tedorigawabookmakers

Last week I saw an empty cereal box then a pile of unwanted (sob, sob) paper which had been used only on one side and my brain said: Book! Book! I thought at the time my brain was warning me away so I ran six and a half miles in the wrong direction. Dragging my way back, I saw the paper and cereal box again and this time my brain said, Yo, Dummy. Book. I grabbed the box and paper and scurried home like a … very tired of running old man. I grabbed a needle, some thread, some Japanese sake (for medicinal purposes) and set about making a notebook.

I botched the threading, I botched the holes, I botched the pattern of threading. The end result was beautiful in the way a new born camel is beautiful to sub-Saharan camel traders. But not to me. So I ripped it apart and did it again. By this time the sake was working its magic, so I managed to make a fairly nice notebook - if opening is not a priority. (Japanese stab bindings are like that. Which is why I do so love coptic binding but when you’re working with folios (one page folded over once) what can you do? Run six and a half miles in the wrong direction, maybe?)

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I went to a book/stationery story to check out diaries and desk calendars today to find out how other people handled the odd-number of days in a week. Most had an extra column for ‘notes’ making their calendars 8 columns wide, four on one page, four on the other. This seems like cheating to me. Others had MTWTh on one page and FSS on the other. Usually Thursday flipped between one page or the other. Seems all to be a personal style.

Another attribute of desk calendars is padding. How do the major desk calendar makers pad out the number of pages to make the diary seem thicker than it needs to be? By adding lined pages, calendars for future years, weekly schedules, “Resolution of the Month” pages, and in one case: a few pages of words in five different languages.

Why, you ask, am I looking at desk calendars and diaries now? Because now is the time I usually get started making my for next year. It takes me a looong time to design, photograph, print, and bind my desk calendars. Much too long.

And I’m Still working on Monk’s Scroll!

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I finished making a box for a book and two small notebooks using Islamic bookbinding; Islamic bookbinding has, as you know, a little flap that rests over the cover of the book to protect the text block and can be used as a bookmark. I’m still working on a scroll. My first scroll - Monk’s Scroll - is taking longer than expected which means my Bach’s Scroll is going to be more complicated than I expected. I hope to finish — Famous Last Words — Monk’s Scroll in the next two weeks, he said hedging his bets. Speaking of bets:

The question is asked: “When did you get started in bookmaking?” By which I assume they mean making books rather than taking bets for horse races.

Here is a 66-second drama about the above. Cool.

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Currently in production at Tedorigawa Bookmakers: Monk’s scroll - using the music of Thelonius Monk (”Straight No Chaser”) on a scroll. Rock ‘n Scroll - using rock music (Maybe “Stairway to Heaven”) on a scroll. Bach’s Scroll - using a Bach piece on a scroll and putting the whole thing in a box, of course.

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A short 50-second audio introduction of things not to come on Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

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Welcome.

Hopefully this site will help everyone - especially me - improve my podcasting, filmmaking, and bookbinding skills in reverse order. The main theme of Tedorigawa Bookmakers (blog at http://www.tedorigawabookmakers.blogspot.com) is to Project and Display my Works! Of Bookbinding.

How’d I get started? I don’t know. I don’t remember but I wish I did. One minute I was minding my own business and the next thing I know I’m checking out curved needles at the sewing store. Why? Why?! (Well, naturally for certain styles of binding, like coptic, you really do need a good curved needle.) See? Is that anyway for a grown man to talk? Gawdamighty.

(I refuse to go into the discussion I had in a bar one night with this tattooed, liquored up, hairless guy and his Italian cigar-smoking girlfriend. I refuse to say how I steered the conversation into bookbinding and glue. But they were pretty excited to talk about leather, let me tell you. Pity, though, I don’t use dead animal skins on my books. Just wood and paper. And glue. And beeswax. Hmmmmmm.)

I hope to update or cross-post on a regular basis. Famous words.

Welcome to Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Here is a 56-second mp3 about why I got started in bookmaking. It all dates back to the day my friend came home from school…

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