Ep 354 Can You Swim in a Dessert?

Bookbinding

Why is it called Swimming in the Dessert? It’s blank, right? Yes, it is. But there’s an 18-minute short movie called Swimming in the Desert that looks interesting so, not to confuse anybody with two titles for completely different subjects, I changed it to Dessert. 

It’s seven signatures of five folios each for 140 pages, A6 (pocketbook) with a red spine, blue front cover with a splash of what looks like Thai writing, with light blue and green on the back cover. 

All the materials (except the thread and beeswax) are from my To-Be-Used in the Future pile. The book boards are from a leftover box that might have held saké. The book covers are made of three book cloths (blue, light blue, green, and red) that were left over from previous projects and the text block, yes, the text block was given me by a printing company in town that was just going to throw them away. I got them maybe 15 years ago and I’m down to the last pile. The endbands were made of the leftover red book cloth and twine (not left over but purchased maybe a decade ago).

Fiction

Of the three books I should be working on: Dmitry the Scavenger, Agnes Grout, Caraculiambro only one, not the two set in the US, is being worked on.

Dmitry the Scavenger has started work as a handyman for a Japanese carpenter who is helping people affected by the January 1, 2024 earthquake that demolished many buildings, many homes, and lives. First, he will help tear down a broken home. He’s still concerned about getting to Noto, Sicily before the police arrest him for being an illegal alien

Talkies / Flicks

Two videos up this week. One from last week. 

The Dead of Winter: a Novelist’s Kanazawa Afterlife. 

is up for your listening pleasure. About a novelist who dies and comes to Kanazawa. He meets a sarcastic jazz coffee shop owner who argues with him about his writing. He also meets her customers, who may also be dead.

TDGB 96 Sundae Swimming in the Dessert, a 9:20 minute video of the making of the Swimming.

Books

The Dead of Winter: a Novelist's Kanazawa Afterlife.  is available on Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. You can listen to it on my YouTube channel before you buy. 

 

Apple Barnes & Noble Kobo