Artifacts

I got an Amazon Kindle for my birthday last month. I did not, at the time, know that this was the perfect gift for me. I love everything about it. I don't miss turning paper pages, or trying to balance different tomes comfortably in bed. I don't miss tagging my page with post it notes.

I really dig the instant delivery of books, and the free samples too. After waking up to the radio playing a snippet of Johnny Depp reading Keith Richard's autobiography the other day, I leapt out of bed and ordered the audiobook online.... for my Kindle. That's gonna be a lot of fun for roadtrips.

Thirteen or more years ago I closed my bookstore in favor of bookbinding and restoration. At that time I became convinced that books as I knew and loved them would become relics, artifacts, if not obsolete. At the time I could not conceive of a more perfect reading mechanism than the Western codex. Today, with the readiness of not only Kindle, but other handheld devices (including phones) for storage and enjoyment of the written word, it does indeed look like paper and board printed books may well become a thing of the past. This makes it all the more important for the book arts to be thrive and be passed on to future generations.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this.

Artist Trading Cards in Australia

Looking for a challenge, but not for judgment, I participated in an Artist Trading Card project sponsored by Ms. Brown's Lounge/Barratt Galleries, in Melbourne, Australia. Was very excited to see that my South Pole card was used in a snippet on their front page.

The call was for a deck of 55 cards on the general topic "Travel". My deck consisted of 55 completely unique collage/stamped/painted cards. I did scan 'em all before sending off my package. One card was selected for exhibit and auction, the rest to be parsed out in individual decks with art cards from the rest of the participants.... I can't wait until I receive mine! I am very impressed and excited by the images of others' work on the page.

Fun! Exciting! Got to use a bunch of materials I've been saving up for.... just this purpose!

Inspiration Overload!

It's been an emotional few weeks. I have a private, handwritten journal for such matters and that tome has seen a lot of action since the last Rambles entry. Now that the gloomy weather has taken a break, I notice the days getting a little longer, a couple of little green finches building a nest in the over-grown myrtle outside my kitchen and I got to attend the 43rd Annual California Antiquarian Book Fair last weekend.

These exhibits interest me because of the quantity and variety of bibliophilic treasure that one can experience at one time, in one place. I maintain that there is no single library - however great - that can offer so much stimuli for a collector, or a maker of books. And that's what it boils down to: now more than ever before in living history, a rare book is valued most on the persistence of its existence and how well it has held up.

Up until now, I've hesitated to think and write about the place of the printed codex in the First World, anno 2010. No more. I suspect fetishism in today's bookworld. To support/explain/excuse this P.O.V., I offer the following short list of discoveries:

• First edition The Sun Also Rises (Near Fine in VG DJ - not signed by the author) is available from at least two dealers for the price of a new Lexus sedan.
• A copy of Spengler's Decline of the West by William Burroughs to Jack Kerouac, with K's copious annotations and (presumeably original ) black electrical tape repairs is also on the market.
• Victor Hugo painted when he needed a break from writing. Miniature landscapes that are very good!
• Miniature landscapes cleverly disguised as books in the form of fore-edge paintings are among the best values today (my personal pick!)
• Prophetic booksellers now exhibit Artist's Books. Even contemporary works.

Maybe being treated as an object is not so bad, after all these years.

My Favorite Book Press

The Workshed got a new window last week - a long-overdue improvement. With the sparkly new fixture, I was inspired to reorganize the workshop space and so spent a day at that task. The next biggest improvement was to bring my beautiful teak double-laying press to the center of the workshop, where it rightfully belongs. Mr. Dog is not pleased that I had to remove his sofa to do this, but now I'll be much less reluctant to illustrate my posts with photos.

Most of my heavier book binding equipment has been purchased second hand over the years. Since these items are rather specialized, it takes some hunting to acquire them. The laying press pictured here is one I bought from a "hobby" binder several years ago. The previous owner had commissioned two such contraptions from a woodworker who used salvage and scrap hardwood, mostly teakwood, from his boatbuilding work. The best book presses are built of hardwood to resist warpage from the moisture expressed in many book pressing operations. This press was designed by the original owner who was interested in the look of medieval scriptorium tables at which scribes, generally monks, worked head-to-head at copying manuscripts - the only way to get a copy of a book prior to the introduction of moveable type by Gutenberg in 1439. The base of this press is a rather fanciful adaptation, but works well to support the presses, the jaws of which can move freely to accommodate large books and additional pressing boards if necessary and still be totally supported by the base and allowing plenty of free space for work to hang down and worker to move around without hinderance. It's also a gorgeous piece of furniture, now properly showcased at Vinegar Hill.

After the signatures or leaves of a books have been sewn together, pressing becomes important at several subsequent phases of the binding process. The horizontal, or laying press, is used to hold the sewn book block while the spine is shaped and lined before attaching the cover boards. Because the spine of the book is held horizontally, the binder can get on top of the work and assure that the spine is even and uniformly shaped. This is critical to making a book that opens easily, yet retains it's shape when closed. In later phases of the binding process, the book boards will be lined and pressed, the book will be attached to the boards, covered and pressed, and finally any titling or decoration on the covered spine will be done while the book is held in the laying press.

Most hand binding work does not require a press as large or elaborate as this one, and I do have and use several other presses regularly. This press is so special because I can have two projects on the bench at once, the shelf slides the width of the table so I can keep tools and materials handy from either side, the dual presses accommodate huge books easily, and the shelf lifts off the base, so if I need a large, flat work surface - or a place to serve a romantic "studio dinner" - I simply remove it and any work in the presses and put down a formica-clad table top on the base.

Romantic Studio dinner? Hmm, gotta try that.

