I finished a Bachelor of Independent Studies degree researching the background of a specific legal case that determined the division of powers in labour matters in Canada; so broadly speaking, I studied labour history, labour relations, economic history and political ideology of the Left. Between that and being a denizen (and later champion – see dumontpressgraphix.blogspot.com) of the House of Zonk, Dumont was a logical next step. It was 1985.

In one year I saw a Dumont that was going backwards technologically, economically unsustainable and ideologically misguided.

After we put Dumont out of its misery in 1986, Deb Connors rescued Alternatives: Perspectives on Society, Technology and Environment, moved it to the Faculty of Environmental Studies at UW, and within a year had a grant to ease it into the digital age of “desktop publishing”. I was lucky to get in on the second year of this. The skills I learned in my six years of Alternatives – proofing, editing, design, marketing, grant applications, financial and business management – I still use today. But it was because of my experience at Dumont – under/unpaid, ruthless hours, denial of the financial acumen needed to run the business and pay the workers (months behind invoicing major projects that had already been expensed; paying people who no longer worked there to make up for their not being paid when they worked there, contributing to the people working there not getting paid…..) that I made sure that we earned a decent wage at Alternatives, got a modest paid vacation and dental benefit, didn’t work for free “because it was a good cause”, and kept on top of the technology of our industry.

Alternatives was stripped down to its core value – its copy – and was freed from all the dead weight of Dumont so it could be reinvented. It didn’t need the VIP, the SIM, not the “new” blind boards we got for cheap, the camera, dark room and chemistry, light tables, not the press in the back or the kitchen with its coffee grinder mounted really low so everyone would be equally disadvantaged using it, not the garlic drying on the desks, the countless elastics that broke bundling tapes, “check in”, personal politics, the good graces of Steve Izma to come and fix the VIP (“in my copious free time”) and general clutter and disorganization.

In retrospect, the Dumont of 1986 collided with the Dumont of 1971 and faced the same scale of technological revolution in 15 years that, like our lead-typesetting predecessors, we were unable or unwilling to navigate. We did not have the tech savvy of early members, nor was it available to us, or the vision that went with it. Without these, no amount of ideology could run the shop. And Dumont needed someone like me who understood that running a business effectively - even profitably - and having a social agenda, do not have to be in conflict.

Lasting influence of Dumont: I was cured of the Left and politics forever, and rediscovered plants – who have no ideology - for my enjoyment, inspiration, and eventual livelihood. Amor fati.