25 May 2022
I like philosophy. I just don’t read it. But I would like to read it. For it seems that philosophers have some pretty nifty tips on not sweating the big stuff too much. It’s simply that they always write about things in that incredibly long arsed way.
I am being disingenuous. Sometimes I do read philosophy. It’s just that then I can’t comprehend what they've written. Special words. All the way through. Enough said, too much said even? Clever words. For simple ideas.
Actually, these ideas are clever if they've never occurred to you. Perhaps philosophers should use simple words to make these ideas understandable simply. Simple. Unless that philosopher is both post-war and French, then it’s all gone post structural and God help you. If God still exists, of course. French post-war philosophy, day one: "God isn’t going to help you any more".
Ageing, time, knowing where you are. No, not philosophical enquiries. Simply trying to finish reading a book. When I was younger it was imperative that I finish a book. Now I don't care. DNF. This is #bookstagram's most damning review. Did not finish. Ageing, along with fostering the ability of did-not-finish (fully aware there's a morbidity joke in there somewhere), has also brought forth the twin power of reading more than one book at a time.
Perversely, being able to DNF has meant I can start a new book before concluding the old one. WTF. No, not that WTF, but Want To Finish, this ability to DNF has led to starting several books I WTF, while lacking the mental apparatus to remember more than one page number. Ergo, bookmarks. See? Ageing, time, knowing where you are... bookmarks! Apologies, one has to work with the material at hand.
Now I know what you're thinking. Bookmarks. Heidegger. Being in Time. Yes? Me too.
You're probably also thinking wasn't he a Nazi? Well yes, he was, but we're going to move past that because he's been forgiven, even by the French philosophers, in their deconstructed way. Normally I take my philosophers as a ‘in-a-nutshell’ style summation, rather than mainlining the real thing. With Heidegger, bite-size doesn't help either.
Not because he's as incomprehensible AF. Which he is. But because it's like, really? No-one thought this for two thousand years? What the fuck you all been doing? Quick sidestep, because I have subscribers who are under 35 — hello Poppy, hello Isabella, hello Will — I know what AF stands for. It's "as fuck".
Those off-putting clever words I mentioned? Heidegger decides to make some up and then turn them into compound German (OK, he most likely made them up in compound German right at the get go). He starts reasonably enough with the word "Dasein", which means being-there. If you've seen the film "Being There" then, to be honest, you've got a good head start on Heideggerian theory.
Then he wades into Seinsvergessenheit, Bodenständigkeit, and Wesensverfassung. Feel free to look up what they mean if you fancy, I'd totally tuned out by that point. I will translate Befindlichkeit, which apparently means 'already-having-found-oneself-there-ness'. Which is pretty much where the bookmark thing came from.
Deep breath everyone, here's my Heidegger in a teaspoon. We are born without having too much of a say in it, and pushed into life whether you like it or not. All that Cartesian dualism is utter bollocks, everything around us exists all at once in a massive interconnected heap, including you.
His advice on what to do about this state of affairs is: enjoy looking at mountains, don't listen to the influencers too much (das Gerede, The Chatter) and instead chill out doing stuff that makes you feel blessed (unless it's joining the Nazi party, then it gets a bit complicated). Bottom line, death is inevitable so chill the fuck out ('be authentic' in his words) and don't listen too much to the haters or das nicht beckons. In short, looking at mountains will prevent The Nothing from descending upon you.
It's worth hanging onto a bit of Heidegger, so that when embroiled in a blame-storm you can mutter "Das Nichts selbst nichtet", The Nothing itself noths. Pretty sure he made up the word 'noths'. 1
In case anyone has actually studied, read, or knows anything whatsoever about Being in Time, here’s a wonderful Understanding Heidegger in the Kitchen video to watch 2, rather than calling me out on my superficial dilettantation. OK, I made that up, but if Heidegger can have noths then I can have dilettantation.
