Half Letter Press

Half Letter Press is a publishing imprint and an experimental online store initiated by Temporary Services. Temporary Services is a group of two people (Brett Bloom and Marc Fischer). We have published booklets as an element of our collaborative work since 1998. We created Half Letter Press to publish and distribute book and booklet length works by ourselves and others. We are interested in using this endeavor to build long-term support and expanded audiences for people that work creatively in experimental ways. We are particularly interested in supporting people and projects that have had difficulty finding financial and promotional assistance through mainstream commercial channels. Correspondence and distribution inquiries can be sent to: Half Letter Press P.O. Box 12588 Chicago, IL 60612 USA Email: publishers [at] halfletterpress [dot] com Visit: www.halfletterpress.com

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At the NY Art Book Fair - feels good to be part of this great book and ongoing project edited by Michalis Pichler. Join us for a discussion about Publishing Manufestos in the Classroom at 3:30 today. #nyabf2018 @printedmatter_artbookfairs (at MoMA PS1) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2otUcKFW3p/?igshid=xo7wd47g3r5w

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New book! Inside the Matrix: The Radical Designs of Ken Isaacs by Susan Snodgrass was ready at the printer this morning and we will have copies available at the NY Art Book Fair tomorrow! The first twenty buyers get signed copies. Inside the Matrix surveys the highly individual practice of American architect and designer Ken Isaacs (1927-2016), whose populist, DIY designs created from the 1950s to the 1970s challenged conventional architectural concepts in housing, as well as mainstream definitions of modernism. We are extremely grateful for the beautiful work of the designers at Partner & Partners, the printer M&G Graphics in Chicago, Mairead Case who co-edited the text with us, and the Graham Foundation for their grant support of this publication. We’ll have copies available for purchase online (including some more signed copies) early next week. Quimby’s Books in Chicago has copies already! https://www.instagram.com/p/B2kH7oOFrEZ/?igshid=c92dnrtwvatr

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New in our webstore from Public Collectors: Mystery Guitarists. This offset photo booklet features snapshot photos of 21 unknown guitar players, found through a flea market discovery followed by epic eBay diving. Available online (link in bio) for $6.00 or get a copy from us at the NY Art Book Fair this weekend. Temporary Services / Half Letter Press will be at table P09 in the Friendly Fire section. #publiccollectors #marcfischer #photozine https://www.instagram.com/p/B2g9eXTFdYM/?igshid=1ch9ddeysqeao

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Just banged out 225 more copies of this lil’ Temporary Services booklet we first published back in 2002. Now in pretty medium blue ink. Available in our webstore now. #temporaryservices #groupwork #RISO https://www.instagram.com/p/B2GBAselzhO/?igshid=1acq2zfr3n1ln

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New Publication! The Courtroom Artist Residency Report: Residencies #1-4

[PURCHASE] $8.00

The first collection of reports from Public Collectors’ meal-based artist residency that brings artists to observe Criminal Court in Chicago, followed by a meal and discussion. For this residency program, artists and creative workers are invited to observe approximately three hours of court proceedings with me at Cook County Criminal Court on 2600 S. California in Chicago. Following court, he treats the resident to a meal at Taqueria El Milagro on 3050 West 26th street in Little Village, where we talk about our observations over lunch. Each residency lasts approximately six hours including transportation within Chicago, to and from court. The Courtroom Artist Residency Report collects accounts of the first four residencies. These reports provide a space for the residents and I to talk about our experience and share reflections, notes, and drawings related to their residency.

Featured in this booklet are discussions with Peggy Pierrot, Wes Janz (who contributes an additional essay), Salem Collo-Julin, and Dmitry Samarov—who made a number of drawings during his residency. Together the residents observed a number of challenging cases including the murder trial of former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, and a hearing for Gerald Reed who was convicted of a murder he did not commit 28 years ago, after a forced confession made after being tortured by police working under Detective Jon Burge.

The Courtroom Artist Residency extends from the Public Collectors Joong Boo Residency Program. From 2016-18, that previous residency provided Korean lunch to 38 artist residents at Joong Boo Market in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood. That project is detailed in the publication The Meal-Based Artist Residency Program, published by Public Collectors in August, 2018.

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New Public Collectors booklet available from Half Letter Press!

