149 business cards

<p><em>149 business cards </em>has great meaning to me as it attempts to do several things at once. First, it functions as a kind of self-portrait or autobiography through the people I’ve met and places I have visited.</p> <p>Though, it must be noted only a certain type of people and merchants create & carry business cards. I have met or visited almost everyone or businesses in this book except maybe one or two. So in this way it is a kind of timeline or map to my past. It is very honest. In a more obvious way it serves as an address book. If I need someone’s address I can just pick up the book. In this case each card triggers specific memory more so than a normal address book written in ones own handwriting. Some of these people and business have moved on, notably Loeffler Intercoms (card on page 19). It’s a place I visited over a decade ago and with a full dose of foreshadowing is now the famous Printed Matter bookshop, which distributes this very book (!) as well as other onestar press publications.</p> <p>Lastly as a piece of conceptual art it works just fine though not quite as perfect as the book which inspired it: namely Ed Ruscha’s book entitled <em>Business </em><em>Cards</em>.</p>