“Nature will bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life.”
— Henry David Thoreau, “Natural History of Massachusetts” in Excursions, p. 7
#thoreau #lunamoth #walking
The rhythmic clink and clank of the Golding Pearl No. 3 as it inks up makes me smile. Made in Massachusetts in 1910, this printing press is powered by a foot treadle. Which is why this video is short — I gotta keep pumping so that it will keep printing.
#letterpress #printingpress #exercise
“There has been, I think, a narrowing of relatedness. To be *is* to be related. We must hugely widen the space of relations.”
— Yuvan Aves (educator, naturalist, writer, activist) in *Is A River Alive* by R. Macfarlane @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social
(Pic: Gull tracks along the tideline in N.C.)
I cranked the hollow cylinder of the printing press and a bunch of neatly-emptied sunflower seed hulls and a half-gnawed hickory nut fell out. Print shop life! It's a rural community, and most of my neighbors are other-than-human — including the occasional mouse.
#letterpress #printshop #rurallife
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.”
— Henry David Thoreau, *Walden*
Photo: Morning moon-set over the mountain here.
#thoreau #mountains #blueridgemountains
Brown and tan collie-shepherd mix dog.
Have a peace-full day, friends.
Wow. Is that from a poem of his?
Left side of image shows a small tractor engine with black rubber hose. Right side of image shows an orange notebook and blue mechanical pencil.
I missed being in the print shop today, but at least managed to write three poems and replace the tractor’s busted radiator hose.
#gratitude #rurallife #nelsoncounty #poetry #poetryisnotaluxury #poemsandtractors #johndeere #shadetreemechanic
A view of distant mountains and a wide open sky of clouds and blue, all surrounded by deep green trees.
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
— Henry David Thoreau, *Walden* (1854)
#thoreau #walden #castlesintheair #foundations #blueridgemountains #julymorning
Where are you located?
I can well imagine! My spouse and I used to visit a friend who lived in Grand Junction. Astonishingly dry for us easterners.
One of the unsung heroes of the print shop is the dehumidifier. Our summers are always humid, & increasingly hot. And humidity is no friend to the cast-iron presses & lead-alloy metal type that fills the space.
#blueridgemountains #virginia #printshop #shoptalk #letterpress #castiron #metaltype
A wooden letterpress type case full of metal letters. A black and white dog is sleeping nearby on the floor.
Late afternoon at the type case… Shop Dog Linji-the-Aussie is exhausted from herding little metal letters all day…
#aussie #letterpress #metaltype #shopdog #printshop
Happy birthday, Henry David Thoreau! Born on this day in 1817. “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite only a sense of existence....My wealth is not possession but enjoyment.” Henry David Thoreau, from his journal on December 6, 1856
Happy birthday, Henry!
“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite only a sense of existence....My wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”
HDT, December 6, 1856
#thoreau #contentment #otd #americanhistory
What to with bold, old metal type with the disconcerting name of “Empire”? Well, one solution is to beat swords into ploughshares. So I printed up some 72pt Peace with Morris Fuller Benton’s 1930s design.
#peace #ploughshares #typedesign #metaltype #printinghistory
Purple cone flowers blooming in a green sea of field grasses.
“To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is whole. You start with the part you are whole in.”
— Gary Snyder, “The Place,The Region,&The Commons” in *The Practice of the Wild* (Counterpoint, 1990)
#garysnyder #place
“Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
— Gary Snyder, from a footnote in “Four Changes” (1970)
#garysnyder #homeplace #blueridgemountains
Very glad to connect with you and know about your grandfather! Whereabouts did he work?
“Practically speaking, a life that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.” — Gary Snyder, “The Etiquette of Freedom” in *The Practice of the Wild* (Counterpoint, 1990)
Reading Gary Snyder this evening —
Toni Morrison is one of the greatest writers to ever live. What many don’t know, is that she was also the first Black woman to become a senior editor at Random House. I wrote about a new book that discusses how she edited by day, wrote by night, and ushered in a new generation of Black writers.
“Big wheel[s] keep on turnin’”…
The 1914 Chandler-&-Price printing press coming back to life this morning. After a back injury a couple of years ago, I retired the foot-treadle & now let the motor do the work of keeping this 1500+ pound beast rolling.
#letterpress #printing #printshoplife
The shiny metal undersides of all the individual letters and spacing material in a forme of text locked with wooden furniture in a printing chase.
The shiny metal undersides of all the individual letters and spacing material in a forme of text locked with wooden furniture in a printing chase.
The top of a metal type forme, showing the letters to be printed and the spacing material surrounding.
The top of a metal type forme, showing the letters to be printed and the spacing material surrounding.
Have you ever seen the underside of a metal type forme? The bottom of all the letters and spacing material has its own fascinating structure and pattern. (Just make sure it’s locked up tight before taking a look ;-)
#letterpress #metaltype
Slowly & carefully distributing the type back into its case, breaking up the clods of words & spacing material & fingering language’s newly-friable ground again. These little silver seeds will sprout something new, in time.
#letterpress #language #metaltype #distributing #decomposition #bookmaking
Beautiful, @brenoxis.bsky.social 🙏
I should have guessed. 😊
Black and white photograph of a silvery creek amid dense foliage.
~
creek talked
all night long —
so smooth,
even the moon drowned
in that silver tongue
~
(From *Soundings: haiku & carvings* by Emily
Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2014)
#poetry #creeks #blueridgemountains
Fantastic. What book/author?
My pink hand holding a sprig of soft young white oak leaves in afternoon sunlight.
~
what is new
is tender —
gently
take the white oak’s hands
in yours
~
(From *Falling Into Place*, poems by Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2024)
#oak #Quercus #leaves #tenderness #spring #poetry
This is not a drill.