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We are sad to share that our friend Jean Toche, co-founder of Guerilla Art Action Group (GAAG), was found dead on July 9th. Marc has written a letter that we include below.

— Temporary Services (Brett Bloom & Marc Fischer)

Marc wrote:

Earlier this afternoon I received an email from Jon Hendricks that Jean Toche has died. Toche was found in his bed at home in Staten Island by police today. Foul play is not expected to be the cause. 

Toche, along with Jon Hendricks, Poppy Johnson, Silvianna, Joanne Stamerra, and his late wife Virginia Toche, was a member of Guerrilla Art Action Group. The group's primary years of work were between 1969-1979, but much of their activity happened between 1969 and 1971. Temporary Services, along with our friend Stephen Perkins, reached out to Jean in 2008 and interviewed him for a lengthy booklet. You can download a free PDF of it in a link below. 

Jean was a delight. He had done few if any interviews in many years and the invitation was obviously meaningful to him. He insisted on answering our questions through the mail and treated the pages like a performance space. He was extra happy with the booklet we made and shared copies with friends all over the world. 

Brett from Temporary Services was able to visit Jean at his home soon after we printed the publication and later I was able to make the same visit with Alan W. Moore. Jean was an extremely generous host, plying us with champagne and rich cheeses and paté in his garden. The garden was a great source of pride for him and he showed us before and after photos of what the yard looked like when he and Virginia moved in many years before. 

Our friendship continued for years after the booklet and Jean constantly sent us hilarious inflammatory letters about whatever was happening in the world that pissed him off on any given day. He wrote countless letters to the editors of various papers—the New York Times in particular—and CC'd Temporary Services and others by sending photocopies. At some point he stopped using envelopes and wrote his outrageous messages on postcards. There was at least one letter that was sealed with nothing in it, and Jean's entire text scrawled on the back of the envelope. 

Jean Toche never stopped fighting. He enraged his neighbors with his political views. His told me his cat was threatened at one point. He used his voice mail as a medium and would regularly change the message—often recording calls for action so violent and absurd that I'm not going to repeat them. I suspect he was always home whenever I called but let the call go to voice mail just so the caller would have to hear his message. 

Well into his 80s, he never stopped paying attention to the world around him. He made a nude photo and text piece at one point expressing solidarity with Pussy Riot. He loved to antagonize the art world in his mailings and if there was a bridge that went from Chelsea to Staten Island, I'm sure he would have tried to burn it. At some point I became a lousy penpal and in 2016 the mailings from Jean fell off. It was hard to keep up with him but I should have done a better job. 

Guerrilla Art Action Group's work is very important and should be more well known than it is. The primary book on their work, published by Printed Matter, was reprinted a while back and I'm glad Jean got to see that happen in his lifetime. It's still available and well worth seeking out. 

Goodbye Jean! You were a lovely, kind, prickly man and a true pleasure to know. Also, you would have never seen this, because you refused to use the internet! Because you insisted you were banned from the internet! Download the booklet we made together here.

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Temporary Services / Half Letter Press will have a table at this year’s edition of Madison Print and Resist. Can’t wait to return to this great city and event. Stop by and say hi and check out all of the latest publications if you attend!

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Half Letter Press will have a table at Zine Mercado this Sunday. All the latest from Temporary Services, Public Collectors, and Breakdown Break Down Press!

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Center spread illustration by Ruby T from At Work with Thomas Kong by Dan Miller. [Purchase] $8.00

Thomas Kong makes collages and assemblages out of advertising, packaging, and other surplus material while managing Kim’s Corner Food, a convenience store in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.

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New from Temporary Services. Our 117th publication!

At Work with Thomas Kong by Dan Miller, with illustrations by Ruby T

[Purchase] $8.00

Thomas Kong makes collages and assemblages out of advertising, packaging, and other surplus material while managing Kim’s Corner Food, a convenience store in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood.

In this publication, Chicago-based Australian artist Dan Miller introduces Kong’s prolific art practice and the first three years of their experimental collaboration. Together their productions have ranged from business cards and shopping baskets to The Back Room at Kim’s Corner Food. Housed in a converted storage room behind the store, The Back Room is a community-oriented art space and expanding archive of Kong’s work. Writing about the development of this interdependent relationship across gaps in age, culture, and artistic education, Miller reflects on what might be learned from both the ingenuity of Kong’s practice and their unlikely alliance. At Work with Thomas Kong includes excerpts from several interviews with Kong and illustrations by artist Ruby T, one of the project’s growing number of co-conspirators.

