new blog revamped

I worked with a new theme and played with the html to that the page works much more like I intended. I mostly wanted more of an emphasis on the tags, a fixed sidebar, and to get rid of timestamps on posts.

highpeaksguide.tumblr.com

Online Slide Guide

I'm working on translating my last book into a tumblr blog. Check it out!

Website, process book.

darekbittner.com

I mostly worked on my website this weekend. I plan on taking all my scanned material to make a HPPH catalogue. I also want to incorporate an interactive way to read my most recent book online. That will probably be a winter break project.

This reminds me of Amanda's project.

Wolfram announces 'most important' project: a programming language that models the world

Group poster

Fixed show posters.

Will bring into class Monday. 

Printing, Circles

http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/pro96u/pro96ups.pdf

Pages 3 - 8 explain how to print up to 227 inches long using illustrator's tile feature. My book is 216 inches long so hopefully I am in the clear of needing to download any special printing software. I'm going to prepare an illustrator file that will allow me to print two books side by side with very thin trim marks.

I added circles to the map to make the numbers more legible. The red circles with white text had too much pop. I instead opted with white circles and red type. 

Ready for print?

I've gone through for spelling and formatting multiple times. I have the file prepared for the printer. I will bring in my laptop to class to share. Not sure if I am ready to print. I would like to be ready to print as to have that much extra time to be ready for my show.

poster printed

High Peaks Publishing House

Mock up and half a print.

Rough draft of first 8 pages:

Working on mini-posters for senior show:

slide guide text

researched and recorded all the info needed to get to each slide. found a handful of "fun facts" on adirondack history

example of "fun fact"

watershed divide: stream on the north end of avalanche lake directs atlantic bound water via st. lawrence seaway and stream on the south end via hudson river

example of "how to get there"

slide brook north fork

ascend drainage at slide brook lean-to. bear left at split

fascinating read on adirondack geology

http://written-in-stone-seen-through-my-lens.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-adirondack-mountains-of-new-york.html

Update

Ready to print and assemble flexagon book. Still working on a title. Maybe something like Same Shit, Different Day but less... kitch?

Gathering content for slide guide. Meditating on formats, printing methods, etc. Had a cool idea that I would use images from google earth rather than scanning directly from the original text.

burning heart gully and munchkin alley

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. left at first split. left at second split

munchkin alley

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. left at first split. right at second split

boundary line

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. right at first split. left at second split

good friday

follow drainage upstream from scott's clearing. right at first split. right at second split.

type so far

flexagon

I want to go with flexagon structure for my newspaper book. I made a couple of different kinds this weekend that I will bring into class. I like the flexagon structure because it has no start or end page, it just keeps going. It kind of hits home the timeless quality of the stories I am finding. Bellow are the articles I have found so far:

BEARS ON LOCAL DUMP

For the past several weeks the town dump has been a beehive of activity. Night and day people jam the dumping area to watch the wild bears in search for food.

As many as eight bears have been counted in one evening.

Even a couple of the bolder young bears come in the daylight hours. 

Dear Sir:

In regards to the recent snow vehicle trespass legislation, we here in the Adirondacks have to point out that we are conservationists as well as sportsmen. We don’t destroy trees or trails. Motor boats contaminate the water with oil and gas and often cause drownings and injury  through carelessness. Hunters shoot hunters but we can’t stop hunting and boating. If there are people who are envious of us because we can go for miles and take in the beautiful things that God gave us all I have a solution for their problem, the dealers who sell three different models of snow vehicles. Then the complainer can have fun right along with us and not talk sour grapes. We can invite state officials to take a trip with us, to see for themselves. I think they are ignorant of what our machines are really like. The probably picture D-8 Cat Dozers knocking down everything in their paths. 

Very Sincerely,

Charles Gallo Jr.

LAKE CHAMPLAIN STEAMER CAPTAIN IS 92

Capt. Eli B. Rockwell, probably the oldest steamboat captain in the world, will being his eighty-first consecutive season on Lake Champlain Saturday, when he will take the steamer Vermont from its winter quarters and bring it to Burlington to be commisioned for the summer. Captain Rockwell is ninety-two years of age and entered the steamboat service at the age of eleven as a cabin boy, in 1841. He was a first mate at nineteen and a first pilot at twenty-three. His first comand was the Canada, which was run from Rouses Point to Whitehall. 

