Diamonds in the Rough

I’ve spent a lot of time on the Tube lately, and have become enamored of the Poems on the Underground.  When you happen onto one it’s like all the noise stops for a minute.

The program began in 1986, and three sets of poems are presented each year.  Check out the current set (scroll down a bit), visit the archive, or try a random poem of the day.

Dumb

Load of rubbish for which no one involved seems able to provide adequate justification.  The claim is that this has something to do with improving editorial quality, yet the categories seem to revolve more around how regional or narrowly focused a particular publication is deemed to be.  Surely any serious academic already knows much more about the major publications (and those in their areas of expertise) than can be indicated by a fairly ambiguous letter ranking.  And one would hope that, when in doubt, they would take a look at the editorial board and content rather than a letter grade.  So what purpose does this serve other than slapping “prestigious” and “not prestigious” labels onto people’s life work?

Imposition

I arrived in London last Sunday and the following day began induction week for my MA.  So far I’m loving it.  We had classes each day last week, including lectures in basic book history and excellent introductions to Senate House Library, the British Library and the St. Bride Printing Library.

I really enjoyed our guest lectures: Alan Cole of the Museum of Writing (part of Senate House Library) brought in a variety of writing artifacts, including a Sumerian pictograph tablet inscribed with a very early transitional form of A.  We even got to try our hand at writing with traditional instruments: reed pen on papyrus, Roman styli on wax tablet, and quill pen to paper.  Friday was spent at St. Bride’s, where Nigel Roche held an excellent session on the history and technology of printing and demonstrated the hand-casting of type.  Then we practiced composing lines of type and printing on an antique hand press.

I found the hands-on sessions extremely gratifying.  No matter how much you read, some concepts will be easier to grasp in person, particularly the production of type.  In that vein I present Nigel’s guide to understanding imposition—the layout of individual pages on each sheet of paper sent through the printing press.

What you need:

Step 1:  Turn the paper to landscape orientation and fold horizontally:

Step 2:  Turn the newly folded page to landscape orientation and fold again in the same way:

Step 3: Now you have a little booklet.  Rotate it so that the spine is held in your left hand and the loose edges are at the bottom.  Like so:

Step 4: Number the pages, including the opposite sides:

Step 5:  The last page should be #8.  Unfold the paper and look at the order of pages. Notice that the folds have created eight individual pages (four per side), making this book the size known as quarto.  (Of course, our example is smaller than a typical quarto.)

Also note that adding the page numbers across equals one more than the total number of pages. 1+8=9; 4+5=9, and so on.  This pattern will always be present no matter what size book is being produced.  For instance, a larger folio has one fold and four individual pages, and the page numbers always add up to five.

Finally, each side of the page has its own name: the side with page 1 is called the outer form.  The opposite side, with page 2, is called the inner form.  The entirety of the form would be composed together (with pages 1 and 8 pointing in the opposite direction from pages 4 and 5) and printed in one pull.  Once everything has been printed and ordered the pages are trimmed so that they’re no longer connected at the top.  In the early modern era the finished stack of pages was often sold unbound, allowing the customer to have the book bound to his or her own specifications.

Ireland Day 7 - Brú na Bóinne Necropolis

On Thursday we visited our second UNESCO World Heritage Site of the week: the 5000 year-old Brú na Bóinne Necropolis just north of Dublin.  This amazing paleolithic site is composed of three major burial mounds: Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, (though only the first two are accessible to visitors) and around 40 smaller passage tombs and other monuments, making it “Europe’s largest and most important concentration of prehistoric megalithic art.”  Visitors are only allowed on the sites as part of a truly excellent guided tour run by the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center, and while you can choose to visit one site and skip over the other I strongly recommend that you see both if afforded the opportunity.  Allow about three hours for the entire visit and go early while it’s quiet.

