Episodes
Monday Jul 09, 2012
Episode 84: Books Inspire Discovery
Monday Jul 09, 2012
Monday Jul 09, 2012
This is a lined notebook with seven signatures of five sheets each for 140 pages. It is A6 in size (pocketbook) and comes with a red ribbon bookmark. It has a lively blue flower/dragon fly book cloth cover and white endpapers. The more creative side of this notebook is in the margins. Marginal art, as it were. On each page at the top and bottom are words in Japanese and English. The pairs of words have something in common.
For example, one page has "garden (庭)" on the top margin and "chicken (鶏)" on the bottom margin. The connection between the two is the partial pronunciation. "Garden" in Japanese is pronounced "niwa" and "chicken" is pronounced "niwa-tori". (Literally, a garden bird.)
On another page at the top is "ugoku (動く)" and at the bottom is "hikoshi (引越し)". What's the connection? They both mean "move". The first one means move as in a book. The second one (hikoshi) means to move house.
On yet another page has "kimono" and "arrive". Here the connection is the kanji used in both words: 着. Kimono is 着物 (kimono) while arrive is 到着 (tochaku). Easy, right?
Why did I include words on a lined notebook? In this book's first outing, the cover attracted some attention. But after the person opened it, they became engrossed in reading it. Just four words per page but they learned something (either Japanese or English). After I pointed out there's a connection between the words at the top and bottom margins, they tried to find it. Content, in this case, provoked interest and discovery. And I think books should inspire discovery, don't you?
At the bottom we have three pictures of a Work In Progress: A is for Love/Y is for Dream which includes Japanese & English again. It is an Alphabet book but with Japanese words instead of English. A is ai which is love: 愛. Y is yume which is dream: 夢. In the middle are the strips of paper that will be the backing (instead of green). Each one is 110 cm long and about 155 mm wide. Some of the words are tossed on top.
Friday Jun 29, 2012
Episode 83: The What Is This? Book
Friday Jun 29, 2012
Friday Jun 29, 2012
Rather than name this book after its obvious origins (a beef curry package), I decided to go with What Is This? What Is This? is a B6 blank notebook with seven signatures of four sheets each for 112 pages. It is made of a recycled Beef Curry package. The cow the curry was made out of, according to the package, was raised by Miyazaki University students. Hence the name of the curry is MiyaDai Beef Curry. (Dai being short for daigaku - 大学 - which is Japanese for university.)
Gee, free Japanese lessons with your bookbinding enjoyment. It's always nice to learn another language, isn't it?
Actually, the curry name shows you three of the four written syllabary Japan uses. The MiyaDai (small, in white) is kanji; then in big English letters is Beef; following that is katakana which Japan likes to use for words borrowed from other countries. The katakana here is カレー - kare, pronounced ka ray - or, in English, curry. This might be one reason Japanese students are in school studying Japanese for twelve years, eh? I mean, they study English for at least six years (junior high and high school), plus at least one in college. And advertising uses all three or four syllabaries to an artful result. Sometimes.
There's another syllabary Japan uses called hiragana but we don't need to go into that here, do we? Nyah.
What Is This? has a red bookmark made out of a ribbon recovered from one present or another, and a yellow strap to keep the book closed during typhoon season, which is fast approaching Japan. The yellow elastic strap was 30 mm wide but I've discovered that 15 mm is a better width. I cut it in half and it slowly unravels as the book is used. This is known as Unique and Stylish. Or Planned Obsolescence. In either case, What Is This? was a quick book to make and will be fully used as a notebook by someone in the future.
What I am actually doing with these curry books is trying to perfect one or another skills. Attaching a strap or measuring the spine differently. Maybe even trying to improve my endpaper attachment technique. I haven't been working enough to improve as well as I want to so I thought more and more cheaply made books will push me up and over a plateau. Whether this is working or not isn't up to even a mild debate.
Monday Jun 18, 2012
Episode 82: Miyazaki Chicken Curry
Monday Jun 18, 2012
Monday Jun 18, 2012
Anger and frustration are wonderful motivators. Sometimes. Bookbinding is not the place to vent your anger, though. And what is anger but frustration at yourself for not accomplishing in real life what you see in your mind and heart? Last week I had a beautiful vision in my brain of a moleskine-esque blank notebook. It had a yellow spine, black cover, and a yellow band to keep the thing closed when you're running out of a bank you just held up. Yellow and black. Black & Decker or heavy equipment operators would love it. But... Yes, there is a 'however'.
