Kim Merker

Kim Merker presented at a conference I attended, The Fine Printed Image, held at Indiana University in the fall of 1989 or 1990. He had just finished a new book which was as artful and significant as the New York Times article alludes of his work. Kim talked about the process of creating his books, and also about the Windhover Press at the University of Iowa. He expressed concern about having students working with him, as sometimes they would smash his type!

While I remember Kim Merker from the conference, I also enjoyed talking quite a bit with Bruce Beck from Chicago. And then the younger crowd (of which I was one at the time) retired to the popular IU pub and restaurant Nick’s English Hut for rounds of malt beverages. David Esselmont of the Gregynog Press in Wales regaled us with a memorable joke which I will try to relate here:

An Irish Catholic priest and a rabbi, good friends, walk into a bar and have a few drinks. On the way out the door, the rabbi trips on the threshold and almost tumbles down the steps. He catches himself at the bottom and does what looks to the priest as the sign of the cross. The priest exclaims, “Lordy be, rabbi, ye’ve found the faith!” To which the rabbi replies, “No, just checking to make sure I had my spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.”