On our trip we stopped first at Knowth.  A lovely, peaceful site and the largest of the tombs, with two separate passageways believed to have been lit by moonlight at the spring and summer equinoxes.  (There is also a ring of smaller tombs surrounding the main burial mound.)  Several important artifacts were found here, including a sacred basin stone around which the tomb was constructed, and which cannot be removed because it is actually larger than the passages.  Unfortunately, due to damage to the passageways over the course of history, visitors can’t enter the burial chamber, but this is made up for by the amazing artwork on the large kerbstones surrounding the tomb.  Knowth actually contains over 60% of all neolithic artwork found in Europe.

Knowth passage tomb.

Wooden henge next to Knowth.

Kerbstone artwork.

The second site at Brú na Bóinne is the slightly smaller but quite striking Newgrange.  The outer walls of this tomb are covered with a pattern of white quartz and grey river stones, and the single burial passage is lit by the rising sun at the winter solstice.  There are only a few pieces of artwork here, but they are amazing, especially the large stone at the entrance which features a beautiful tri-spiral.  The tri-spiral appears again in the burial chamber, along with diamond shapes, individual spirals and the representation of a fern.  Visitors are allowed into the burial chamber with a guide and can see the amazing construction of the corbelled chamber roof.  In 5000 years no water has ever leaked into the burial chambers at any of the Brú na Bóinne passage tombs.

Newgrange.

Quartz and river stones.  The wall, along with the outside of the Knowth tomb, was reconstructed by archaeologists beginning in the 1960s.  This brings up a lot of interesting questions about how we choose to interpret and reconstruct historical sites.  What do we find valuable about a place and how do we choose a way to recreate a structure that has existed in various states for 5000 years?

The black stones are not original to the site and indicate where the restoration was altered to allow the visitor entrance to be constructed.

The entrance stone with the tri-spiral on the left.  Some researchers believe this to be a map of the area, with the tri-spiral representing the three main tombs and the wavy lines below them indicating the river.

Ireland Day 4 - Cliffs of Moher

Days three and four weren’t terribly exciting from an historical point of view; we spent most of them hiking in Killarney National Park.  It was beautiful, though, and it’s blackberry season, so yum.

On Monday afternoon, exhausted with hiking, we drove north to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher.  The Cliffs are amazing but have recently been saddled with a new visitor center, tacky shops and a good bit of fence.  When Laura was here a few years ago she was able to walk right up to the edge.  Now there’s a big sign saying not too, but we completely ignored it and were able to walk along the edge for a long way beyond the designated visitor area.  We had better views of the cliffs and ocean with the sun at our backs and got away from the hoards of loud tourists.  It’s very peaceful once you walk a bit from the fence.  The seabirds swoop around level with the top of the cliffs and you can hear the booming waves.  We even found a place that was aligned so perfectly with the setting sun that when waves rolled by the spray floating from their tops came off in rainbows.

Oh really?  I wouldn’t have guessed.

View from the safe area.

We’re definitely not the first to ignore the sign—the path is pretty well worn.

Excellent view from the dangerous side of the fence.

Looking a bit wind-swept.

Ireland Day 2 - Skellig Michael

The Skellig Islands are rocky peaks jutting from the Atlantic about 15km off Ireland’s southwest coast.  Little Skellig, home to an important bird colony, is off-limits to visitors, but Greater Skellig was the location of a monastery between 588 and the 12th century and later became a pilgrimage destination.

Tours leave from Port Magee, a short drive down the coast from Cahersiveen.  The boat to the islands took about 45 minutes over rough seas, with a brief stop near Little Skellig for a wonderful view of the gannet colony (and there are puffins as well, during other seasons.)  My photos of Little Skellig really don’t do it justice—it was mind-blowing.

Next, on to Skellig Michael, where you dock at a primitive landing and climb onto slippery, narrow stone steps, trying to land your feet while the waves bobs violently.  (No part of this trip is suitable for the faint-hearted.)  The path to the monastery winds up the mountain, offering spectacular views of it’s own sheer sides as well as the ocean and Little Skellig in the distance, looking snow-dusted but actually covered in birds.  Soon the path narrows and steepens, then becomes a set of rough slab steps running almost vertically to the summit.  The monastery remains well preserved at the top, though visitors only have access to a small section that includes several domed buildings and some graves.  When we arrived there was a park ranger giving a really interesting talk on the island’s history and the culture of the monastery.  After the climb it’s nice to sit in the sun enjoying the view and thinking about the people who arrived here in wooden boats 1500 years ago.