First, I mis-measured the black book cloth so the back had more than the front. The yellow spine book cloth was okay but then the big mistake. The big BIG mistake. I attached the endpaper on the back OVER the strap that keeps the book closed during your bank robbery escape. Yes. OVER the strap. Covered the strap Completely! Then the front endpaper smacked too much glue on the text block and kept it closed. Even without the strap. STRIKE THREE!
Tossed the book across the room. Kicked myself (figuratively) and kicked the garbage can (literally). Picked the book up & ripped the covers off. Ripped the spine off. Ripped the book cloth off the back. Ripped the endpapers off. All in about two seconds. Rapid ripping, after which I went and had dinner. Slowly and with a bit of humor about the chicken. Chicken jokes.
That was a good week ago or more. Last night, after a glass and a half of organic South African red wine that came with a dinner of chicken curry, I returned to the pile of material that was, at one time, a ripped up book. I carefully measured and cut black book cloth for the covers. Then I cut the cover off the curry packet and used it as the spine cover. Except, well, anyway, uh, yeah. I cut it to exactly the height of the book. Yes, the exact height. No bit to bend and glue. Oh, well. No frustration here, eh? It has eight signatures of five sheets for 160 pages and is B6 in size (about 51/2" by 71/2"). The spine reads: Miyazaki Chicken Curry. (Miyazaki is a prefecture in southern Japan.)
The end result is a fun-looking blank notebook called Miyazaki Chicken Curry. Retained from the vision in my head: the black book cloth, the yellow strap, the off-yellow paper. Added since my blow up: the curry packet spine, yellow endpapers, pictures of Miyazaki, leftover string & a scrap of endpaper paper on the cover. Plus the exposed spine at the head and tail through my miscalculation of cutting the spine paper to the exact height of the book. But fun. Humor. Laughter this time instead of anger and frustration. They might be wonderful motivators but they inhibit the enjoyment of bookbinding that I have in my mind and heart.
Tuesday May 08, 2012
Episode 79: The Idiot Runs
Tuesday May 08, 2012
Tuesday May 08, 2012
The Idiot Runs is my latest novel. It's about a Oregon coast man who travels back in time to Venice in the 16th century to work with Nicolas Jenson, printer, binder, and typeface creator of the Roman font.
I wrote, edited, imposed, printed, sewed, and slapped a case binding on it. There are 160 pages of eight signatures of five sheets each. The book is bound in a tan burlapy book cloth with Japanese-esque endpapers (resembling mompei, discussed in Episode 75 when we were talking about another novel: The Priests of Hiroshima) with brown paper attached to the front.
The book is B6 in size - a handy pocket-sized book if you have slightly larger than normal pockets. And, surprisingly, it went together quite well over a period of a couple of days. Not the writing and editing. That took quite a bit longer. On the first evening, I sewed the signatures up. The next evening, after a leisurely dinner, I glued the spine, mull, and that extra strip of paper to the spine. On the third evening, I cut and pasted the endpapers; cut and pasted the cover and assembled the whole thing together. The third evening took about an hour. I wasn't rushed during the whole process and only made a couple of mistakes but nothing I need to point out here.
By the way, The Idiot Runs is the first book in my Calvado Pentalogy which contains the following books: The Idiot Runs, Calvado, The Priests of Hiroshima, The Venetian Slime Woman, and Tristram's Printer. Certain characters and situations show up in all five novels but not always blatantly obvious. If you're familiar with Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet you might recognize the structure in The Calvado Pentalogy.
Upon finishing this and putting it on my improvised book press, I looked at my work table and discovered I have seven more projects to finish up. Seven! And where might I find the time to do them all? Heaven knows, eh?
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
Episode 78: Yellow Clamshells
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
Tuesday Apr 10, 2012
This last weekend I went to a craft fair where I ate a nice taco-flavored rice dish. I also, not at the craft fair, made a yellow clamshell box for one of my novels (a re-covered Tristram's Printer - first mentioned back in Episode 50). The novel is actually in two parts. Part one is my novel and part two is the first book of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. The first book is probably the most read part of Tristram Shandy as it is difficult to get through. Not your average Tom Clancy novel, let me tell you.
