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KINOKAZE
ISSUE – 2 EDITORIAL
PADDY
PAIN SPEAKS TO DAVID GREENBERGER ABOUT HIS CULT ZINE
The
Duplex Planet began in 1979 when David Greenberger worked at the Duplex
Nursing Home in Boston. It is a magazine comprised of interviews and
conversations with the elderly residents of the home, revealing their
Innate wit,
armchair philosophies and their often profound stream of consciousness
observations. David Greenberger came to London and Paddy Pain caught
up with him after an eclectic performance at the Exploding Cinema.
LAST
NIGHT WAS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE PERFORMED IN ENGLAND,
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE EXPLODING CINEMA?
Well
two things are worth mentioning. One is that it was the first time
I
was ever presenting this material to a British audience, so I didn't
know
if some of the reference points were to oblique or anything but there
were
a couple of times I even asked what this word was and everybody did
so it
was kind of nice finding out that the same material works, that there's
not
that much of a cultural difference inside of the material I was presenting
and I was amazed last night at what a huge scene that it is. I mean
people
generally come there I assume not because they know what's specifically
going on but because they just know that there's a scene going on.
WHY DID YOU FIRST START THE MAGAZINE?
In
the first place, I had direct proximity to these people - I was working
briefly at a nursing home for just a couple of years in 1979 to about
'81.
Also, I always had an interest in how overheard bits of dialogue and
bits
of sound speech took on a real power when written down - so I was
interested in that and I was also baffled by the amount of resistance
people have to notions of aging. I just felt like there aren't any
really
models, we're not given any models on aging. We see people in our
families
age, but that's usually got so many emotional connections to it that
it's
disturbing and so not much is learned from it, and we just aren't
told
anything about when you're older, everything will be different. We're
encouraged in all the wrong ways and given all the wrong information
about
aging. The best example of how there's wrong information given is
when
people hear I do a magazine that is interviews with the
elderly people, they assume that it's all history and I think that's
sort
of a sad comment on the way we view - not the way we view old people
but
the way we view ourselves. We assume that we're going to grow old
and we're
going to repeat our glory years, like our glory years are from like
18 to
30, or something - you'll grow old and retell that stuff and there's
certainly a place for oral history and a place for reminiscences and
traditions and a whole range of stuff to go with that, but the elderly
are
viewed that way to the exclusion of anything else - and this is just
my
attempt to sketch in a variety of
people that I've met, that I found interesting and it's just me as
an
artist trying to communicate that to another group of people - just
taking
in what I see and re-communicating that to somebody else.
HOW
DO YOU RESPOND TO THE QUESTION THAT TO AN EXTENT THERE'S A
CERTAIN SENSE OF EXPLOITATION IN WHAT YOU DO?
I
don't think so at all, I mean I think that comes up sometimes but
I think
the element that raises the question of whether or not this is exploiting
somebody is the element of humour. People become uncomfortable with
the
idea of, am I laughing at them, or am I laughing with them, and in
fact,
one of the definitions of humour is unexpected or strange juxtapositions
and that's what makes humour. If somebody like Fergie and that snake
storey
- that guy has no objections - this is the way he's going to talk,
he's
going to go off on these limbs and just change the subject but he's
also
clearly somebody who really wants to communicate. I can go with Fergie
on
this little journey, let the words take on poetic meanings or ironic
meanings or humorous meanings that maybe he doesn't intend but are
there
and just go along for the ride on this, you know, shake off the logic
that
you use all day long in the working world. The other side of the coin
is
that Fergie is not in a position to do anything but what he's doing
-he's
not going to make sense the way he's expected to in the working world
which
then means that you can either talk to him on his terms or ignore
him,
there's nothing in between. We can listen to him, we can let it be
funny,
we can let it be poetic, you know, or we can let it be something where
we
now feel like whatever his condition is - I never want to know the
names of
the conditions because that becomes a divisive thing, whether he has
Alzheimer's or some form of senility, it doesn't matter, it doesn't
change
a bit for him, he's still the guy sitting there - giving it a name
becomes
a barrier between
knowing somebody.
THERE'S
A LOT OF HUMOUR IN YOUR MAGAZINES......
