Evening reading

The new issue of Hand Papermaking Magazine is out and it's great, as usual. What I love is that many of my favorite people contributed to it in ways that suit them perfectly: Shawn, Melissa, Velma, my publisher. And then there was another highlight: seeing Anne Covell's research on historic Japanese book covers. I had met her and her collaborator, Kazuko Hioki, at the Book in East Asia Workshop at Oberlin in 2012. They had just begun this process of figuring out how to replicate book covers that were made of recycled papers. The article is an excellent story of the various tests they went through to figure out how they were made in the past (Anne talks about the process on her blog as well). This kind of research is so important, and of course she's an Iowa grad, because they ALL do that kind of meticulous and serious work. The tipped-in samples are particularly special.

I love seeing up-and-coming paper folks doing such exciting work! Here's another: May Babcock put together an impressive map of papermaking around the world on her Paperslurry site. I'm inspired to see how people serve the field.

But back to birds: Shawn's contribution was a pop-up, and his write-up was particularly touching. He talked about how awful it was to read last year that over half the bird species in North America were being harmed by climate change, about how he and his people love birds. We humans will always be compelled by these (mostly) flying creatures. I spotted some fishing on the choppy ocean in Maine, and came back to New York, surprised by the ones singing songs that mimicked car alarms. They adapt remarkably well, but I wish that we weren't forcing them to adapt too much too fast.

I've overworked myself more than usual but am determined this weekend to take at least one duck out for some air and new sights, and to sleep as much as possible!