July 2nd, 2009
Jonathan Lethem’s issue: Issue 7 is about to be released. We know that you’ve been waiting patiently for it. But you don’t how impatiently we’ve been waiting. We are so excited about this issue and can’t wait to get it into your hands.
We will be wrapping this issue on July 9th at Southern Exposure in San Francisco from 6-9PM. This is our second year as THE THING, so we are making the wrapping party into a birthday party…. and a homecoming to Southern Exposure, where THE THING officially received its start. If you are in town, come by and have a beer. Bring your favorite records for all of us to hear and wrap an issue or two. There will also be a surprise cake unveiling and then a surprise cake eating.
Other THINGS:
Trevor Paglen’s issue is already in production and will be in your home by the end of August. Stay tuned to our blog for info on the wrapping party and a few other upcoming events. We are looking to release Ryan Gander’s issue at the end of October and Starlee Kine’s issue (issue 10) in December. Visual artist Chris Johanson has signed on for issue 11 which will be out next spring.
Wrapping Party Details:
Southern Exposure: Issue Launch and THE THING’s 2nd Year anniversary Party,
July 9, Southern Exposure, SF, CA 6:00-9:00PM,
417 14th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 t- 415/863-2141
www.soex.org
May 1st, 2009
Issue 7 by Jonathan Lethem is in production! We’ve been working through the final details for the past several weeks. We wanted you to know because it’s going to run a little late. But the good news is that we are on a solid timeline now.
We are very excited about this issue. It took a bit to pull some of the details into place (you’ll see when you receive it), but we are collaborating with an awesome design group: Matt, who was formerly a designer from Jack Spade and his collaborative partner Selima, who have been working with us to make this issue a reality.
The short story is that issue 7 will be coming out in early to mid June. You can check back here from time to time for more details. But we feel very good about this date.
Issue 8 by Trevor Paglen, is tracking to be right on time with a late July release. We will have more information about this as we get closer.
September 30th, 2008
THE THING will be in NYC from the 23rd of Oct to the 2nd of November, and if you live there or are going to be passing through town, we would love to see you and say hello. Here is what we will be up to:
1) We will be wrapping and launching issue 6 by Allora & Calzadilla at the Editions|Artists’ Book Fair over in Chelsea on Nov 1st: 11:00AM-3:00PM. This will be a good time! It’s free and open to the public. Music will be provided by Bob Linder (et al).
2)We will be at the New York Art Book Fair from the 24th to the 25th, where we will be releasing surprise projects by Tucker Nichols and Ari Marcopoulos.
3) We will also be in residence at Artists Space in Soho from Oct. 28th-31st, where we will be holding regular office hours and mounting a small exhibition of useful things collected by visual artist Bob Linder.
a) Artists Space and Printed Matter will hosting an After-Hours-Office Party for THE THING on Wed. the 29th from 6-9PM.
4) On top of all of this, Will and Jonn will be participating in a discussion hosted by Art on Paper magazine on Sunday, November 2 3-3:30 PM regarding Alternative Publishing The discussion is part of the Editions|Artists’ Book Fair and is free to the public.
Hope to see you at one of these events.
September 10th, 2008
It was a record breaker this past June when we wrapped Anne Walsh’s issue 2 at Outpost for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The temperature peaked at 109 (at least in our rental car), a record for LA, as several brave individuals came out to help wrap and officially launch issue 2.
We wrapped 900 of these and then shipped them out on Monday. A big thanks to everyone who came out to the sweat shop and particularly Julie Deamer (director and founder of Outpost for Contemporary Art, who hosted us), Sam Mellon from Open Gallery (where we wrapped THE THING), and the artist Paul Hayes (who came down with Noona to help label and ship). And a big huge thanks to Virginia White, THING associate and all round logistical coordinator, who helped to pull off the entire thing.
June 9th, 2008
The long delayed but much anticipated issue 2 by Anne Walsh is about to be launched! And if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area on June 21st from 3-7 PM we hope that you will come and join us at Outpost for Contemporary Art for the launch party as we wrap 1000 of these issues and get them out into the mail to the subscribers.
The full THING office (Will, Jonn, Virginia, Noona and even Anne Walsh) will be traveling down to LA. So if you are in the area on June 21st from 3-7, come by and have a beer, eat some pizza, listen to some records and wrap a couple of issues with us. Outpost is located at 6375 North Figueroa Street in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles.
So if you are down that way on the 21st, come by and say hello.
May 13th, 2008
This is the sort of thing that we imagined when we first began talking about what THE THING could be. We wanted it to be a surprise; we wanted it to constantly reinvent itself; and we wanted to be able to follow ideas and concepts even if they didn’t make any sort of business sense. So when we realized that we had some extra funds after Kota’s issue, we decided to turn it immediately into another issue, a surprise issue. We were both fans of Tucker Nichols’ work and felt that he would be the perfect person to work on an issue. And after just a few meetings and discussions with Tucker, we began production over in England with several thousand beermats, all of which contained copy from real businesses that Tucker had encountered on a recent trip to Eureka, California. (By the way, in England Coasters = Beermats. And we found that England seemed to be the place to go to have beermats created).
