Author: Event Horizon

So I’ve temporarily and reluctantly shelved one hobby to immerse myself in another.  I am going through the checklist of registering Event Horizon as a non-profit. From the oracle of the prophet, St Google, all paths are revealed. I just have to take each of the 10,000 steps. This may be a way of funding a staff and receiving the sacrement of Sustainability.

Don’t need much:  two people working from home about 10-20 hours each a month.  I need someone to do layout and someone to do marketing. When I get funded I’ll start reading resumes and scheduling interviews.

The layout I do is with MS Publisher, probably v. #2006 or earlier.  It’s installed permanently and it’s free.  If you use Adobe Illustrator, well, God bless you. Hope you like poetry.

Marketing means selling ads, taking issues to book stores for display, developing a “meaningful value proposition” for offering subscriptions, social media – posting and strategy, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember right now.

Stay posted.  Big doings.

Issue 9 is now available from the Home page for free download or for print-copy pyrchase.  Thanks to my contributors for the error reports. There was a lot to tweak.

FYI, although I have suspended publication for now, I will go through the motions of incorporating Event Horizon as a non-profit. I hope some day to be able to pay a small staff.  I’ve done non-profits before.  It’s a long road to acquire the coveted 501c3 designation.

Thanks for your support.  Follow this blog for updates.

Got the memo that the link to Issue 9 only accessed the cover.  Try it again for all 145 pages.

Issue 9 is available as a free pdf download from the home page of the Event Horizon web page. If the ping-back error messages are few, the purchase-print option should be available in a day or so.

Here is a Note from the Editor that I posted on page 8 of Issue 9:

This may be the last issue of Event Horizon. No lachrymose swan song here; no dire straits nor perfect storm to sing of. Following the status quo could have sustained me forever if I were willing, but I’m not.  I have shared some of my musings on this topic, not only here but on the website blog, the Facebook page and a Mailchimp broadcast to my “insiders”.  Boiled down to its essence, I need two quarter-time positions of paid staff and I do not have the fire-in-my-belly to find a way to pay them.

All that being said, I can’t quite say goodbye or set fire to the bridges. I guess this is a certificate of indefinite suspended animation.  See you at the next step, perhaps on the other side of the bridge.

Maybe Event Horizon is not at a crossroads, but I certainly am.  I do not have the personal resources to do what needs to be done to produce Event Horizon. I love what Event Horizon  has become but there are aspects of it that must be consistently maintained for it to work. I think there actually is enough time in my busy busy schedule to do everything.  Ominously, some of these functions I procrastinate against doing. That is a fatal challenge for  a one-person show.

I need two staff people to do the things I don’t want to do. It would not be sustainable or correct to try to fill these important and difficult positions with volunteers. If I could fund the positions, problem solved. But again, addressing this is the kind of relentless self-promotion that I tend to avoid.  Selling ads? Developing subscription service? Starting a non-profit? Saturating  social media daily? Pleading on GoFundMe or Kickstarter? There are things that can be done;  just not by me.

I’m developing job descriptions for a Production Specialist and a Communications Director. The positions would be part-time and could be filled remotely anywhere.

If  I were to provide a budget for a proposal for a non-profit, I’d probably throw in a third position for myself.  It would all  look something like this:

Stay posted for news of Issue 10.

Issue 8 is now available as a print copy for purchase. Got to the Home page for links to Issue 8. Choose the free pdf download or the publish-on-demand purchase option for a print copy.

If you wish to contribute to Event Horizon and you woud like to look at a Call to Artists, find one in the blog dated March 17.

Issue 8 is available for download on the Home page.  I will have the purchase print option posted in a few days. I am too chagrined to comment on the tardiness of delivering Issue 8 – ostensible release date was March 1.

I included a ‘love letter from the editor’ on the Notes from the Editor page.  I’m posting it here because my heart is on my sleeve.