HUNTING ACCIDENTS IN FIRST WEEK OF SEASON CAUSE DEATH OF ONE AND SEVERAL INJURIES

Howard Martin, 17, Loses Life in Shooting Mishap Near Ausable Forks

Horicon Man Loses Eye

Long Island Nimrod in Elizabethtown Hospital Suffering From Hip Wound  

Albany Resturaunter Emerges From Newcomb Wilds as Woods Are Combed for Him

FAT COW

FOR SALE — Fat cow for beef or will exchange for a milch cow.

Howard M. Fish, North Creek, N.Y., R.1

ALL YOU CAN EAT

SUNDAY BRUNCH

CENTRAL HOTEL

Serving 9 a.m. – 2p.m.

$6.95 Adults, 5.95 Senior Citizens

3.95 Children 12 & under, under 5 FREE

GLENFIELD 376 –3475

You Know Patty – It’s going to be good!!

Serving lunch Daily 11:30 – 1:00

BOAT GRAPPLING NEAR WILLSBORO PT. STARTLES COLONISTS

Summer Residents Surmised Vessel Was Salvaging Rum From Lake Bottom

ONLY GOV’T CRAFT

The usual placidity of Willisboro Point on Lake Champlain was rather rudely shattered last Saturday when the summer colonists noted the sudden appearance of a strange, short stubby, black steamboat churning its way around the end of the point. The craft was equipped with derricks and dredges with a large object that appeared to be a diving bell.

Grapples were swung ocher the side of the boat, and spectators at once surmised that an attempt was being made, probably by bootlegger, to salvage the three hundred odd cases of costly Scotch whiskey, champagne, and cordials which strew the bottom of the lake at the point, submerged in seventy feet of water.  This impressive array of refreshments was lost when a rum runner’s boat capsized several weeks ago in a heavy sea. 

However, upon closer examination it was discovered that the boat was merely a government light house tender which was grappling for a buoy anchor.

Working on "Labels" for past books.

I need a way to give context to my past books as I prepare to begin showing them in public venues. Very few people are going to read them, let alone become intimate with them to any degree. They will be looked at like museum artifacts. Think of the following as the synopsis on the back of a book jacket. The potential reader picks up the book, looks at the cover, flips through the book, reads the back, and then makes the decision.

AVALANCHE SLIDES OF THE ADIRONDACK HIGH PEAKS
is an artist's appropriation of The Adirondack Slide Guide, a cult classic amongst the regions mountaineering community. Pages from the original document were meticulously scanned; images and typography corrected, a regional map was affixed, and redundant pages omitted. The result is an abstract version of the original document, more efficient in design, yet rendered useless in thanks to poor detail output by xerographic printing.

is a reference book that cannot be effectively referenced.

HOW I KILLED A BEAR
Salvaged from the public domain and drastically edited down to its bear essentials, How I Killed a Bear forces readers to first confront the monster (or martyr) before their immersion into the narrator’s thrilling recount of horror and eventual triumph. The book aims to challenge preconceptions of the relationships between man, nature, and death.

TIME'S NOBLEST OFFSPRING IS HER LAST
is a collection of cultural artifacts from nations long since destroyed by European colonization. The folklore within predates the demise of Native America and is chosen so that we may read their stories, learn of their reliance on, and love for our land. Upon reading it is easily and irrefutably noted that we have yet to be forgiven.

I'm continuing to dig through newspapers searching for content. I typed up all the stories I have so far into a text document. I have enough content to start filling some pages to get a better feel for the book. I want to make some rough sketch ups this weekend with the hopes of exploring some of the different ways I can make the book read.

"Research as studio practice."

Continuing to gather clippings.

Northern New York Historical Newspapers

Thinking about the upcoming book. What is the book trying to say? Why is it funny? How can the book structure generate context?