breaking spring

lead me

LetterPress - Printing Kahlil Gibran from Callil Capuozzo on Vimeo.

last week, on a tuesday just as lovely as any tuesday in February ever was, this is what I was doing.

only it was here in Texas, not in Rhode Island (if any two states could be more opposite, I do not know how--not that I've ever been to Rhode Island. is it nice there?). and we were not exactly printing poetry. but aside from those technical differences, it was just about the same process. getting all the itty bitty letters to line up. filling in all the gaps (every single weirdly-shaped one. all of them) with leads and spacers and appropriate widths of furniture. tightening the quoin, everso carefully. slathering a sheet of glass with sticky black ink. rolling and rolling and rolling the ink, to get it just exactly right for inking the type... and then the most exciting bit: setting that perfect blank paper down, rolling it under the platen, and letting that press do its simple, heavy work. rolling it back out and peeling that freshly inked page away from the type-block is pretty lovely too. there's a crisp, rippling sound in it. and then you lay that page down gently and scrutinize it for errors.

we found lots of errors. proofing letterpress prints takes ages. getting the balance of the old Washington Press just right takes ages.

but the archaic novelty of it... oh, it's great. one of these days I'll take pictures of our actual letterpress lab on campus. for now, enjoy these semi-random videos that sort of evoke the experience of working in such a place. (the first far more than this last, I confess. but I do love this movie.... love love love.)



this week in 5340, our class is going to be in the lab looking at type and talking about printing presses. such an awesome little class, this has been. I still need to blog about my hand-bound book, sometime. put that on the list. (it's a long list. getting longer. I need to blog more often.)

hang

newly worn

I made some dresses. two.

these are horrible pictures of them.

if I knew any bored photographers, I would schedule a photo shoot, play model for an hour or so, and put better pictures of these dresses up here.

do you know any bored photographers?

there may still be time to supplement my horrible photography...

I made these at christmastime during the five weeks I had off school, and it was great fun. I used my mum's best dress pattern, which I've used for at least four dresses now, and she's used for who knows how many--a dozen? those pattern pieces are getting very wrinkled and holey from all the seamstress-love.

while I'm talking about sewing, two plugs:

check out my clever sister, who never blogs anymore but would be more than happy to hem your pants for you if you live anywhere near Ogden, Utah, and my clever friend Vera, who could probably do the same if you live anywhere near... where is it? St. Louis, or Vegas? I can't keep track. but anyway. both these girls are great, and exceedingly more talented than I am when it comes to fabric and thread. I'll stick with sketches and writing and webdesign, I guess.

filler

assembly lines

months ago, I was talking to friend Justin about various projects: a video chat program he developed for his research, and much later in the conversation, music--arrangements he'd done. songs (you might say) that he had written (you might say). he didn't say, though. what he did say--in both cases--was that he had "put it together."

this quote, presented by that one Austin Kleon fellow, reminded me of that idea. ex nihilo creation just does not happen. there are laws of thermodynamics and stuff like that, you know?

even God, I think, does his fair share of assembling bits and pieces of stuff that has always existed.

here is another lovely quote, and there are a bunch more on Mr. Kleon's blog proper.

have I mentioned how much I love the word 'if'? I circle all ifs, remembering that every if is a sort of promise. the if in this quote is a little bit tricky. if you can hear the music, you can have it, he says. if you're listening, it's yours. that sounds so simple. but it's hard to listen, sometimes. and what exactly counts as owning that music? I don't think hearing it on a superficial level is enough. letting the melody flit through your ears as you walk down the street, or even sitting down on the curb and listening to it once isn't ownership. there are different ears. different listening. some higher level of attention and absorption that does not come casually. that song--that gift--it's not going to fall into your lap, is it?

maybe putting things together first involves looking really hard at what you've got in front of you and taking it apart. then the pieces can be swallowed, regurgitated, and made into something completely new. only not completely new--just almost completely new.

I just read this fantastic rendering of a speech given by the author David Foster Wallace. I was (am) supposed to be reading articles about coterie publication and marginalia analysis, but this speech--so many bits of it grabbed at me. a collection of those bits will be appearing in the everything notebook over the next few days, just wait. and one of them will appear here, right now, because its thought about attention sort of fits. he says:

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort...

what else is creativity than a freedom? a power to move beyond the place you are into a place that has never existed before? isn't that amazing? we have this gift of taking all this stuff that for us has always been there, just existing, just waiting...and remixing it into something more. and then whatever we've made becomes part of the always-been-there stuff for someone else. go read the whole Wallace article. it's really great. and then if you've got time, watch these.

watch. absorb. start assembling.

pluck pluck

grease and potassium

hey, you. whenever and wherever it is that you're reading this--have you had breakfast yet?

because if not...

and if you've got any of these:

and some of this:

then you can make bacon and banana sandwiches.

yes. bacon + bananas + toasted-in-a-tiny-bit-of-the-bacon-grease-toast. it's marvelous. go on. just try it.

slice up the banana. some people like to slice it the long way, and it doesn't really matter.

you're going to smash (gently!) your sliced banana onto a slice of toast, in one nice layer.

and then you're going to add the bacon, in another lovely layer.

and then, the other bit of toast.

and there you go. cut it in half. eat it. sit down with one hand holding your Visual Rhetoric textbook, and if that isn't one of the most amazing breakfasts ever, feel free to complain that I ruined your morning. or whatever time of day it is.

if you love it, feel free to thank me for introducing it to your life. oh, and add some cheese if you're a cheese person. (I'm not a cheese person. but if you are, that is okay, and you might like it with cheese. I didn't. but you might. let me know.)

happy breakfast. or whatever time of day it is.

nothing is known of Saint Valentine

I've just been playing around with this little doodle, originally posted way back in July.

there are no love-related holidays in July, are there?

not that I can think of. there are tuesdays though. I love tuesdays.

love is an irrational thing, you know. I have no reason to love tuesdays, but I do anyway. even though they're not always the greatest. not always the most fun.

at least my irrational love of tuesdays is completely unconditional.

as is my love for ice cream (chocolate ice cream, of course).

and my love for plaid. goats. typography. sunrises.

unconditional, irrational love. today is all about celebrating that.

and, underneath all the sugary pink and candy-coated chocolate-ness, also about the real stuff, which can perhaps be just as irrational, but is nevertheless far more intense and profound and committed and transforming than a love of tuesdays (however genuine) ever could be. loving people is better. let's do more of that, shall we?

access