Tristram's Printer is about a young woman who learns about papermaking, printing, and bookbinding and falls in Love with a Printer who fantasizes about printing the typographically challenging Tristram Shandy. She is about 25, he is about 50. Characters in Tristram's Printer make an appearance in The Idiot Runs, a time-slipping 2010 Oregon coast to 1462 Venice, Italy bookbinding/printing novel I am currently editing.
This clamshell box (夫婦箱 - me otto bako, in Japanese. Literally: husband-wife box. 夫 is husband while 婦 is wife.) is my first. It is covered in yellow paper instead of book cloth and that was a mistake. It is already tearing at the hinge. My next clamshell box, coming up in a couple of weeks, will be covered in book cloth. The most challenging and worrisome bits are the measuring, cutting, gluing, and putting together the shell. Almost everything about it is worrisome to some extent.
Always in the back of my mind is the possibility that it won't fit together properly. In fact, the first attempt didn't because of a mis-measurement. This, while the first completed clamshell box, was renovated during construction as the first attempt had the two boxes colliding.
Clamshell boxes: they're not for the squeamish.
Thursday Apr 05, 2012
Episode 77: Flash!
Thursday Apr 05, 2012
Thursday Apr 05, 2012
This is another lined notebook. B7 in size - pocket-sized and handy, if I do say so myself. With this blog url, my email, name, and the name of 手取川製本 on the cover in an inset. About 112 pages but no pictures. The cover is Japanese style paper and red craft paper which I cut irregularly. Plus, it went over the inset, which isn't something I wanted. However, it is pocket-sized and handy.
What did we learn from this? Again and again, we learn that measuring and planning is important. If I had measured the red spine paper better, it wouldn't have covered the inset. If I had planned the placement of the inset, the red paper wouldn't have covered the inset, either. We live, we learn, we grow. Right?
On the bright side, for the first time since I've started binding books, a member of my family has actually asked to use one that was already completed (vs a 'special order'.) I had planned to use a certain blank notebook to keep a list of the books I've made. Now it is being used to keep a list of books someone has read. Hey, it's related, eh?
Thursday Mar 29, 2012
Episode 76: Line 'em Up, Dano
Thursday Mar 29, 2012
Thursday Mar 29, 2012
Here we have accomplished a smallish - B6 sized (7.2 " by 5.3" for my American brethren) - 128-page lined notebook with free advertising. Advertising for me. It has my blog url (this one, obviously), my email (tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com), my name, and my studio name: Tedorigawa Bookmakers (手取川製本). It also has small pictures of books I have made (and are for sale), one picture of myself, and the red Tedorigawa logo - on the right. The other thing it has is an inset on the lower right front cover. Many years ago I read that a bookbinding teacher insisted that the front of the book be obvious to the casual observer. I try to do that but this inset is my first attempt at really showing the front. I felt it was necessary because the back cover is more decorative than the front. I carved out a bit of the book board (next time: two thinner boards glued together; it'll be much easier) and printed 手取川製本 on a piece of paper. Then I glued it to a scrap of book board, and glued the entire ensemble into the hole in the cover. It's... okay. Next time, I don't think I'll glue it on a scrap of book board but directly onto the second book board. Getting the cover cloth was an interesting story. I went to a shop that is famous for its paper. People come from hundreds of kilometers around just to look and buy some of their products. I bought some paper and then asked if they had book cloth (布, nuno in Japanese). The female clerk (and part owner) didn't know what I was talking about so she asked the male clerk (and part owner) who handed me a big wad of thick paper. "This?" he said. "Not exactly," I mumbled. And he proceeded to hand me another big stack. "Take it. It's free." So I took it.
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Episode 75: The Priests of Hiroshima
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story is my novel about time travel between an Istanbul antique bookstore today and Mainz, Germany when Gutenberg was in full operation. Istanbul and Mainz, Germany. What do they have to do with Hiroshima?
The Priests of Hiroshima is the name of a novel in the novel The Priests of Hiroshima. In my novel it is a novel printed and signed by Gutenberg. How did the author in 1453 know about the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945? You gotta read The Priests of Hiroshima.
Back in 1945 when Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, some priests were in their church. The blast blew most everything away except for some of the strengthened walls of the church. One priest (Father Hubert Schiffer), after the bombing, was bathed from head to foot to clean his wounds. The walls protected him feeling the brunt of the blast while the bathing cleansed him of any radiation. Or it was a miracle. Fr. Schiffer was from Germany, perhaps Mainz?
