Episodes
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Ep. 252: SeaLemon and Agnes Grout
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Bookbinder of the Week: (今週の製本者 )
Bookbinding
This week I cased in a book of my fiction (Tristram’s Printer) in A-5 size, 260 pages. I used two different papers for the cover for two reasons: first, I’m cheap and didn’t want to run out and buy more and two, I’m trying to use up the papers I’ve got so I can run out and buy more.
The backboards themselves are thick paper; not as thick as cardboard, more like card stock. I’m experimenting with them because a client wants a thin, flexible cover for their project and I want to make sure this is up to the test and that I am up to the task of using it properly.
Last week, hahahahahaha, I made a B6-sized book of Tristram’s Printer, like I said. This morning I checked how many pages it had and discovered the final page has No Page Number written on it. Odd, methinks. I check a few pages back and the recto page claims to be 263 but Mr Verso says 260. Yes, the final signature was miss-printed. But at least the book looks mostly pretty.
I also discarded my template for book covers idea. Since each book, for me at least, is different, a template didn’t make much sense. I was making two covers instead of one. I did, however, make a spacer. I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn’t find a good spacer for the hinge gap space bit between the spine and the covers. Then it dawned on me, thank’s to the coronavirus pandemic, that I could make my own out of book board. So I did.
Fiction
Writing more on Growing Slurry and The Posthumous Biography of Agnes Grout.
Both seem to be episodic meaning the main characters have adventures that illuminate their characters, histories, and philosophies (except without the philosophical asides – I hope I’m showing and not telling).
In Growing Slurry, Sliven is investigating some wholesale fraud in his past while Gina is starting to – beginning to – trust him. I’m wrapping this novel up within the next 30, 50 pages, I hope.
In The Posthumous Biography of Agnes Grout: Death Weaver, Agnes is forcing one of her adversaries to accept one of her children so she (Agnes) can work in one of the weaving mills of Lowell, Massachusetts. Agnes suspects she may have some scary ability to slip back in time to warn people of their impending demise. She’s not sure she had it or is just losing her mind; time will tell.
As always, if anyone knows of a good (and cheap) cover designer, let me know.
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
Ep. 188 Japanese Language & Guide Book
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
Sunday Nov 04, 2018
I’m making an edition of 15 for my Japanese notes/guide book called Hunting Kanazawa. It includes phrases that tourists who don’t speak Japanese might need while in a Japanese-speaking area of the world. Phrases like “Where is my hotel?” and “How much is this?” and more useful questions like “How old is this?” It comes in English, transliteration, and Japanese so if you find yourself not being understood by speaking either Japanese or English, you can show the question to the target of your inquiries. Useful. Convenient!
I’m also working on two other audio endeavors. First is a video of me making The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories. It is definitely not a how-to video; never do as I do, always do as I say (they are often complete opposites). It will show the book being made from writing it to adding the covers. There will be narration, so be forewarned, eh?
The second is an audio book of one of the stories from The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories: In A Quiet Little Bar On The Coast. It will have visuals not necessarily related to the story and the occasional sound effect when called for. When finished, I may post it here first. An exclusive for You Wonderful Folks. Then on YouTube for everyone else.
Remember: The Merchant of Venus and Other Stories is available on Apple Books, Amazon, Nook, Scribd and Kobo for your reading pleasure. If you would like a real book bound by me, the author, slip me an email and we can discuss the details.
email: tedorigawa.bookmakers@gmail.com
YouTube as Tedorigawa Bookmakers
Facebook as Tedorigawa
Instagram as Bookbinder 2015
Friday May 04, 2018
Episode 174: Education?
Friday May 04, 2018
Friday May 04, 2018
I have set up three books on the computer using InDesign and have printed out two. One more to print and then I have to finish writing another novel titled Feeding Vicki's Corpse. What are the three books I set-up and why do it again?
I set them up again because I have been reading about interior book design: leading, font sizes, margin widths, and content for the headers and footers (mostly the book title, the author's name, and pages). In each article I read I see something that could improve my own books, so I edit what I have to, I hope, improve them.
At the same time, I edit the content. I fix spelling & grammar mistakes, correct mis-used words (their there they're) and improve (again, I hope) plot points, characterizations, banish lazy writing, and try to eliminate clichés.
The first book is the second book in the Calvado Pentalogy — Calvado: A Deadly Love Story about a man with a deadly disease. It's deadly for the people he likes, not for himself. And he likes Calvado, once he meets and gets to know her. So, of course, he must leave her alone. He is a low-level scam artist and a struggling jazz singer. She, Calvado, the star of the Calvado Pentalogy, is a medical school student and a fashion model. Drug dealers and crazy people are involved.