What really struck me about Heidegger challenging the perceived philosophical outlook in the 1920s, is this radical notion pretty much seems to be what the apocryphal Laozi laid out in his Tao Te Ching around 400 BCE 3. But adding a sizeable helping of Gothic existentialist death dolloped on top. Like a black cherry.
It's not going to be doodlebug rocket science to realise that this week's recommendations are bookmarks. 4
Dog Ear is the bookmark that thinks it’s a magazine. An A4 sheet folded into a strip, each issue festooned with short stories, illustrations and poetry. Honestly, I would feature it anyway, because it's fantastic as a magazine and as a bookmark, regardless of the fact that I had one of my flash fictions featured on issue 5 back in the day. Honest.
You can read my very short story at dogearmagazine.com/page/7, it’s entitled “Fumble Mouth” and is on lilac, in case new submissions push it back a page. Now, since co-founder Joe Hedinger was kind enough to let me say a few words in his manor, I thought it only polite that he be allowed some reciprocal banter in mine.
So I asked him a few questions.
Julian: Dog Ear — the bookmark that thinks it’s a magazine — is one of those beautifully simple ideas. So obvious once spawned, one always wonders why it took so long for someone to think of it. Is there a story of inspiration behind it?
Joe: Thank you. That's a lovely thing to say about Dog-Ear.
It all started about 10 years ago; I was working at a creative agency – my first job. Pete, who is the cofounder of Dog Ear, was also working at the same agency. We knew of each other but hadn't spoken too much – I was a strategist and Pete was a senior designer. One day – I think I might have been working a bit late on a project and Pete was there at the same time – I can't quite remember – I was walking past Pete’s desk. Obviously being a designer he had a lovely huge big HD monitor, and I saw that he was fiddling around with a design, what looked like a rectangle sort of split into different columns, and he was putting various little images and illustrations in there.
Intrigued, I asked him what he was up to and he said he was actually taking a break from client work and exploring what could be done with a simple shape, like a piece A4. How could you be creative with it? Peter is a really brilliant, inspiring person in this regard – he takes playful ideas and runs with them with this really infectious curiosity, sometimes just for fun, and loves taking a simple challenge or restriction and seeing what great ideas can come of it. So he was looking at folding that A4 shape in a concertina style, creating the most basic book or leaflet possible.
Anyway – it looked great, and I got chatting to him and I mentioned that I'd done English literature at university and was really interested in getting traditionally, quite sort of ‘snobby’ art forms or inaccessible art forms to people in different ways – poetry (unfortunately) being a perfect example of that. And I said, wow, imagine if you had some poetry on there as well, little stories as well as illustrations and design. And with that literary link we made another lateral leap together and thought – hey, it could end up in that shape being a bookmark!
Long story short, we realised that we were quite good at inspiring each other and coming up with things from different angles – so we thought, let's meet for a beer, let's talk more about it… A few weeks later, issue #1 was back from the printers. That's how it came about – kind of a chance meeting and discussion and being inspired by each other's quite disparate and different interests.
Importantly, the result has been more than Dog Ear – it’s been a lifelong and very fulfilling friendship!
Julian: Dog Ear is free. It’s beautifully designed, printed. And still free. Which is incredible and heartwarming. What was the rationale to put it out for nothing?
Joe: Thank you. It's lovely to have it described as being heartwarming! That's exactly the kind of thing we were going for.
So it was free originally because, as I said, we were primarily doing it for friends and family. It was just a fun side project hobby to do. Just because it was interesting!
When we decided to expand a bit and we had people asking us about it, wanting to contribute, or stock it in their book shops and cafes – which all happened very organically, really – we decided that we wanted to keep it free. The whole spirit of Dog-Ear is about keeping things simple. No pressure. Playfulness! So removing the barriers of being creative as much as possible. If you want to write us a really thoughtful poem, you can. If you want to send us a silly little Limerick, you also can. If you want to send us an intricately designed, incredibly mathematical pattern, you can. If you want to send us something that you sketched on the back of a napkin, you also can. It's about anybody being able to contribute anything they like. So keeping it free was key to all that.
