Monthly Archives: April 2010

Fun with vegetable matter

Last Saturday I took a class at the Museum of Printing History in which we bound a set of small books inspired by ancient Chinese books found at Dunhuang.

Whew, MAN! That was a fun 7 hours, I tell you. I have a few unfinished projects and a ton of supplies that my teacher gave  me, but here are the books I finished:

Whirlwind binding: the brown pages are paper made by our instructor and include bits of sewing patterns, in which there are tiny bits of words and numbers. The “spine” is made from strips of vinyl covered in cotton quilting fabric that I once used to make a set of cloth napkins for my sister.

Butterfly binding: tea-dyed  photocopies of antique court documents, joss paper “spine.” There’s a lot that I think is interesting about this super-simple binding technique, especially the possibilities of creating fake marginalia.

Stitched binding: this binding has folded leaves attached together, like the butterfly binding, but with the fold to the outside. Handmade paper again, and raffia poked through holes that run all the way through. I glued the ends of the raffia down, because I like how it makes them look like straps.

The inside:

Because of the folds, each of these “pages” could be turned into a pocket by gluing, or one can put totally inaccessible text inside.

Or!! Accessible text by using impermanent binding! Hey, that’s a good idea.

Pothi: isn’t this cute as hell? (in my language, “cyude as heyill”)

The pages are hand-torn, and the strap is twisted paper. The covers are pieces of vinyl (from venetian blinds) covered in paper.

So now I have lots of ideas. Now I just need to make myself sit down to play. My friend Sleuth S. asked me, “when are you going to start putting your own text inside your books?” which is an excellent question indeed.

Speaking of which, my poem “Laying Small Ghosts” was picked up for publication by Jabberwocky 5.

Two new recipes of note:

Stuffed pita pockets from Tea and Cookies. Tea writes a lovely blog full of beautiful pictures and yummy recipes. I don’t eat radishes that often, but I usually enjoy them. Instead of her cream cheese condiment, I used some artichoke-garlic dip left over from a Girl Gang party a couple of weeks ago, and it was a delicious little sandwich.

Egg muffins. What kind of genius idea is this? Frittata in muffin tins! I adjusted the recipe by using what I had in the fridge: feta, kalamata olives, chopped red bell pepper, sauteed leeks, and clippings from my shiny new herb pots. I haven’t had one yet, because their destiny lies as my breakfast this week, but they smell glorious.

I had sauteed leeks hanging around because I livened up Saturday morning’s cheese toast by layering them under some gruyere. My original idea had been mushrooms (a dinner last week), but alas! the mushrooms were beyond help. Still. WHY have I not regularly been putting veg under the cheese for my breakfast? Very yummy.

And finally, my Friday night and Saturday (all day) were eaten up reading Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis. It is terrific. I probably could’ve put it down, but I didn’t want to.

Oh yes: it gets worse

It’s not only the smooth tactility of writing with a good pen that draws me: it’s also the ink: Pantone charts of colors, mixing them, the  way a color graduates when you’ve changed the cartridge without cleaning the nib.

I use a screw-piston ink converter when I can, but given that my converters were all purchased at one point in time and my pens vary in age, the converters don’t fit every pen, but disposable cartridges do.

I like the J. Herbin cartridges, because (a) those colors! and (b) they come in those boffo little metal tubes.

Pear Tree Pen Company also sells a set – really a syringe – for refilling those little cartridges. ALSO ink samples!

Let me tell you about Pear Tree Pens: first, ink samples. Also, I got a handwritten note with my order. I asked several pain-in-the-butt questions, all of which were answered promptly and kindly. I totally recommend them.

The refill kit:

The refill process:

The samples I ordered:

From left to right, Noodler’s purple wampum, Rohrer & Klinger goldgrun, Noodler’s squetegue

A writing sample:

Squetegue (oh hey look, I spelled it wrong) is a fantastic greenish-greyish blue that I know I will use a lot. Right now I have the goldgrun in my everyday (fine-point) pen, and although I think it’s hideous (like baby poop), I also sort of love it.

Nerdery!

Some time along the mid-1990s, I thought that I did not have quite enough hobbies, so maybe I should take up collecting.

The obvious choice was fountain pens. Great! I love them. Then I discovered that many people collect fountain pens that don’t work. This perplexed me. What’s the point? That idea was a non-starter.

(Then I attempted to collect deviled-egg plates. I got to four of them and realized I would never actually feed a room of people that many deviled eggs, so my “collection” topped out at four. I’ve since sent two of those to other loving homes. THEN I made 108 deviled eggs for a party [all but six were eaten]. But I digress.)

When I was a kid, Dad had two cheap, scratchy fountain pens in the jar on his dresser: some kind of disposable thing with a green barrel, and they leaked like sieves, but I loved them. (I would not be surprised if they’re still there.) So I got the idea that I wanted my own fountain pen.

I got a very nice Pilot pen for Christmas. Unfortunately, I was 19, and it was pink. So while it was a lovely pen with a beautiful smooth line and a wonderfully skinny barrel, all I could ever think is how much I hated pink. (I no longer hate pink.)

Then I bought a Waterman, without thinking that perhaps it was 50% off for a reason. That thing scratched and leaked across 2 years of my life, and I cursed all the while.

Then, round about 1996, my friend Gorgeous Girl and I went to Pearl Art Supply on Chicago Avenue in Chicago and I found the Rotring Art Pen. That original pen, with a medium nib, has been worn down to about a 45 degree angle on the nib: it writes just fine but really only shows its true colors if I use it on an angled surface, like the Levenger editor’s desk I have at work.

Several years ago, Rotrings got difficult to find (certain ones are easier now), so I collected a bunch on eBay, from extra-fine to double broad. I sent the empty tins to my late friend Gill and the calligraphy nibs to my friend Aria. I have 11 of them, and the width of the nib I’m using is a direct correlation to my outlook, much like the length of my hair.

(At present: fine, chin-length. Things have been worse, but the mood is not particularly expansive.)

To be continued.

The ooga-booga blessing

When I was a wee tiny, the church we went  to used the 1928 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.

As I sat in the pew with the hymnal on my lap, coloring on the bulletin with Dad’s pen, I used to shiver with delight every time the priest mentioned the Holy Ghost.

“Scary!” I thought, but not too scary, because it was the Holy Ghost, and I figured God wouldn’t let it be frightening.

So I really really wanted to see the Holy Ghost. I wanted to see any ghost, but the holy one wouldn’t scare me as much.

That old blue and yellow can

I’m always amazed by the amount of spam comments I get on this blog, but over the weekend, I was amazed by the content.

I got judgmental spam.

It said, essentially, “You will never get more traffic if you don’t post more pictures and more interesting content.”

It’s pretty harsh when a robot doesn’t like your blog.

Need to put an “unlike” button on my subconscious

The Easter after Mimi died, I had an incredible, comforting dream in which I spoke to her, held her hand.

Last night I was kind of hoping for such a dream from Dad, but instead I dreamed of being at a dinner party with all of my coworkers who decided (without my input) to “help” me by putting dirty dishes and utensils away in my cupboards and drawers.

MUCH less uplifting. Also indicative of my attitude.