And so, on April 18th we had a secret wrapping party at an undisclosed location in San Francisco. The party, which was organized by Virginia White (THE THING’s amazing intern), took two cases of Sierra Nevada and a couple of six packs of Pilsner beer, 6 pizzas from Little Star Pizza, and about 12 to 15 records (which were played and replayed). Those present at the secret party were Wendy Wagner, Leigh Anna MacFadden, Brett MacFadden, Scott Thorpe, Lisa Hamilton, Holly Link ,David Suisman, Elana Bober, Lewis Stringer, Whitney Richards, Kendyll Pappas, Erin Healy, Max Schroder, Hannah Herschend, Brian, Hugo Herschend and Tucker.
Images by Lisa Hamilton, Virginia White, Tucker Nichols and Jonn Herschend. But we can’t remember who shot what.
April 25th, 2008
It’s finally in production! It’s a long story, but the short of it is that we wanted Anne Walsh’s issue to be perfect and had to shop it around for just the right manufacturer, which took a long time. But we finally found one and started making them last week.
We are preparing for a wrapping party in Los Angeles on the 21st of June at the Outpost for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. We anticipate that this issue will be in the hands of the subscribers by the end of that month. We’ll have more information on the wrapping party coming soon.
We realize that it has been a long wait for issue 2, but we are very excited about it and really appreciated your patience with it. In the mean time, we hope you are enjoying the surprise issue by Tucker Nichols.
February 24th, 2008
On Friday February 15th, Chronicle Books hosted the wrapping party for Issue 3 of THE THING by Kota Ezawa. The invitation was extended by Christina Amini and Michael Carabetta, both of whom work at Chronicle. Christina is an editor in Chronicle’s entertainment division (and a co-editor of the amazing book Before the Mortgage), and Michael is the Creative Director for Chronicle. We met both of them both back at the wrapping party for Miranda July’s issue of THE THING in August, and they invited us to hold our next wrapping party at Chronicle’s new lobby (which is not even a year old).
The wrapping party was a sort of barn raising. A good number of Chronicle employees, friends and subscribers came down and helped to get Kota Ezawa’s issue 3 packed, stamped and loaded into the truck. Kota even came and helped to make boxes. In the end, we were able to get 1,000 issues wrapped and packed. It was no small feat, but it seemed to go very quickly.
Virginia White, our one and only amazing logistical coordinator at THE THING, helped to orchestrate the entire night: including 20 pizzas (from Goat Hill Pizza), 1 truck, 8 tables, 5 tape dispensers, 20 roles of tape, a portable record player (at the very last second, because our official THING portable record player stopped working) and a keg of Trumer Pilsner.
Thank you to everyone who came out and helped to get issue 3 off. We are very excited about this issue. All images by Corrine Schulze
February 8th, 2008
If you are in San Francisco on Friday, February 15th, and looking for a way to perhaps wrap packages, tape boxes, drink beer, eat pizza, and listen to music on an old portable record player, then you are in luck because we will be doing all of this at the same time at Chronicle Books for the Wrapping Party of Kota Ezawa’s issue #3 of THE THING.
That’s right, Chronicle books is hosting the THE THING’s Issue #3 wrapping party in their very spacious lobby (which is not even a year old … it’s very nice). And we will be there wrapping from 4:00-7:00 PM. And we will have free beer and pizza (for a while at least). And you can bring a record and listen to it. And we will be very excited to say hello to you if you stop by.
Wrapping Time:
Friday, February 15th, 4:00-7:00 p.m.
680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
About Chronicle Books
One of the most admired and respected publishing companies in the U.S., Chronicle Books was founded in 1967 and over the years has developed a reputation for award-winning, innovative books. Recently recognized as one of the 50 best small companies to work for in the U.S. (and the only independent publisher to receive this award), the company continues to challenge conventional publishing wisdom, setting trends in both subject and format, maintaining a list that includes illustrated titles in design, art, architecture, photography, food, lifestyle and pop culture, as well as much-admired books for children and ancillary products through its gift division. Chronicle Books’ objective is to create and distribute exceptional publishing that’s instantly recognizable for its spirit, creativity, and value. For more information about Chronicle Books, visit www.chroniclebooks.com
February 8th, 2008
We are very excited about issue #2 because we are manufacturing it from the ground up. However, this is also taking a lot more time than we would like. We thought we were ready to go at several points, but we started over because we want it to be dead-on right.  The good news is that we are close now to beginning production. There are still some details to be worked out, but it is looking like it will be shippping out in mid-March. We greatly appreciate your patience with this issue and are looking forward to getting out and into your homes.
We’ll send out more updates as we get closer to getting it out.