And there were a number of reasons why we could keep it free. First off, we set ourselves the challenge of making it as cheap as possible to produce – as simple and easy and cost effective as possible. After all, it’s a single piece of A4 that you fold. Turns out that's actually very cheap to print – we were paying for it out of our personal pocket money. When the print run got a bit bigger, we decided to talk to our collaborators, such as the printers, and offer them sponsorship – including their logo and a prominent thank you to them on the issue in return for a slightly reduced price. And they went for it!
Then later we decided to try what I think is quite an interesting business model, a sort of upside-down business model, which actually proved to work, which was – giving away the latest issue free, but selling back issues. We had very consciously designed Dog-Ear to feel quite collectible. Each issue is a slightly different colour; they look really beautiful together and they're just very whimsical, very lovely objects to hold in your hand and just… be around. That's all on purpose, and that's down to Pete’s fantastic design. So people wanted to complete their ‘set’, and we sold back issues of the magazine, with any profits that we got from those sales going directly into the next print run. All of the design work, editing work and website work was done voluntarily by me, Pete and our great developer friend, David – that's a very effective way of keeping costs down!
It also helped that Dog-Ear started life as a hobby, because that meant we never formalised a particular printing schedule. It all happened organically – the next issue just came out when we had the funds and had the time. So we would simply sell back issues until we thought, hey, we've got a pot of money that allows us to do the next one. There was never a deadline or any pressure. Keeping things really simple and loose and happy and free like that meant that Dog Ear only appeared when we could afford it. And rather than frustrating people, it just came as a lovely surprise for the people who wanted to get hold of it!
Julian: Given Dog Ear is free, it’s also surprising that you, along with co-creator Pete Lewis, take no public credit for it. To help promote other people doing acts of creative altruism, apart from creation of a wonderful object in itself, what are the rewards from producing it?
Joe: The community. Definitely. Both Pete and I have just been blown away by the amazing creativity and the kindness of all the contributors and collaborators.
It’s humbling to see how far the little thing has travelled – sometimes I will bump into someone who's got a Dog Ear slipped into their book on a train and I end up talking to them about it. Or in my life I've ended up working with someone only to realise they were somebody who sent me a poem five years ago. And it's just been lovely to be part of that, to be able to put people's work out in the world, in what is otherwise a very, very competitive space – you know, getting your poetry published is very difficult; getting your design work recognised is very difficult. So having a very loose, organic, playful and I think honest approach to how we edited the magazine – which was, if we felt something when we looked at it or read it, that was it, it could go in Dog Ear – being able to provide that platform for people was a great responsibility but also really rewarding. I felt inspired all the time, and so did Pete.
We're just amazed by the creativity of people, it was just such a delight to receive the submissions on a daily basis and be surprised, and moved, all the time.
Julian: Do you read more than one book at a time, and if so, how many on average at once?
Joe: I'm a bookseller, so the answer is absolutely yes – many books at once! Working in an independent bookshop is like being in a sweet shop for adults all the time, so it's very hard to resist picking something up and flicking through and starting to read it…
But I think on average, if I can contain myself, I read about three books at a time. And of course I use bookmarks to keep track of all this reading – Dog Ears, if I've got one to hand, but many different types of bookmarks… I've considered starting a collection of vintage or antique bookmarks, but I imagine that would turn out to be a very addictive (and expensive!) hobby…
Julian: Consume & Enjoy recommends a very slightly off-the-radar book or film each week. Would Dog Ear Magazine like to pick a book as a guest contributor?
Joe: I would be honoured! Obviously, being a bookseller I have about 1000 recommendations for people all the time... I'm very enthusiastic about books!
But the novel I would pick right now is O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker. Elspeth sadly passed away about a month and a half ago. She was a fabulous writer, a journalist, a critic, short story writer and a novelist. She actually only wrote one novel, which is O Caledonia.
