Triple Canopy Gets Love from NYT and The New Yorker Upon Opening of New Space

The New York Times has writer Joshua Cohen on the perils of bringing the online journal's newest print anthology onto an airplane. (Of course, the NYT has covered TC before.) And The New Yorker profiles TC at their Culture Desk, with Sasha Frere-Jones in conversation with the editors upon the opening of their new space, which we mentioned not too long ago in our excitement over the Stein-athon (Friday Jan. 20 through Sunday Jan. 22). Frere-Jones notes of the journal's ethos:

The editors’ approach may come more from the art world than from the newsroom, but Triple Canopy is satisfyingly old school in the catholic nature of its interests. Some of the collective’s output qualifies as news that applies to the larger population, and some of it is smaller in scale, close to the purely poetic or personal. And they’ve just gone and done the most old-school thing of all: released a book.

Cohen actually had to take, we shall correct ourselves, 60 copies of the book with him to Germany. He tells of the experience:

“Invalid Format” collects in print the magazine’s first four issues and retails, ideally, for $25. But the 60 copies I was couriering, in exchange for a couch and coffee-press access in Kreuzberg, would be given away. For free.

Until lately the printed book changed more frequently, but less creatively, than any other medium. If you thought “The Quotable Ronald Reagan” was too expensive in hardcover, you could wait a year or less for the same content to go soft. E-books, which made their debut in the 1990s, cut costs even more for both consumer and producer, though as the Internet expanded those roles became confused. Self-published book properties began outnumbering, if not outselling, their trade equivalents by the mid-2000s, a situation further convoluted when the conglomerates started “publishing” “self-published books.” Last year, Penguin became the first major trade press to go vanity: its Book Country e-imprint will legitimize your “original genre fiction” for just under $100. These shifts make small, D.I.Y. collectives like Triple Canopy appear more traditional than ever, if not just quixotic — a word derived from one of the first novels licensed to a publisher.

Kennedy Airport was no problem, my connection at Charles de Gaulle went fine. My luggage connected too, arriving intact at Tegel. But immediately after immigration, I was flagged. A smaller wheelie bag held the clothing. As a customs official rummaged through my Hanes, I prepared for what came next: the larger case, casters broken, handle rusted — I’m pretty sure it had already been Used when it was given to me for my bar mitzvah.

Before the official could open the clasps and start poking inside, I presented him with the document the Triple Canopy editor, Alexander Provan, had e-mailed me — the night before? two nights before already? I’d been up one of those nights scouring New York City for a printer. No one printed anymore. The document stated, in English and German, that these books were books. They were promotional, to be given away at universities, galleries, the Miss Read art-book fair at Kunst-Werke.

“All are same?” the official asked.

“Alle gleich,” I said.

An older guard came over, prodded a spine, said something I didn’t get. The younger official laughed, translated, “He wants to know if you read every one.”

Read it all here. And see you at The Making! The schedule of readers is up.