I got lost in the conversations (in a good way!) and then remembered I wanted to share something about commonplace books. I created an online commonplace book for myself that I call "Rat's Country," because I love this quote from Loren Eiseley: "Everthing in the mind is in rat's country...Nothing is lost, but it can never be again as it was. You will only find the bits and cry out because they were yourself..." nancyharrismclelland.com
My pool has a fitness challenge December-February. We log our minutes in a notebook. Seeing the time add up one swim at a time is very motivating. Between COVID #2, snow, and general malaise, I would’ve given up swimming if I wasn’t filling out that paper.
Thank you so much Austin. The first Zine I ever experienced was your gratitude zine. Thanksgiving 2021. I have it still. On my nightstand. I absolutely fell in love with them. In my humble opinion, they are THE BEST!
I'm glad you worked with your hands. It is strange how easily we can slip away from our creative practice and not connect the dots to how much it impacts our emotional well-being until we actually make something again.
I subbed for a class in an elementary school and got to read an I Survived book (pre GN versions) and we didn't want to stop. She's really good at page turns and keeping kids engrossed.
You are too young for a mid-life crisis. Save it for turning 50. That was my motto and then I when I hit 50 I was too busy with life to worry about it. At 60, I'm striving to squeeze all the juice I can get out of life.
And as for dogs, I love them and we have had many. It is so hard to lose them, but the joy of having them makes you know all the parts of loving. What I say to my friends is that you will know when it's time to bring a companion into your home. Trust the feeling and when the timing is right, the right dog for you will show up.
Book suggestion, from a youth services librarian who can never pass up a chance for RA, if your kids are enjoying the “I survived” series they might also enjoy “Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales.” They have all the danger of “I Survived” plus a lot of humor.
My two years at the seminary are among the most creatively fertile of my life—a compost heap that still has seeds ready to sprout at unexpected times thanks to people I’ve encountered thanks to a web of connections. Definitely should have gone to Steven’s ordination, but I’ve only met him once, that thanks to your post last spring, so felt awkward about it.
One of my spiritual practices is crocheting—weaving is one of my favorite metaphors—doing something with my hands is soothing and connective. I think my other is going to be a commonplace book. During the pandemic, I did one of sorts, inspired by Edward Carey’s daily drawings. My drawings told little desert stories. Maybe this will help assuage my little dark night of the soul.
Plus, I’ll print your seed story and keep it handy.
Thanks for the sharing Austin, especially her mid life related comment about being away from our practice reducing our life quality. I am mostly at home these days rather than my large studio, battling lung cancer. I paint large canvasses as journals so now your books as journals has helped me tremendously. They are home studio sized compatable and ideal for a stop take a break and rest production line.
In return for your generousity, check out the mid life crisis benefits that a friend recommended... consider practicing the 11th Step of A.A. in your own way.
I love all of Maira Kalman’s books — they almost all have dogs 🐕 in them, especially “Beloved Dog.” It’s a delightful/quirky read and reminds you of the joy of owning a dog. When a close friend or family member loses a beloved dog, I place pictures of the dog throughout the book in remembrance and honor of the dog. I’ll send you pix via email as a sample. I don’t think I can post photos in this comment section, can I? Also, the “Good Dog, Carl” books are my favs and never get old. I loved “reading” them all to my kids and now grands, making up the story to the illustrations.
Our much-loved, former SoCal street mutt, Otis, left this world on January 11th. He was probably 13-ish; we only had him for five years. He had been badly abused. Someone had kicked him so badly that his ribs punctured his lungs. He had to use an inhaler twice a day (I helped him with it because I have apposable thumbs.) After a proper month of mourning, we welcomed a 10-year-old abandoned Jack Russell terrier into our family. We named her "George Fayne" after Nancy Drew's lesbian best friend. What does this have to do with Kleon's latest dispatch? Well, I say to you: adopt a dog!
I spent all day yesterday working on a new collage that just didn't light my fire, no matter how I played around with it. What to do? What to do? And then here you are this morning with the six words that told me the answer: "Throw it on the compost heap." I just did. and on to the next one....
