Finding Ulysses

I noticed a couple of new things - or things that are new to me - in local media today. First, I got a catalog in the mail from Acorn Designs. Acorn Designs is a dot com that’s at a dot org address on the web. AcornDesigns.com is a graphic design company in Newmarket, Ontario. AcornDesigns.org is a stationary company (they sell a few other things too, like tote bags) from just over the county line, off of route 227 near Mecklenburg. They’re definitely a local company - their postal address is Trumansburg even they’re not in Ulysses.

Second, I took a look over at the Back To Democracy web site, and see that they’ve got a new design that’s appealing and easy to read from. They’ve also got a great page of Back to Democracy archives - offering a kind of history of local political activism back to the summer of 2004.

This Friday evening at the Trumansburg Fire Hall, Back to Democracy is offering a free viewing of the documentary film Why We Fight. If you pay attention to the details in the news, you already understand the sinister reality of war profiteering that this documentary describes. It’s a good summary, however, and a motivating one.

If you’re tired of the snow and the salty slush, and fretting about ice dams building up on your roof with this thawing and freezing day after day, here’s a vision of last summer in Ulysses, and the muddy fun time had at the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance.

Video courtesy of MoodyCat.

If you’re more the type to love the weather you’re with, then there’s this other video, celebrating Trumansburg’s big snow last week, from Sal:

This morning, I found a glimpse into a bit of Trumansburg’s literary history in the form of Crossing Press. Crossing Press was founded back in 1963 by John Gill, a poet who was living in Trumansburg at the time. The original name of the press was New Books. Crossing Press sounds a bit more interesting, doesn’t it?

Over the years, Crossing Press has published many interesting titles, such as Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts and The Women Who Walk Through Fire. Of special local interest was Moog’s Musical Eatery, published in 1978, referring to Robert Moog, of course.

In 1986, Trumansburg lost Crossing Press to Northern California. In 2002, it was bought out by Ten Speed Press.

John Gill died in 1995, and was memorialized in the summer 1996 issue of Poets and Writers by fellow poet Robert Peters, who wrote, “In the 30 years of our friendship I never heard him complain that his work as a publisher, magazine editor, and poet was insufficiently appreciated. I can hear the cheery laugh he’d give over this, changing the subject by pointing out some magical detail in the landscape a pair of gulls over Santa Cruz harbor or the spectacular Trumansburg falls.”