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Just cranked out a fresh new stack of Artist Book Fruit Diagram posters on the RISO. Available in our shop for just $4.00.

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Breakfast has been consumed. We are ready for Chicago Zine Fest! Find us at table G20. See you there!

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Saying goodbye to our friend Angelo

Temporary Services is sad to share that we have lost our longtime friend and collaborator Angelo. Angelo was found in his apartment outside of Los Angeles sometime around Christmas. The cause of death was sudden cardiac arrest. He had recently turned 73 years old. Angelo made thousands of pages of drawings, sketches, and writings, but he is best remembered as the author of the book Prisoners’ Inventions, a collaboration with Temporary Services. Prisoners’ Inventions was first published by WhiteWalls in 2003, and presented as a larger exhibition in numerous venues since its first showing at MASS MoCA. Working with Angelo taught us just how irrelevant the distinction between art and other forms of creativity is. We learned that in prison you can cook a sandwich with metal furniture, light cigarettes with pieces of wire and paperclips jammed into electrical outlets, and communicate with others through the plumbing of a toilet. Angelo's writings and drawings about the creativity he observed in prison collapsed the distinctions between art and everyday survival. He transformed our thinking in ways that have influenced everything we've done since. Angelo spent over two decades in prison. He was released in late 2014. We finally gave Angelo a copy of his book Prisoners' Inventions in person soon after his release. It was his first time seeing the finished book. He was never allowed to receive a copy during his incarceration because his own drawings showed how to make contraband objects. After being released, Angelo was able to live a modest but comfortable life, thanks to a pension from a pre-incarceration job. He walked a lot and attended a reading program for recently released prisoners. One of the first things he did after getting out from prison was obtain a library card. He spent countless hours scouring the city for movies on DVD and VHS that he had been unable to watch while in prison. He viewed as many as seven films a day and kept an index card inventory of the thousands of titles he quickly amassed in his small apartment.  He was a huge history buff and film adaptations of historical events were a favorite. Angelo led a fairly solitary life after being released from prison, but he always sounded happy. Marc last spoke with Angelo on election night, just days before his 73rd birthday, and hours before the horrifying Presidential outcome became clear. Angelo was in great spirits—apologetic as always about never turning on his cell phone and being hard to get a hold of. He was more interested in talking about his favorite illustrators than the election. It remains our intention to reprint Prisoners' Inventions. It has been out of print for far too long, and Angelo generated several dozen pages of new invention drawings and writings since the last reprinting of the book. We are looking forward to sharing that material in the next edition. We will forever be grateful for the experience of working with Angelo—even though our collaboration was mostly from afar and almost entirely through written correspondence. We will always be moved and inspired by what he was able to do with so little, and we will miss his kindness and generosity. Collaborators like Angelo are truly once in a lifetime. — Temporary Services / Marc & Brett

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Every single item in the Half Letter Press webstore is 20% off for the rest of 2016! Load up here!

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Mexico City!! Temporary Services / Half Letter Press coming your way for Rrreplica! Hope to see you at the fair, or at Marc Fischer’s talk at Aeromoto on December 1st! 

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New handbills! We just cranked out a bunch of new Temporary Services / Half Letter Press handbills on the RISO on various colors of card stock. Order anything from www.halfletterpress.com and we'll throw one in with your order. 

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Lonely Books by Josh MacPhee. $10.00 [PURCHASE]

Lonely Books is a lovely booklet! The latest from Josh MacPhee of justseeds and Interference Archive, slipping into that sweet poetic mode he visits from time to time. This booklet is a great use of 2-color printing, sometime he has been exploring in his design work with increasing effectiveness. Here's the brief description from the inside cover:

"I found and photographed all these books with my phone between 2014-2016 in the Park Slope and Gowanus neighborhoods of Brooklyn."

Lonely Books documents these finds, with captions to indicate the bibliographic details, and little questions and comments interjected here and there. A simple but great publication about a very New York phenomena.