Humour
serves two purposes, one is that with people reading the magazines,
humour is a hook it pulls people in and it's a way by which we get
to know
people, ......and then on the other side of the coin the people that
I talk
to - sometimes the more ridiculous and surreal the things I ask them
- I
feel like that's what I need to do for them as a friend. The question
can
cause them to say 'What the hell did he ask me that for?' you know
make
them feel like that's what I should do for them. I should sort of
play the
buffoon, I should be odd, I should have them wonder "Why is he
asking me
about how you get a cloud named after you', or any of these things
so that
they ask each other 'Why?' I Think that's a healthy thing for them
to
wonder why because they live in such a controlled environment that
it
slowly depletes their personalities. I think that humour serves two
purposes, one is the sort of public one which shows up in the magazine
and
the other one, the same question is sort of a private one, it's my
relationship with them and what I feel I need to do for them.
MAYBE
TO A CERTAIN EXTENT IT PUSHES THEM AS WELL?
I
think so, I mean I hope it does, they're like "oh well, it's
another hour
toll coffee time", there's all these routines that are imposed
upon them in
their lives and that just gets them out of the room you know away
from the
news on the TV just about anything that makes them go into their mind
in a
different way than they have, I think is what I should do for them
as a
friend.
SO
YOU STARTED DUPLEX PLANET WHAT 15 YEARS AGO? HOW DID YOU
DECIDE ON THE FORMAT; HOW DID YOU MAKE THE JUMP FROM THE
INTEREST IN THESE PEOPLE AND THE THINGS THEY HAD TO SAY AND THEN
PACKAGE IT THE WAY THAT YOU HAVE?
Well
the first couple of issues were just like stapled in the corner,
nothing glamourous about it and the first issue I did sort of give
it to
everybody at the home and they all threw it away, they had no interest
in
it at all, but the couple of issues that went home with me, friends
were
seeing and reading as literature and I instantly knew, this stuff
should be
aimed at everybody but the people in it. So over the first four or
five
issues I started knowing that I was aiming at an audience that sort
of made
me put on a tie or made me take my elbows off the table you know,
it made
me like think about it - "What am I doing here?" and then
I started the A5
size, a size based on an inexpensive printing format. Since then I
do two
colour covers, but it's all based on a fairly standard size. I'm always
trying to keep the costs of it close to the ground so I can keep doing
it.
YOU
ALWAYS HAVE QUITE A UNIQUE COVER.......
Yeah
that's varied, sometimes it's been things from the nursing home,
there's been some linoleum prints, sometimes it's been things that
artists
I knew did. Sometimes I would literally see an image that somebody
did and
I would build an issue around it because I wanted it on the cover.
SO
YOU DO ALL SORTS OF THEME ISSUES?
They're
like - Frankenstein, Kissing, Post Office, broken hearts, you know.
The themes are a little more loose now and I never think about what
the
theme is until I list it in the back issue and then I sort of give
it a
name, I don't really think about it that much but lately now I've
been
realising what I am going to call this issue, I don't always have
an
obvious theme.
HOW
DID YOU MEET UP WITH DAN CLOWES, THE CARTOONIST?
We
met a long time ago and he was doing a comic, 'Mary, Sue Ellen' before
he did Eight Ball and he likes the duplex Planet and when he started
Eight
Ball he wanted to start doing one page of Duplex and little by little
it
made me realise I could do a whole comic book of this and that's how
'Duplex Planet Illustrated' started because I knew enough comic book
artists to just pitch it to the same publisher who does Eight Ball.
YOU
HAVE THIS WHOLE THING OF WHERE IT'S SUBSCRIPTION ONLY?
For
the magazine? Well it's just in so few stores, Compendium, the ICA.
BUT
INITIALLY YOU WERE ONLY DOING IT BY SUBSCRIPTION?
Well
that's because that's the only way I had to distribute it, you know
that's really all it came down to.
WHAT
SORT OF CIRCULATION DID YOU START OFF WITH AND HOW DID YOU BUILD IT
UP?
Well
it's just stayed the same for the last ten years, its been about 500
subscribers, so there's just enough that it pays for the printing.
Now
there's another few hundred that go to the distributors too, so between
500
and 1000
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