Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000

To: Dan Wang <danwang@mindspring.com>

From: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>

Subject: Re: Rosa's Argument:

Dear Dan,

"Rosa's Argument" arrived yesterday and is wonderful. 

Would you tell me, please, about the paper and printing?

Did you make the paper? 

Was curious: is the work signed?

Would you and Alan Sondheim be interested at all in having

a representation of the piece on Archipelago?

I don't know what that means, exactly. Perhaps something about 

it makes sense. Anyway, I can't stop laughing over the text and think 

other high-minds of the '60s would feel the same; laughing at its humor, 

and how much the world has changed.

yrs.,
Katherine

Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000

Subject: Re: Rosa's Argument

From: Dan Wang <danwang@mindspring.com>

To: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>

Katherine,

> Would you tell me, please, about the paper and printing? Did you

> make the paper?

Good questions. It was printed on a Vandercook sp-15 proof press

(manufactured in the early 1960s in Chicago). This particular press

has become the preferred machine among artists doing fine letterpress

work. It was originally used to produce a perfect proof of a handset

form which was then made into a photo-litho plate for eventual offset

mass reproduction. In other words, this machine occupies the very

specific and narrow period in which printing used both manual skills

and photo offset automation. I did not make the paper. The paper is

handmade and called Mouchette Prairie. Full sheets have a deckle edge,

which I trimmed off.

> Was curious: is the work signed?

No. I generally don't sign stuff.

> Would you and Alan Sondheim be interested at all in having a

> representation of the piece on Archipelago? I don't know what that means,

> exactly. Perhaps something about it makes sense. Anyway, I can't stop

> laughing at the text and think other high-minds of the '60s would feel the

> same; laughing at its humor, and how much the world has changed.

Yeah, I've thought more about the text and the clues that date it. I

think the names Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, especially, give it that

baby boomer nostalgia spark.

Wow, putting it back on the web would really have the project come

full circle! To my mind, such a move is up to you, as an owner of the

work, and as one who, in some sense, has a responsibility to guide the

work's further evolution. I myself would love to see it happen, and

wonder what reactions it would garner, and how they would compare to

the reactions to Alan's original post. Alan would probably get a kick

out of this thing having taken on such a life of its own.

Dan

Date: Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000

To: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>

From: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>

Subject: digital media work

Dear Alan Sondheim,

Dan Wang may have told you about this. I've just received his (other) 

printing of "Rosa's Argument," which he had shown at Woodland Pattern. 

I love this piece, for every reason. I love the text, especially; can't 

stop laughing, or at least smiling: those were the days, how 

the world has changed, were we all that young, etc. And history 

behind it. And then, your making the text. I don't know about the old HP 

calculator but an architect friend remembered his, from long ago; I think 

he was both baffled and admiring.

Would you tell me more about your digital media work?

Would you and Dan be interested at all in showing a version of "Rosa's" 

on Archipelago, the quarterly of lit., arts, opinion which I publish on the web? 

Or, perhaps it has appeared elsewhere and I can see it?

yrs.,

Katherine McNamara

Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000

From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>

To: Katherine McNamara <editor@archipelago.org>

Subject: Re: digital media work

Hi Katherine -

I did Rosa's Argument (and a number of other texts similarly) on a TI59

calculator with thermal printer - it's still here (at a friend's house)

and it all still works of course. My current work is at the three sites

below - I'm a virtual writer-in-residence for trAce at

http://trace.ntu.ac.uk and the third URL below as well.

You of course have my permission to use anything you want at all...

yours, Alan

Internet Text at http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt

Partial at http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html

Trace Projects at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm

ROSA’S ARGUMENT

twelve broadsides 17”x12”

wood and metal type on paper

September 1999

was shown in 1999 at

Woodland Pattern Center for the Book