Category: Culture

Categories
Connecting

Zero to sixty in ten seconds

Mr. Allan Moult, my friend as well as my boss at Leatherwood Online is celebrating an important birthday tomorrow, tomorrow in this case being May 8th.

Allan is a journalist, photographer, a writer, an editor, and a very interesting person who has traveled more than most people I know. He is also a tireless defender of the natural beauty of Tasmania, and seems most happy when he’s out doors, in the wild he loves so much. As a digital birthday greeting, I thought I would post photos from today’s hike for him, interspersed with some philosophy appropriate to the occasion.

(By the way, today’s hike was several miles over some wicked nasty hills and I hiked it in 90 degree (that’s Blinken’ Hot in Celsius) temperatures. It’s reassuring to people like me and Allan and others of our friends who are no longer young pups, to realize that we’re not getting older, we’re going insane.)

three days climbing
this old heart
goes no further.

Loren Webster

Found on the Net: some ways to know you’re getting older:

1. Everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.
2. The gleam in your eyes is from the sun hitting your bi-focals.
3. You feel like the morning after and you haven’t been anywhere.
4. Your little black book contains only names that end in M.D.
5. Your children begin to look middle aged.
6. You finally reach the top of the ladder and find it leaning against the wrong wall.
7. Your mind makes contracts your body can’t meet.
8. You look forward to a dull evening.
9. Your favorite part of the newspaper is “20 Years Ago Today”.
10. You turn out the lights for economic rather than romantic reasons.
11. You sit in a rocking chair and can’t get it going.
12. Your knees buckle, and your belt won’t.
14. You’re 17 around the neck, 42 around the waist, and 95 around the golf course.
15. Your back goes out more than you do.
17. Your Pacemaker makes the garage door go up when you see a pretty girl.
18. The little old gray haired lady you helped across the street is your wife.
19. You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there.
20. You have too much room in the house and not enough in the medicine cabinet.
21. You get your exercise acting as a pallbearer for your friends who exercise.
22. You know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions.

“You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old. ”

George Burns

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

Groucho Marx

(Though my particular favorite is, “It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.”)

“Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.”

Charles Shultz

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ‘neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
“Rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Girls’ faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I’m younger than that now.

My Back Pages by Bob Dylan

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

Albert Einstein

“Everyone here who is damn glad you’re no longer 18–madly wave your hand!”

Shelley Powers

Happy Birthday, my friend.

Categories
Connecting

Drowning in a sea of surety

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I think that we should designate one day per week to be Humility Day. Or perhaps Day of Doubt or Insecurity Day.

Each weblog we visit, the owner–myself included–pontificates on all the wrongs and evils of the day. Expressing opinions is a good thing, but lately it seems that even the most thoughtful weblog writers are screaming their words out, pages covered with the spit of their emotional outbursts, saturated with surety.

Not just in politics: I’m finding the same level of surety in technology and tool usage, even which operating system we use. It’s as if none of us can tolerate even the slightest possibility of doubt in our choices. We can’t just talk about how nice our TiBooks are–we have to extol their virtues, defend passionately the interface, angrily denounce the competition.

And don’t even get me started on syndication formats or weblogging tools.

More than the absolutes, I find myself getting burned out by all the good people who are writing for change, as if they’re desperate for change now. Now! Now now now now now! People I admire and agree with, or not, but after a while it’s exhausting reading about one evil after another–bang bang bang–like a machine gun of outrage and despair. And anger.

It sells, too. We once talked about what would it take to get more women in the top of the buzz sheets, and now we know: sex and anger. Technorati 100 is dominated by the Suicide Girls, and many of the top women, such as Michele at A Small Victory, well, they’re angry all the time. Once upon a time Michele didn’t seem so angry but I’ve been reading her these last few weeks and she’s gone after one person or another–and her rank rises with each volley of words.

Anger and sex. Anger, sex, and absolutes. Just listen to the opinions, right and left. If we lined up all the online pundits, end to end, their perceived influence would stand ten times as tall as the actuality. Not only that, but their crap would provide enough ethanol to light the planet.

It’s not that people have opinions about the US President or the election or the war in Iraq–it’s just that they’re so damn sure they’re right. We’ve been talking about how polarized the upcoming election in the States is but on a good day nowadays, I’ll take polarized over what we’ve got. Everyone is so damn angry.

