umbrella on line

ISSN 0160-0699

Volume 31, No. 3, Dec 2008

From The Editor

Dear Subscribers:

This has been a difficult issue to assemble and present to you. There is just too much information coming in and the art form I seemingly try to use is to discretely choose those tidbits that might have a little longer value than the Warholian 15 minutes to persuade you to continue to read this journal.

It has been a gargantuan job this time, and I trust that you individual subscribers will pay your 2007 dues immediately so as not to be cut off from access to Umbrella Online until thost $15.00 will be paid. Frankly, the upkeep of this website is tantamount to anything else except my having the energy and strength to continue this work. We need you to be there for us. If you find no access, it will mean your subscription is pending payment. So please, get your subscription in and continue reading this 30th year.

This issue contains a wonderful description of the history-making conference and book fair in San Francisco sponsored by the Codex Foundation by a friend who attended the whole event. And I will add some comments from others who also assessed the first of this biennial event.

In addition, Jan de Cock’s weighty new book, Denkmal ISBN 908042427, led me to have an interview with him by e-mail so that you could understand how much The Book is important to his oeuvre. It is indeed a book for a table and not for the lap.

And not to be outdone by the environmental interests not only of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (note that Al Gore won an Oscar), we are going to inform you of my friends in the UK who run a remarkable artist-run arts trust which promotes cultural strategies in response to issues about social, environmental and eocnomic change). So we are all over the place in this issue, but it is a reflection of the Yahoo Group I run which is by invitation only to those subscribers who send in their required $15.00 which will enable you to read what I read and choose to send out each day. It certainly keeps me busy!

So, please subscribe, please tell your friends, and hope to see you in early June again! Remember, if you are doing research, digitized versions of Umbrella are available here.

— Judith A Hoffberg
Editor & Publisher

Remember the Edible Book High/Low Tea and see if you can participate on Sunday 1 April or anytime in April that the organizers have set. It is quite an international event! www.books2eat.com