Month: May 2013

The Aliquando Press

The Aliquando Press, Gutenberg’s Press

From the Heavenly Monkey Books blog, I found a link to the University of Toronto’s exhibit A Death Greatly Exaggerated: Canada’s Thriving Small and Fine Press. Sadly there was only one picture, but it’s a great one. The tunnel book above is by William Rueter (The Aliquando Press) and seems to be called “Gutenberg’s Press,” showing off Gutenberg’s workshop. Click on the image above to see a much larger image. Rueter is quite prolific — see this post about an exhibit of his work (he’s published 108 books and 82 broadsides in the 50 years of the press). See Aliquando’s other books here.

He just wanted to make beautiful books

Kim Merker in 1991 by Robert McCamant

There’s a lovely memorial to Kim Merker, a hand-press printer from Iowa City, in the NY Times this morning. He ran Windhover Press at the University of Iowa and founded the University’s Center for the Book. Here are a few of the books he printed from a nice exhibit about Windhover Press at Okanagan College Library.. (The photo above is by Kim Merker in 1991 by Robert McCamant)

Merker’s Flowers of August

Flowers of August

book by merker and windhover press

Robert the Devil.

Merker’s “Within the Walls,” by Hilda Doolittle.

“Within the Walls,” by Hilda Doolittle

Group Prompt Challenge

Last February I asked 2 friends here in Santa Fe to do a monthly word-based prompt challenge with me. One of us would select a word the first of the month and then we’d get together toward the end of the month to show the books we’d made, inspired by the word. I was first to pick, using the OED word-of-the-day:

mim, adj. and adv. Reserved or restrained in manner or behaviour, esp. in a contrived or priggish way; affectedly modest, demure; primly silent, quiet; affectedly moderate or abstemious in diet (rare). Also (occas.) of a person’s appearance.

I read quite a bit of poetry before finding this early (1858) Emily Dickinson poem:

Snow flakes.

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town–
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down–
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig–
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!

(It’s also one of only a handful of poems that Dickinson titled.) I liked the idea of counting snowflakes, which seems like such an impossible task. I imagined Dickinson keeping a ledger book of snowflake tallies, but getting carried away as she starts to do her little jig.

Here’s my book, made to look like a ledger and using the Emily Austin font I bought several years ago. This font comes with ink blots, which you can see in the final picture below, as I imagine Dickinson getting more and more excited about the snow flakes.


img_0128.jpeg

img_0130.jpeg

img_0132.jpeg

OED Word of the Day

P&P

Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice was published 200 years ago last January. To mark the occasion, my friend Cathy sent me the OED’s online word of the day.

Collins, n.1
A letter of thanks for entertainment or hospitality, sent by a departed guest; a ‘bread-and-butter’ letter.

Pronunciation:/kɒlɪnz/
Etymology: < the name of a character, William Collins, in Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice (ch. xxii). 1904. Chambers's Jrnl. 27 Aug. 611/2. When we do not call a letter of thanks for a visit ‘a board and lodging’, we call it a ‘Collins’. 1907. Lady Grove. Social Fetich. 74 The ‘Collins’ letter I had dutifully bored my hostess with. 1911. W. A. Raleigh. Lett. (1926) 375. This is only a Collins, and a Collins should not wade into deep places. It should be loving but neat. 1926. R. Bridges. Henry Bradley ii. 19. Wherever I can I shall let him speak for himself, and..group the quotations from his letters under subjects..This first Collins will serve to prelude them. 1940. W. de la Mare. Pleasures & Speculations. 327. The amateur composer even of a Collins or bread-and-butter letter realizes that his mother tongue is a stubborn means for the communication of gratitude.

I get several “words of the day” in my inbox, but I didn’t know about the OED one until Collins arrived. I quickly subscribed and look forward to their odd-ball words every day:

periplus, n. An account or narrative of a circumnavigation or other voyage; a manual of navigation.

statuomania, n.Excessive or passionate enthusiasm for erecting statues. Chiefly with reference to France.

genethliacon, n. A birthday ode.

akathisia, n. Inability to sit down or to remain seated, resulting from a subjective need or desire to move, frequently accompanied by sensations of muscular twitching, and often occurring as a side effect of the use of certain psychoactive drugs; an instance of this. Also in extended use.

I could go on and on. Subscribe yourself from the link on the right column of the OED home page.