyelids again and say "thank you for not being harsh on a vulnerable little press like us".

The thing is, though, it's all gender performance. We're undoing the belt-buckle of Butler. We're hamming it up.

Much love to Bookie Monster for their review of $30 Meat Pack.

Crimson and Clover? Meros and March.

Good news on the performing arts front: Heleyni has taken Privatising Parts to Adelaide and is presently performing it in Auckland City (two more nights only!) before heading to Dunedin from March the 14th, a month late for all those seeking a Valentine's evening, but a date nonetheless. It'll be at the Globe theatre from Tuesday through Sunday.

Review for people who already 'get it' here. And for those others here.

There has also been a lovely preview written here by Mr Aaron Hakwins. Key quote:   

"Richard Meros, writer of repute, is the greatest literary asset South Otago has ever offered us, a title he is likely to hold until the arrival of David Latta’s long overdue autobiography."

Plastered

Lawrence and Gibson only publishes books by the most marketable authors. Our faith in William Dewey as marketable is cemented by this elaborate Wellington City Council campaign for he to be the face of responsible drinking. Little do the punters realise that as an American citizen, and those in the background to this image being blatantly Pakeha, they have neo-colonialism all over their faces like some stringy caramel.

Richard Meros on pseudonymity

Three Uplifting Discourses:

)1(
The literature of the author is juvenalia. It comes from the tradition of Juvenal, of juvenile piss-and-shit jokes that will embarrass him when he has creamed through his twenties. In his present state he sees books as play, as entertainment. He abhors the ghastly old men of letters for ever taking the story so seriously as to moralise upon it. Those silly old men. They've forgotten the truths of Julien Gracq: "One must never complain of high spirits amongst the youth."

The youth, elsewhere, in his real name can be found to be political and serious but only where it mattters. He does things such as protest at the US troops coming to train in New Zealand; he is concerned about the Afghan refugee situation. He is, thus, broadly interested in life, but not yet willing to sacrifice his given name.

)2(
There is a strong history of the author, amateur, who uses the pseudonym as a character of whom he writes through the lips. The author fears neither the repercussions to his self nor does he wish to walk naked through the critic's gaze. A third option is his. He wished to be, to literally inhabit, the character. In short, he experiments.

We all live in a yellow marketing scheme, a yellow marketing scheme, a yellow marketing scheme...

It is late January and Richard Meros is still haunted by an advertising campaign that seems a little late. Better late than never? Hmm... can't say that the accountants think so. And so the last performance of Richard Meros salutes The Southern Man is here, there, zooming through the city, bus tunnels and sleeping overnight in the cavernous, Kilbernie depot along with the Nivea ads and the one with that woman who is probably Mick Jagger's daughter, selling handbags. Get Quick Rich schemes avast!

Links for short pieces from summer (admin blues pt.1)

Over summer, the Lawrence and Gibson facebook page has been linking to some of our favourite short pieces by people who have published with us (loathe as I am to call them Lawrence and Gibson authors, as if there was an institution that lay claim to them rather than individuals who lay claim to the corpus of the collective).

If you haven't found us on Facebook, why not LIKE us? (a) because you do like us, but don't like facebook, (b) because you do like our books, but don't like these lousy short pieces or (c) because you are our competition and are only here to see what the whipper-snappers are doing so you can emulate it and in all reality would not condescend to liking us. Or (d) all of the above. Or (e) because you find LIKE and LOVE to be mutually exclusive and so wont have a mite of our LIKING. Any way you like it... its alright with us. And so if you do not wish to be regularly updated by the old FB, then see below for periodically update links on the stories we've been linking to.


RICHARD MEROS
A piece published in the DomPost about traveling along the side of the Panj river which seperates Tajikistan from Afghanistan.
A piece published in Hue and Cry called The Financier's Manifesto and transposing Oscar Wilde's dictums for righteous art onto the financial sector.

BRANNAVAN GNANALINGHAM

A piece published in Werewolf detailing his visit to north-west Uzebkistan, or what the locals call Karakalpakstan where he lounged by a lake and visited an art museum.

A piece published in Werewolf on Jean Eustache's film The Mother and The Whore which is a key inspirtation for his present writing.

