Episodes
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
Ep. 265: It’s Been a While
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
Thursday Jan 13, 2022
Bookbinding
This week…This Week? Yes, I have been a bit lax in my updating your podcast. My excuses range for personal and private to laziness with laziness taking the cake.
However, We’re Back! And hopeful.
In the last four or five or six months I have made and sold a few yearly schedules, a music book, and repaired a music book. I also gave away a yearly schedule that starts in September and ends in March. Strange, but true.
Fiction
In Fiction I’ve written several short stories that are actually flash fiction plus a bunch of one-sentence stories; very different from novels.
Just before November I began a novel. I finished it shortly after November but I don’t consider it a NaNoWriMo novel. It’s called The New Crucifixions. The leaders of different groups are assassinated by members of those groups because the groups want martyrs.
One thing I knew would happen when I read Molly Bright to you in the last podcast all those months ago (May?) is that I would discover misspelled words, mistaken words, less-than-ideal sections, and phrases, and sentences that didn’t play well with others. And, of course, I did.
Some I corrected before I recorded, some I edited out, and some I let stand during the recording but let stand in the final product but edited in the written record.
Does that mean I’m going to inflict the entire novel on you in aural form? No.
However…
An Audio Book
You do have the opportunity to listen to my novel Calvado: A Deadly Love Story. It’s about Calvado and Mack, two people in New York City whose lives interconnect in a strangely time-bending way; one ends up dead. Meanwhile, a crow chases a pimp from Brazil to New York. The pimp believes the crow is the reincarnation of a sex worker he beat to death. The pimp befriends Mack.
You can find the first chapter up now by clicking here or by going to iTunes (or whatever Apple is calling their podcast/music service these days.) Or by clicking on the Audio Book of Calvado: A Deadly Love Story on your left-hand column.
https://calvadoaudio.podbean.com.
Sunday May 16, 2021
Ep. 264: Asao Shimura & Molly Bright, Ch. 1.
Sunday May 16, 2021
Sunday May 16, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Asao Shimura is a papermaker who studied industrial chemistry in university, but then went on to become a papermaker while studying in the US, Korea, China, Japan, and a host of other countries. He lives in the Philippines and teaches papermaking all over the world, including the US. Active on Facebook, his posts are in English.
Bookbinding
This week I completed four books; two experimental and two for sale. Except one has already been sold.
It’s a 2021 Schedule (April to April) that was requested last year but only completed this week because of family concerns. It has a two yearly calendars (2021 and 2022), 13 monthly calendars, and a bunch of weekly calendars. The total is 100 pages including five graph pages for planning and doodling.
The other one for sale but not yet sold is a red blank notebook of 100 pages, 105mm x 145mm, and a soft cover (i.e. no book board). Suitable for planning novels, parties, films or doodling.
The two experimental ones were various page lengths of leftover papers (about 120 pages), leftover decorative pieces (a subway token and a car tax certificate for last year), and scraps of paper for the cover. This one is A5 in size.
One cover was a true experiment in that I pasted together half a dozen small papers then cut them in a decorative way hoping the ridges and valleys would create an amusing cover. I failed. Or, rather, I succeeded in discovering one method that didn’t work. This one is 85 mm x 135 mm, and fits nicely in my hand.
The purpose of these two experimental books was to push my comfort zone further into the void that is my lack of knowledge about bookbinding, books, and glue.
Fiction
I continued working on Molly Bright the novel and Molly Bright the character (Chapter Two doing the in-depth introduction) in 10 pages; the same as the Introductory Chapter that introduces The Plot! I’ve succeeded in making her deeper while at the same time making the character she’s talking to (a Japanese-English interpreter/guide) deeper as well. I even included some foreshadowing.
I worked a bit on the third character who is introduced in the third chapter, Early Mather, who is still penniless and homeless in India but wishing to get to Japan. Being optimistic about his situation he is sure some day he will surf in Japan. But being realistic he is saving as much as he can from his begging income, which is meager.
Molly and Early will, as shown in the first chapter, meet in a surfing site along with Sawako Kado, who gets kidnapped – also in the first chapter – by a cult that wishes to use her computer expertise and chemical talent to fashion a dirty bomb or computer virus.
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Ep. 263: Inoue Nao & Spine Grooves
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Tuesday May 04, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week: Nao Inoue
Inoue Nao is a bookbinder and teacher in Tokyo. She won a prize in an Italian bookbinding competition, has displayed her books in a variety of galleries, and has some innovative book covers.
She teaches all aspects of bookbinding from making your own book cloth to working with leather and making miniature books. She teaches in both English and Japanese and her website is in English, Chinese, and Japanese. I have taken her classes and learned quite a bit.