                                                                                  

Collectible Books on Amazon

Several months ago, Amazon.com decided to change some its independent seller policies. What affected me most, was the introduction of their guidelines for selling "Collectible Books". While I understand the need for enhanced descriptive and grading parameters for these specialized items, the rejection of my initial application to sell "Collectible Books" puzzled me and frankly, pissed me off. I could not understand why, as a book restoration specialist and professional used bookseller of 17+ years (not to mention an Amazon Independent Seller for nearly a decade) this designation would be denied me. ME! I was in this business when we poured over bi-weekly print issues of Antiquarian Bookseller with a highlighting pen and had to lick the stamps with which we mailed our offerings, so neatly printed on index cards. Ha! This megolithic dotcom upstart, whose deeply discounted offerings put so many indie bookstores out of business over the years would now dare to refuse a veteran bookseller access to its world wide marketplace. The nerve.

Maybe it was because they only allowed me 376 characters to tell them why I felt I was qualified. Even the reduction of my bookselling C.V. to txt script didn't begin to let them know who I was. The delivery of my rejection via No Reply email, the stark abscence of any phone contact number to register my protest and the maddening labyrinth of the Amazon seller pages left me frustrated and despondent. I resigned myself to my fate and made a mental note to recategorize those items I'd tagged "Collectible", but never actually got around to doing it.

Then, last weekend checking my email while on the road, another reminder to submit my application for "Collectible Bookseller" status with Amazon.com had arrived with the warning that my collectible-tagged inventory would disappear by the Feast of the Epiphany if I wasn't accepted. As resubmission seemed easier than migrating my inventory, I did. I made my case in fewer than 300 characters, with complete sentences, reserving the flourishes for the questions answered in numeric fields.

Lo and Behold! Today I received the very surprising news that I have earned Collectible Seller status and am now bound by all its special requirements. That's OK. It's hunting season, and I'm well armed.

I know it's a new year when...

My friend in Berlin, Falko, sends out his annual New Year Post Card. I am lucky to be the recipient and holder of maybe a nine or ten of these precious things. Always the same couch, usually, at least three of the models are present, against a backdrop of his most fascinating library. The last four are displayed on my fridge to the fascination of all who visit. I wonder how many of these he sends out each year?

I met Falko Hennig in the latter years of the Vinegar Hill Bookstore. By that time, the store had become a destination of Bukowski fans, largly due to a book published by another German fellow, Gundolf S. Freyermuth, who spent several months with the late poet before his death. That time, which included a Bukowski Birthday Bash at Vinegar Hill, was later documented in a book written by Freyermuth and generously illustrated with photographs by Bukowski's great friend (now, sadly also departed) Michael Montfort. Das War's (last words with Charles Bukowski), was published in German in 1996, with a chapter translated and published in a soon subsequent LA Magazine (I think), affording your rambling blogger with her 15 minutes meted out in second-long intervals. It didn't save the retail folly that was at the time VHBooks, but because of it and Michael I met Falko. In addition to the honor of his mailing list, he also treated me to a wonderful tour of Berlin in his military-issue topless Trabant when I got to visit in 1997. That was a treat I hope to revisit later.

Speaking of dead and wonderful people that I am so happy to have know, today also marks what would have been the 59th birthday of my dear friend, John Bisazza, who passed away much too soon a year and a half ago. John was one of my first customers and became one of my dearest friends over the years. A native of San Pedro, he was a professor of neuro-linguistics at a Meiji Gaikun University in Tokyo, a wine expert, photographer, writer, and avid reader and collector of books. His taste in the book department ran from southern Slavic viticulture of the 18th century to early English linguistic works to the American Civil War, Croatian Nazis and Jules Verne. I still have a file cabinet drawer full of his purchase receipts and unfulfilled want lists. I still have a part of memory filled with many detailed conversations and debates. Portraits he shot of my pets, and of me in the thick woolen Taliban hat that he used to protect his favorite camera.

When I told him my tale of a Berlin tour in an early East German military Trabant, he sent me on a wild mission to try and acquire one for him. For years he drove me nuts with that search, as with the search for an authentic Nazi fez, neither of which I was able to locate for him. In spite of all his peculiarities, he was the menschliest person I've ever known. I miss him terribly still and suspect that I am not alone with that sentiment.

John eschewed the internet and refused to communicate with email. He visited several times a year, and in between we communicated frequently by phone and fax at odd hours due to the time difference. He did publish articles on travel and wine frequently. I found online this obituary for his friend, Joe Rosenthal, the guy who shot the now-iconic photograph of American soldiers planting the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.

I just realized as I ramble on here, that the circle spirals outward to include three of the deceased mentioned here in the same cemetary. Right here in San Pedro, Green Hills.

Vinegar Hill has delivered me into the company of a lot of interesting and accomplished people. Wow, I think I'll stay.

L.A. Holiday

Now that it's past, I realize that most of December and November careened by, leaving me with motion-blurred image memories and whatever I managed to get down in words here, or elsewhere. Work promised, was completed and delivered, deals initiated were signed and sealed, and obligations met just under the wire to avoid penalties. A sigh of relief, privately marked with long-overdue phone and underwear upgrades, readied me for the Christmas celebration with family and friends.

Since the 23rd, I haven't done much of anything; by that I mean in the sense of producing. And I've missed that tangible proof of accomplishment that comes with holding an object aloft and declaring: "I made this!" I have, however run a gamut of emotions relating to this past year and just now am beginning to reflect on 2009 and mentally organize myself for the coming year. A trip to Watts Towers on Christmas Day put me on an unexpected Train of Thought, and I'm still taking that ride.