Text by the Guillemots song lyrics of “Yesterday is Dead.”

A meditation on the deficits of nostalgia, the standard edition (#1-11) is constructed so that backlighting illuminates the whited-out windows and doors of the fully open accordion fold. The deluxe edition (#12-20) has apertures cut from almost every page spread and adhered on the verso so that another version of the book appears on the back of the accordion fold forming complex analogous relationships illustrating the oscillation between the remembered and the forgotten.

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(e-mail to the Guillemots, November 29, 2012)

Dear Guillemots,

Your song “Yesterday is Dead”, in confluence with events in my life, has inspired some artworks of mine. Typographic interpretations of excerpts from the song appear in the artwork. The work will be premiered at Munch Gallery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in January.

There are 18 original photo-collages, 9 by 13 3/4 inches, with stencil cut outs and stencil spray-paint, and I plan on making an accordion fold print/book in an edition of 20. I will credit the band and can also credit a specific writer if anyone desires.

The photographs were taken by me and my sister Raimie Weber in New England, USA and Cuba from the 1970’s through the 1990’s (and some photos of Egypt from unknown sources), I have used an old stencil machine from the 1920’s to cut excerpts of the lyric of the song into the actual photos and rearranged all the resulting bits and pieces.

My idea was to destroy nostalgia, I was not exactly successful, but its a start. I know that artistic license covers this usage but I also feel like I want to thank you for your great song. So if you want to use any of these images please do, I can send you much larger digital versions if you like. Its a barter situation.

I’ll send a few samples now, as you may not care a bit for any of this and I don’t want to chunk up your email. In any case I hope all can be copacetic and I am interested in your responses if you have a moment, if not I’ll totally understand.

peace,
Marshall Weber

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In the deluxe edition (#’s 12-20, $1,400) the windows, doors, and portals of the photographs are subtlely excised from the front of the accordion fold book (and mounted on the white neutral ‘back’ pages) forming a triptych which can be read of three ways: as a pop-up book of dense layers of memory, as a verso accordion fold of enigmatic fragments of memory paired with aperture windows and doors penetrating the physical pages function as the event horizon memory.  

“Yesterday Is Dead”
 
Yesterday came walking
Yesterday got found
Yesterday went barking
At the underground

Yesterday went surfing in another town
Yesterday’s deserting
So come clear the ground

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

Yesterday’s a liar
Yesterday’s a joke
Yesterday is fire
Desert island smoke

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

All I really want to do is burn
Burn out with the style and the grace of a metre
Stretched out for a mile

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead
Yesterday is dead

If only we believed in someone
If only we believed in someone
If only we believed in someone

If only we believed in someone
If only we believed in someone
If only we believed in someone