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.

Snow and Thunder, Life Couldn't Be Funner

A crack of lightning a few feet from my window followed by a huge crack of thunder. And it's snowing. Truly a remarkable Christmas evening. All the kiddies are asleep in their beds surrounded by their Christmas haul (socks and towels, eh?) and the year is coming to a close. What shall next year bring? Here's what I'm hoping it will bring me - and I realize for me to get all these things in the coming year require me to work harder at everything. Oh well, here's my list anyway:

More and better movies 

(YouTube The Bed Oracle )

More and better audio drama 

(Check out Detectives and Drama in audio noir at DinoSoarPix. 

In English and sometimes Chinese (Mandarin); sometimes both Mandarin and English)

More and better books 

(Check out Tedorigawa Bookmakers and Tedorigawa Bookmakers - The Blog)

More fun! 

(Check out life!)

More and better podcasts 

(Check out Hokudai/Cast - Trilingual fun in Japanese, Chinese, and English)

Have yourself a very merry new year and I'll see you real soon. Enjoy yourself!

Down in Flames

As you can tell from the date, I've been busy and it hasn't been with writing a 50,000-word novel in one month. I could blame it on the dog: the dog ate my computer. Crashed. Big time. Spent a few weeks getting up the courage to buy a new one and by then I was busy with some video production and, well, NaNoWriMo fell by the wayside, along with the dog and I didn't complete the Ruggles thing. Although I did get about 8,000 words into it by the time my computer crashed. Died. Gave up the ghost. And the re-write improved it. Much. So I gave it my best shot but the writing gods and goddesses were... Ah, the goddesses. Ah well, there may well be next year. 

As you can tell from the date, I've been busy and it hasn't been with writing a 50,000-word novel in one month. I could blame it on the dog: the dog ate my computer. Crashed. Big time. Spent a few weeks getting up the courage to buy a new one and by then I was busy with some video production and, well, NaNoWriMo fell by the wayside, along with the dog and I didn't complete the Ruggles thing. Although I did get about 8,000 words into it by the time my computer crashed. Died. Gave up the ghost. And the re-write improved it. Much. So I gave it my best shot but the writing gods and goddesses were... Ah, the goddesses.

Ah well, there may well be next year.

The Month of November at 6500

The month of November brings us smack-dab face-to-face with hyphens and National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo or Nanowreemo). And yes, we are heavily involved in it this year again, too. We've done it every year since 2004 and have managed to meet the 50,000 word goal each year, although we failed to finish one novel, we finished the others. (Two are here: The Priests of Hiroshima and Calvado.)

The trick, for me, seems to be having some Real Meaty Characters that either I enjoy writing, reading about, or just plain reading. The characters pull the story they want to tell better than I could force the characters through a story I want to tell. (The one novel I didn't finish, Caraculiambro, had great characters but even they couldn't end the story - a detective yarn.)

This year's NaNoWriMo novel: 

The Murder of Tan Tinh Ai by Ruggles Royce, Ex-Priest

Characters include (so far):

• Ruggles Royce -  ex-priest current mercenary 65 years old built like a linebacker and fast.
• Wings Kenosha - 40, tough, lanky, works for 'the company.'
• Tan Tinh Ai -  flirtatious 24 years old, works in a fruit stand owned by her mother and aunt.
• Da Xu Xi -  rough, male, 27, in love with Tan Tinh Ai. Owns a bar.
• Maxine -  50, American female black market exploiter living in Hanoi.
  

The Plot, so far:

Ruggles is asked to find a kidnapped woman. The woman, Tan Tinh Ai, was last seen leaving a grocery store in Hanoi. In his efforts to find her, Ruggles discovers himself, his heart, and love. All in the wrong places. 

Having read the synopsis so far, I am totally going to change it before I get into the meat of the story (I'm 6500 words into it - about 30 pages).

Simple Tasks・Simple Feats

First, I guess I spent too much time on YouTube last week. I watched a lot of short bookbinding-related videos and finally threw a dart at my monitor to decide which one to share. Here they are:




Next, I'll try to include a couple of my new diaries - the most current diaries acan be seen at Tedorigawa Bookmakers

No, I can't

I challenged myself to make 14 books in 14 days (and if I was successful, I would rent this new space near my house), even if they were simple - they had to be simple, actually, by definition quick books can't be too complicated - but I forgot about a few things. Let me see if I can list them.

1. Family
2. Life
3. Work

There, that wasn't so difficult, was it? I got extremely busy with family and life and that spilled over into work - which isn't book binding - and the end result was a happy time for all. But only the one book - The Animal/Insect Mash-up Supremo Book - bound but three (two diaries, one 'artsy') in various stages of dismemberment. I mean, development. 

Plus! Plus, I backed my own cloth with paper so now I can use my own book cloth. I watched the video on Cailun.info and read the discussion on the LiveJournal Handmade Book Community,then set about using very thin Chinese paper on the back of a Japanese cloth remnant. It worked nicely. 

I'm pleased with the results.

I also found an art gallery online thing from Italy. tuttolibri from the designboom website. With such books as the one pictured here (from the designboom website, which you really should check out when you have the time, say, at work.)