Ms Inoue’s website with classes and store: Marumizu.net
Bookbinding
This week I made six A6-sized (pocketbook) books using scraps, recycling bits and pieces of endpapers, text blocks, and covers. Why? To become more comfortable with the groove between the spine and the covers, something I have always struggled with. Success! I am now more comfortable with the groove.
And to see how long it takes me to make a book. Three and a half hours is my average speed for an A6-sized book with between five and nine signatures.
Yes, there are only five books in the picture. I finished the sixth one just before I made this blog post and its accompanying podcast.
I also made a small book 90 mm x 90 mm with, maybe 9 signatures, and a very ’Japanese-y’ cover. For those born and educated in the US, 90 mm is about 3 and a half inches (3.5, if you understand decimals) or about palm-width.
This one took about 3.5 hours as well, but it included that stripe on the front to indicate that that is the front. The other books have no such marker. Again, the text block is recycled from class handouts.
Fiction
I wrote a bit more on Molly Bright this time on Molly Bright. Chapter One is mainly about the second main character and the character who gets the story rolling: Sawako Kado, a genius computer wiz being sought after by a murderous religious cult. This chapter’s up to eleven pages and is mostly complete.
Chapter Three is about the third main character: Early Mathers, a easy-going, lazy, travel-addicted 30-something who gets caught up in Sawako’s dilemma. This one’s only got two pages and is far from complete.
But Chapter Two is about the main character: Molly. Molly is on a business trip in Fukuoka and Kagoshima in Japan when she runs into Sawako and Early. The people she meets and the trials and terrors she must go through change her from a career-minded, fast-track executive of the import business she works for into a more relaxed artisan with a talent for marketing.
Saturday Apr 24, 2021
Ep. 262: Akai Miyako and Tolstoy’s Influence on Me
Saturday Apr 24, 2021
Saturday Apr 24, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week
Akai Miyako is a miniature bookbinder in that she makes miniature books not that she’s a tiny bookbinder. Her miniatures have won awards in Japan and deservedly so as they are exquisite.
She is also a writer who has won prizes in Japan. She also produced her own small magazine in 2002. One of her prizes is for writing a 1000 character novel – This doesn’t mean there are 1000 characters in her novel (surpassing even Tolstoy for speaking parts in novels) but the characters are the equivalent of words. She wrote a 1000-word flash fiction and won a prize for it.
She is on Facebook and has a web presence in English & Japanese at Kototsubo.com
Bookbinding
I’ve been asked to make a schedule for 2021. The customer wants the schedule to start and end in April (I have to hurry), and have no yearly calendar, but 13 monthly calendars, and a weekly calendar. I am also waiting for the client to tell me what color paper I should use for the weekly calendar.
Also, the client asked for an orange cover. I sent jpegs of five different book cloths that could be considered orange. I included a sixth jpeg of one I thought was too yellow but it had a touch of orange. The client took that one.
Fiction
Two things. First, in the last few months I finished reading Melville’s Moby Dick and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I am now several chapters into Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. In comparison to the story-within a-story structure and ramblings of Don Quixote and the minutia and dry biological/humanistism of Moby Dick, Anna Karenina is a relaxing pleasure to read. I think in part this is because you can read ten pages of Tolstoy, stop, and pick it up and know where you are and who is in the scene. With both Melville and Cervantes you might find yourself in a completely different world.
But this is about reading and not writing.
Second, in writing (and influenced by my reading of Anna Karenina) I have written a few pages of my so-called long novel, Molly Bright, but no, Molly Bright is nothing — Absolutely Nothing — like Tolstoy’s masterpiece. But reading Tolstoy has given me the permission to include character insights, my own observations about people, and interior monologs that I most often keep to a minimum or avoid all together.
Plus, while technically Molly is a thriller, it can be read in smaller chunks. Chapter One, for example, is ten pages. It looks like Chapter Two is going to fall within that landscape as well. I’m also writing Chapter Three and in my head that seems to clock in a bit longer. The three chapters introduce the three main characters and the intrigue and action.
I’m also looking for a better cover.
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Ep. 261: Finished! Giveaways!
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Thursday Apr 01, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Don Etherington is a British bookbinder and conservator who did an apprenticeship and journeyman work in England, waded through the floods of Venice in 1966 to rescue old manuscripts and books, has created conservation programs in Texas and North Carolina, influenced both Bookbinders and Conservators on at least two continents, and has influenced the fields of bookbinding and conservation. Here is his website: Etherington
Bookbinding
Busy week.