Thank you for leading me to the piece on David Carr in The New York Times. I read The Night of the Gun years ago, but haven't thought much about him since. I didn't know he was so great! Or that he was a mentor to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is incredible!
I love his description of himself as a professor in the NYT piece:
“Your professor is a terrible singer and a decent dancer. He is a movie crier but stone-faced in real life. He never laughs even when he is actually amused. He hates suck-ups, people who treat waitresses and cab drivers poorly and anybody who thinks diversity is just an academic conceit. He is a big sucker for the hard worker and is rarely dazzled by brilliance. He has little patience for people who pretend to ask questions when all they really want to do is make a speech."
I've been saving quotes, too, and recently read through them and they're really wonderful! I don't think I could do one a day, though. My five-year journal contains the usual "this is what I did today" stuff, which is enlightening in its own way.
Nice shout out for paper. When Europe moved from making parchment and vellum out of calf and sheep hides, they moved on to making paper out of linen and flax rags. Rag pickers went through towns looking for rags and old clothing (your tattered underwear often ended up at the paper mill).
It was a laborious and long process that involved throwing the rags in vats of a boiling water stew (cow dung and buttermilk were a part of the solution). Because white paper was desired, and bleach did not exist, the dark rags were spread in the sunlight on fields of grass. I have often wondered what it might look like to see vast amounts of rags bleaching in the sunlight.
After a season in sun, the rags were left in large tanks to ferment, and beaten to a pulp with copious amounts of water. Then the paper had to be formed and sized. But the process and the materials (flax and linen) meant the paper lived "forever," and did not easily rip. I bought a 18th century Italian opera book and the paper is pristine, strong, and still quite white.
Paper-making radically changed in the 19th century. Europe was running out of linen and flax rags. The French started making paper out of wood pulp—a practice that soon spread to the rest of the continent and America.
But this 19th century change did not bode well for the quality of paper. Wood pulp fibers, the new source of material used to make paper, are shorter than linen fibers which means the paper is acidic and fragile. Chemical compounds and processes used in modern paper-making cause paper to discolor, weaken, and become more brittle over time.
Pulp fiction books were made out of the cheapest wood pulp paper (hence their name), and as the owner of several of these books, it is only a matter of time before the paper completely disintegrates. The pages are brown, thin, and fragile.
Fortunately, mills and countries are now using other materials to make stronger and better papers. For example, it can be made from hemp, cotton, mulberry, banana trees, and bamboo, all superior to wood pulp.
Well, I'm sure this is more than you wanted to know about paper making!
If anyone here ever has the opportunity/time/means to take a papermaking course, I highly recommend it. You can do something with those old clothes you don't really want to use as rags, and end up with fantastic handmade paper for whatever use you want. And the end product lasts forever (or close enough—I have some beautiful paper I made 40 years ago and it hasn't aged at all).
Love all this — what I want to know is if it's true that vellum was portrait-sized (taller than wide) because most animal hides are oblong and when they moved to making paper they just kept the orientation.
Sorry, don’t know the answer to your question. But I do know sometimes it would take a whole herd to get enough “pages” on which to write a book. So the question became, do you want to feed your family or write a book? Paper was godsend…
Commonplace book metaphors are the best! I love the botanical varieties: sylvae & florilegium are my favorites. Seneca also compared it to a stomach digesting food. Not so pretty, but kind of accurate.
i note the bone folder - after seeing you use one, i picked up two at my local art store - i work days preparing wills and boy howdy does it help me fold them neat and tidy to put in their envelopes, and such a satisfying sound - i tell the clients what it is and why i love it at every opportunity, not sure if they are as interested as i am ;)
tania: I love bone folders, although I've switched mostly to those made out of Teflon. I still call them bone folders, though, no matter what material they are made out of. I probably have about 10 at this point.
I got lost in the conversations (in a good way!) and then remembered I wanted to share something about commonplace books. I created an online commonplace book for myself that I call "Rat's Country," because I love this quote from Loren Eiseley: "Everthing in the mind is in rat's country...Nothing is lost, but it can never be again as it was. You will only find the bits and cry out because they were yourself..." nancyharrismclelland.com
My pool has a fitness challenge December-February. We log our minutes in a notebook. Seeing the time add up one swim at a time is very motivating. Between COVID #2, snow, and general malaise, I would’ve given up swimming if I wasn’t filling out that paper.