ULRICH HAARBURSTE
What else is there from Ulrich but his short stories on wrapping Roy Orbison in Clingfilm which must be reaching their ten year anniversary of web-lication. Story one is required reading. All else flows from there. Such as this pick-a-path adventure, for experts only.

AD JAMESON

A short piece published in the Collagist from his 2011 novel Giant Slugs.
A short story, called 'Rock Albany!' as published by Mutable Sound in Amazing Adult Fantasy.

WILLIAM DEWEY
An 'other story' called 'Indolence of Disposition' from his 2009 book My Tender Jaw and other stories.

HAIKU NEWS

the five best haiku based on news stories for the week December 10, 2012 at their website.

Between reading and listening

A cover of clay: relic of literature from the days before the
advent of modern glue-based binding technology. 

NEWS from William Dewey, second most prolific L&G author, but certainly possibly the most handsomest at a dinner party where one or two of our other authors are away, and another is in the bathroom. We recently, with him and our crack marksmen of text, drafted the following:

Have you ever wished you could read a book while you were driving your car, and dismissed the notion as outlandishly reckless?

Or are you the sort of person who likes to run around, say, a park, or in place on elaborate gymnastic machines, and find yourself wishing for some way to divert your mind from the tedium?

Or do you find sometimes that you are simply too intoxicated to focus on little printed letters on a page (paper or otherwise)?

Well, have we got a plan for you? (A: Yes, we do.)

Lawrence & Gibson and Maybeparade have teamed up to bring you an unprecedented new medium for literature, recording the author reading his work (out loud) with the very same kind of highly advanced technological equipment you might expect to find in a studio where heretofore only musicians would have dared to tread.

Beginning in 2013, you will be able to listen to The Homeland of Pure Joy.

Finally...

Some images from the launch of $30 Meat Pack. May your Christmas be sane, your New Years be full of many merry toasts and your January lull the kind of inauspicious beginning to a year of plentitude.





Also look out for a review in the forthcoming January edition of Fishhead magazine. And, I suppose, lobby your local print or e-media outlet of choice to give us glowing love, with or without dispensations for our metropolitan malaise.

Privatising Parts yours to tour Australasia in 2013

A few dates for the adaptation of the Richard Meros book Privatising Parts for the first half of next year: look out Auckland and Adelaide with Dunedin to be confirmed. A great review of the show can be found at The Wellingtonista, the most onto it reviewers about.

Adelaide Fringe Festival
22 – 26 February 2013, 6pm
The Tuxedo Cat, Green Room, Adelaide, Australia

Auckland Fringe Festival
4 – 7 March 2013, 7pm 
The Basement Studio, Auckland, New Zealand

Dunedin TBC

What Meros'll do to get in the Guardian again....

Now I don't know much about this whole Lord of the Rings/Hobbit brouhaha, but what I do know is that once upon a time there was a ring and when you wear then all you can think about for the rest of your life is wearing it again. Being featured in the Guardian is a bit like that for writers, eh lads? 

So when Meros had his Helen Clark/Young Lover moment of glory in 2005 so began the events which led to this happy day when our colonial forefathers and mothers got once more to catch a glimpse of Merosing. Note the billboard in the photo to the right advertising the present season of Richard Meros salutes the Southern Man? Sure you do! Good on you Downstage. And good on you Meros. Now, please stop asking us to send a honey-pot to Toby Manhire. It'll never work. You've had your minutes of fame, retreat. For those needing more conclusive Guardian related evidence, it a'int googleable, so go to the Hobbit premier photos and click through to the 22nd image.

More short news

Last week Lawrence & Gibson sold out of Beggars & Choosers. Oh wait, what do we call books that are sold out? Profitable? Surplus valuable? Collector's items? No no no. Out-of-print. It is only the second of our books to go that way and may be reprinted in a small batch in the next six months if we can refind the files. In the meantime, check out this link for information on the first out-of-print L&G item that shall never ever be reprinted, though it was sort of included within the Beggars and Choosers book too. Oh life is but a fairground. Here's the link that makes the zine look tomely.

Will Dewey reads at Meow

Our Will lines up amongst some others for a full on reading of new Christmas classics. At least that's what I think his text said. Details here, here, here. Tuesday December 4, 6-8pm.... enough said.