The second book is the third book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Priests of Hiroshima: An Historical Love Story. In this story, Calvado is in Istanbul and discovers a unique antiquarian bookstore that deals only in books more than four or five hundred years old. She also discovers a cat with a mysterious power and portals to another time; a time when the modern book was being born and a forbidden love between a priest and a nun.
The third book I set-up is the fifth book in the Calvado Pentalogy — The Venetian Slime Woman: A Biological Love Story. An EPA water quality specialist falls in love with a biological freak, so to speak. The woman is from a small island off the coast of Venice but she is born from slime mold. The CIA — or is it the FBI or Homeland Security or just a rogue agent? — wants to capture her and experiment on her body.
My next assignment from myself is to produce e-books of the Calvado Pentalogy and sell them on either Smashwords and/or Amazon and/or iBooks. Or all three. Any suggestions?
Friday Jul 29, 2016
Episode 141: Shandy! Sterne!
Friday Jul 29, 2016
Friday Jul 29, 2016
- The black page
- Digressions galore. I mean Lots of tangents and ‘side notes’ which can last Chapter after Chapter.
- Typographical quirkiness. The black page, the noses, the squiggles, the marbled pages in the middle rather than as endpapers, the ten blank pages the printer refused to insert so the page numbers just jump ahead ten pages.
- Amazingly colorful characters - Toby, Trim, Yorick (of course)
Thursday Jul 28, 2016
Episode 140: Working!
Thursday Jul 28, 2016
Thursday Jul 28, 2016
- Putting Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne on computer, in InDesign & iBooks Author readying them (Nine Volumes) for release in iBooks and other epub related venues
- Putting my Calvado Pentology on the same computer programs for the same venues
- Putting Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman on the same for the same.
Sunday Dec 01, 2013
Episode 117: Tuna Imagination
Sunday Dec 01, 2013
Sunday Dec 01, 2013
Tuna Imagination's subtitle is A Fictive Collective which means it has snippets of history, fiction, one complete short story, an array of pictures and doodles, and is in many ways a hodgepodge of miscellany.
What kind of history? Mostly related to books and printing especially about Aldus Manutius, inventor of the comma; also Xenia Cage (John's ex-wife) who was Marcel Duchamp's bookbinder, and Nicholas Jensen.
And what is the short story? It's a story about a college student who discovers the meaning of life through a punch in the nose that gives him cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea. i.e. his brains leak out through his nose and while he slips in and out of a coma, he envisions the snippets of fiction and history. He is, in other words, the narrative glue that holds the book together. Kind of.
Tuesday Nov 05, 2013
Episode 116: Blank Bridge
Tuesday Nov 05, 2013
Tuesday Nov 05, 2013
On the other hand, I've also made two roundback books in the last couple of weeks. Both Frankenstein and Dracula were roundback and Frankenstein had my first attempt at sewing headbands. But the thing that really makes a book a Book in the minds of mere muggles is the cover design. Do I really want to start learning how to design a book cover well? That's definitely a rabbit hole one can fall down.
That said, here are two covers of two of my novels that I have designed. One, Tristram's Printer: A Typographical Love Story, is available from Smashwords.com. It's about art, love, bookbinding, and artists. Calvado: A Deadly Love Story, is being edited for clarity and consistency. It's about love and murder.
But I think the covers, the headbands, the roundback all contribute to a good-looking book that would be easier to sell than even a coptic binding, even if the coptic binding were excellent. The fact that it doesn't 'look' like a book. I, of course, would have to show the buyers the advantages of a coptic binding vs a perfect binding.
Friday Oct 25, 2013
Episode 115: Live Recorded Voices
Friday Oct 25, 2013
Friday Oct 25, 2013
This is not the book I was rounding (this is a blank notebook with rough edges, I believe ~ this is an example of a roundback book). I was attempting to roundback my copy of Frankenstein. This follows last week's attempt at a round back Dracula. The Dracula worked out well. The Frankenstein is still in production. I hope to finish it before Halloween, of course.
If the audio sounds weird, remember I was sitting in a conference room with a text block between my knees and a microphone balanced on a sweater on a chair. But, enjoy nonetheless.
Tuesday Apr 30, 2013
Episode 105: Check's in the Mail
Tuesday Apr 30, 2013
Tuesday Apr 30, 2013
I've been supposedly working on my novel Calvado to get it ready to print, bind, sell on Smashwords, and enjoy. Supposedly. Odd, isn't it, how something can always be found to put the real work off? Today I found yet another timeline error: Person A is supposed to be 17 but she's in the part of the book where she's 27. Or vice versa. It just means more time on the computer adding, subtracting, editing, and enjoying my life. A short excerpt:
"Now, as you gentlemen and ladies can easily observe, I have a naked body on a metal slab behind me. The police, bless their hearts, found him very early this morning, I had the privilege of doing the site analysis at about 3:00 AM so my middle name is Cranky today. Since our patient had absolutely no identification on him what-so-ever, we cannot contact his next of kin. The police then hauled his ass in here. Now, this John Doe is dead. Am I right?"
