Category: Books

From Chapbooks to Zines: Anyone Can Make a Book

 

http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/ (my art website)

Digital books be damned, because it seems that everyone wants to make their own book, by hand, these days.  I’ve taught fifth graders how to make books and also a class of adults  in Culpepper, Virginia.   I’ve helped  college students, who deserted their cell phones long enough to hand-bind books of their own writings.  And they hugged them close to their chest as they left the studio because physical books feel good to hold.  (See top photo of University of Maryland students holding the books they’ve bound of their writings.)

So here’s the good news:  Anyone can easily make a book, even you.  And you have the 15th century to thank.  Back then a simple and and easily bound book was called a “chapbook.”  Today it’s called a “zine.”  (Zine comes from the last four letters of “magazine” or  “fanzine”)

But first, here’s a brief history:  Chap books were sold by chapmen  (hence the name chapbook) on street corners, door to door, or at countryside markets and fairs in Europe.  People were just starting to read, so they were eagerly sought.  The books were usually folded into 8,12,16, or 24 pages, and made of such poor quality paper that the pages might be used as a toilet paper when the reader was finished. Subject matter included, almanacs, folk takes, ballads and popular songs, political and religious tracts, bawdy tales, and moral instruction.

A zine I made based on vintage photos from the 1940’s of Yosemite.

Zines are frequently irreverant and counterculture,  concentrating on anything from punk rock to pez dispensers, or from feminism to other political subjects or cartoons.   They are often deeply personal, and one rarely makes money from them.  Yet, individuals keep making them!

Both chapbooks and zines are simple to make.    You simply nest four or five folded pages and attach (either using a stapler, or needle and thread and a binding method called the “pamphlet stitch”) to a heavier piece of paper for the cover.

And why do people get such a kick out of making their own books.  I asked Johnna Schmidt of the University of Maryland,  who directs a two year creative writing residential program there–mostly for upper classman.  During their last semester they learn how to simply bind a book of their own writings.

“The experience of curating your best work in order to make a book…is a real act of commitment.  I think it sharpens for people their idea of who they are and what is important to them…  A book that you have hand-made inevitably becomes a sacred object, ” she says.

A library in the small town of Zutphen (located in the eastern part of the Netherlands) with chained books.

The concept of a book as a sacred object is not new.  During medieval times large portions of the population were becoming literate so books were very much desired, but were also expensive.  What’s a library to do to keep books from being stolen, yet allow the community access to them?  The solution was simple:  Chain the books to a railing. Some of these libraries still exist.  Yet despite these extreme measures, keys to the front door were often give to the town canons or monks, and sometimes to the townspeople so they could have easy access to library.  Books were sacred but the town fathers also wanted to give the community access to these chained books.

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

The Places We Love

By Judy Folkenberg

judyfolkenberg.com (my art website)

To be frank, the black and white photos aren’t very good.  They were taken by my father in the late 1940’s of a place where I later camped as a child, the most beautiful place in the world:  Yosemite, California.   I never called Yosemite, “the most beautiful place in the world,” because children don’t talk that way.   You just know that somehow certain places are special–and you carry that knowledge into adulthood.

My brother, parents, and I camped in an army green tent with a peaked roof and an entrance  with a tied back flap under tall ponderosa pines whose needles littered the forest floor; the sweet smell drifting through the air.  We swam in the cold, pure waters with Yosemite Falls as our background.  And we ate our supper in the clean sharp air from plastic sectioned plates usually with a breeze that drifted through the campground and across the water.  The days were hot and lazy, a golden wonder; the nights chilly, as we snuggled in our army green sleeping bags on wooden cots.

Unfortunately that was then and the now has changed. I haven’t been back to Yosemite since I was seven years old.   I understand too many humans  clog its natural pathways.  It’s expensive to get through the gates, it’s probably noisy, and it’s become far too popular a place to visit.  I’ve been told there’s a theme park whiff about it.  And, of course we all know, “you can’t go home again.”

You Can’t Go Home Again is the title of Thomas Wolff’s famous novel where the protagonist  realizes that he can’t relive his youthful memories or go back home to the way things used to be.  And the phrase is used tirelessly to explain how you can’t revisit the past.  After all, the truth about childhood places is elusive and probably should  be remembered with caution;  like a girl’s first love we pick and choose what we want to relive

But what most people don’t realize, is that despite the title of the novel, there’s another quote the protagonist makes, which is not so well-known:  “But…why had he thought so much about it and remembered it with such blazing accuracy, if it did not matter… All that he knew was that the years flow by like water, and that one day men come home again.”

