⪮ Good Morning
This month, we collected a few links around printing and paper. For centuries, humanity has been printing for sharing information and enjoyment. Here are a few links you might find interesting.
⛓️📚 Chained Libraries
From the Middle Ages to around the 18th century, spanning over 1000 years, books were so valuable they were chained to their shelves. Chaining was expensive, so it was not used on all books, only the most valuable.
Librarians in the Middle Ages often also invoked curses to keep books from being stolen. Once such curse was:
"Steal not this book my honest friend
For fear the gallows should be your end,
And when you die the Lord will say
And where's the book you stole away?"
There are still several places you can still go and see a chained library.
📝💥 Paperwork Explosion
In 01967, Jim Henson was contracted by IBM to make a film extolling the virtues of their new technology, the MT/ST, a primitive word processor. The short film explores how the MT/ST would help control the massive amount of documents generated by a typical business office.
Paperwork Explosion, produced in October 01967, is a quick-cut montage of images and words illustrating the intensity and pace of modern business. Jim Henson collaborated with Raymond Scott on the electronic soundtrack.
🌊📚 Dave Bull Carves Hokusai's Picture Book of Everything
In 02020, the British Museum acquired 103 drawings by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (01760-01849). These drawings were intended to become woodblock illustrations for a book entitled The Great Picture Book of Everything, however, for unknown reasons, that book was never published.
Dave Bull's Japanese woodcarving studio accepted the task to create 12 ukiyo-e from these original designs.
🌸🎴 Hanafuda
Hanafuda, or 'flower cards', are a style of Japanese playing cards. They were Nintendo's first-ever product back in 01889. (They even make a modern Mario style version)
The 48 cards make up 12 sets (one for each month) of 4 cards each. Much like a Western deck of 52 cards, you can play various games.
You can imagine many of the themes in Mario jumping right off the images of Hanafuda cards.