Blatant Commercial Pitch

Just received this notice from Arion Press/M&H Type:

Tonight, Arion Press is the subject of a PBS-TV piece during the evening NewsHour program.

Culture reporter Jeffrey Brown interviews publisher Andrew Hoyem about the history and future of the fine printed book. See our printers, typecasters and bookbinders at work during the actual production of Arion’s landmark 100th book, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. There should also be an overview of the great Arion books of our 40-year history and a cameo of poet laureate Robert Hass commenting on Leaves of Grass.

So tune in and alert friends who should know about Arion Press and M&H Type. If you haven’t visited our San Francisco facility and watched the books being made, this documentary will be a revelation.

The first television airing on PBS will be at 6 p.m EST. Please check you local listings. If you miss the television broadcast, the NewsHour can be viewed online on the NewsHour website.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, the NewsHour airs at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on KQED Channel 9 in San Francisco, on KQEH Channel 54 in San Jose, and at 5:30 p.m. on KRCB Channel 22 in the North Bay.

Sincerely,

Andrew Hoyem & Diana Ketcham

Be aware that Andrew would like to sell some of these books—sorry this isn’t a posting about rust or 3x5 Kelseys.

Fritz

Log in to reply   3 replies so far

Fritz,

Thanks for posting the info for the PBS NewsHour program about Arion Press.

Here is an online link for the article:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/printing-whitmans-masterpiece-by-hand/

Michael Vickey
nickel-plate-press.com

I just watched the program and found it well done, nicely photographed and a definite cut above the usual journalistic approach to printers and their work. Andrew comes off nicely as do his several employees. I enjoy my usual yearly visits to Arion, though I missed last year, and this program was a shortened version of what I have enjoyed for many years on my visits. I would recommend that this program is well worth the time to watch it and see what happens at a truly unique literary and letterpress operation.

San Francisco holds a special place in fine printing history and legends, and judging from my customer list by zip code, the city is chock full of current talent. Having Arion and M&H Type there makes a visit to the City by the Bay very memorable. My early career in printing was in San Francisco and M&H was a block away when I was specifing jobs for them to be set in type, though it was mainly Greyhound bus schedules and not fine work like Leaves of Grass. It still got me in the door to see that wonderful place in action. And now that is almost 50 years ago and it is all still there. Quite amazing.

Fritz

It’s a shame PBS didn’t get Andrew to proof read their story and photo captions before putting it up on the Web — and I hope the broadcast didn’t have the same kinds of “typos”! But it is nice to see such persistently fine work recognized nationally.

Bob