Page from the Yosemite chap book that features my dad’s photos of Yosemite.  This particular photo is of Yosemite Falls.

So, one day I will go home again.  I will go back to Yosemite.  But until that happens I can do something else.  I can preserve that time as a child through my art.   I’m a book artist.   I will make small books (known as “chap books,” and the format has been around since the 1500’s) that feature my dad’s photos of Yosemite.  Because even though they “aren’t very good,” there’s really no such thing as a bad photograph of Yosemite.

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tools of My Trade

http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/ (my art website)

Tools allow us to be artists.  They give us the freedom to take that imaginary creation in our mind and turn it into an actual piece of art to be seen by others.

I can’t punch holes with my bare fingers–or my teeth.  I can’t cut paper with my hands.  Without rulers and straight edges, my art would look crooked and sloppy.  If I didn’t have book presses or weights, I’d have to sit on my books to get them to form nicely.  I collect tools, hoard them, and selfishly guard them.  I do not lend them to other book artists!

Here is a partial list of the tools I use:

Awls and Bonefolders:  I’ve got to punch holes in the pages of  books in order to sew them.  Awls have been around for hundreds of years; monks used them to make holes in their manuscripts; Venetian (Venice was the early capital of publishing and bookbinding) bookbinders used them and all we 21st century book binders use them.  Little has changed in the technology.  A sharp implement embedded in wood does the job.

Bonefolders:  These tools make clean creases and score the pages.  I also use them to burnish the paper once it has been glued to the book binders board.  Bonefolders also help spread the glue, and get any wrinkles out of the paper that might have resulted from the gluing.  They are usually made out of, surprise, animal bones.   Teflon now seems to be the material of choice.  Sharp creases are important in making books and I love running my folders down the paper to get a clean crease.

Paper Cutters:  These machines are the most expensive of my tools. My two large ones, a Kutrimmer made in Germany, is known as a board and and paper cutter.   I also have a guillotine paper cutter (a Dahl, made in the USA) which can cut through stacks of paper and binder’s board.  To keep the blades sharp (and yes, they can hack a finger off) I have them hand-sharpened by specialist.

Weights and Book Presses:  I can’t seem to stop buying weights.  We need these objects to keep binder’s board from buckling, to make sure book covers close properly, and to add that finishing touch.  I have loads of them.  My favorites, though, made by girlfriend’s mother, are tapestry covered bricks.  You can’t go wrong with a brick as a weighty object.

Book presses perform the same task.  The large wooden one (the right one in the photo) was made by an Italian man who ran a book binding studio in Virginia.  During the day  he would play Italian opera music while his employees worked.  A former employee told me that it was the most enchanting place to work.  The more funky press (left in the photo) is a 1930’s textbook press.  It squeaks when I turn the large handle at the top.

Other Devices:  Cradles help you make a hole exactly in the fold of the paper.  They help me be more precise in my work.  A corner cutter, takes square corners and rounds them.  I only use with soft (paper) covers.  Rulers and straight edges are invaluable.  They help make my art more precise, and let me run an exacto knife down the straight edge for precise cuts.  Scissors and paintbrushes need no explanation.

“The practice of art isn’t to make isn’t to make a living.  It’s to make your soul grow,” said Kurt Vonnegut.  Good tools help me practice my art–and nurture my soul.

 

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

The Nativity Story from a Cat’s Viewpoint

(For this blog post I welcome guest blogger, TeddyBoy Sinclair, my tuxedo cat, who will set the record straight on a number of misconceptions about Christmas.)

Around this time each year (winter), humans like to retell a story about an  infant born in a stable on a pile of straw surrounded by cows, horses, and donkeys in some far off country.  And today humans celebrate this event with food, gifts that sparkle, lights that pierce the darkness, and other stuff.  They call it, “Christmas,” and it supposedly celebrates the birth of this human child, named Jesus.

This story was published in a book, called the Bible, and the authors left out some very important details, plus they got the date wrong.   I feel it’s my job to set the record straight.