Leaving the Port Magee harbour.

Gannet colony on Little Skellig - 60,000 breeding pairs!

Great Skellig/Skellig Michael.

View back from about halfway, and Little Skellig in the distance.

Last flight of steps.

Monastery entrance.

Ireland Day 1

After an uneventful flight (in first class with ice cream sundaes) we landed in Shannon on Friday morning, picked up our teeny rented Yaris and drove southwest to the hostel in Cahersiveen, where there is an ancient ring fort as well as the ruins of a castle.  More pictures here.

At the beginning of the Ring of Kerry.

The beach at Cahersiveen.

Cahergall Fort.

Some of the top sections have been restored.

Ballycarberry Castle.

We climbed around up there!

Ravens really add atmosphere.

Leave-Taking

Apologies for disappearing over the last week or so; I’ve been pretty busy preparing for my trip, spending time with my family, training the new person at work, etc.  And my coworkers even threw me a party—thanks for the farewell wishes everybody!  But now all is ready, and I have some free time while I wait on the luggage courier to come for my bags.

The plane leaves the ATL tonight at 10 (I’m flying standby—if you don’t already have a buddy in the airline industry I strongly encourage you to procure one) and my similarly-named friend Laura and I will land tomorrow in Shannon for a week in Ireland.  During the holiday I’ll try to write a little and post some pictures of all the book and history nerdery we get into.  Then on to London where my classes start on the 29th.  Here’s what I’m taking this year:

Book History Core Course (Fall and Spring) - includes the following surveys and case studies:

• Book Structures and Manufacture
• Publication and Distribution
• Reading and Preservation
• The Medieval Book
• Books of Hours
• Shakespeare’s Quartos and First Folio
• The Illustrated Book
• The Novel 1830-1895
• Modern Publishing
• From Papyrus Roll to Scrolling Screen

Digital Publishing and Book Studies (Fall)

The Medieval Book (Fall)

The Italian Book (Spring)

Textual Scholarship and Contemporary Editorial Theory (Spring)

I can’t even begin to express how happy I am about school starting.  Just reviewing my reading lists has been exciting.  And now I go to hydrate myself in preparation for air travel.  See you on the other side of the pond!

The Old Corner Bookstore

I was recently introduced to the awesome Shorpy: The 100-Year-Old Photo Blog.  This morning’s image is “The Old Corner Bookstore, 1900.”  Check out those cool guys just loitering by the post!  I love their juxtaposition against the people moving quickly down the sidewalk.  My secret desire is to be a man and dress in high collars and newsboy caps everyday.

And looking through the Shorpy archives I found an older post, even more appropriate for this week.

Links

I’ve been bad about doing link posts the last few weeks.  Things have been a bit hectic around here lately, but they’re starting to calm down, at least until I leave the country on the 18th of September!

— Via Lifehacker: ebook software called GutenMark which formats Project Gutenberg downloads for easier reading.  It’s free and works in Windows, Mac and Linux, but I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t say how well it works.

— Jeremy offers his thoughts on a newly discovered early facsimile copy of the Declaration of Independence.

— Audra shares information and links regarding important Chinese conservation work.

— This week at Bookride, Bastards with Bookshops!  Need I say more?

— On that note, The danger of laughing at your customers, from Signal vs. Noise.

— Ministry of Type discusses the Faber Finds imprint, which publishes out of print works on-demand with completely unique cover designs.  It’s an interesting concept, but I can’t say that I like the design; it’s a bit busy for me.

— BibliOdyssey shares the Codex Manesse, a lovely 14th century illuminated work which he describes as perhaps “the quintessential Medieval manuscript.”