Notes from under the press
The studio dog has been asked to contribute to the journal. She has some observations about the print shop, Friday biscuits, the workshops, the pile in the middle of the table, and the people who keep standing on her blanket. Typed up by Elias, uncorrected.
Noir is a pug. She came to the Copenhagen studio with Elias on the first day in the print shop and has refused to leave since. This post was dictated over several afternoons and typed up by Elias, who has corrected nothing except the spelling.
I live under the press. The press does not move, which is the best thing about it. It is warm on one side in the afternoon because of the window, and the people do not go under it because they are too tall. There is a blanket. It is mine.
On the print shop
The print shop is better than the old place above the bicycle shop. The old place had stairs and nowhere to lie down. The new place has a floor made of wood, which smells of a hundred years of ink and also, near the kitchen, of cheese.
There are many drawers. Elias says they are for letters. I have checked several and they are mostly empty. One of them had a biscuit in it once. I check it every day.
On Fridays
On Fridays a woman called Birthe comes. She used to live here, or the press used to live with her, I'm not sure which. She brings a thermos and a paper bag. The paper bag has biscuits for me in it. She says they are for "the team", but she gives them to me first, so they are mine.
On Fridays the press also moves, which is the worst thing about it. It makes a sound like a very large dog breathing. I go and lie by the door until it stops. Then I come back and smell the cards that came out of it. They smell of ink, which is not food.
On workshops
Sometimes twelve people come and sit around the long table and write on small cards. They put the cards on the table and talk about them. Then they put some of the cards in a pile in the middle, and they talk about the pile.
I have tried to help with the pile. I was not allowed.
Leela says the workshops are about deciding what things are. I can tell you what things are. That is a biscuit. That is a person who has a biscuit. That is a person who does not have a biscuit but might have one later. I do not understand why this takes all day.
On the people
There are three people here most days, and a fourth on Fridays.
Elias is mine. He brings me in the morning and takes me home at night. He sits at the desk by the window and moves small rectangles around on a screen. When he is thinking, he scratches my ears without looking.
Leela types very fast and says words at the screen that I am not allowed to repeat. She shares her lunch when she thinks nobody is watching. I am always watching.
Jens is new. He arrived and then immediately left again for a place called Dublin. I have not decided about Jens yet.
Birthe has biscuits. See above.
The others live in Dublin, which is apparently somewhere you go on an aeroplane. They appear on the big screen on Monday mornings. I bark at the screen to say hello. Callum always says "hello, Noir" back, so Callum is all right.
On being an author
Elias says I am called Noir because it is French for black, and I am the blackest thing in the studio, blacker than the ink. I am not French. I am from Valby.
He also says that every post in this journal is written by someone, and that the work it describes was done by someone. I would like it noted that I have supervised every workshop held in the print shop, and inspected every delivery. Nobody has ever written that down until now.
There. Now it is written down.