Look. It made me angry.

If we could have just one day per week when we all talked softly and quietly; when we listened to others views, and actually listened, not filtered; where we didn’t shoot from the hip, bringing out the verbal axes at first word; maybe where we even acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers–I can’t help thinking that we’d all be richer for the experience.

I’m not talking about expressions of brotherly love and joy-joy talk from feel good brothers and sisters; I’m also not saying we need to agree– that’s not the point. Trying to pretend we’re all one big loving family would be just as hollow, and fake, as implying that those who disagree with us are evil.

What I’m saying is: no bad guys; no heros; no absolutes. Can’t we set aside one day per week when we’re not a hundred percent right?

Categories
Books Diversity

Passing on the torch

Julie Lerman is doing a phenomenal job of taking on the discussion about women and technology. She has a web site with references, and also brought this up in a recent article where she was honored as .NET Rock Star

(It’s funny, but Julie was also angry when Microsoft came out with .NET. She got over her anger. I turned to open source. You win one, you lose one.)

I did my turn at this for three years. It’s nice to turn the torch over to someone else.

Personally, I think I’m going to disconnect from the Internet, sell my computers, and just bind books from now on. That’s a nice traditional female occupation, and one where I don’t have to worry about other people telling me how hostile I am, or how sensitive I am, or how hot-headed I am, or how rude I am, or any variety of the above.

(Ooops, I gave away the topic of the next Art of Book posting. But then, if I’m disconnecting, who will write it?)

Categories
Art Books

The Art of Book, Volume One

A month or two ago, Steve at LanguageHat pointed out a New York show consisting of Art Deco book bindings by Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler. I was mesmerized at the beauty of the bindings, and the concept that book binding could actually be considered an art form.

I’m not an arts and crafts type of person. I don’t knit or sew, embroider, build things out of wood, make things out of straw or glass or sculpt out of clay or rock. I did try jewelry making in San Francisco, but unless I create a forge and build a press in my kitchen, it’s not necessarily the type of craft one can pursue in an apartment. Frankly, I have little patience for most crafts.

But the concept of bookbinding was different. I started researching it and found several books at the library on the subject, as well as resources online. The more I researched, the more fascinated I became.

For instance, pages in a book are not just stacked and glued at the end. They are usually folded into groupings called signatures and most hard cover books consist of several of these signatures sewed together, usually through the use of tapes. You can actually see these groupings if you look closely at the spine of most of your books. The term itself was from a time when a small signature was placed at the bottom of the first page of the grouping to assist in the collation of the book.

Single Sheet Tunnel Book

As for the binding itself, there are so many varieties, that I’m still researching some of the more esoteric, such as the dos a dos, and the complicated star tunnel book. The ‘book’ above is a training exercise in folding and cutting (decent folds, lousy cuts), and is a single page tunnel book. The ones most familiar to us, which is the stack of pages and a cover, usually with writing, are known as codex, a word from ancient Roman times used to describe tablets joined together on edge. This style is not to be confused with pamphlet binding or album binding, though all three look similar.

Bookbinding is now usually referred to as book art, and some universities, including Washington University here in Missouri offer Fine Arts degrees in the book arts. One of the more well known artists who specializes in bookbinding is Richard Minsky, one of the guiding lights behind the Center for Book Arts in New York. His Bill of Rights exhibition is both an inspiration and intimidation for a newly interested practitioner of this old, old art.

However, I think I will pass on incorporating live explosives in any of my work, though the use of book art as message has definite appeal.

I don’t think it’s surprising that many of those who practice book arts also like to write, which adds to the personal appeal of this beautiful craft. At this site that covers ancient Japanese bookbinding techniques, the artist, Graeme, recounts his early introduction to hand bookbinding:

One evening my father came home from work and held something out to me. It looked a little like a book. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a school geography text book, bound in green cloth and with erratic gold lettering on the spine. Perhaps it had been in a traffic accident at the mobile library.

‘Lionel at the office did it at his book binding evening class. It’s not bad is it?’
I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be kindest to take it to a qualified librarian? He could give it a lethal injection and put it out of its misery?’ No, I didn’t really say that, what I said was, ‘Mmmm, yes. Mmmm.’

