The first was with my brother Spencer:
Spen: I’m reading at work the first part of a biography of Lyndon Johnson, titled “The Path to Power.” I’m afraid people are going to think it’s on e of those nutty empowerment books, like “The Secret.” No hocus pocus for me, just solid history. History as honest as salt on eggs, true as a fine whiskey, colorful as the inside of a horse.
Me: The inside of a horse is black, until you introduce light by cutting it open.
Spen: That’s what a good biographer does — slaughters the horse.
Me: Can I quote you on that one?
Spen: Please.
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The second was with my dad:
Me: Hey dad, which element makes blue? ;)
Dad: Copper blue, sodium yellow, calcium orange, strontium red, barium green. Happy 4th!
(Me: Hahaha, awesome! Happy 4th!)
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My dad is a chemist, and every year when we were little and we would watch the fireworks, he would quiz us on which colors were made by which elements. I always forget, though. The above text conversation took place while I was watching the fireworks in Sugarhouse.
I’m just now noticing he didn’t say what makes while or purple. I’m pretty sure Magnesium is white. But I don’t know what makes purple! Dad? You don’t read this, to you?…
The other day while walking home, I noticed what looked like smashed blackberries on the sidewalk. I looked up, and the berries were above my head. I figured that maybe a vine had wrapped itself up the tree, but upon examination, I realized that it was the tree itself that was producing the berries. And then I noticed more trees just like it as I continued my walk.
I wanted to taste the berries (didn’t I hear once that all purple berries are safe, white are not, and with red ones some are and some aren’t?), but I didn’t, because I didn’t know what they were.
Can anyone enlighten me?
At the turn of the year I’d been thinking about starting some sort of photo-a-day blog. A friend on Facebook started posting links to her Momentiles. which is essentially a photo-a-day blog–only it’s networked…Kind of like Twitter for photographs. Uploading is as easy as sending an email to Momentile with an attachement of your photograph. Right now it’s in beta, so there aren’t a whole lot of users just yet. I’ve been inconsistent with my uploads (I’m steady for a week and then I leave for 2 months), but it’s a simple way to do a photo a day, and it’s kind of fun. It would be more fun if there were more people there. But for now you have to have an invitation to use it. If anyone would like an invite, let me know and I’ll send you one.
Does that make me famous?
Or just Seriously So Blessed?
(Also posted in my bookbinding blog).
When I moved up to Salt Lake City, a few of my new friends were “besmitten” (I think that’s the word Vivian used) when they first learned that my roommate Kohleen and I are both book conservators and bookbinders. I had been invited to teach a sewn board structure at BYU as a guest instructor, so I invited my new friends to come along for the demonstration. A few days later we got together for a bookbinding dinner party. It took us two sessions (spaced a couple months apart, whoops!) to finish, but here are the final books!
I had thrown together a text block for each of the girls. When I make this structure, I like to wrap each section in some kind of special paper, since the spine is exposed–I think it makes the book extra lovely. :)
The book pictured below was the one I sewed for the demonstration. The marbled papers are my own (I made them).
Kohleen put this text block together with her own paste papers and a cave paper cover:
Kathryn made this one: I’m not sure what the cover is–it’s just some nice heavy artist grade paper. The sections are wrapped in my own recycled papers that I made when I was probably 16 or 17 years old–it was nice to put them to use!
Shannon sewed this one up. The cover and insides are my recycled papers again.
There are two more books whose binders couldn’t make it to the 2nd binding session. I’ll try to get photos of the last two when they’re finished.
