{open} books . music . magazines . art » new arrivals

Christopher Bettig “Untitled Geometry I & II” print

smg — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:54:35 +0000

Artist: Christopher Bettig
Title: Untitled Geometry I & II
Medium: Letterpress Print (Hand-Pulled) 100% Cotton Archival Paper
Colors: 2
Size: 6″ x 8″
Edition Size: 50 / Signed & Hand Numbered

$35 each

Troy Lovegates “Guitar” print

smg — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 00:20:20 +0000

Artist: Troy Lovegates
Title: Guitar
Medium: Hand-Carved Linoleum Print on 100% Cotton Archival Paper
Colors: 3
Size: 8″ x 10″
Edition Size: 150

$50

Each hand-pulled print is unique. No two are the same. Some colors vary and some have been rendered by hand, by the artist.

The Use of Regret by Greggory Moore

open — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:48:12 +0000

Local culture reporter and legend-in-the-making Greggory Moore recently published his novel The Use of Regret and {open} was delighted to host the very first reading for both Greggory and his book.

The Use of Regret is available now at {open} for only $12!

About The Use of Regret
The sudden death of Perry Gregson’s chronically ill little sister impels him to return from a semester abroad in Amsterdam to Southern California, his newfound emotional growth stunted by guilt and the parental modeling from which he had just begun to break free. Years later at the University of Washington, he reconnects with his Amsterdam girlfriend, though his failure to have developed a capacity for true intimacy dooms their love. Eventually obtaining a Ph.D. in philosophy and a history professorship, he enters into a relationship with a student, wherein the insidious patterns of Perry’s life continue to play out, even as her adoration of Pink Floyd and ways of coping with his existential doubt offer him escape from his cell of self.

The intricately interconnected 100+ sections of The Use of Regret are a (re)collection of Perry’s life formed by Perry himself as truths and fictions and fantasies in (to quote a seminal mind theorist within the novel) “an imaginative reconstruction, or construction, built out of the relation of our attitude towards a whole active mass of organized past reactions or experience.” With a substratum of meditations on the paradoxical unions of singularity and plurality, separateness and togetherness, language and the non-linguistic, The Use of Regret is Perry’s attempt to find within a life already lived, a life in which (as The Cure sang during his childhood) “no one ever knows or loves another,” a means to connect with the already-lost, “to atone, to make amends, pay tribute to your failures, you can’t really make restitution but you do your best, put in the effort anyway, willingly, that’s how you want to be now, no regrets, no regrets.”

About Greggory Moore
You might have seen his work in The District Weekly, the OC Weekly, L.A. Record, LBReport, the Gazette newspapers or the Los Angeles Times. You can read his theatre reviews on GreaterLongBeach.com and his column “No Destination” on LBPost.com. Sometimes you can find him at {open} helping out on either side of the counter. He’s probably at Portfolio right now.

For novel samples and more, greggorymoore.com.

Cover design by {open}’s shea M gauer.

“The Last Time As We Are” by Taylor Mali

open — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:13:38 +0000

The poems of The Last Time As We Are prove that “He who seeks to teach must never cease to learn.” Taylor Mali, the author of the most forwarded poem in the work (‘What Teachers Make’), explores this truth in entertaining and plainspoken ways because “the last thing this world needs is another poem” (The Call to What We Know). Whether discussing the language of love or his love of language, Mali never disappoints.

U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins says “Not since Taylor Mali, has there been a poet of the likes of Taylor Mali, which is to say he is a man of unique properties. He is tagged as a performance poet, but his performances, rather than being frontal assaults, are leavened by charm and wit and could survive happily on the page.”

We’ve got all sorts of FOUND!

open — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:47:39 +0000

FOUND #6 features stories of birth, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, old age and death. Love stories and hate stories, stories of leaving jobs, friends, and family behind, and making new connections. Folks struggle to keep their homes in the midst of a mortgage crisis; others dream of rock stardom. One guy faces his deepest fears, while another simply longs to have his old face back. Valentine’s and wedding proposals; a search for a science friend and a search for a dead cat that’s gone missing.

FOUND #1-6 in stock
All issues $5

Limited Edition SoundWalk08 Catalog

open — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:01:53 +0000

The SoundWalk08 catalog is available in a very limited edition, assembled by hand by {open}’s own shea M gauer. Includes a 40-minute DVD with contributions from selected artists.

Edmund Welles || Tooth & Claw

open — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:22:47 +0000

Edmund Welles was originally founded on two principles: the bass clarinet can achieve a virtually unlimited range of sounds, and when this same instrumental voice is multiplied, it can be as powerful as a boogie woogie piano, a gospel quartet or a rock band.

The very first arrangements were of the Swan Silvertones, Montana Taylor and the Pixies. The original compositions have evolved into a style unique unto themselves while maintaining a stylistic consistency at their core, and the arrangements conquered by the quartet now include Black Sabbath and Sepultura songs.

The bass clarinet: a synergy of designs from all saxophones and clarinets, themselves the culmination of hundreds of years of single-reed instrument evolution. A four-and-a-half octave voice, multiplied into four equal parts and breathing together to create a dense, pulsing sound capable of expressing and reflecting the full range of human emotions.

Have a sample track, won’t you?