It was important to sound neutral. My father could be unpredictable, and any trace of enthusiasm in my voice might encourage him to take up book binding himself. Without warning, all my school text books might suddenly be transformed into green-bound grotesques like the one in my father’s hand. I was responsible for those school books – I might still be in detention when I was thirty.

As said earlier, my libraries have several books on book arts and bookbindings and I’ve checked most of them out, including an old one from turn of the century, when bookbinding was considered a useful skill to teach in schools. Another of the books focuses on increasing your own self-sufficiency by creating your own paper and books, including excellent demonstrations of some of the equipment used by bookbinders, which I’ll get into more at a later time.

One can spend a lot of money starting this hobby, but you can also start small, with a minimum of equipment such as an awl for punching holes in paper, tapestry needles, linen thread, greyboard for covers, a bone folder, used for folding pages, and, of course paper. Luckily the art store near where I live not only has bookbinding supplies, but it usually runs a special on paper every week. I’ve spent three days there this week picking through the bins to match end papers to signature sheets to cover papers, and then on to the fabric store to get complementary thread. I never get tired of going through the papers and fabrics. Or the satisfaction of creating something unique with my hands–something that’s not wired to the Net, or plugged into the wall.

Books aren’t just thrown together. You have to have a basic idea in mind, and then you carefully find the material to create the book. I currently have five book projects in the works, including a codex, two Japanese stab binding books, and two star tunnel books, one of which is going to feature some interesting and perhaps even hauntingly familiar photographs.

I am now in the midst of finishing my first significant work, a journal bound using the Japanese stab binding technique, one of my favorites, and consisting of several sheets of handmade ‘weed’ paper printed with photos, with five sheets of bond paper in-between each to act as blank journal pages. The weed paper is a light golden green with flecks of plant material, which does an amazing job with the photographs. The cover is a rich tomato red, nicely textured on one side, and flecked with gold silk threads on the other. I’ll use the textured side as the outside cover, and the flecked side for the end papers. All I need to do is find the right combination of gold/green threads for the binding and I’ll be finished.

One thing that makes this journal stand out is the last page contains instructions on how to remove the binding, take out the white bond journal paper, use it as pulp for new homemade paper, and then put the book back together again with the homemade paper sheets in addition to the existing photographic sheets. A journal in perpetuity, unless one wants to keep the writing; a statement about the ecology of bookbinding in addition to the beauty. Every book tells a story, and it isn’t always to be found in the writing.

This book is a present for a dear friend, for his 60th birthday (there, the cat’s out of the bag). It’s not an expensive gift nor a glamorous one, and it probably won’t even be all that polished, I imagine–I am new at this. But it is a gift from my hands and my heart.

Makings for Japanese Stab binding journal

Categories
Connecting

Lord, grant me tolerance

My belief in the existence of God or not is simple. And personal.

My country does not have to believe as I do.

If a child is hungry they don’t have to believe as I do for me to give them food.

If a man is sick and can’t rise from his bed, he doesn’t have to believe as I do for me to give him comfort.

If a woman is pregnant and unsure whether to have the baby or not, she doesn’t have to believe as I do for me to respect her choice.

If a family is out of work and out of money and worried about clothing for the children or losing their home or getting sick, they don’t have to believe as I do for me to want to help them.

If people are different, in how they love or who they want to marry, they don’t have to believe, or act, as I do for me to wish them luck–love has a hard enough time surviving these days without being bombarded with stones by the fearful.

I don’t have to believe in the souls of animals, or the uniqueness of a single rock; to see an inherent holiness in a tree or flower or drops of water–nor be reminded of the responsibilities as caretaker I am given at birth– in order to cherish the beauty of this world, and to try to preserve it.

If a people live in fear, in the midst of daily war and strife, they don’t have to believe as I do for me to want to remove that which frightens them.

Before this upcoming election, before any election in any country, tell those who represent you in government that no matter what party you belong to, or what issues you feel most deeply about, one thing you won’t do is use your vote to force your neighbors into believing as you do. Those who do so are saying, “My God is the one true God, and therefore you must follow my beliefs.”

Say back to them, ‘A God that is the one true God and therefore omnipotent can’t be harmed by anything I do, or believe.”