It is a singular piece of work. There is nothing quite like it. It's quite hard to describe – in the best possible way. It's about Janet, who is actually murdered at 16. And don't worry, that is not a spoiler! That happens on the first page of the book… The rest of the book is about Janet's life up until that point – her relationship with her family, her school, her friendship with animals, her hobbies, her interests… It's incredibly witty and intelligent. It's also very dark in places. It is kind of a bildungsroman, it's kind of a Gothic novel, it's all sorts in one. It’s strange, but it is absolutely spectacular. If I could write like anyone, I'd write like Elspeth Barker – put it that way.
Originally published in 1991, it was recently reissued, so you should be able to get it from your local bookshop and I highly recommend that you do. Get it. Grab it. Read it. And then give it to all of your friends (with a Dog Ear slipped inside, obviously) because you’ll want to talk about it with them!
“O Caledonia” by Elspeth Barker
Buy here or www.thebookhive.co.uk/book-order
You can order it through my affiliate link (take that Amazon!) but I would be tickled lilac if you purchased yours directly from Joe’s bookshop in Norwich www.thebookhive.co.uk 5. Here’s even a link to the order form above, that’s one excuse removed. Go do it.
Any Norwich based readers, Zac, could pop in and buy one in person. Steve from Stack magazines, another one of my “beautifully simple idea” heroes interviewed Joe here www.stackmagazines.com/literature/podcast-joe-hedinger-dog-ear-magazine
www.instagram.com/daisyharrisburland
Daisy Harris-Burland posts a very entertaining Instagram feed. There's gratuitous nudity and matching outfits. You can see why I like it. I can't work out if she's an artist or a fashion designer, becoming aware of Daisy through The Bookmark Boys, her one woman bookmark company, didn’t add much clarity.
While I'm not sure how much I can say about bookmarks, I figured Daisy has probably thought a bit harder about them. Maybe not that much more, after all they're bookmarks, but enough that it seemed best to ask her to say a few words.
The Bookmark Boys bookmarks
www.etsy.com/uk/shop/thebookmarkboys
www.instagram.com/thebookmarkboys
Julian: Unrelated, but are the recycled dresses art, fashion or agitprop?
So it actually all came about because my purse strings are tighter than the Virgin Mary and when I was 16 I was too cheap to buy a prom dress so made it out of what I found under the kitchen sink. It drew such attention that night that I realised there was a business in it. I tend to describe them as ‘wearable art’. I used to work mainly with companies and brands commissioning a dress created out of their surplus materials (I've done everything from a dress made of motorbikes for Suzuki to VHS tapes for Tiger Beer) and then they create an ad campaign around the dress to push whatever eco shit they're trying to sell at the time.
Julian: … and how did #recycled #fashion led to bookmarks?
Daisy: Well thanks to covid (have you heard of it?) all my commissions, catwalks, exhibitions, absolutely any work I had lined up for that year got cancelled. And very quickly I found myself having to think on my feet to try and cultivate another source of income. I had made a Book Mark Corrigan a few months before for my friend who loved Peep Show because I thought it was funny. So then I thought I would make a few more (Book Parks and Rec, The Mighty Boosh marks) and put them on etsy and hope for the best… I then realised I didn't have to try and shoehorn a bookmark pun into the name and went on to draw over 100.
Julian: There’s so much love in your product, with a sticker and rubber stamped envelope. What most people probably don’t realise is you cut around the heads on each bookmark by hand. Correct?
Daisy: So I have 40 of my top sellers die cut, meaning I don't have to do anything, they're all fully cut. However then all my other designs I have to cut around the heads and the corners yes. Which is arguably fucking mental as at Christmas I got actual blisters from using scissors so much.
Julian: Do you have to suffer a lot of scissoring jokes from your friends?
Daisy: I've actually never had that joke yet. Maybe I need more creative friends.