First off, it was some of my feline ancestors, the stable cats,  who helped keep the baby Jesus warm.  Forget the donkeys, goats, and sheep who were all too self-absorbed in eating and too big to cuddle with a baby in a manger.  It was the kitty cats that kept him warm–and even played with him.

Another omission from the baby Jesus story includes the gifts that the cats gave to the baby, and his parents, Mary and Joseph. A whole lot of hullabaloo has been paid to three wise men who traveled some distance to bring gifts of gold, myrrha and frankensence (obviously, they forgot the catnip) to the new baby.  But it was the stable cats who caught some mice and presented these rodents as gifts to his parents so they wouldn’t starve.  As far as I know you can’t eat gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Cats also played a very important role in helping the parents escape the edict of baby-killer Herod, who ordered the death of every child in Bethlehem under the age of two.  The 3 wise men apparently spilled the beans when they asked for directions from Herod’s court to visit a child who would one day be king and wanted to pay him homage.  Herod was very threatened by this future king  (he  apparently had Narcissistic Personality Disorder) and issued this order of murder for all young human lads of a certain age.    The cats warned the parents about Herod’s evil intentions and guided the parents to safety along a secret trail known only to felines.

And allow me to correct one chronological mistake.   The baby Jesus was most likely born in the spring, not in December, so it’s unclear why his birthday is celebrated December 25.  But hey, December 25 is a pagan holiday where there used to be lots of drinking, and wild dancing to chase the winter chill away, so why not celebrate a cute baby’s birth during this day.  But for the record, the humans got the date wrong.

So humans, celebrate this December 25 holiday by spending time with your loved ones (both animal and human), eating good food, drinking, dancing,  singing, and a warm fire (except in California where you should celebrate by embracing water).

Celebrate the winter darkness  which will bring back the longer days of light.  For without the darkness, we cannot fully appreciate the light.

Books and Cats (Go Together Like a Horse and Carriage)

http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/ (my art website)

Cats got their literary start in the scriptoriums of medieval monasteries.  This relationship can be traced back to an 8th or 9th century poem, Pangur Ban (which means white cat).   Supposedly written by an Irish Benedictine monk who worked in the scriptorium of Reichenau Abbey, a German abbey on an island of the same name, the author compares his scholarly pursuits with the cat’s activities of chasing mice.

“I and Pangur Ban my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.”

That monks and cats formed close bonds should come as no surprise.  Mice and rats lived in the scriptoriums feasting on the precious, hand-copied manuscripts.  Cats, on the other hand, feasted on the rodents.  Scriptoriums were also solitary places, so this companionship between kitties and monks made a whole lot of sense even though monks ran the risk of kitties stepping in the ink jars and walking across the manuscript leaving their paw prints.  Proof of ink-soaked paws are shown in the illustration (right), a medieval manuscript that a researcher recently discovered when going through manuscripts in Dubrovnik, Croatia.     This habit exists to this day and age:  cats now walk across the computer keyboard.

Many 20th century writers turned to cats as their favorite muse.  Ernest Hemingway was famous for his numerous polydactyl cats, the descendants of which exist to this day at his house/museum in Florida.  Poets William Carlos Williams and Randall Jarrell (“The cat’s asleep; I whisper “kitten” Till he stirs a little and begins to purr–) kept cats,  as did the existentialists, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre.  (It looks like the kitty is dictating to Sartre the copy of Being and Nothingness, which Sartre claimed to have authored).   The beat writer, Jack Kerouac, adored his ginger Persian, “Tyke,” and compared the death of Tyke to the death of his little brother.   William Burroughs had cats all his life and seemed to love them as much as he loved illicit drugs.

Mark Twain qualifies as perhaps the most famous writer/cat-lover.    He considered cats superior to humans (“If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.”  – Notebook, 1894) and owned cats all his life.

Cats even played a role in the writing of his classic, “Huck Finn.”  Twain began writing the novel in the summer of 1876 in a small study filled with cats, in Elmira, New York.  

A 1905 Washington Post article described Twain’s huge bed, where he spent a good deal of time writing.  The reporter enumerates the various items on the bed;  the books, writing materials, clothes and numerous other objects (“enough to furnish a Harlem flat”).