• The 1/2 Accordion. And the Video
I started (and badly) an accordion book. I made a video of it and plastered it on YouTube for your viewing pleasure here. I started two more for the practice.
• I have four A6-sized blank notebooks to give away.
Last last week I made two softcover A6-size blank notebooks with page numbers using thick orange paper as covers. Previously I made two softcover A6-size blank notebooks without page numbers using purple book cloth as covers. For those who reside in the inch bubble A6 is about 4" x 6".
Yours for free!
Send me an email!
Put “Blank Notebook” in the subject line.
Request color (Orange or Purple).
One Notebook per customer; but First Come, First Serve.
If the Notebook you requested is already gone, sorry.
My only request is If you get a notebook and use it, tell me how it holds up.
Fiction
I finished Growing Slurry. Yeah! The last three chapters were written Simultaneously! Why? When I got stuck in one chapter, I slipped into another chapter. When I ran into a road block there, I escaped into another chapter. Eventually, by sitting and typing until I was finished, I finished! Yeah!
Now, the editing and rearranging begins.
The ending is less than conventional on the one hand but is sort of conventional on the other. It ends. With a question. And it is neither happy nor sad. On the other hand, it leads nicely into a sequel, except this isn’t a movie; it’s a book.
Next week, perhaps I shall give you more information — A Plot Summary‽ Perhaps? — about this novel including Including! The current title.
Saturday Mar 20, 2021
Ep. 260: Ms Romo and a Video
Saturday Mar 20, 2021
Saturday Mar 20, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Adela Yustas Romo is a Spanish paper artist/marbler available on Facebook and, perhaps Pinterst. She is creative, has an interest in Japanese design such as suminagashi, Turkish/Cnetral Asian erbu and creates a wide variety of paper suitable for either covers, endpapers, or decorative designs.
Bookbinding
This week I made another small sketch book. A6 (105x150 mm or 4" x 6" for our American brethren) in size with 64 pages or four signatures of four folios each.
The cover is made of thick paper which matches the fake headbands in color. I placed a bit of scrap construction paper to indicate the front and trimmed everything off nicely.
I also made a video of me making it here: Compendium Sketch Book.
Fiction
Last week I worked – again – on Growing Slurry but I did not finish it as I had hoped. Primarily because I didn’t put my butt on the chair and do it; I got distracted by ill relatives. Yes, plural. Another one was rushed to the hospital with a serious non-coved 19 problem. They may be out of the woods, but no one is certain.
But I worked on both the final chapter and what looks to be working out to be the penultimate chapter. I will not promise to finish it these week but I will allow as how when I do finish it, my faithful audience will be given a chance to read it.
Coming Soon! (I hope): Growing Slurry!
Plot & Characters
Two people meet in a coffee shop but neither of them are as they appear. Sliven, dressed as a homeless creature, helps people in trouble. Gina, for all outward appearances seems to be a company employee has a hidden past frought with violence and survival.
During the course of an afternoon, they talk. They remember. They let us know more about their past.
Video of the Making of Compendium of Outlines & Art, a sketch book.
Saturday Mar 13, 2021
Ep. 259: Buzz Spector and Memorabilia
Saturday Mar 13, 2021
Saturday Mar 13, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Buzz Spector
Former Washington University (St Louis MO in the US) professor Señor Spector is less a bookbinder and more of a book sculptor/manipulator/artist who uses books as his medium much like painters use paint and potters use clay. He’s had exhibitions world-wide and has two books you can check out if you find his art alluring: Buzzwords and The Book Maker’s Desire.
Bookbinding
This week I finished my cellphone-size schedule (finally) and shipped it off to the customer. It looks good, I think, and is definitely capable of being put in a suit pocket (the one requirement).
Secondly, I made a sketch book for an artist who wanted a small book he could carry around. This one has a soft cover that is easily folded so he can fold it back and draw (mostly portraits of people he sees in the street). It is 64 pages, A6 (4" x 6") in size, with a portion of a map of the artist’s city as endpapers, and a nifty title:
Book of Thoughts & Memorabilia.
(with a pay phone booth in the background for the memorabilia)
Fiction
I wrote the final chapter of Growing Slurry. However, the book is not finished. I must get from where I am now, stranded in Chapter 13, to Chapter 15 which is the final chapter. The subtitle has been changed from the very generic ‘A Love Story’ to the more accurate ‘An Accountable Love Story’ as the male main character (Sliven) is a forensic accountant and the female main character brings people to account for their transgressions.
When I eventually finish this novel I promise to make a special edition available to my listeners.
