Before my Driftwood book presentation at City Lights on Wednesday night, I wandered around North Beach to kill some time shooting pix. The affair turned out to be SRO, and the youngest crowd I’ve ever had — Hey, we must be doing something right.
I started sending out newsletters to Publishers Group West reps (our distributors) in 2001, one every month or two — news of our books plus a few extracurricular things thrown in. I started adding friends and people I met who had common interests, and it got up to about 600 people. Then along came blogging, and later Instagramming, and I’ve been sending out these newsletters a lot less frequently.
Recently I’ve concluded that newsletters are a different and more direct form of communication than blasting everything out to the world via “social media.” So I’m building up this mailing list and now going to do them a little more frequently — once every month or two.
You can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here:
I print out photos on an old Brother copy machine to size, and print out text in two or three columns. (I actually write a lot of the text during layout.) Then I use a proportional wheel and scissors and an X-Acto knife to arrange a two-page spread at a time, then affix it with removable Scotch Tape. Yeah, can you believe it? Coffee, music, right brain function occasionally ganja-enhanced.
Sure, I know it can all be done on a computer, but I prefer to stay out of the binary world for creative work.
Digital preparation for printing press: Rick transforms the crude pasteups into precise files, using Photoshop and InDesign, and voila!
Hardcover • 8½″ by 8½″ • $19.95
160 pages • 176 color photos
ISBN 978-0-936070-80-3
Publication date March 12, 2019 (but it’s shipping now)
Info on it (and early copies): www.shelterpub.com/building/driftwood
Review copies: If you or someone you know wants a copy for review, click to send us address(es).
I’m working on this now, the 35th book I’ve published in 48 years (the tenth that I have authored). It’s the story of our lives for the last 40+ years: building a house, gardening, cooking, foraging, fishing, crafts, etc. It should be out in early 2020.
I’m using Google Photo, an app that, once installed, downloads all your digital photos. Then you can do a search: “garden,” “fireplaces,” “kitchens,” etc. and in a few seconds it pulls up all the images of the selected category. It was hugely useful for the driftwood book; dozens of photos I’d forgotten about.
After the homestead book: The 40th anniversary edition of Stretching (with stretches for the bad posture encouraged by cell phone usage); Hit the Road Jack, the latest on rolling homes; books on barns, Baja California Sur, the ’60s (through the eyes of a San Francisco native. Don’t get me started!
With Jamie Byng of Canongate Press, London
I had a great time at this event in Albuquerque (in late January). I signed about 70 copies of the driftwood book for book buyers; There were two authors at each table, and my tablemate was Mark Kurfansky, author of Salt and Cod and now working on a book for Patagonia on salmon.
I met a bunch of great people — book lovers all.
I spent two days before the conference at a hot springs spa in the town of Truth or Consequences, two hours south of Albuquerque, and had other adventures documented here:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn
My all-over-the-place blog: www.lloydkahn.com/… (Links to posts from Albuquerque.)
Who could resist stopping at Carmen’s (in Truth or Consequences)? Blue corn enchiladas and green chile. Carmen cooks; her daughter is the waitress.
My friend Ned Cherry at his man cave in the backyard of his adobe house in Albuquerque. We hadn’t seen each other in 30 years. (We’ve known each other for 65 years — since we were 18.)
Sorry this is so long, I didn’t have time to make it shorter.
“I love the life I live and I live the life I love.”
–Muddy Waters (written by Willie Dixon, 1915-82)
I’m going to The Winter Institute, hosted by The American Booksellers Association, which runs from January 22-25, at the Albuquerque Convention Center. I’ll be attending some seminars, and giving out and autographing copies of our (just printed) book, Driftwood Shacks to buyers at the Author Reception, Thursday Jan 24, 5pm to 6:30.
Per my usual M.O., I’m taking off a few days early for some exploring. I’m getting there Sunday, Jan. 20th, thinking of heading south to Truth or Consequences, a town with many hot springs, and exploring small towns like Hillsboro and Kingston and searching the countryside for barns and interesting buildings to photograph.