The reporter continues:    “He looks quite happy rising out of the mass, and over all prowls a huge black cat of a very unhappy disposition.  She snaps, snarls and claws and bites, and Mark Twain takes his turn with the rest;  when she gets tired of tearing up manuscripts, she scratches him and he bears with a patience wonderful to behold.”  –interview subtitled “Mark Twain’s Bed,” Washington Post, March 26, 1905, page F12

The most absurd thing in life is how much pleasure I get from TeddyBoy (my cat pictured in top photo).  The second most absurd thing is how I lay the burden of muse on TeddyBoy’s furry shoulders, and how well he seems to bear it with nary a care in the world.

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Hand

http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/ (my art website)

Enchantment comes in many forms but rarely when we expect it.  So when I signed up for a two day course in making clam shell boxes at the Cat Tail Run Hand Bookbinding Studio in Winchester, Virginia, I anticipated a detailed workshop on the finer points of box-making.  One box would have a curved spine, a more complicated structure.

cat tail bindery photo
Cat Tail Bindery

Clam shell boxes, are boxes most often used to house rare, fragile, or valuable books, or loose papers.  Each box is custom made and the parts of each box must be cut precisely by hand, and measured multiple times before cuts are made. Pasting is done by hand and at each stage of the structure, several things can go wrong.  As often as not, your eye is the best guide.

We arrived for our two-day workshop on a warm October day.   We walked on a small bridge over a Koi pond and entered a large, light-filled, high-ceilinged studio in the Virginia countryside.    We listened to the music of Bach while a gentle breeze wafted through our space.

We worked in a space full of tools and books, handmade paper, and rolls of book cloth with a dedicated teacher who has restored General Sherman’s battle plans, books from George Washington’s Library, the White House, and Ford’s Theatre.   Our activities were over-seen by Molly, the cat, and Bailey, the black lab.

photo of Molly the bindery cat
Molly, the bindery cat

We left the digital world behind and entered a world where things are done by hand and we could  sit back and admire our work at each step of the way.

When I make a book, or a box to hold that book by hand, I feel a connection to communities from hundreds of years ago:  To monks in monastery  libraries who labored by candlelight; to book artisans in small shops along the Grand Canal in Venice; and to palace libraries that exist to this day.  Yes, the materials have changed over hundreds of years, but the techniques are the same and many of the tools are similar.  And isn’t that one definition of enchantment–to be part of a grand community of artists and artisans, going back hundreds of years?

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

 

 

 

 

The Lowly Pencil (which may not be so lowly after all)

picture of pencilsI’ve always loved pencils. Turns out that I’m not alone.  Da Vinci made some of his sketches with pencils, General Grant sketched out his battle plans in pencil, and Hemingway often made his notes with cedar pencils.  But nothing can compare to John Steinbeck who supposedly began each day with 24 sharpened pencils (and a pencil sharpner) and used 300 pencils to complete East of Eden.

The modern pencil got its start in the middle ages by chance.  A fierce storm in the Lake District of England uprooted a tree and shepherds discovered a strange black substance hanging on its roots.  The goop was useful in marking their sheep and writing on paper.  The name of the substance:  Graphite…and every country soon wanted it.  (Up to this time, metal styluses were used with a mixture of lead and other substances, but these lead-based “pencils” made a faint mark, dirtied the hand, and required much pressure).

In America, Henry David Thoreau’s family made the first good pencil—which was praised by artists, and could cost as much as 25 cents or $8 today.   After graduating from Harvard, Thoreau started working in his father’s pencil factory where he made significant technological innovations in the pencil.  This included inventing a new grinding mill machine to improve the graphite and figuring a way to inject lead directly into the hollowed-out pencil.

Today, the world’s largest manufacturer of pencils, Dixon Ticonderoga, produces 1 billion of the No. 2 yellow pencils each year.

It’s a good thing that Dixon Ticonderoga produces this many pencils, because here’s a little known secret about the pencil. The jottings made by pencil outlast those made by the ball point pen.

I have a friend who is a paper conservator at one of the world’s leading libraries.  Normally, she restores historical manuscripts from past centuries where iron gall ink and the quill pen were used for jottings and sketches.  (Here’s the link to my piece on iron gall ink on my web site: http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/iron-gall-ink.html)

But she recently turned her attention to the lab notes of a Nobel winning scientist made some 45-50 years ago with a ball point pen. And what a headache.  The ball point pen ink bled, throughout the paper over time; red ink was even more of nightmare.  The bleeding also meant that certain notations faded.  Not all pens make this kind of mess.  Sharpies, so far, cause less bleeding.   But her writing instrument of choice for lab notes:  The No. 2 pencil, she says.  The notes made by the pencil will last much longer than those made by the ball point pen.