Now, I'm off to make a book - a diary, I hope - which I will make with no pressure about time or competition.

Besides, the nifty space I would have used as a workshop/sales outlet has been rented to someone quicker than I at making decisions that cost me money. Thanks for reading.

Book One - The Animal/Insect Mash-up Supremo

This is The Animal/Insect Mash-up Supremo Book of 9/9/08 the first, maybe, in a series of 14 books for September. 

Why Animal/Insect? Because the contents, some of which can be seen in the photo below, are names of animals and insects in Japanese and English; With! Sample sentences. The first Japanese word is the first part of the Japanese word for animal (動物) whereas the second, in red, word is insect in Japanese.

Why Mash-Up Supremo? Because Mash has four letters, just like the word I really wanted to use but won't because this is a family-oriented artsy foober blog. Why is this book all mashed-up? I screwed up the sewing THREE TIMES! And that's a lot of repair work. Plus, there's a hidden secret! Yes! Here's the secret: Look at the thread for the binding. Looks like a Chinese-style stab binding, right? It is! But the line running parallel to the edge is not as it seems. One section of this thread is actually.... Drawn on with a pen! Why? Art! (And this book was supremely mashed-up.) 

But here you can see the interior of said Supremo book: First, the Japanese kanji for the animal or insect, then the pronunciation, then a sample sentence, and finally, the English equivalent. There are 18 animals or insects altogether but on this page is Fox (狐 - kitsune) and Cat (猫 - neko) with the sample sentence of Fox being, "Crazy like a 狐." And that for Cat being "A 猫 has nine lives."

Thanks for reading. 

New Space?

I have an opportunity to rent a new space for my workshop. It costs very little, is centrally located, has trees lining the street, and a fairly busy street it is, too. Plus, it's so close to home I can walk. In fact, it is so close to home that if I forget anything, I can walk back home and get it.

The main question is, should I? Right now I spend zero for my space which, admittedly, is a desk in a room but anything over zero is still more expensive than zero, right? On the other hand, if I have a space I must pay for then maybe I will be more serious (ha!) - make that, more determined - to become an at least locally known bookmaker.

Therefore, I will challenge myself to make a book a day for two weeks. If I make 14 books in 14 days, then I will rent the space and set about doing even more for my bookmaking career (not that it's exactly putting a dent in the universe now.). An interesting challenge and I'd better hop to it because to day is:

Day One!

Rough Book

Having strolled through too many stores that sell great paper, I found myself with a large variety of paper - soft, rough, colored, white - and finally decided that instead of buying more and not doing anything with it, I would use the paper I've got before I buy more. Ha! That's a good one. Anyway, I made The Rough Book. (You can see the rough cover here.)

The pages are rough, the endpapers are rougher, but the cover is the roughest: it isn't really paper so much as woven threads. I backed this cover paper with rough yellow paper (like endpapers.)

Here is an open page 

and you can see the stems and leaves embedded in the paper. This is also a very light book. Because the cover is so porous, and the pages aren't exactly the tightest weave in the world, the entire book is very, very light. 

And finally, here is a shot wherein you can see how roughly cut the pages are. More like torn than cut but they are very beautiful to look at. 

Chinese Stab Binding

I looked at some Japanese stab bindings over at cailun.info and they inspired me not to make a great Japanese stab binding but to return to the genre. With two caveats. 

First, I was told by some Chinese humans that what most of the world calls 'Japanese' stab binding is actually 'Chinese' stab binding. I did a little research (I googled Chinese stab binding) and found that the main difference between Japanese and Chinese stab bindings is that the distance between the sewn threads in a Japanese-style binding is even. From one thread to the next is the same distance on traditional Japanese binding. In Chinese binding, that distance can vary. 

Second, I went to a Buddhist store that sells Buddhist scripture. The books Buddhist priests read from when they chant. These are all bound using Japanese stab bindings. I checked them out. Now, one reason I didn't like the stab binding genre (Chinese or Japanese) is that the book doesn't open very widely. Well, I examined in minute detail the scripture book. It has very thin paper, very few pages (maybe 50 at most), and the binding is close to the edge. With the thin paper and few pages plus the binding close to the edge, the book opens wider.

So, I cut up some paper to B6 size and made two Chinese stab binding pamphlets - blank journals of about 60 pages (30 sheets). I liked the fact that I could make one while watching a DVD (The Queen staring Helen Mirren) and only stab myself once or twice.

They open nicely but still you can't use the inner most edge as it is closed off by the binding but they make nice notebooks and doodle pads if one were stuck in a meeting for a couple of hours.

Frustration and Appeasement

Get a nice piece of wood. Decide to make a book cover out of it. Saw it. Find a flaw. Saw it again. Check it out with paper. Wrong size. Saw it again. Decide to carve a groove in it and put in wood a different color for contrast and 'art's sake.' Cool idea. Carve it wrong. Not once but twice. The groove is too big for the wood I was going to insert. Try to find another piece to insert. Can't. Shrug shoulders ... and not for the last time on this particular project. Drill holes for the binding (to be coptic). Crack the wood. Glue it back together. Varnish it. It looks crappy. Sand it. It looks worse. Varnish it a different 

color. Bang head against a brick wall. It looks extremely bad. Sand it to smithereens. Cool. Very thin wood now, by golly.