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Ep. 258: Sol Rébora and Cellphone-Size schedule
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Saturday Mar 06, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week:
Sol Rébora
Ms Rébora is a bookbinder out of Buenos Aires, Argentina where bookbinders are few. She has some excellent work – French style, multi-leather, and fascinating designs – that can be seen on her website: Estudio Rebora.
Here’s an interview with her at Herringbone Bindery which has two more interviews with her.
There’s an interview with Ms Rébora in the Pamela Train Leutz tome The Threads That Bind. She is also on Facebook here.
Bookbinding
I worked on a cellphone-sized schedule that took me way too long; days and days of arranging, rearranging, and manipulating days, dates, and weeks to fit in the smaller size. I didn’t want to make the numbers so small they were invisible, but I didn’t have all that much room to work with either.
It was a challenge that came at a time when I either didn’t need a challenge or it was exactly what I needed. Last week I said a family member was taken to the hospital; they are still in the hospital so my area of concentration is not on bookbinding (or fiction). However, a distraction away from the medical might just be the medicine I require.
In any case, it worked. I fudged yearly, monthly, and weekly calendars around until everything fit nicely. I eliminated some decorations and reduced the number of fonts to make it smoother and more elegant (?). I printed out five copies until I finally got a copy that was good. I cut them out of the B5 page they were printed on. I folded them up to make sure everything matched (they did). I checked them and, of course, found four copies had mistakes and had to be discarded.
Fiction
I didn't so much as write much as read and consider. I tweaked. I added to the outline. I thought about it some more. This has already been designated as My Long Novel but how slow should it develop?
One thing I considered was the sun. I had an entire section where the three main characters are facing the sunrise. One minor problem: They were facing the wrong way. They are on surfboards and facing land. The sun comes up in the east in Japan and they were facing west. Oops. Decided to have them watch the sun’s rays hit the land instead of watch the sun rise.
By the way, this happened to me in real life, too. I sat at a train station to wait for the sun to rise up over the city I was facing only to have the sun rise up behind the station.
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Ep. 257: Emily Martin and Doing Nothing
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Monday Feb 22, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week
Emily Martin
Emily Martin is a bookbinder, artist, printer, and teacher. Her works are spread across the globe in museums and universities. She teaches at Bookbinding and Book Arts at the University of Iowa and runs Naughty Dog Press. She has a wide variety of techniques and styles from pop-up to sculptural books, artist books, and types of printing.
Bookbinding
I changed the size of a schedule and totally messed up everything. I’m starting over and working fast. Kind of. Other than that? Nothing.
Fiction
Nothing. Well, not nothing. Simple thinking mostly. As always, nearly finishing Growing Slurry.
Thursday Feb 11, 2021
Ep. 256: Dennis Yuen and an Odd Shape
Thursday Feb 11, 2021
Thursday Feb 11, 2021
Bookbinder of the Week
Dennis Yuen
Dennis Yuen is a bookbinder/artist, photographer, and videographer. I ran across him while looking for information about Cai Lun, the inventor of paper back in 105 CE. Mr Yuen ran a blog called Cai Lun until 2012 and it was through that blog that I learned Mr Yuen is from Hong Kong, has an MFA from Parsons, and makes magnificent books:
• Duotone (two books of two opposite colors), and
• Sculpture Books (more sculpture than book).
Aside from being on a variety of social media places, his website is DennisYuen.com
Bookbinding
I’ve spent the last week trying to create a schedule that fits in a jacket pocket but also isn’t a ‘normal’ size aka A5 (5.8 x 8.3 in), B7 (5 x 3.5 in) or one of the many other sizes.
I finally made one 85 x 155 mm (3.34 x 6.1 in) and it only took me way too long to figure out how to print the calendars — this calendar will have a yearly calendar, 13 monthly calendars, and a weekly calendar (one week per page). Printing requires me to waste too much A4 paper.
I print everything in the middle and trim off the edges before folding them over. Fortunately, I have access to a semi-automatic electronic paper cutting machine; one that slices through reams of paper in well fell swoop. I just have to be quick and surreptitious about using it.
Fiction
I’ve written a bit more on Molly Bright and Growing Slurry. Neither are finished although I had hoped the latter would be done by now.
A thought flew across my mind as to how I can end the particular story I’m in at the moment. It looks promising and I’m going to see where it takes me. The mysterious woman who is stealing money from the main character’s employee pretends to be a man in certain situations.
I have, however, managed to read more of Don Quixote. Nearly 80% finished, according to my iPad. For you youngsters we used to eyeball the number of pages read in a real book and say something like, I’m almost finished instead of 82.5% complete.