After typing this blog piece on my computer, I printed it out, and pencil in hand, made my edits.  Of course I used a yellow, No 2 pencil.

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

Only in Venice

Venice books
Much of the material for this blog piece comes from the book, “Bound in Venice.”

If you traveled back in time to Venice in the latter half of the 1400’s, you would have encountered dozens and dozens of bookshops and printers. An unusual, almost revolutionary sight indeed. Because within two or three decades, “publishing” had gone from monks painstakingly copying a miniscule number manuscripts, to a mechanical mechanism that published thousands of books.

Gutenberg may have invented the printing press and moveable type in Germany, but it was the city of Venice that rocked when it came to publishing in the 15th and 16th centuries. Without Venice, Gutenberg’s invention might have languished for years.

During this time, half the books in all of Europe were printed in this sea side city. Venice publishers printed the first Talmud, the first Koran, the first book in Greek and the second Bible in vernacular (Italian). They revolutionized punctuation, more or less invented the paper-back, printed the first best-seller (it sold 100,00 copies, an impressive figure even in this day and age), the first printed text of cosmetology, and some of the first medical texts.

The list continues: the first book on chocolate, and the first song books with musical notes (a challenging task for the printer). Of course, no publishing mecca would be complete without the first printed porn book, Salacious sonnets sonetti lussuriosi, by Pietro Aretino. The author was known to remark that the women in Venice were so beautiful, that they made him forget his male lover.

While the rest of Europe was slogging around in pig muck and ignorance (most of the population couldn’t read), a quarter of the male population between the ages of 6 and 15 in Venice attended school and a sophisticated bunch of citizens treasured some of the most beautiful books ever printed. Intellectuals met in Venice bookstores to discuss the issues of the day.

Why was Venice the publishing capitol of the civilized world during this time? Venice was one the three biggest cities (Naples and Paris were the other two) in Europe with a population of over 150,000. Alpine streams gushed with water, making paper production possible—a task that needs enormous amounts of water. The city had literate citizens, and was at the center of trading routes between Europe and the Middle East which meant they had plenty of capital.

Venice had the three characteristics necessary for becoming the information capitol of the then world: Industrialization, globalization, and marketing. Venice’s importance rivals the importance of today’s information giants: Google, Facebook, Apple (all who are located in one place, California’s “Silicon Valley”) and Microsoft.

Finally, the German city of Mainz (where Gutenberg lived and made his inventions) was sacked in 1462, driving many printers and punch cutters into exile and they settled in Venice, a place very hospitable to the printing trade and in need of their skills.

The publishing period between 1450 and 1501 (Gutenberg’s first Bible was printed in 1452) is known as the “incunabula,” Latin for swaddling clothes or cradle. It is an arbitrary date, but it was during this transition period—from hand-written manuscripts to printed words—that many innovations took place. The inclusion of title pages, pagination, the author’s name, colophons (name, date and place of publishing), the printer’s mark, and indexing, none of which were present in manuscripts. All these characteristics are still present in today’s printed books.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Venice lost its coveted position of being the center of trading routes, as the British, the Spaniards, and French took the lead in discovering new worlds. Trade routes shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean—the route to North America.

The Catholic Church, always a stickler for censorship decided that Venice, which had been fairly independent, should bear the brunt of censorship. Northern Europe, where the Protestant reformation took place, was protected from the Roman Inquisition, and a free press resulted. So publishers moved up north.

By the middle of the 16th century the book burning had begun in Venice. First came the bonfires of Protestant books and then the burning of all kinds of books. If the publishers were smart they wisely disappeared before the bonfires. Rome produced an index of condemned books which had to be strictly followed. The number of printing shops greatly declined. And the golden age of Venetian printing became history.

It’s become a truism to say that, “Venice was the Silicon Valley of publishing.” But that’s backwards. “Silicon Valley is the Venice of (internet) publishing.”

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

A Book Bindery in Cuba—Ediciones Vigia

Without paper, it’s tough to make a book. Before Gutenberg’s press, sheepskin and calf-skin were used to make parchment and vellum on which monks painstakingly crafted manuscripts—a process that could take up to a year or more.

