An October 29th update from BookRiff's Julie Morris.

Apparently BookRiff's latest fumagation worked and the system is once again up and running. Julie also corrected the formatting and imposition concerns I had with the first copies of 8x10 (collage version), and my order for more is in transit.

I have received a fair bit of mail regarding 8x10 (collage version). For those who think the "collage version" is the Doubleday version, it is not. For those interested in acquiring a copy of the "collage version", please see the BookRiff site. In the meantime, I will paste below the "Introduction" to 8x10 (collage version).

*

Introduction


This version of 8x10 is not the “original” but a collage. The idea for a collage version came about after a conversation with my publisher, Doubleday Canada, concerning the “realities” of electronic publishing. It was during our conversation that I learned of BookRiff, a Vancouver-based company that allows readers and writers to make books based on selected and uploaded Internet content. Once the content is cleared and a price determined (and agreed upon), the composition, or riff, is sent to the printers and within days a perfect-bound book is delivered to your door.

Intrigued by this service, I called BookRiff founder and CEO Mark Scott and asked for a meeting. He obliged, and by week’s end I was being taken through the company’s online tutorial. A number of questions arose, the first of which concerned design. Wouldn’t potential composers want more than the standardized BookRiff template? Scott agreed. “BookRiff is an evolutionary service, one that will respond to the demands placed upon it.” The second question concerned the data from the composers’ riffs. “Composer riffs will be available online. So if you want a copy of a Michael Turner riff, that could be arranged.” But what if I don’t want my riff publicized? “Then that’s your choice,” said Scott. So not all riffs will be online.

Whether they are made public or not, BookRiff will have a record of all submitted riffs. Which of course leads to more questions: Will the data be sold? And if so, how will it be used? Will it influence my country’s cultural policies? Will it alter the publishing program of the traditional book publisher, like the one that told me about BookRiff? In considering these questions I decided I had no choice but to attempt a contrarian relationship with the BookRiff database. And to do so, I would use my new book, 8x10.

8x10 is a fiction based on the lives of eight people visited ten times. The book is comprised of events, some of which appear fleeting, like life itself, while others are more sophisticated, like the Short Story and its attempt to keep up with the Novel. There are no names or places in 8x10, nor is there a specific sense of time. At the beginning of each event is a gridded box with a blackened square. The first event in the “original” version has the blackened square in the top left-hand corner. The next event, the square below it. And so on, until we reach the eighth square, at which point we return to the top of the second column. There is a logic to the composition, and a hidden logic as well.

What I proposed to BookRiff was a recomposition of 8x10 using an automated process, as opposed to a more subjective one. In doing so I hoped to achieve two things. First, to inject a little inhumanity into the BookRiff database, and second, to see what narratives would emerge. The idea of a new and unexpected narrative appealed to me. I also liked the quick turnaround: the BookRiff version would be published two days before the “original”.

In recomposing 8x10 I considered cutting out the gridded boxes from the galleys and tossing them in the air, with the new composition determined by the order in which I picked them up. The problem with this method, made famous by the Surrealists (and later William S. Burroughs), is the chance that I might pick them up in the same order as the original – a chance I was not prepared to take. Another idea was to employ a chance operation, assigning each event to a toss of the I Ching, as John Cage did with music, Merce Cunningham with dance, and Jackson Mac Low with poetry. The problem with this method is repetition, which I am not philosophically indisposed to, but could result in the same event recurring throughout the book. My final option was to build a robot and let it decide. But as robots are expensive, I decided to call Stan Douglas, an artist who makes recombinant narrative films and has experience programming random numbers. After assigning lettered numbers to the corresponding gridded boxes (1A for the first gridded box, 2A for the one below it, 3A for the one below that, etc.) I passed the lot his way.

In an email dated August 27, 2009, Douglas replied:

Hi Michael


Mathematicians always start with the integer zero so I've renumbered the rows in your grid accordingly:

0 1A(0) X(1) 1C(2) 1D(3) 1E(4) 1F(5) 1G(6) 1H(7) X(8) 1J(9)

1 2A(0) 2B(1) X(2) 2D(3) 2E(4) 2F(5) 2G(6) X(7) 2I(8) 2J(9)

2 3A(0) 3B(1) 3C(2) X(3) 3E(4) 3F(5) X(6) 3H(7) 3I(8) 3J(9)

3 4A(0) 4B(1) 4C(2) 4D(3) X(4) X(5) 4G(6) 4H(7) 4I(8) 4J(9)

