Keeping Gus book by my bed.
Reading it with the iPad so I can look stuff up.
Skipping around…entranced.
Lives like his make me want to have several more……
In 2002, a year before his death, Gus wrote the bio below to accompany his poems included in IN COMPANY: an anthology of New Mexico Poets after 1960
photo by Nicole Blaisdell Ivey
Gus Blaisdell for twenty-seven years ran an “alternative to an absence,” the Living Batch Bookstore, always close to the Frontier Restaurant. He continues to teach film at the University of New Mexico. He runs a small press, Living Batch Books , that continues to present his alternative to absences. A special line of his books is called Drive, He Said, after Creeley’s poem “I Know A Man.”
A note from Pulitzer prize-winning author,N. Scott Momaday, discussing GUS BLAISDELL COLLECTED (Gus was editor on Momaday’s second book, The Way to Rainy Mountain, published by UNM press).
Dear Nicole,The book is a clear mirror of the man. It is beautiful and moving. Gus and I made a legendary journey to Rainy Mountain in the hard weather that shapes mind and memory. It was a quest, a journey eminently worth making.With deepest thanks.Scott
DISCUSSING GUS at UNM bookstore Wednesday December 5th at 4pm
Friends of Gus,
The countdown has begun. Gus Blaisdell Collected is nearly upon us. Due out in September. The launch party details coalescing. I will keep you posted.
From the moment he arrived in New Mexico in 1964, Gus Blaisdell (1935–2003) was a legendary presence. Famous in Albuquerque as a writer, teacher, publisher, editor, and especially as the proprietor of the Living Batch bookstore, Blaisdell was also a brilliant critic whose essays influenced readers throughout the country and across the Atlantic. This long-awaited collection of Blaisdell’s critical writings includes essays on literature, art, and film, along with moving tributes by some of the distinguished writers who numbered Blaisdell among their friends. Introductory essays by philosopher Stanley Cavell and literary critic David Morris join colleague Ira Jaffe’s poignant memoir to provide perspectives on the man by friends who knew him well. Glimpses of Blaisdell’s vivid personality can be had from the many photographs included, and the diligently researched chronology compiled by Nicole Blaisdell Ivey tracks the course of her father’s complicated life.
Art critic William Peterson lives in Albuquerque, where he is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico. Longtime editor of ARTSPACE magazine, he has also been a correspondent for ARTnews and an associate editor at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Nicole Blaisdell Ivey is a photographer and writer. Her work has appeared in The Sun magazine, New Mexico Photographer, and others. She lives in Albuquerque.