Julian: The criteria of who makes the mark (sorry) seems to be utterly reliant on your taste, devoid of commercial concerns. Is there someone that you did purely as a fangirl and were then surprised by it selling?
Daisy: Pretty much all of the GIRLS cast, and also Jeff Goldblum. It honestly feels like there's no rhyme or reason to what sells and what doesn't. Sometimes I'll draw someone who I think is going to be a massive hit and sell about 2 (Will from Inbetweeners, It's a Sin cast). But then someone I think is way too niche will sell tons. I guess everything has their own fandom and cult following.
Julian: Consume & Enjoy recommends a very slightly off-the-radar book or film each week. Would The Bookmark Boys like to pick something as a guest contributor, first a book, obviously…
Daisy: My go to book recommendation is Essays in Love by Alain De Botton. It's all about the philosophy of love, very witty, very clever. The first chapter is called ‘Romantic Fatalism’ and it just gets bleaker from there. It’s in fact the first book my partner ever gave me, like 2 weeks into knowing him, and off the back of it I assumed he had absolutely zero interest in a future with me and deleted his number. (Spoiler alert: it's seven years later and we now have a child).
Julian: …and since most of the characters featured on your bookmarks are from television or film, a film (or overlooked show)?
Daisy: I mean my favourite film is Closer. Every person needs to watch it. Originally a play written by Patrick Marber, they made it into a film and its a master piece of language, power play, lies, sex, and deceit. However it's not funny, and most of my bookmarks are from something funny… so… umm… Pulling. Everyone should watch the show Pulling. It's very old and very funny.
“Essays in Love” by Alain De Botton
www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/38355/essays-in-love-by-alain-de-botton/9780771026065/excerpt
Buy here
Donna Makes a Bad First Impression | Pulling | BBC Studios
“Closer” directed by Mike Nichols
On a personal note I only recognise about twenty percent of Daisy's chosen characters, I also don't know whether to find the idea that she considers Pulling very old, it being made in 2006, to be rather funny or depressing. But given her life will now be full of scissoring jokes, we're even. Please do the obvious thing and like all her posts and buy at least one bookmark. I have Mark Corrigan from Peep Show, which I've never watched, but I totally agree with the sentiment. Heidegger wouldn't have liked Frosties either.
It struck me after my blame-storm comment, that it may be fortuitous to memorise a brief Heidegger Glossary 6 for any long arse meetings you are forced to attend. The minute soul-death or boredomness-out-of-mind starts to occur, throw in a Heideggerian word. “Stop with all the Auseinandersetzung, Michael!” for instance, or “Daphne, that idea suffers from Durchschnittlichkeit”. The meeting will now be derailed, with the remaining minutes spent either ponderously explaining Heideggerian concepts, or igniting a fierce debate on whether indeed he was a Nazi and if so, should he have been granted reconciliation. Or both.
psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Heideggerian_terminology
Further viewing and listening
Admittedly this week’s post is rather dry what with all that Heidegger, so to sweeten things a little, here’s Goldfrapp who rock the Alpine vibe well, and to emphasise my black forest gateau slash black black it’s so black hysterical black cherry joke.
“Black Cherry” by Goldfrapp
“Being There” directed by Hal Ashby
From Being There’s credits, Eumir Deodato’s majestic version of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which throws a little bit of Nietzsche into the mix too, which rounds things off nicely don’t you think.
“Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Deodato
A small ask
I’m currently interviewing a few more authors , who have kindly relented agreed to humour my inquisitiveness. I feel rather sheepish in the number of subscribers, and would love their words and work to reach a wider audience.
If there’s anyone you know who you think would enjoy these posts, please forward this edition on to them, or a different one you think better suited to wooing. Better still, ring them up, harangue, shout, threaten and coerce them into subscribing. Nicely, of course.
References
I “borrowed” the glossary from https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-heidegger-lexicon/germanenglish-glossary/7548D9020B5768CE2B0CE7F47ADD4C6D
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.