The Cunningham Amendment | The Print Project

Garage Grumbles: Music

Posted on March 12th, 2012 by Admin

Adana, Garage Grumbles, Letterpress, Music, Platen, Printing, The Cunningham Amendment

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Letterpress involves long hours alone. Every part of this ancient craft is unique. And it’s only the compositor who can sort the problems that crop. There are no help- lines, software or replacement parts. However, once the problems have been sorted, a lot of the work can be repetitive. Like lone yachtsmen and desert hermits it is work that has an effect on the psyche. It’s easy to get lost in day-dreams. I rely a lot on music for company. I discovered years ago the magic and the complexity of opera. I can sometimes plan an act of an opera to coincide with a particular printing task.

Extended repetitive movements continue to cause damage to a variety of my bodily joints. Music helps in the physical breaks. At particular points in the opera I can begin vigorously conducting along to a heartily sung aria. As far as I know no one sees me doing this and share it with you under conditions of confidentiality.

But the music is not always classical. Taste and mood change with the work. I always say that if you don’t like rock n’ roll then you haven’t got a soul. My sound system dates from yesteryear and I occasionally visit charity shops where it’s possible to pick up cassettes for 10p a go. Once when printing I was pondering over a storyline about a church whose tea urn had been laced with something special. In my head I had the vicar chasing the lady on flower rota; the choir adopting the lotus position; and then, on a cassette playing rock from the 50’s, I heard “Happy Organ” by Dave Baby Cortez (try it on youtube!). Wow. I was immediately into Miss Timpson doing an imaginative striptease down the church aisle.

Life can be pretty exciting in the garage.

—The Good Doctor
The R. Supward Press Spring 2012

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Garage Grumbles: The Lost Episode

Posted on March 7th, 2012 by Admin

Garage Grumbles, Printing, Process, The Cunningham Amendment

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After many months of searching the information super highway, we finally found this ‘lost’ episode of Garage Grumbles by The Good Doctor…just in time for spring.

“Bits of me are suffering from the months of prolonged exposure to the cold. It’s the body’s peripheral, dangly-bits that go first: Chilblains, nose tip, ears. Worse was the little finger of my right hand which stiffened and the topmost joint swelled up painfully. The little finger is essentially redundant when composing type. It’s the thumb and first three fingers that do the work. Hence I have a pinkie that hurts at the slightest sign of a cool breeze. Years back some wag sent me a knitted willy-warmer. I dug it out last week and used it has a pinkie-glove. Alas, it was too big. So I’ve taken to strapping my finger up with masking-tape. Me and my body have had some good times — bad times too — and it’s a trifle disconcerting to watch bits of it drop off.”

—The Good Doctor
The R. Supward Press Winter 2011

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Garage Grumbles: “Apocalypse”

Posted on December 16th, 2010 by Admin

Adana, Garage Grumbles, Printing, Process, The Cunningham Amendment

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The jolly japes surrounding the Wikileaks caper forcefully remind us that it’s possible the internet could be switched off or at least, heavily monitored, Chinese style. Similarly, a reliance on a supply of big corporation inks and paper is not to be taken for granted.

The case for letterpress strengthens. A hand press, along with the basic accessories, can be stored in a smallish box or the boot of a vehicle. A tin of ink can last for decades and one can print, or overprint, on almost anything. The French Resistance made an art of this in the last war.

Anticipating a forthcoming apocalypse The Cunningham Amendment once carried out an experiment. We overprinted rude slogans about the state using pages from an old telephone directory. We placed the stack of paper on the roof of a tall Manchester building. Weighted down with a crust of bread we made our escape. As the pigeons disposed of the bread the wind distributed the message.

Letterpress puts the control firmly back in the hands of the printer. For now, but only now, it’s out of fashion. All it takes is a measure of chutzpah, a dose of imagination and an understanding that time itself has different senses of durations.

—The Good Doctor

Many thanks to Gerald Lange from the mighty Bieler Press for letting us use this image from his Flickr set of French Resistance printing activity. More can be viewed here.

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Garage Grumbles: “Come-In”

Posted on November 22nd, 2010 by Admin

Adana, Garage Grumbles, Ink, Paper, Platen, Printing, The Cunningham Amendment

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Here we present the first in a series of posts from our friend in the “Norf”, Dr Peter Good of The Cunningham Amendment.

Letterpress set-ups don’t respond well to being moved. The cabinets and the type weigh a ton and over the years any press shop will accumulate boxes of things that will one day “come-in”. But I’ve now moved from my cosy Bradford cellar into large Norfolk garage. Never mind that the move nearly killed me I’ve ended up with lots more desired space. I no longer have to perform ballet movements between cabinets and boxes of things that will “come-in”.

Oh but it’s freezing! The cruel zyphers sweep in from the North Sea unremitingly. The morning frost sticks to my overcoat and it’s not even winter yet.

Setting type and using the hand press is a pretty stationary affair. Hence, the only exercise my body gets is restriced to my fingers and shoulders. I now dress like a Russian lumberjack. Two pairs of socks and fleece-lined wellingtons. A hat pulled down over my ears and some fingerless gloves. I’ve lost much of my sexual appeal.

The increased space means the garage has a central area of cabinets. Every fifteen minutes or so I begin a few circuits around the island in an attempt to regain some body heat. To an outsider peering in from the outside it would look like someone doing a Pythonesque silly walk. Knees raised up, arms outstretching, shoulders swinging from side to side. I’ve called these movements “Mitsubuti”. Perhaps if I take them up to combat speed they’ll be useful the next time I get mugged.

But the printing continues. Aside from the heat I’ve got lots more useful space to gather more things that will come-in. The sound system I’ve rigged up is great and there some kind of birds beneffiting from the paltry heat rising up into the roof from my radiator.

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