4 5A(0) 5B(1) 5C(2) 5D(3) X(4) X(5) 5G(6) 5H(7) 5I(8) 5J(9)

5 6A(0) 6B(1) 6C(2) X(3) 6E(4) 6F(5) X(6) 6H(7) 6I(8) 6J(9)

6 7A(0) 7B(1) X(2) 7D(3) 7E(4) 7F(5) 7G(6) X(7) 7I(8) 7J(9)

7 8A(0) X(1) 8C(2) 8D(3) 8E(4) 8F(5) 8G(6) 8H(7) X(8) 8J(9)


I then took the first ten sets of random integer rows

00000 10097 32533 76520 13586 34673 54876 80959 09117 39292 74945

00001 37542 04805 64894 74296 24805 24037 20636 10402 00822 91665

00002 08422 68953 19645 09303 23209 02560 15953 34764 35080 33606

00003 99019 02529 09376 70715 38311 31165 88676 74397 04436 27659

00004 12807 99970 80157 36147 64032 36653 98951 16877 12171 76833

00005 66065 74717 34072 76850 36697 36170 65813 39885 11199 29170

00006 31060 10805 45571 82406 35303 42614 86799 07439 23403 09732

00007 85269 77602 02051 65692 68665 74818 73053 85247 18623 88579

00008 63573 32135 05325 47048 90553 57548 28468 28709 83491 25624

00009 73796 45753 03529 64778 35808 34282 60935 20344 35273 88435


and made selections from your grid using pairs of numbers from adjacent rows -- even numbers select from the Y axis (0-7) and odd numbers select from the X axis (0-9). If there is no corresponding "event" I invert the pair to even=X and odd=Y, and if there is still no match I go to the next number pair. Which resulted in this:

2A(0) 1H(7) 1F(5) 5J(9) 8C(2) 4A(0) 3E(4) 6I(8) 1D(3) X(5)

8G(6) 7E(4) ----- 3J(9) 1E(4) X(7) X(4) 6C(2) ----- 7G(6)

4C(2) X(4) ----- 8D(3) X(7) 3I(8) 1A(0) 7J(9) X(3) -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(1) 1J(9) 2E(4) ----- 3H(7)

----- ----- ----- ----- 3C(2) 8J(9) 5B(1) ----- 5G(6) 6F(5)

----- ----- 5A(0) 3B(1) ----- 7A(0) ----- 6J(9) ----- 4J(9)

----- ----- 7D(3) 5H(7) X(6) 8A(0) ----- 4H(7) ----- -----

X(3) ----- 4I(8) ----- ----- ----- X(2) 6B(1) ------ 6A(0)

2I(8) ----- ----- 6H(7) 4G(6) ----- ----- ----- ----- 8E(4)

----- 6E(4) ----- ----- 1G(6) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- X(6) X(8) ----- 8F(5) ----- ----- ----- X(1) -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(5) ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- 2F(5) 4B(1) ----- ----- X(8) ----- -----

2B(1) ----- ----- ----- 2J(9) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- 1C(2) ----- ----- ----- ----- 7I(8) ----- 3F(5)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- X(2)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 5C(2) ----- ----- 5I(8)

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- 4D(3) ----- ----- ----- 5D(3) ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

----- ----- ----- ----- 2D(3) ----- ----- ----- ----- -----


At this point there were 5 events left over:

1 2G(6)

2 3A(0)

6 7B(1) 7F(5)

7 8H(7)


But this was taking a long time so I cheat by making a new rule to select from the rows according to the appearance of numbers in the first row of integers:

00000 10097 32533 76520 13586 34673 54876 80959 09117 39292 74945


Selecting:

2G(6) 3A(0) 8H(7) 7B(1) 7F(5)


And yielding this sequence:

2A 1H 1F 5J 8C 4A 3E 6I 1D 8G 7E 3J 1E 6C 7G 4C 8D 3I 1A 7J 1J 2E 3H 3C 8J 5B 5G 6F 5A 3B 7A 6J 4J 7D 5H 8A 4H 4I 6B 6A 2I 6H 4G 8E 6E 1G 8F 2F 4B 2B 2J 1C 7I 3F 5C 5I 4D 5D 2D 2G 3A 8H 7B 7F


Bests,
Stan


What follows is the event sequence that corresponds to the above lettered numbers, the collage version of 8x10.


Michael Turner
September 9, 2009