Twenty-five medical students nodded their heads.
Dr. Henrietta 'Hank' Slovensky shook hers. "No, you morons, John Doe is Not dead. And do you know why he is Not dead? Because you haven't checked to make sure he's dead. You can Not look at a patient from across the room and tell if said patient has croaked or not. For crying out loud, if you saw the chief of staff asleep in his office would you immediately assume he was Dead? My goodness, the hilarious consequence of that error are immense. Okay," Hank surveyed the group searching for the one she knew would faint at the sight of a blade inserted into the dead man's sternum. "You," she pointed at a pale-looking female with her long brown hair smashed under a surgical cap. "Get your over-educated butt over here and tell me what you see."
The long-haired medical student looked around to see if, by hope and chance, the medical examiner meant someone else, someone other than her.
"You!" No, she didn't. The med student shuffled slowly to the cadaver. "What's your name?"
"J...J..Jennifer."
"Well, J, J, Jennifer, educate the rest of us over-achievers what you see on the slab this morning." "Well, ah, er. I see a man." Jennifer said. She glanced at the man's face but couldn't look at him for long.
"Very good. So, we have a John Doe who, as Jennifer has aptly pointed out by examining his genitalia in detail, a man. What else?"
"Hmm, his chest seems to be, uh, damaged."
"Ah, yes," Hank agreed. "The old damaged chest ploy. J, J, Jennifer, honey, if you ever want to get through this autopsy, and by ever I mean sometime in the next, oh, 28 minutes, you're going to have to speed up your examination. Gather round, my little ducklings, gather round. Now, as Jennifer as ascertained, our John Doe has a penis and a crushed chest cavity. What does that indicate? You," Hank pointed at a male student.
"He got hit by something heavy?"
"He did?" Hank questioned.
"I mean, uh, he might have gotten hit by something, like, heavy?"
"Is that a question? Jennifer, was that a question? It sounded like a question. Voice raised at the end of a sentence, like, you know? Clear precise speech, ducklings, clear and precise speech, if you don't mind. As it turns out, our Mr. Doe met the steering wheel of his car." "Excuse me, Dr. Slovensky?"
Hank turned to the questioner: a tall, dark-haired woman with the looks of a fashion model. She held a clipboard to her ample breasts; her hair was tied back in a severe bun. Probably, Hank thought, to suggest studiousness instead of slutishness.
"Yes?" Hank asked.
"I, uh, I think I know this, uh, John Doe."
And thus, we meet the main character: Model/Medical student Calvado who will embark on a model love affair with the John Doe and attempt to learn who he is.Monday Apr 08, 2013
Episode 103: Frank & Dracula
Monday Apr 08, 2013
Monday Apr 08, 2013
Yes, I know. Two episodes ago I said I'd talk about measuring covers for the book. But, but, something exciting came along! Again. This time it is two classic horror stories - well, three if you count them all. The first one is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Not so much a horror story as a philosophical novel about what it means to be human. The movie is a bit different from the novel, as you might expect.
The second is the TwitterBlog-entry-like epistle novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Lots of letters flung back and forth, some of which sound like Twitter entries. Like the opening sentence - which is too long for Twitter (and with proper vocabulary - should have, not should of) , but you might get the point.
Left Munich at 8:35 PM on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late.
The third novelette - literally written simultaneously with Frankenstein - is The Vampyre by John Polidori. This is considered the first vampire story and is only about 25 pages long. (Polidori, Shelley, Mr. Shelley, and Lord Byron were shacked up in Geneva one dark and stormy night and decided to write horror stories; Mary's has lasted the longest while Polidori's generated a new genre which, unfortunately, has culminated in the current vampire-that-twinkles genre.)
I slapped all three on InDesign, manipulated the text, added a few pictures, imposed them on CheapImposter, printed out the pages, and will now cheerfully sew them together. There are 27 signatures: Frank printed out an even eleven; Dracula snaked out 16, probably because of the added Vampyre novelette. This is going to take a couple of hours of sewing*, at least. The paper is from etranger di costarica, brown, and made in Japan.
Soon I will attempt to round their backs. This will be my third and fourth attempts at roundback books. Frankenstein in one book; Dracula and The Vampyre in another volume.
*I was right. The thicker book took 75 minutes and Frankenstein took an hour. Cords can be fussy little characters, can't they?