I just finished reading Elie Mystal’s “Allow Me to Retort | A BLACK GUY’S GUIDE TO THE CONSTITUTION.”

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I was thinking that sometime in the book I would come up with an inspiration for an Afternoon Diversion directed at Black History month.

The image above represents the idea, but there are lots of things I’ve got running through my head that will potentially alter things fairly radically.

The basic idea is to print on 2 sheets of paper (one black, one white) with a photopolymer plate image of wood type. I need to print that white type and I don’t think I can ever get the type clean enough so I’m going photopolymer). Tear them in half and glue them back together.

Others are free to join in. I’ll set the maximum to 4. I’d love to have diversity in any way we could all be diverse.

I’m thinking I’ll print the text for each sheet maybe up to 5 - 8 times, offsetting each to essentially blur the text. It may be better to print white on white and black on black. Not sure how the tear will work. Not sure if the tear should balance the color issue or it should be swayed one way or the other. Maybe do 3 sets of prints (one balanced, one toward black, one toward white). I could imagine that would look pretty interesting exhibited side by side. There are a number more variables I have in mind, but I’ll wait until the group is gathered to give others a say in the process.

Thank you, Elie. Now I wonder how I could get a copy of the broadside to him.