Short break for The Hypothetical Library

This week the overworked, but loyal staff (me) of the Hypothetical Library are taking some time off. I’m a little worn out from, as musician Mark Eitzel puts it “the pleasures of the treadmill and the factory”. But The Library will be up and running next week with Brian Evenson’s entry, Immobility. It promises to be an unsettling marvel, in keeping with all of his work to date.

In the meantime, I’ve posted a related side project soon to hit the world—The Hypothetical Library card. The card is a promotional piece I hope to place as give aways in some of Brooklyn’s and possibly our countries finest, independent bookstores. The design is based on the now distant memory of going to the local library of my childhood, where cards like this were taken from the back of the book, signed by the lender, and stamped with a due date. 

The icon on the card envelope will be embossed and should look very impressive. The logo was inspired by the Jorge Luis Borges story, The Library of Babel, and the phase “Ex Hypothesi” was picked up directly from the story and means “according to assumptions made: by hypothesis” which I thought was a pretty good tagline. Borges’ story was one of many inspirations for this project, so it only seems fitting that I reference him for the card. 

When and where these cards are placed will be announced when they go out, so stay tuned.

Hypothetically yours,

Charlie

 

Next week: Brian Evenson
 

Comments

[John Poole]

I like the library card design. It's interesting to consider, by the way, that any such imaginary book proposed by one of your clients necessarily has an archetypal representation in Borges' Library (and countless approximations, as well). So maybe these books aren't so imaginary after all...at least, in principle, anyway! ;-)