The design continues. More plates, please.
I am still working on the design for three folios in the center of the book, a transition sequence between the text and the appendix. I am close to a solution, and carry my notebook around to scribble possibilities every now and then. I am also resolving the box and the cover in this way. Slipcase or clamshell box? Do I want the title and my press name visible from the spine? There are still many questions about the final state of this book.
I am ordering my last round of plates today. One of the issues that had been holding me up was a surprisingly practical one. It is important to me to include the weights of all of these objects in the book, but I haven’t had access to a scale sensitive enough to measure the weight of an object like a cork, a pine cone, or a button. That hung me up for a few weeks until I realized that the solution was the simplest thing in the world. Just go to the post office, you bone head.
The woman behind the counter of the post office in my neighborhood is unpleasant. Whenever I have bought a stamp or mailed a package from her, she treats me like I just knocked on her door and asked her for money. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would let you borrow the scale. But look:
Victory! Measure the weight of an envelope, subtract that weight from the total, repeat ten times and kablam! Problem solved. I didn’t mail them. Take that, Royal Mail. With those measurements in hand, I could finally complete the digital design of the appendix and send away for the plates.
So that is where we are! The book is chugging along. The post office revelation reminded me of how much I miss Brenda, my postmistress in Upstate New York, and so I sent her a postcard.
Big Jump Press 