My The Priests of Hiroshima is about 112 pages, casebound, with Japanese paper as the cover. The design is reminiscent of old-fashioned farmer women's clothes known as mompei. There are seven signatures of four sheets. There is, in Japanese tradition, a strip of washi on the front cover. The title is supposed to be written vertically on this strip of paper but I haven't the calligraphical chops to do it right. It has yellow craft paper as endpapers.
This is the second edition of the book. The first one can be seen here: Episode 60: Red Kanji. You can read the first 23 chapters here: The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story from 1453 to 2007.Monday Mar 05, 2012
Episode 74: Running Time
Monday Mar 05, 2012
Monday Mar 05, 2012
About six years ago a child of mine ran a 5 K race and for finishing within the allotted time, got a t-shirt. She wore this shirt off and on for six years and finally decided to throw it my way. I backed it with thin paper and turned it into book cloth. Then I waited for a project that required such a cloth. And behold, this year, the same child actually asked me to make a diary/calendar/journal for her. I pounced on the opportunity. The result is a B6 size, case-bound book. It has six signatures of four sheets each for about 96 pages - some blank but most covered in either a monthly schedule or a weekly schedule. Also included in the book: pictures of my daughter's current favorite singer (Selena Gomez) and my daughter. Making this diary/calendar truly one of a kind. Of course it took me forever to get right. I mapped out the calendar in Excel and did imposition via experimentation. Lots of printing until I finally got the right imposition and alignment for all. Lots of double, triple, and gazillion-ple checking to make sure the days and dates lined up correctly and so far my grateful child has only found two mistakes - not related to dates and days but content within the days. i.e. I missed writing a holiday although I had the day red-ed out as such. I promised my daughter that she would get her book before the end of February. Thank god it was a leap year this year. I needed that extra 24 hours. I believe the writing on the back says Running Person in Japanese, which makes sense as most marathon runners are people. One other thing: On the front of the book it says "Kanazawa Marathon 2006." Hmmm. A schedule book for 2012 that says 2006. Odd, eh?
Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
Episode 73: The Eddie Trombone Case
Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
Tuesday Feb 28, 2012
A friend is writing an online novel called Teach Yourself Japanese: The Eddie Trombone Case. Or it might be completely true. True or false, fact or fiction, I was looking for content to practice imposition, binding, casing in, and the other particulars of bookbinding. Viola, a marriage made online. I copied his online scribblings, did a little desktop publishing magic, imposed it, printed it out (which took close to a half-century to finish - Gutenberg had it easy), and did a link stitch before casing it in with a sort of ersatz Chinese motif cover.
• About the Book Part One There are six signatures of four sheets each for 96 pages. It is B6 in size and I really messed up the first time I cased it in. I forgot to push the text block up tight against the spine and it came out loose and messy. After I tossed it across the studio and shoved it in the recycle bin, I relaxed. Then I tore it apart and re-bound it. It came out better when I was relaxed.
• About "the Book" Part Two What, you might ask, is the story about? An American in Japan by the name of Eddie Trombone is missing. A consulate officer at the Osaka consulate, Gerard K. Dirkins, is charged with finding him. His efforts lead him to a book Eddie took out of the Chicago library called "Teach Yourself Japanese" and a diary kept by Mr. Trombone. From Eddie's diary, we follow his life from Chicago to Osaka and witness the many frustrations as Dirkins tries to understand Eddie's frustrating "new" and exciting (?) life in Japan. Will he ever find Eddie? Is Eddie still alive? More importantly, will "Teach Yourself Japanese" ever be returned to the Chicago public library? This book, which I have made in an edition of three (two to the author, one for me), is titled "Teach Yourself Japanese: the Eddie Trombone Case, Part 1" because the online novel is not, as far as I know, finished yet. Plus, I am currently working on "Teach Yourself Japanese: the Eddie Trombone Case, Part 2." Second, you might ask, is why is the green part of the book so big? Well, when I tossed it across the room? I kind of ripped part of the cover which was mostly the fake Chinese red part. And, I, uh, kind of had to cover up the tears. Maybe this will be the copy I keep for myself. In retrospect, rather than a hard cover, I think I should have made it a softcover because it is only 96 pages. Kind of thin, but when Part 2 comes out, I might try a dos a dos.