Powerfully Exciting Short Story
By Barbara Tetenbaum
Portland, Oregon: Triangular Press, 2008. Edition of 100.

3.75 x 6.5"; 38 pages. Bound in black cloth with paper title on spine.

An artists' book for literary theorists, this postmodern metafiction harkens to the heady (and puzzling) days of conceptual art. This is the reductio ad absurdum of conceptual art applied to literature. A Powerfully Exciting Short Story is the framework for "a powerfully exciting short story."

The story begins: "Chapter One," "(a woodcut showing a scene of dramatic light and shadow)," and "Here is set a mood of calm-before-the-storm…." On the last page: "(this image makes perfect sense now)."

The images are written about only: "(a small ornament)," "(a complicated image showing for modes of transportation)," or "(a small woodcut illustrating this clue)".

This is the short story Sol LeWitt would have written had he been a writer: telling without showing, generality without specific, skeleton without meat (and certainly no heart).

But it does have one other level, a level that perhaps justifies calling this an artists' book, and not just a postmodern mindgame. A Powerfully Exciting Short Story has form, form with all the expectations that form. It's elegant and neat, a small and austere book that fits comfortably into the hand; the printing is clear and crisp, promising weightiness, gravity, significance, and attendant honesty.

Just a game? Or something powerfully exciting?
$95

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By Barbara Tetenbaum
Portland, Oregon: Triangular Press, 2007. Edition of 30.

8.5 x 5.1". Bound-in accordion fold with 14 panels. Hand-set type, old engravings, and miscellaneous surfaces.

One object lesson rendered visually and typographically, or how one person found balance and a chance to move forward?
$350

 

 

 

 

Gymnopaedia no. 4
a score for four voices
By Barbara Tetenbaum
Portland, Oregon: Triangular Press, 2005. Edition of 30.

7 x 11"; 24 pages. Printed letterpress from bell wire, sheet magnet, advertising cuts, and decorative rule. Text hand-set in foundry Trump Mediaeval. Bound in blue book cloth with paper title label on front board.

This is the fourth in Tetenbaum's Gymnopaedia series, all somehow connected to musical scores. Gymnopaedia no. 4 is a score that is primarily visual, although it does have minimal text. The four parts run in columns from top to bottom of the page, all four fitting across one two-page spread. If you number the voices from left to right, voice one is almost purely abstract and resembles voice prints. Voices two, three, and four decrease in abstraction – at least the images do. There are seemingly unrelated meta-directions ("sustain the moment," "stubborn and childlike"). And voices three and four seem to be having a Beckett-like conversation.

If it's music, it's silent, imaginary, and beautifully printed – like a four-leaf clover imagined by a blind woman.
$340 (last three copies)

Half-Life 25 Years of Books
With commentary by Jim Carmin and Uta Schneider
Portland, Oregon: Triangular Press, 2005. Edition of 1000.

7.625 x 10.625"; 47 pages. This book was composed in types that come from John Downer's Paperback, a brand new revival/remix of the hardy Schotch Romans that shouldered the bulk of American commercial publishing before the advent of photosetting. This book was set range-right with four to the em wordspacing, using only type sizes from the typographer's traditional pallette.

This book contains new pages from Gymnopoedia No. 4 and a catalogue raisonne' for the years 1978-20005; A Catalog of Advertising Cuts from the Collection of Triangular Press; and A Chronology of Events in the artistic life of Barabara Tetenbaum, with commentary by Jim Carmin and Uta Schneider.
$40