Shelves of hand-made books at the Ediciones Vigia
Shelves of hand-made books at the Ediciones Vigia

Which brings us to Cuba. Since the Cuban revolution (1953-1959), consumer goods, including paper, have been in short supply. Paper is a luxury item and you can’t waste paper on a book! (The Island has periodic toilet paper shortages.)

Nonetheless, in 1985, Ediciones Vigia (which means, Watchtower Editions), an independent book bindery collective, was established in Matanzas, situated on a bay of the same name, some fifty miles from Havana. The collective is housed in an old renovated colonial house on Watchtower Square which overlooks the San Juan River. A friend who recently visited Cuba brought back a book for me from the bindery.

Despite the paucity of paper, this book collective makes beautiful and artistic books using a wide variety of found and repurposed materials: craft and copier paper, crayons, yarn, leaves, cloth, wood scraps and items donated by international visitors. In the early days of the bindery, artists recycled the brown paper used in butcher shops, upon which to craft and illustrate books.  The bindery uses only two mechanical devices: a borrowed mimeograph machine and a typewriter. As a result, the artists and writers use their hands and imagination to craft these beautiful books. The collective makes a limited run (a maximum of 200 copies) of each book.

Purchased books from the Ediciones Vigia
Purchased books from the Ediciones Vigia (photo on the right shows the trademark on the back of the books)

Ediciones Vigía concentrates on printing poetry, short stories, literary criticism, and children’s literature. Some of the texts are original, while others are existing works by famous writers, such as the poems by Emily Dickenson or Jorge Luis Borges.

The British Museum and the Library of Congress both own books made by the Collective. You can currently only buy these sought-after books at the bindery itself. No stores sell them–not even in Havana. Nor can the books be purchased by mail or on the Internet (they have no web site).

You will have to take a journey. You must fly to Havana, and hire a car and driver and make the 50 mile trip to a colonial house perched on the bank of the San Juan River. Once there, you will enter a space with high ceilings, shelves of handmade books, and a couple of rocking chairs. And your book will be wrapped in plain paper when you leave.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I cannot live without books.”It seems, some Cuban book artists echo his sentiments.

judyfolkenberg@verizon.net

Do We Still Need Wedding Albums?

wed album 2
Wedding album with portfolio.

With a divorce rate that hovers around 50 percent, an increasing trend of “living together,” and digital photos on all kinds of devices, I sometimes wonder if we still need the wedding album, where printed photos are affixed to creamy white pages of thick card stock.

But electronic devices become quickly outdated, digital photos easily lost—and besides there are sentimental reasons for having real photos.

I made this wedding album for a couple who had been married 30 years and didn’t like their previous cheesy album. They didn’t want a typical wedding album, which I took to mean one decorated with hearts, roses, chirping birds, and pink ribbons flowing hither and yon. Fortunately for them, I don’t like the typical wedding photo album either.

The wife is an artist herself and chose the paper, a handmade marbled design. We decided that gray suede would look best on the spine, complimenting the greens and blues in the marble paper. Most the binding I do, is an exposed binding…this means you can see how the book is bound, unlike your typical book where the binding is hidden.

wed album 6
Portfolio on top of wedding album.

I also made an accordion portfolio for 4 by 6 inch photos. Often, people want to keep extra photos handy.

They were very pleased with the final album as was I. And I think when guests come visit and see this album on the coffee table they’ll want to thumb through it and look at the photos.

And can you really imagine a house guest or the couple thumbing through a cold hard, digital device Because, let’s face it, a photo album invites you to turn the pages and stare at the photos and wonder about the story behind the pictures.

wedding-combo_r
My grandparent’s wedding day, left, and my parent’s wedding day, right.

Here is the wedding photo of my paternal grandparents who married sometime in the second decade of the 20th century, and my parents, who married in the 1940’s. My grandparents were married over 50 years and upon my grandmother’s death my grandfather remarried. My parents divorced after some 20 years of marriage and each remarried again.

 “all marriages are crap shoots.”

A male friend (who is in a 30 plus year rewarding marriage) once said, that “all marriages are crap shoots.” He’s right.

Yet, yet, I want a paper photo of family members who decided to play the odds in the relationship craps game, and got married.

Although the marriage may not last, the paper photo most likely will.