Thank you so much Austin. The first Zine I ever experienced was your gratitude zine. Thanksgiving 2021. I have it still. On my nightstand. I absolutely fell in love with them. In my humble opinion, they are THE BEST!
I'm glad you worked with your hands. It is strange how easily we can slip away from our creative practice and not connect the dots to how much it impacts our emotional well-being until we actually make something again.
I subbed for a class in an elementary school and got to read an I Survived book (pre GN versions) and we didn't want to stop. She's really good at page turns and keeping kids engrossed.
You are too young for a mid-life crisis. Save it for turning 50. That was my motto and then I when I hit 50 I was too busy with life to worry about it. At 60, I'm striving to squeeze all the juice I can get out of life.
And as for dogs, I love them and we have had many. It is so hard to lose them, but the joy of having them makes you know all the parts of loving. What I say to my friends is that you will know when it's time to bring a companion into your home. Trust the feeling and when the timing is right, the right dog for you will show up.
Book suggestion, from a youth services librarian who can never pass up a chance for RA, if your kids are enjoying the “I survived” series they might also enjoy “Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales.” They have all the danger of “I Survived” plus a lot of humor.
My two years at the seminary are among the most creatively fertile of my life—a compost heap that still has seeds ready to sprout at unexpected times thanks to people I’ve encountered thanks to a web of connections. Definitely should have gone to Steven’s ordination, but I’ve only met him once, that thanks to your post last spring, so felt awkward about it.
One of my spiritual practices is crocheting—weaving is one of my favorite metaphors—doing something with my hands is soothing and connective. I think my other is going to be a commonplace book. During the pandemic, I did one of sorts, inspired by Edward Carey’s daily drawings. My drawings told little desert stories. Maybe this will help assuage my little dark night of the soul.
Plus, I’ll print your seed story and keep it handy.
Thanks for the sharing Austin, especially her mid life related comment about being away from our practice reducing our life quality. I am mostly at home these days rather than my large studio, battling lung cancer. I paint large canvasses as journals so now your books as journals has helped me tremendously. They are home studio sized compatable and ideal for a stop take a break and rest production line.
In return for your generousity, check out the mid life crisis benefits that a friend recommended... consider practicing the 11th Step of A.A. in your own way.
Sorry to hear you're going through that — sending you my best thoughts!
I love all of Maira Kalman’s books — they almost all have dogs 🐕 in them, especially “Beloved Dog.” It’s a delightful/quirky read and reminds you of the joy of owning a dog. When a close friend or family member loses a beloved dog, I place pictures of the dog throughout the book in remembrance and honor of the dog. I’ll send you pix via email as a sample. I don’t think I can post photos in this comment section, can I? Also, the “Good Dog, Carl” books are my favs and never get old. I loved “reading” them all to my kids and now grands, making up the story to the illustrations.
Our much-loved, former SoCal street mutt, Otis, left this world on January 11th. He was probably 13-ish; we only had him for five years. He had been badly abused. Someone had kicked him so badly that his ribs punctured his lungs. He had to use an inhaler twice a day (I helped him with it because I have apposable thumbs.) After a proper month of mourning, we welcomed a 10-year-old abandoned Jack Russell terrier into our family. We named her "George Fayne" after Nancy Drew's lesbian best friend. What does this have to do with Kleon's latest dispatch? Well, I say to you: adopt a dog!
RIP Otis — what a great dog name!
I spent all day yesterday working on a new collage that just didn't light my fire, no matter how I played around with it. What to do? What to do? And then here you are this morning with the six words that told me the answer: "Throw it on the compost heap." I just did. and on to the next one....
Thank you for leading me to the piece on David Carr in The New York Times. I read The Night of the Gun years ago, but haven't thought much about him since. I didn't know he was so great! Or that he was a mentor to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is incredible!
