Sep 15

00

MISCELLANY II

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Hola amigos.

Not that it has, but should the question, “what the devil has been going on down at Cardigan head office, old bean” be posed, say, on a golf course or in hand-written correspondence, it would be answered as follows. Er, not as immediately follows, three paragraphs down, in fact.

First we’ll answer something people actually have been inquiring about. “Why Cardigan?” they want to know. “What is with the God-Damned name?” they call out.

Well sir, to answer that particular poser you need look no further than what we do hereabouts for money. Book jackets (disposable bits of hype that they are) may be thought of as a sort of garment. Not a functional garment, really, more decorative. But one that opens up, rather like a cardigan. Nice, eh?

Ever eager to dick around with established roles, we are ourselves in the process of authoring a book, the soon-to-be underappreciated classic “Being Clear: Principles of Editorial Design,” which promises to be a cracking good read, full of madcap comedy and lusty adventure, though who will design the jacket is as yet unknown. Upon its appearance next Fall, it will be required reading among the smart set, and no mistake, as well as among the friends of your correspondent. Look for it in fine remainder bins by 2003.

The rumbling you hear is the manufacture of a line of Cardigan swag, soon to be available to all in exchange for money. Mugs are a future possibility, as are pencil cases, but fridge magnets are out of the question.

Speaking of fridge magnets, recent doings include a redesign of everyone’s favourite repository of linguistic impishness (and of course Haiku Night in Canada), Geist magazine, presently celebrating its tenth anniversary with a snappy new look and planned events. In a spectacular feat of logrolling, the forthcoming issue features one of our own doodads.

Also, we’re forging ahead making the online home of Geist, which will at its launch later this year be smarter, sleeker, and more linguistically impish than any other Canadian literary magazine available online, and no mistake.

And on Wednesday mornings we walk in the rain to water’s edge and putt-putt in a ferry across to an island whose market stalls hold heaps of produce waiting to be SUV’ d back to the stainless steel and butcher block kitchens of Vancouver’s dumb rich. Also on the island is an imposing institute where we stand droning (“Bueller... Bueller...”), pacing and proselytizing on the prevention of cruelty to letterforms, before a room full of smart people in their early twenties who, to a cranky book designer in his early thirties, are Just Adorable.

Be seeing you.