$30 Meat Pack launch at Downstage

Exactly a week after the launch of the three most recent Lawrence & Gibson titles, Meros returns to Downstage to launch one more book. It is called $30 Meat Pack. It will be launched at 6pm on Thursday the 22nd of November at Downstage theatre. The night also marks the preview night of Richard Meros salutes the Southern Man at the same theatre.

The artwork for the cover is from Hannah Salmon, the artist behind the Daily Secretion series. This piece was originally exhibited at the Concerned Citizens exhibition that rised money for the Urewera terror raids defendents. It is titled: 'bouncing from cloud to cloud on the warm updrafts of his nation's confidence; on New Zealand's desperate conviction that politics be the province of ordinary men and women'. The original featured a lovely rotating base and the Rt Hon Key getting his grill on, with his grill blinging like twinkel twinkle lil' star.

Press release below.

Meros on Kim Hill

Hey, remember that time when we were wrapped up on a duvet on the couch and Kim Hill was interviewing that guy who does something with dairy in Brazil and he talked about the 'milkiest of milks'? Yeah? Well now Richard Meros is going to be the guy talking to Kim Hill this Saturday morning and some sexy couple is going to be wrapped up in a different duvet in a different house somewhere in Newtown/Mt Cook area and they're going to be sipping tea and he is going to say something that they find quaint and humerous. They'll repeat it as a trope of that night together. Impossible things...

Siouxsie Sioux (l) and Bill Grundies (r)

...yeah, that's right, Meros on Hill on Meros - 10.05am - 11.00am tomorrow, live on national radio. She's the host with the most right now, internationally awarded. Will she tear Meros a new eye-socket? Will Meros demand that I take down all the links to this interview as soon as it is done? Will he be the Gore Vidal to her William F Buckley? Or a Siouxsie Sioux to her Bill Grundy? Time will tell, 'spose.

If you want to hear it here it goes, but we recommend listening to Maxine Funke's album Felt instead.

Books from 'Island'

Well screw me with a southerly and call me Gary McCormack, what a bloody nice lot of bloody nice lot of people turned up to our launch last night at Unity. And what a cracking bunch of staff Unity has - I would lean on them (the etymological meaning of 'staff' of course) any old time and I'd sing 'Lean on Me' walking down the railroad lines with them on some ill-fated trip to Petone any old time. You know, or start a massive share-house with fifteen odd rooms and a perpetual funk and we'd name it Firetrap Castle in the tradition of you-know-who.

So admin then... well shank me with a rusty nail file, postage costs. For all of the gorgeous folks, from Israel to Powder Springs, Sweden to Te Awamutu, who bought a pre-sale of Haiku News I attach this picture of the postal receipt hanging from the window at the office. It's half a metre, eh? In the background is a pohutakawa. It blooms red at Christmas and is the unofficial tree of NZ Xmas time. This one houses a tui. If you're lucky enough to spend the night at our offices (binding or bedding down) then you'll hear the tui in the morning. Kia ora to that.

I reckon Will Dewey is going to send me some jpegs of last night's launch which we'll put up when they're done. Here's Greta, the beer-wallah for the night, and some other pix.

The ceremony of consecration

All new books from our collective must be consecrated for our readers. Yes: there is a ceremony with candles and incense and chanting. And Yes: there was blood. But none got on the books.

Sometimes I wonder how other publishers deal with the radical gap between designing and editing a book on the one hand, and the marketing and distribution of it on the other hand. At Lawrence & Gibson we hand-craft our books on semi-automated equipment at the local anarchist press. Where others are alienated from production our staff and most authors have their labour embodied in the books. Thanks to the helpers this time around - you know who you are.


Spines in descending order:
LG015 - William Dewey's The Homeland of Pure Joy
LG013 - Haiku News Anthology edited by Dick Whyte and Laurence Stacey
LG016 - $30 Meat Pack by Richard Meros
LG014 - Easy Whistle Solo by Richard Meros


Two images of binding below the jump.

William Dewey reads from The Homeland of Pure Joy

Lawrence and Gibson author William Dewey took time out from his rigid schedule of concocting metaphors and similees to read from the manuscript of his forthcoming book. The book shall be released, along with two others, on November 15 at Unity Books Wellington. On a side note, I'd just like to recall that the 15th of November will be the 97th anniversary of the founding of this broadsheet. How far we've come stuff dot co dot nz... the truly peoples paper, written, indeed, by real people. Real people like our Dewey? Maybe...