Solstice Eve (Traditional)

Christmas eve and I just finished a book I'm giving as a solstice present. Is that cutting it close or is that cutting it close? It is also my first bound novel with imposed pages. No illustrations, though. I wrote the book in November during NaNoWriMo, imposed it in early December, printed out three copies, sewed up two, and finally finished putting the coverboards on one tonight. About 20 minutes ago. Recommendation: don't do this at home, boys and girls.

As it is Saturnalia Eve and you all are probably not reading this right now, I shall refrain from putting up photos of said book until a more auspicious occassion. Besides, I already wrapped it.

Bon appetit, ya'll - as they say down South.

Painting Inferno

Do NOT do this at home. No matter how much you like to paint.

Every year universities have school festivals and the students put on a dance exhibition. This year, one school's dancers were caught on video and uploaded to a host and now You! can view it. This is Part One.

Also, if you go to YouTube and search for:

Fire4EweToob

you will find another video. Odd, that, finding a video on TouYube. Anyway, this video has a troop of fire demons dancing with globs and poles of fire.

Meanwhile, Normal Dancers, Part One.

Magical Listening Experience

To celebrate my finishing my largest book (A4 when closed, about 200 pages, I think. I forget. I suppose I could go look it up, but... nyah.) Big Book. The cover is made of an old obi from an old kimono that I bought at an old flea market in an old temple. The obi, not the kimono. Anyway, to celebrate finishing it, I provide to you, the viewer/listener with a Magical Listening Experience:

Today's Playlist

Wagner - Ride Of The Valkyries
Neil Peart - Drum Solo R-30
Alice Cooper - Poison
Little Feat - Dixie Chicken
Little Feat - Skin It Back
Jesse Mccartney - Beautiful Soul
Mozart - Rondo Alla Turca

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

How Many Experiments Today, Dr. Watson?

I experimented with perfect binding - the binding cheap detective novels use to keep the pages between the covers of scantily-clad dames with cigarettes hanging from the mouths while they fondle the business end of some sap's revolver.

The result was a book with a lot of pages falling on the floor like so many corpses in a gangland shoot out. This was not the result I was hoping for so I ripped the book apart like a gold-digger rips through a fortune. I sewed the loose sheets of paper up, glued them very heavily and gave them an offer they couldn't refuse. It looks and feels better and its pages also staying in one place. This is usually considered to be a good thing.

Next, I will experiment with more glue, more thread, more pages... In fact, as we speak at this moment, two books are being pressed. Both perfect binding. Both about 100 pages. Papers of different sizes though. The covers are being designed tomorrow. Or someone's waking up with a horse head in their bed. If you know what I mean.

And now, even if you don't know what I mean, a jazzy piece of music from ez2google which can be found at GarageBand.com. Listen to it, if you know what's good for ya.

Unusual Books and Pricey, Too

First, a few links to a couple of cool books. The first one is Necronomicon designed by Jean Marc Laroche. These others at the Ingalls Library at the Cleveland Museum of Art, are not so bizarre as using unusual materials or relatively unusual binding methods.

The book on the right is bound in brass - could be heavy, eh? - and it sold on Abebooks for $24,400. That's US dollars. Twenty-four thousand US dollars. It's a catalog of brass bookbindings. Speaking of Abebooks, whose tagline is cheap, fast, easy (I had a date like that once), they also have a book going for $119,000. Yes, three zeroes, two ones, and a nine. In US dollars, again. It's a Bible printed in 1611 and bound in calf skin and copper. So if you have a few coins of loose change rolling around on the top of your chest of drawers, you might want to check Abebooks out.

On the upper left you might have noticed the original book: cuneiform on clay from our friends at the Sumerian Civilization - that would be a great name for a bookbindery, wouldn't it?

And finally, another book using clay (and paper, fabric and paints) from LadyArtisan. The leaves are clay, by the way.

