Incunabula: Ong's Hat - Scans of The Original Mail Art Documents Form The 80s and Early 90s
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Joseph MathenyIncunabula: Ong's Hat - Scans of The Original Mail Art Documents Form The 80s and Early 90s
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Joseph MathenyFrom the desk of Joseph Matheny
Dear DW,
Thanks so much for this! I’ve compared these to the color edition I have in a safe deposit box, as well as
several other iterations I’ve seen and collected over the years and have the following to report:
Document 1. Xerox of a Xerox made from the original color catalog. By comparing a few markings made by
scratches on the now ancient (heck, even then it was kinda old!) machine, I can tell that this is a Xerox made
from a Xerox of the color brochure which I gave to a friend at Aries Arts in Capitola and which was sold for
$2.00 (copy, handling, and postage costs) through a conspiracy mail-order catalog that the owners husband
ran in the back. I have seen several different versions of copies made from that original before, with artwork
added, subtracted, etc. The main difference here from the original color is the puzzling absence of the other
13 pages of illustrations that was included with the color version. The cover of this one however is definitely
a copy of the original cover. I can also attest to the fact that the text sections are exact replicas of the
original color (done on a sandstone vellum bond). Maybe they left out the 13 pages of illustrations for the
purpose of saving paper. Who knows? I plan to make a high quality color PDF copy of my one and only
color copy available in a few months to coincide with the release of some other material. All in all, this is still
a cool collectors piece and I’ll put the copy you gave me in a polybag and store it with the rest of my
“iterations” collection.
Document 2. This is not the original brochure but in fact a Xerox copy of the 1988 Edge Detector article. Note
that is says (as I have said time and again in public) PLW’s admonition “I found this”. A few years ago, I
talked to a ranger at the Lebanon State Forest Ranger Station (some kind of tourist welcome center) and a
lady who worked there told me that in fact a brochure that fit the description of theone in my possession had been in the racks
for a while, but she was unclear where they had come from. This would have been mid-eighties or so. Since
then two other people (Parsifal on DP and another lady who claimed to have known the Ashram residents)
have repeated a similar story. Again, when I scan the color catalog, I will scan and include the copy of the
brochure that I have in my possession. Note: The illustrations in the Edge Detector version were added by the publisher and
are not from the original brochure.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Peace,
-jm