Lather on the varnish, it doesn't look That bad. cough cough. Decide to make the back cover the front cover as the front cover doesn't look That good, either. cough. Add a few baubles and whatnot to the front and leave the back alone with its ugly groove and uglier insert.

Fold the paper for it, align the holes in the paper and cover. Decide to call it a night before termites appear and resurface the whole shebang. Still, termite trails might be an improvement....

Suffice it to say this has been one bad karmic cover which has needed salvation time and time again. But if you work on it long enough and remember two things: wood is flexible, cut-able, and adjustable, after a fashion, and sand paper is a gift from the gods, then perhaps you can salvage and even end up with a book that looks good. Or better than its karma would have made you think. 

This is a 168-page blank journal of an odd size paper (not as wide as A4 but just as tall) because the wood was not equal to any known paper size. And, as I am further from its birth pains, I have grown to like it more. Even the sewing, which went not so well, has its fine points. We live, we learn. (Does that mean, if we keep learning we'll live forever?)

The Star Festival - Tanabata - Cereal Series

From my "Cereal Series" I have completed a Premium Corn Flake with Beet Sugar Book with a coptic binding, seven signatures of six pages each for a total of 168 pages on the Star Festival (Tanabata) of Japan wherein two star-crossed (literally) lovers cross the Milky Way to kiss face once a year. For more of my Cereal Series, see the post of May 8, 2008 - japanesestabbinding - a Kellogg's Brown Rice Flake book is described. Also see this page from Tedorigawa Bookmakers.

Tanabata is celebrated by lovers staring into the night sky (which really sucks if it rains) and hoping for the best, whatever that might be. And of Tanabata branches: bamboo branches stuck in various places and people write their wishes on a piece of paper and attach it to the branches. Some come true! What do you wish for this year?

More Photos of my

Premium Corn Flake with Beet Sugar Book 

will be placed on both Tedorigawa Bookmakers and at 

Tedorigawa Bookmakers  

(probably with sound as well!) 

Stay Tuned. Stay Posted. Be Well.

Time - Wings - Gone - Flash

I can't believe time as slipped through my fingers like guacamole through a sieve. Well, perhaps a lot faster than that, that's for sure. Here it is July 4, 2008 (232 and counting) and my last post - in which I probably promised to write more often - was May 27. I missed one complete month; and as everyone knows missing a month could be vibracious.

On the other hand, Tedorigawa Bookmakers was updated with sight and sound on July 1 while Tedorigawa Bookmakers (another one? What's he doing with Two Blogs with the same damn name? Being moronic? - Sorry, no question mark needed.) was updated a mere month ago on June 4. But, alas, Calvado hasn't been updated since last I wrote I was thrilled to pieces to discover a new idea about updating Calvado. Talk about shallow. Will I keep being this shallow or will I actually get down to work and update on a semi-regular schedule? Keeping in mind, of course, that biannually is a regular schedule. As is bi-centennially.

On the third hand, my weekly podcast about things Japanese and Chinese and lessons in speaking three different languages (Japanese, English, and Chinese) coupled with interviews in those three languages and music (usually in English), continues its weekly production schedule unabated. Probably because I enjoy the sound of my own voice? No, no. Other people speak on this podcast. Especially when it comes to Japanese and Chinese. (I can handle English fairly well, I think. Maybe. I'm not sure. I'll ask around.)

I finished a special book in the last month. The June 6th Book - which should have been finished June 6th but was completed on July 3rd - is a coptic-bound, wood cover, 144-page lined notebook with yellow paper and waxed green hemp thread. I think it is quite nice and the binding is one of my best. Not the best in the world, just my best. It can be seen at Tedorigawa Bookmakers. Well, not right now. But soon! I hope, think, maybe; I'll ask. 

Unless time sprouts wings and jets by in a flash.

New Posts on Calvado

I hit upon something that brightens my day. I have a novel over at Calvado.blogspot.com which was, until today, just sitting there waiting for me to add to it, to edit it, and let it live. It is a NaNoWriMo novel from a few years ago, that's how long it has been sitting over there sad, forlorn, and not-quite-but-almost forgotten.

Then a hit struck me like a thought: I shall put it up one chapter at a time, read the chapter, and then write a commentary on that chapter, sort of like a hypertext novel except without the hundred blue and underlined nouns. Sort of like the Talmud but without the scholarship. Authorial marginalia, I think would be a good name for it; but I'm calling it Behind the Curtain. 

You the reader should be able to read straight through the novel just by clicking on the 'Next' link at the end of each chapter. And, if you so desire, you can click on the 'Behind the Curtain' link at the end of each chapter to see what I think of the chapter, how the chapter came to be, and other insights I probably don't have but would like to have.

Calvado is a love story where love kills. (That's the subtitle/tagline: Love Kills.) Mack and Calvado have a problem - he loves her and she could love him back. Except for one minor problem. Click on the title of this post or the Calvado link to your right to read my Free! Online! novel of love and death.