Abakuya on Tedorigawa

Enjoy a little Australian-Cameroon fusion music from France.

Surfin' China

A nifty 6-minute 45-second video about surfing in China. Looks cool.



What's the music? I don't know either. I do know that Hangzhou is a bit inland from Shanghai, southern China, if you're looking to surf China this summer.

Books for the Languid Panda.

I have no idea what the title means either.

One:
Cailun has two books using the Secret Belgian Binding (so don't tell anybody.) His Duotone duo is quite nice, so please check it out.

Tao:
(or is it Two) Tedorigawa (me) finished another book using Perfect Binding (although it isn't) for a book called The Dance of the Fool. Now with the continuing audio events in the fictional life the Bookbinder.

First New Book in Three Months!

I finished my first new book in three months today. It is a small book made of recycled B5 paper folded into fourths (a quatro?). I used about 30 sheets of paper for about 120 pages. I used the perfect bound style but.. Ho, ho. It was not a pretty sight.

First, I glued the signatures together at the spine. Glue didn't hold them all together well. No matter, mull was added and the signatures sewn together. Quite nicely, I might add. Then the cover was constructed of a recycled flyer for a local performance of Puccini's La Boheme.

Finally, I attached the bright yellow endpapers and glued the whole shebang together. The end result was the creation of my first book in three months. Definitely a learning experience wherein - once again -

I learn the importance of taking accurate measurements and cutting to the measurements.

The original title was The Circle Book but the vision fell well short of the actual book. I need a new name. I'm thinking creatively now with The La Boheme Book but that actually means The The Boheme Book, doesn't it. I think I'll use either The Puccini Book or Puccini's La Boheme Book. Undecided.

Photos to come.

Walking and Shooting

Cool Video from Charlie McCarthy at Vimeo. I liked it because of the different ground the videographer covers, the editing involved, the music, and the colors that whizz past your head at color speed. Very cool.

walking and shooting from Charlie McCarthy on Vimeo.

Another Wordle Twitter

Just a little Wordle for Tedorigawa Bookmakers:

From http://www.wordle.net/

And Tedorigawa Bookmakers is now on Twitter at

http://twitter.com/tedorigawa

A New Horror Episode

The Zombie Saga continues with

The Dawn of the Nightmare: Third Corpse

In this episode, someone - who? - must deal with his girlfriend who has turned into a zombie. And then meets a Mysterious Stranger. Will this Stranger help him or Eat His Fresh Brains? Only episode four:

The Dawn of the Nightmare: Fresh Flesh

coming soon

Undead Horror Audio for the Squeamish

A new audio horror blog has been thrust upon the unsuspecting. A continuing story of the undead walking amongst us (with great music - this week: Surf Slut's Scary Tale in Old Yorke).

If you have the time (about 4 and three quarters minutes for episode one), check it t at:

Humangers.

But don't say we didn't warn you.

Bookbinder Video

Here's a pleasant little video about a bookbinder y'all might find interesting.

Chester bookbinder Andrew Brown from TONY CLIXBY on Vimeo.

LifeGame

It has been only one month since Goya2Goya started and I'm up to episode 10 (pending). However, I have learned the pitfalls of weight loss or fat loss. I lost two pounds in about two or three weeks and felt pretty good about even that small amount. However, I spent a weekend working with co-workers and we ate, worked, drank, and worked some more. Working consisted of sitting at a table with the others and munching on snacks. So, in two days I gained two pounds. I'm back where I started. Aaargh!

Weight loss is not a one week game; it's a lifegame.

But I did learn a few things: weight loss requires the obvious choice of not eating as much as you do when you're not trying to lose weight. Pretty simple. However, just eating less is not enough, you have to eat the right foods, too. No more potato chips - at least not in huge quantities. What are the right foods: vegetables, fruits, and that are naturally low or have no fat. (Just because it says low fat on the box doesn't mean it is.)

What does this have to do with art and art in my life? I am about to re-embark on my weight loss journey by calling it my body sculpture event. Through proper eating and exercise - On Goya2Goya I walk and talk - I'm aiming at a differently shaped body. Mine, not someone else's.

Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got.

Goya2Goya: The Weight Loss Podcast

New Podcast at Podomatic.com called Goya2Goya. This is a podcast I've thought about for awhile. Just me talking, sometimes with a guest inquisitor, while I walk around my town and discuss losing weight.

How I hope to lose weight, how much I used to weigh and how much I weigh now, how what you eat is as important as how much you eat (those empty calories in alcohol tend to cause weights to balloon upwards), how much I hope to lose, and general observations as I walk around.

My current weight is 67 kg (148 lbs) and according to US standards, I'm not fat. But I have a beer belly (or, more politely, a 'paunch') that I'd like to get rid off. My goal is 57 kg (125 lbs). Good luck with that, eh?

Goya2Goya stands for Get Off Your Ass To Get (it) Off Your Ass. The (it), of course, is fat. Fat. Big Fat. But in my case, and in most men's cases, it's not so much the ass as the stomach:

The Beer Belly is Evil.

And here's why: those with beer bellies tend to suffer more heart attacks. And more fatal heart attacks. And they are ... uuuuuuugly.

If you're trying to lose weight and want some support, download Goya2Goya and listen to it on your mp3 player as You walk around losing weight. Then send me your tips and tricks for losing weight - I really need them.

Thanks. Our email is goya2goya@gmail.com

Zines

There's nothing like delving into a genre of life for which you have no experience. It opens new horizons and makes one desirous of a longer day with less time relegated to sleeping. This week:

Exploring the Online Zine World

And what better place to start than a zine about zines for ziners (?) at Zine World or a list of zines by keyword at E-Zine List. Or so one would think. Because zines appear and disappear like mushrooms in the rain, many of the links are dead, fronts for spam, or like the number 404. Or the creator of the zine has changed his or her mind and changed the focus since it was listed. (A zine about jazz bassists in Europe turned out to be a huge advertisement for phone services and equipment.)

For a neat site that allows you to judge a book by its cover, go to Cafe Royal (a UK distro.) Not a lot of any information about the insides, however, except the price. Not even scans of sample pages. Well, maybe it's not such a neat site but it looks nice and gives you an idea of cover art for zines.

I have read and looked at a few sites devoted to an individual creative outlets. Here are just three that you might want to look at:

Some clever and insightful writing and art at Chinese Sweatshop

A rather intense series of zines at the distro (distribution channel to us older fugs) Gimme Brains!!!

From the middle of almost nowhere (southern Arizona that is neither Nogales nor Tucson, almost normal zine at Almost Normal Comics

Wordle fun

From Wordle, a nifty site.

Type in words or a url and see what the site transforms it into. I, naturally, chose Tedorigawa Bookmakers and a bunch of words about it. There's another site: TypoGenerator, which is fun to use to. Interactive, what will the internet think of next?

Next, another one:

An odd book or two

Nothing is more fun than an odd book or two. Check out Dark Roasted Blend and MyWiki's The Most Unusual Books in the World.

Woodblock Printing

Each year in elementary school here kids have to opportunity to create an original piece of art which is then hung in an art gallery/museum/city hall with all the other works of art by kids from all the elementary schools. This year a nearby school did woodblock prints.

The kids carved their original design onto plywood, inked it, rubbed the paper and voila! A woodblock print. Some were more than one color which is difficult to do. Some woodblock artists carve separate blocks for each color. Others just wait for one color to dry before using another color.

Here is a link to an English-born Canadian woodblock printer who lives and works in Tokyo and is the creator of many a print. David Bull. Be sure to flip through all the pages of his websites as he also manages/operates/owns Mokuhan (木版館), an online woodblock store. If you are studying Japanese, his sites are bilingual.