A Sharp End for the Year

I'm on vacation so don't expect a lot of blogging. Couple of sharp Xmas highlights:

Handmade Merchant & Mills draper's scissors, perfect for the bindery. Beautiful. But being a custom enterprise, M&M should invest a little more in the printing of their wrapping sheets & labels. Get some letterpress happening. I'm sure there's someone with a press in Sheffield.

One of Deejo's elegant pocket knives. I covet minimalist pocket knives, i.e. ones with the fewest possible parts, to slide unobtrusively into one's trouser pocket. The Deejos get about as spare as possible without being a fixed blade. Might get one of the larger models to use for slitting paper...

Happy New Year. If all goes well, HM will have a new Web site by the start of 2016. Only about a decade overdue. I'll also have started printing Harold's chapbook Sunblind Highway. His Vancouver gig rapidly approaches!

Escape velocity

Too busy for blogging this week. Just found out Xmas is on Friday, not Saturday as I'd been planning around, so bit of a scramble. During scrambles this broadside popped up from the mass of stuff. It was printed by a couple of friends c.2007 at the now-defunct Strathcona Press. They organized a small show of their broadsides, inviting a few people to write something about their connection to the land. Yes, they were hippy types, but I liked them anyway. I was surprised when I was included in the invitees, but wanted to reply and so this is the best I could come up with. Defying gravity seems a suitable topic at this time of year. Merry merry to all. 

Harold Budd in Print

Update: see the article about Harold & his Aurora Teardrops gigs in today's Guardian...

The next two projects in the press come from the pen of Harold Budd. This week he and  Bradford Ellis will perform at The Kitchen, accompanied by Jane Maru reading selected poems from HM's upcoming publication Aroura Teardrops. Below is a shot from their performance earlier this fall in Joshua Tree...

To mark the trio's appearance in Vancouver next January, HM will be publishing a chapbook with eight poems selected from Colorful Fortune, 4, Angel and Aurora Teardrops, plus two that will be unique to this collection. The book, titled Sunblind Highway, is offered as an introduction to Harold's poetry, and an affordable alternative to the more costly original publications for his admirers.

Sunblind Highway (6 x 10 inches, 16 pages plus cover) will be printed by hand, letterpress, at Heavenly Monkey, in exactly the same manner as Aurora Teardrops. One of Harold's distinctive arabesque drawings is reproduced as a frontispiece. The text will be set in Bodoni types and printed in two colors. The edition will be 100 numbered copies. The first 20 (Publisher's copies) will be signed by Harold & printed on Arches wove paper, sewn into a handmade paper wrap. Copies 21-100 (Author's copies) will be printed on Somerset Book paper, sewn into a stiff printed paper wrap.

Copies of Sunblind Highway will be available for purchase at the Vancouver show. Any remaining copies will be offered for sale; details to follow.

Aurora Teardrops (8 x 10 inches, approximately 80 pages) will be set in Cancelleresca Bastarda and Umbra types, printed on dampened Arches Wove paper. The text pages will also feature details from four of Harold's arabesque drawings, treated with color paint washes, bleeding off the edges. Inserted between text spreads will be full-page bleed reproductions of Jane Maru's intense and mesmerizing batik paintings, printed on semi-transparent vellum paper that replicates the original silk's quality of seeing the painting from either side.

We're particularly pleased that the new collection includes to include a two-page introduction by David Sylvian, Harold's friend and colleague. Written in David's characteristic evocative style, it is a beautiful encapsulation of the poetry and the poet.

Aurora Teardrops as described above will be published in an edition of just 26 press-lettered copies (plus 8 numbered contributor copies) signed by Harold and Jane. We do, however, have plans to to publish a second edition in a simpler format, but printed at the same time, the same way, from the same setting. While this edition will probably not number more than 50 copies, it will offer Harold's admirers a more affordable option for securing their own copy of his most extensive collection of poetry to date.

Aurora Teardrops is scheduled for publication in Spring, 2016.

Paper Beats Pixel

Doing some fall cleaning, largely a function of long, long overdue revamp (revivification?) of the HM Web site. Along the way I found a few interesting files, like the one above. No record of the original source, but I post it unattributed with the hope that the original authors would agree with the message being carried.

An unpublished arabesque drawing by Harold Budd, which will make an appearance in Aurora Teardrops next year. Did you hear that his gig at the Kitchen sold out in less than an hour?

This (below) is what Christmas looked like in our neighborhood this past week: Vancouver's first Yule Duel choir sing-off. Naturally the choir with HM affiliation took people's choice.