Another great Carr-ism: “Keep typing until it turns into writing"
KEEP GOING, am-I-right? 😅
I love his description of himself as a professor in the NYT piece:
“Your professor is a terrible singer and a decent dancer. He is a movie crier but stone-faced in real life. He never laughs even when he is actually amused. He hates suck-ups, people who treat waitresses and cab drivers poorly and anybody who thinks diversity is just an academic conceit. He is a big sucker for the hard worker and is rarely dazzled by brilliance. He has little patience for people who pretend to ask questions when all they really want to do is make a speech."
Plus yes, PAPER RULES
I've been saving quotes, too, and recently read through them and they're really wonderful! I don't think I could do one a day, though. My five-year journal contains the usual "this is what I did today" stuff, which is enlightening in its own way.
The one-line a day is great for that — I got my kids one and we haven't looped yet but it's going to be fun when it happens
Nice shout out for paper. When Europe moved from making parchment and vellum out of calf and sheep hides, they moved on to making paper out of linen and flax rags. Rag pickers went through towns looking for rags and old clothing (your tattered underwear often ended up at the paper mill).
It was a laborious and long process that involved throwing the rags in vats of a boiling water stew (cow dung and buttermilk were a part of the solution). Because white paper was desired, and bleach did not exist, the dark rags were spread in the sunlight on fields of grass. I have often wondered what it might look like to see vast amounts of rags bleaching in the sunlight.
After a season in sun, the rags were left in large tanks to ferment, and beaten to a pulp with copious amounts of water. Then the paper had to be formed and sized. But the process and the materials (flax and linen) meant the paper lived "forever," and did not easily rip. I bought a 18th century Italian opera book and the paper is pristine, strong, and still quite white.
Paper-making radically changed in the 19th century. Europe was running out of linen and flax rags. The French started making paper out of wood pulp—a practice that soon spread to the rest of the continent and America.
But this 19th century change did not bode well for the quality of paper. Wood pulp fibers, the new source of material used to make paper, are shorter than linen fibers which means the paper is acidic and fragile. Chemical compounds and processes used in modern paper-making cause paper to discolor, weaken, and become more brittle over time.
Pulp fiction books were made out of the cheapest wood pulp paper (hence their name), and as the owner of several of these books, it is only a matter of time before the paper completely disintegrates. The pages are brown, thin, and fragile.
Fortunately, mills and countries are now using other materials to make stronger and better papers. For example, it can be made from hemp, cotton, mulberry, banana trees, and bamboo, all superior to wood pulp.
Well, I'm sure this is more than you wanted to know about paper making!
If anyone here ever has the opportunity/time/means to take a papermaking course, I highly recommend it. You can do something with those old clothes you don't really want to use as rags, and end up with fantastic handmade paper for whatever use you want. And the end product lasts forever (or close enough—I have some beautiful paper I made 40 years ago and it hasn't aged at all).
Love all this — what I want to know is if it's true that vellum was portrait-sized (taller than wide) because most animal hides are oblong and when they moved to making paper they just kept the orientation.
Sorry, don’t know the answer to your question. But I do know sometimes it would take a whole herd to get enough “pages” on which to write a book. So the question became, do you want to feed your family or write a book? Paper was godsend…
this is exactly what i wanted to know about paper making - thank you :)
I agree. this was great!
Commonplace book metaphors are the best! I love the botanical varieties: sylvae & florilegium are my favorites. Seneca also compared it to a stomach digesting food. Not so pretty, but kind of accurate.
if you say "florilegium" three times Maria Popova appears
(KIDDING. I love Maria)
Hahaha. I love her too.
i note the bone folder - after seeing you use one, i picked up two at my local art store - i work days preparing wills and boy howdy does it help me fold them neat and tidy to put in their envelopes, and such a satisfying sound - i tell the clients what it is and why i love it at every opportunity, not sure if they are as interested as i am ;)
Haha that is excellent — they’re so handy!
tania: I love bone folders, although I've switched mostly to those made out of Teflon. I still call them bone folders, though, no matter what material they are made out of. I probably have about 10 at this point.
You've just reminded me that I keep meaning to do a whole load of James Hollis reading. Thanks for the nudge!