Love letter from the editor of Event Horizon

Long ago, in the middle of 2017, I had an idea. It was a stream – a confluence of restless urgings. I had been retired for three years. I knew that I loved to blog and it was frustrating that no one gave a good God damn what I had to say. I wished I had, maybe, a few more dollars a month than my humble pensions would provide. As always, I loved history, military history, art history, The Blues, Boomer pop/rock and lately, Greek classical literature and Jane Austen—a broad palette, plenty to work with.  I’ve not been a successful entrepreneur yet. But I have never failed because I never stopped trying. Originally, I hoped Event Horizon would be more than a creative outlet; maybe eventually the full website, blog and magazine could be a platform for selling ads or subscriptions.

That part never happened but Event Horizon became something I never expected: a public service. It is so personally rewarding to me in that respect that I can no longer  imagine not doing it.

But it does take a toll. I’m having some success in other entrepreneurial efforts and the money and the clients create their own priority. Event Horizon takes more – rather than less – time the more I learn and the more exacting my standards become. A local limited crisis is that I am late – very late – in bringing Issue 8 to ‘print’.

There are answers – or at least solutions, each with their own sets of strings. I paid my son for 10 hours work at Portland minimum wage doing layout. He was a valuable and competent assistant but he doesn’t want to do it. What I need is at least 20 hours/month but I can’t afford it. I’ve done some research: Making Event Horizon a non-profit would not be impossible, only difficult and a long hard road. Maybe GoFundMe? If I had $3000, that would take care of layout for a year. Or maybe ads or subscriptions.  Sure, there ya go.

In the meantime, I’ll mostly do it myself and publish as soon as I can.

I usually put out calls to artists for the next edition after I publish. But Issue 8 of Event Horizon is egregiously late and I want to get the word out for Issue 9.

Event Horizon is a home for literary and graphic arts and this is a call for submissions:

Event Horizon is seeking poetry, fiction, and non-fiction of many varieties.

Event Horizon is calling for graphic arts suitable for a 2D publication:  illustration of any variety, photography and photography of craft work, pictures with stories comprising manga, graphic novels, comics and cartoons.

There is no fee for submitting nor is there payment upon acceptance. Event Horizon is published bi-monthly. The best place to start for any questions is the website and glimpses at back issues.

The website and free pdf downloads can be found at eventhorizonmagazine.com .

All submissions and inquiries should be directed to eventhorizonmagazine@gmail.com .

I saw the thumbnail on Yahoo news but didn’t click it: “Internet goes wild over Invanka Vacuuming!”  I did read The Neoliberal Hypocrisies of Ivanka Trump Vacuuming in Hyperallergic. I am now ready to declare the “interactive performance piece”, Ivanka Vacuuming by artist Jennifer Rubell to be a brilliant success. Art should engage. Art should be wildly controversial. Art should represent and reflect what is going on in the culture. Art should make the participants question whether or not the work is art. Art should generate heated discussion about both the art and the subject matter. The Hyperallergic article is a good point of departure.

William Hogarth, Thomas Nast, and Herblock were giants in their respective and consecutive centuries, beginning with Hogarth in the 1700s. As social satirists and political cartoonists, they were unmatched equals in unmasking hypocrisy, folly, greed and tyranny. Their draftsmanship, iconography and phrasing were perfectly balanced and laser-focused. In their time they revealed the nakedness of the powerful and the ridiculous. Sandow Birk may be the succeeding giant for the 21st century.

Hyperallergic reports on Sandow Birk’s exhibition at PPOW Gallery, Triumph of Hate:

” … examines dark strains in the culture and politics of the United States, including Trump, gun violence, white supremacy, and greed. Birk’s body of work is unusual in that its explicit politics don’t read as overly didactic — a difficult line to walk successfully. Triumph of Hate is comprised of three distinct bodies of work: a series of satirical prints about Trumpian exploits, graphically violent paintings examining recent events, and a triptych of woodblock prints representing the battle of good versus evil throughout American history.”

Hogarth, Nast, Herblock

Birk: