Limid Pools

I miss the littoral, tidal pools swarming with life; and the high-country streams, above the beaver ponds, where, in the early spring, native trout take even my badly presented fly. Miss may be too strong a word, I remember them. So much time alone allows reflection. Sara asked me for a bio for the newsletter and I was at a loss. "Formerly a goat-herder in Colorado, an oysterman on Martha's Vineyard, a bookbinder, a paper-maker, a letterpress printer, designer and builder of two dozen houses in six states, several of them off-the-grid, writer of some twenty books and pamphlets, publisher of seventy titles, recipient of numerous NEA grants, stage manager at the Opera Company Of Boston, a good cook, a lousy house-keeper, total failure as a partner in numerous relationships, a pretty good distant father to two daughters who still love him, the guy who noticed that Fritz's pocket was on fire. An expert on carrying loads through a crooked post. Very good on what's being said. Exceptional on processing simple numbers when you're trying to hang everything exactly centered at 57 inches." D and I are brilliant at this, we amuse ourselves, with Sara and Chuck watching today, and carrying on conversations, we hung a show. It was magic. The numbers were flying through the air, D would call and I would respond. We're Olympic caliber at this. Chuck knew something was going on that he didn't quite understand, Sara pulled up a chair to just watch. Interesting, note to self, I'm referencing things a little differently, why is that? I don't know. Wait, yes I do, it's this damned book on the history of libraries, which took me to another book I remembered, and actually found, on the history of bookshelves, which, naturally, shares a great deal of information. One factoid I particularly enjoyed, appearing in both books, and justifying one my methods of organization, was that at the great library of Nineveh, one of the earliest, 30,000 clay tablets, books were separated by shape. I almost always remember the color of a book, too, and that system, it seems, is not unique to me. One system I haven't used, but am now inspired to try, is the "incipit" method, which seems to be based on the first few words of text. Nineveh was Assurbanipal's passion, there's that wonderful alabaster relief there, of him hunting lions, a beautiful thing that leaps off the wall. My systems with books is exasperated by my divided interests. I require discreet piles for separate subjects and I tend toward the excessive: right now the Prehistoric Art stack is dangerous, I always approach it from upslant, less I be pinned and die of dehydration. Never put a door flat, as a desk, on legs of books, it's a disaster waiting to happen. First you have to find another book of the same thickness, picking one you don't think you'll need anytime soon, then you have to get down on all fours in the well, and lift with your back, slide out the required book and insert the substitution, but they've usually gone sticky and what should be a fairly easy extraction becomes delicate surgery. The great library at Alexandria (it wasn't a single fire, by the way, it was a lot of fires over a long period of time, libraries burn really well) required an almost total control on the flow of papyrus, sending scribes everywhere to copy things for the archives, was also proud to a fault, and when they were challenged by the new library at Pergamum, cut off the flow of paper; as a result Pergamum developed parchment. Parchment is pergamenum in Latin and pergament in Germanic. I recently saw an old bible, scribed on parchment; other than a particular girl, I forget her name, in my senior year of high-school, I've never wanted so much to touch anything. I've made paper, but I've never scraped a hide to parchment. I bound a blank book, once, in beautiful leather, someone stole it. I probably would never have written in it anyway, my notes are designed for scrapes of paper, napkins, better someone else should violate what I never would. Living where I do, I shouldn't complain, goats don't moan about credit card limits, any port in a storm. I'm just putting facts together, Kim said the bricks were slightly larger, I trust his feel, and I wonder what that means. Smaller grout joints, or some manipulation with the saw. I saw this coming, nothing is ever the same. It's a small step, from Janitor to Assistant Preparator.

Tom

Michael lost use of his foot in a related undertaking, something about bulls in a barn, and was told never again to pound nails, he smiled and made wine, I take comfort in this, what I do now is don white cotton gloves and move things from one place to another. Never draw conclusions, the objects, concern yourself completely with subjects.