The Outsiders of New Orleans: Loujon Press

Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

From an older thread. My wife and I went to the French Quarter four years ago. We had a great time, but you'd never know just by looking that Loujon had even been there.

mjp said:
December of 1964: 1109 Rue Royale (this is where they lived when he wrote the poems for Crucifix and "fed them right into the press").
June of 1965: 618 Rue Ursulines.
June of 1965: Phoenix.
October of 1965: 1343 Canyon Road, Santa Fe.
November of 1965: 1009 E. Elm St, Tucson.
March of 1970: 1202 Fourth S.W., Albuquerque.
May of 1972: Back in NOLA, c/o Cafe Vaueresson, Bourbon St.
Click to expand...

Lots of good info and photos here: https://bukowskiforum.com/threads/the-location-of-loujon-press.5533/
 
B

BUKFAN78

@Purple Stickpin Thanks so much for the link to the old thread. I see what you mean about the addresses and how you'd never know. I think my wife and I actually walked right by the first address (the pic look very familiar). I was worried that that might be the case.

I knew about the poboy joints before we went so that part at least was not a problem, haha.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
Looks like I didn't have a redirect in place for those direct links to the manuscripts in the old location. That's fixed, so those links should work.
 
B

BUKFAN78

Yes, would definitely like to know what happened to their printer. But don't tell Linda King or she'll run off to sign it.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
A printer is a person, the machine is a press.

I'd suspect that like most of those old monsters, it was sold for scrap. At the time they abandoned letterpress the machines weren't valued, they were seen as antiquated junk. Any that were saved were re-purposed to do die cutting or went to schools to teach kids a trade that they would never be able to use.

We often place value on people's everyday tools in hindsight, or out of feelings of nostalgia. But at the time that's all their presses were, tools. When they stopped using letterpress I would be surprised if anyone saw the old press(es) as anything special or things to be preserved.
 
B

BUKFAN78

Fair enough, I always get nostalgic for such things but am quite certain that you are correct in assuming it would have been sold as scrap or met some other ordinary fate. Damn shame though, nostalgic me thinks.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
There are probably more people doing letterpress now than there have been in the past 30 years. It's been going through a resurgence for some time. There are a lot more commercial letterpress shops in Los Angeles than there were even 10 or 15 years ago. I fully expect Western Union to start sending telegrams again when the demand from handlebar moustache wielding hipsters reaches a fever pitch some time next summer.

But at the time the Webbs retired their letterpress, in the early 70s, it would have been difficult to sell a big old clamshell letterpress to a printing business. Those places were getting rid of their own letterpress machines in order to make room for offset presses. Offset replaced letterpress for a lot of good reasons. Letterpress machinery is slow, cumbersome, labor intensive and takes up a lot of square footage.

Kind of like how all the typewriters went into basements, garages and landfills when everyone got a computer. Only a half ton iron clamshell press is a little more difficult to tuck away and forget about.
 
BukFan Brad

BukFan Brad

Got your book for Xmas, Jeff. A good read. One dude who stuck in my mind is "Marcus Grapes", he seemed quite a character! I also love your bits on the Buk. Your book was a decent-sized piece of jigsaw puzzle dropping into place for me, ever since the intriguing intro Buk put about the Webbs in his work, 'Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame'.
 
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