Libellulæ
Proteotypes Launches New Book, ‘Painting at Dora’
Friday, June 27, 6-8pm
FreePlease join us as we launch the latest Libellula from Proteotypes, the publishing arm of Proteus Gowanus. Painting at Dora was written by François Le Lionnais in 1945, months after his escape from the forced labor camp at Dora-Nordlingen. The memoir movingly describes the game (or spiritual practice) he played with a comrade, in order to keep from despair in brutal circumstances. In 1960, Le Lionnais went on to found, with Raymond Queneau, the OuLiPo — the French association of writers and mathematicians dedicated to producing constraints for literary and other sorts of [continue reading…]
Launch party for Proteotypes latest Libellula: Martin Nakell’s A Subset of Chance
Friday, April 25, 6:30 – 8:30pm
Proteotypes’ Libellulæ series brings creaturely new texts to life, and we are very proud to have A Subset of Chance as our latest and fifth. A far-flung, full-frenzy poem, A Subset of Chance dips a web woven of geography and philosophy into the polychromic vat of language. In it Martin Nakell obeys two constraints you might think hard to combine. The first, derived from Chaos Theory, posits that “any arbitrarily small perturbation of the current trajectory will lead to significantly different future composition.” The second is the rigorous Kabbalistic procedure of gematria, whereby letters are given their numerical value. Martin will read, explain, and sign copies.
Please join us this Friday evening to meet Martin and send this new Libellula whirring out into the world! There will be wine and snacks.
Party for New Proteotypes Book by James Walsh
Friday, April 20, 7pm
James Walsh, a longtime friend of Proteus Gowanus as well as a founder/collaborator of Observatory, has just brought out his latest book, There was Something in the Weather, in the Libellulæ series published by Proteotypes, our print arm.
There was Something in the Weather consists of extracts from the early journals of John Ruskin, the most influential art critic of 19th century Britain. These entries, however, were written when Ruskin was sixteen and making his first journey to Switzerland and Italy, shortly after having been denied the love of Adèle-Clotilde Domecq, [continue reading…]
