A celebration for James Broughton tonight in Atlanta

I don't know what the Left is doing,

said the Right Hand,

but is looks fascinating.

(James Broughton)

Tonight in Atlanta AQLF and Andy Ditzler's Film Love are hosting a reading/screening/benefit for the Big Joy Project. The Project is making a film about the late filmmaker, poet, playwright and faerie shaman James Broughton (aka "Big Joy," as Jonathan Williams dubbed him.)

As the event's creator Franklin Abbott writes on the Big Joy Facebook page: Join us and lots of avant garde cinephiles for an evening of spoken word, film and faerie buffet. Doors open at 6:30, the reading begins at 7:30 and after a dalliance the films begin around 9. $5 donation is requested (please give more if you can and less if need be). Feel free to bring food and bev for the buffet. Of course there will be door prizes, faerie dust and Big Joy blessings. For more on the film project go to www.bigjoy.org.

The event is being held at the Phillip Rush Center, 1530 DeKalb Avenue, Atlanta. The center is across from the Candler Park MARTA station.

Broughton once wrote of himself that "he was a hometown swami who couldn't keep his mouth shut." Never shy -- Broughton was an indefatigable self-promoter -- he was a writer and artist, as well as an actor in 23 films, which earned him descriptions as "San Francisco's own man for all seasons," its "leprechaun poet laureate." Here is Broughton in his own words, spinning freely through his own universe of past and present, goatsongs and angelic visions:

"I am a third generation Californian.

My great grandfather was a scout with Fremont,

my grandmother was born in the Mother Lode,

my aunt served in the State Legislature.

When the sun was in Scorpio, the moon in Aries,

and the cusp of Virgo and Libra rising in 1913,

I was born in the San Joaquin town of Modesto,

On the Tuolomne River of Stanislaus County

in the state of California.

My grandfathers were bankers, and so was my father.

But my mother wanted me to become a surgeon.

However, one night when I was 3 years old

I was awakened by a glittering stranger

who told me I was a poet and always would be

and never to fear being alone or being laughed at.

That was my first meeting with my Angel

who is the most interesting poet I have ever met.

My childhood passions were dancing and swimming,

circuses, amusement parks, movies, vaudeville,

the Book of Knowledge and the Land of Oz.

Pet playthings: my toy theater, my magic lantern.

When I was 10 I was sent away to military school.

There my Angel came to my rescue:

I fell madly in love with the English language.

(And also the captain of the baseball team.)

My favorite book is still Webster's Unabridged, 2nd ed.

At 12 I imitated all of the Oxford Book of English Verse

and most of the Louis Untermeyer anthologies.

But ultimately I have learned more about poetry

from music and magic than from literature.

The clearest poetic memory of my years at Stanford:

the day Yvor Winters ordered me out of his class.

Poetry is a living adventure, not a literary problem.

(Other favorite books: Roget's Thesaurus, Tao Te Ching,

Mother Goose, Candide, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.)

"Laughter is the soap of the gods." Williams writes about Broughton's irrepressible nature: "Almost as noble as James Broughton's willingness to stand there as naked as a jaybird is his willingness to use babytalk, prattle, doo-doo, goo-goo, and loony-camp lingo when called upon to do so. A lot of it works outrageously well. He reminds me of Jacques Tati playing tennis in Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot....

Big Joy and Joel Singer retired from the San Francisco Scene and lived in the midst of a forest near Port Townsend, on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. James, much reinvigorated by the relationship, was very productive into his early eighties, until slowed by a stroke. He was increasingly frail, yet cheerful."

How often do you think of Death?

Death thinks about you all the time

Death is fatally in love with you and me

and his lust is known to be relentless...

"The Art of American Book Covers: 1875-1930," a book of disappearing art

Picture this: The Art of American Book Covers 1875-1930 (George Braziller Publishers, 2010) by Richard Minsky celebrates an almost-lost art that was once an integral part of book publishing. From the mid-ninetenth century to the nineteen-fifties, hardback book cover art -- with an endless variety of gilt lettering, embossed, silhouette, finely-drawn and sometimes experimental styles -- was part of the visual and often tactile appeal of the printed book.

In an era of increased leisure reading time and developing consumer demand, this form of illustration and commercial art became a marketing tool in the publishing insustry. An engaging cover drew the eye to an author's latest offering: book publishers relied on a talented group of artists whose names may mean little today but whose art remains on display in second-hand or antique shops, libraries, and museums.

Minsky's recent book, and his blog of the same name, contains a marvelous selection of book covers by artists whose names may have faded but whose art is a striking and still attractive form. Minsky, an artist himself, continues to curate the Center for Book Arts he founded in 1974, and his research provides historical background on a great number of these artists.

(cover for Aboard the Mavis, by Richard Markham, 1880)

Probably the most visually interesting art of his collection, several examples of which are reproduced here, is by an unkinown illustrator, for whom Minsky makes an educated guess of John LeFarge:

...The authority on La Farge has advised me that there are no records of his having done any book covers. If they are not by his hand, it looks to me like it may have been his influence. We know that he taught several of the earliest and best book cover artists--Sarah Wyman Whitman and Alice Cordelia Morse learned from him, and Margaret Armstrong grew up with La Farge as a neighbor and family friend.

To my way of thinking, the lack of evidence that he did book cover commissions does not rule him out. It was several years later that artists' monograms began to appear regularly on covers. La Farge illustrated many books, knew the publishers and their art directors, and would be a likely artist for a cover commission.

(cover for Mr. Bodley Abroad, by Horace Scudder, 1881)

In these days of reduced budgets and monthly articles forecasting the death rattles of publishing, it's unlikely this form of mass-market art will make a big return in any way except as an expensive, high-end luxury item.Ironic as it seems, the internet is becoming the default curator of book art for those interested enough to track it down.

One site that describes itself as "delving daily into the arcane and esoteric of the book world" is here, and bibliophemera is another site that's worth a browse for its collection of book-cover art and other publisher-related items from the 1800s.

And for those willing to wear out shoe-leather in their home town, just browsing the shelves at your local library or book sale can turn up a find: that's where I bought a first edition of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House from 1946 (for one dollar) with original illustrations by William Steig -- the artist whose later, wobbly line-drawings in the New Yorker featured a cranky but lovable monster named Shrek.

Jorge Luis Borges, born August 24, 1899

"There's no need to build a labyrinth
when the entire universe is one."

"Ibn-Hakim Al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth,"
in The Aleph (1949)