Anyone have any tips on stuff to do in that part of the world?
Bugs Bunny compilation sent by Doug Armstrong. I’d forgotten about Sounds like the same guy that said:
“There was thoity boids sittin’ on the coib, choipin’ and boipin’ and eatin’ doity woims…”
Here’s a video made for the occasion. I was the shelter editor for several incarnations of the Catalog, including The Whole Earth Epilog.
“Meet the creators of the Whole Earth Catalog and the community they inspired. This video history of the Whole Earth culture covers 50 years of collective innovation in just 38 minutes.
“Whole Earth Flashbacks” takes you on a dazzling journey through time, from the first Whole Earth Catalogs to the Co-Evolution Quarterly, the Whole Earth Review, the Hackers Conference, the Well, Cyberthon, Wired, Burning Man and the 10,000 Year Clock, to name but a few.
These projects have one thing in common: they gave access to tools and ideas to help people bring their dreams to life — and change the world together.
This video retrospective features many creative minds and thought leaders: Stewart Brand, Jay Baldwin, Stephanie Mills, Lloyd Kahn, Ted Nelson, Doug Adams, Steven Levy, Andy Hertzfeld, Howard Rheingold, Jaron Lanier, Wavy Gravy, Kevin Kelly, Larry Harvey, Danny Hillis and Steve Jobs, in order of appearance.
Whole Earth Flashbacks was created by Fabrice Florin, with the help of over 60 community members…. Our video premiered at the 50th Anniversary of the Whole Earth Catalog on October 13, 2018, at Fort Mason in San Francisco.…”
https://vimeo.com/album/5479545/video/294878432
(In the 2nd row of the above collage, 2nd from left, is a fisheye shot of me in my dome at Pacific High School in 1968.)
Shelter publications published its first book in 1970 — 48 years ago. In that amount of time, we have published about 50 books — about one per year. It seems to take us forever to do each book, but what we’ve learned is that when we put in the time and money to do books this way, they tend to have a long shelf life.
These are our seven building books, starting with Shelter in 1973. Each of these has over 1000 photographs and is densely packed with information. They form a body of work, and I’m pretty proud of them.
In a way, this is the end of an era for us. I’m going to a different format with our next two or three books: smaller size, larger and less photographs, less text.
Shameless Commerce Department: They are all available at www.shelterpub.com, with free shipping and a 30% discount for three or more books. Stores get a 50% discount (plus shipping charges) for bulk orders.
This is Brielle, one year old, fascinated with a mini copy of Small Homes.
(I’ll be playing around with layout for a week or two in this brand new incarnation of my blog. I’m excited about now using WordPress instead of Blogger. Plus at last I can go BIG with photos.)
I’m in the midst of a big upgrade of my driftwood shacks book. Will try to post details before long. I’m really excited. It’s looking, ahem, incredible. All these years of beach combing…
A copy of the first WEC. 1,000 copies were printed, according to Stewart. Very rare these days; used copies run from $250 to over $900.
A few weeks ago, I said I’d post more on The Whole Earth Catalog, which is having its 50th year anniversary party this October, and I ran across this post from 3 years ago: www.lloydkahn.com/…
Last night I went to an event at Capgemini Applied Innovation Exchange in San Francisco, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Whole Earth Catalog. It was a 3-hour tribute to and lovefest for Stewart Brand, and the role he has played in shaping so many trends and affecting and inspiring so many people’s lives. I got invited because I was the shelter editor of the WEC back in the day. About a dozen people gave 3-minute speeches, including Kevin Kelly, Orville Schell, Peter Calthorpe, Tim O’Reilly and astronaut Rusty Schweikart on Stewart’s impact on their lives. Not to mention that Steve Jobs (now famously) said that in high school he was reading the WEC and it had a lot to do with inspiring him to get into building computers Wow!
This was a private event, but a prequel to a big celebration, open to the public, coming up on October 13th, 2018, at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco: https://www.wholeearth50th.com/
I’m going to write a bit about my experiences with Stewart next week.