[...] as is every person's lot.

To sit outside and read for half a year, and sit inside and write for half a year. Repeat.

[shasskharr]

On Old Fashioneds and Older Stories

Brimstone & Hell-fire

Crowds my chest

The crashing of waves & ire

Crowds my chest

The movement & shadows of celestial bodies

Crowds my chest

Heaven’s fury & Hell’s temptation

Crowds my chest

The slow growth of plants

Crowds my chest

A Nuclear Explosion

Crowds my chest

So much

Crowds my chest.

*

Yeah

It’s getting crowded in here.

(-- Said the Joker to the thief)

[shasskharr]

Long nights, heavy strides, and a pinch of nostalgia

Though the piano strings Hum a tune I thought I could sing

The creak of the wood Reminds me of how once I could

The viola picks up my heart Swings me about, almost tearing me apart

And yet, the iron grating of an old guitar Is what guides my tired feet to the bar

An orgy of sounds in the night Giving vent to my plight.

[shasskharr]

Prologue to a concussion

I saw you Coming through the clouds Turning massive crowds

I saw you Taking your first steps Getting lost on your maps

I saw you Sharing the best moments Having a laugh, living your torments

I saw you Falling in love The girl at the bar, dressed in mauve

I saw you Dance, laugh, love, cry Shout, throw, run, try

I saw you Taking your first steps Disappearing from my maps

I saw you Blending into the crowd Like a rained-out cloud

Oh, I see...

[shasskharr]

One has been to Art Basel

One has enjoyed it.

One has been inspired.

One has bought a bag.

One is drawing again.

[shasskharr]

Haul

I have seen the best minds of the last generation wither away,

Burn brightly one last time while being consumed by the blind hunger of an insatiable society.

I have seen them dwindle away and die,

Much like those before me watched their world’s ashes scatter to the wind and be assimilated into the black void of the past.

I have seen this and will see it again.

For such is time, it’s passing, and life.

Someday, maybe, you’ll see me wither away and die.

Maybe you won’t.

But someone will.

That someone-

[nevver]

ILYSFM

[findstoday]

The Sultan Of Squeezeboxes: New York City’s Last Accordion Repairman

Alex Carozza has been building and repairing accordions in New York City since 1960. The last craftsman of his kind in the city, Alex is the living memory of a once vibrant musical culture that has all but disappeared from New York. This is the story of a true classic.

[timeforyoutofly]

Rage is a hell of an aesthetic

@shasskharr (via timeforyoutofly)

[nevver]

The fourth wall, Klaus Frahm

[shasskharr]

The view all the cool kids get.

[shasskharr]

With performances approaching I feel like this needs to be re-blogged again. Stages are a beautiful thing, and yet the backstage doesn’t see the spotlight enough (see what I did there?).

[newyorker]

People are always asking me, ‘Who will you pass the torch to?’ The question makes me angry. There is no one torch—there are many torches—and I’m using my torch to light other torches.

Gloria Steinem, “Life on the Feminist Frontier” (via newyorker)

[sorathdev]

[albaniansanonymous]

D E V I L D A G G E R S

[shasskharr]

D E V I L D A G G E R S

[shasskharr]

Dusty pillows, cluttered palaces, and right-angled poetic mockery.

The mind, oh night! is clouded by judgement, 

it is cemented in the churning tide of reality, 

swamped by the coital impetus of reason, 

the absurdities of the body’s own treason, 

maddening abyss of compassion, of fecundity,

eye-gouging responsibility, 

all-encompassing jibber-jabber of prerogatives and requisitions. 

This world we live in, global salamander, is burning. 

And it burns oh so bright, like a tiger in the night.

Late nights go places, I guess? As usual, don’t ask.. I have no idea where these things come from...I’ll post a pic of how I actually wrote this out one of these days. Wrote it out as running text, not a poem tho... Still not sure which formatting I like better...

[han-made-bookbinding]

Flowers From Shakespeare’s Garden

This week marks the completion of my latest binding, the second edition that I have done of the same text block. The book is, “Flowers From Shakespeare’s Garden: A Posy From the Plays”, the first of which I bound in 2012 for the Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition, the theme of which was William Shakespeare. Although not a play-script, the book contains quotes from many of the plays and all of these quotes include names of flowers. The illustrator, Walter Crane, depicts throughout the book figures wearing outfits made up of each of the flowers illustrating the text.

I was thrilled to be one of the shortlisted “Distinguished Prizewinners” in the competition, receiving a silver Shakespeare “nib” trophy engraved with my name, designed by the jeweller and goldsmith Gerry Summers.

The first physical step was to “pull” the book to remove the original cover and to take it back down into sections. However when I pulled the book I realised that the pages were actually all single sheets that had been stub bound before being cased in.

I decided to trim the pages at the point that they had been punched for the stub sewing and then make them up into sections using Japanese paper strips.

The sections were then sewn up and the book rounded and backed. The edges were sanded and the top edge was coloured using acrylic paint.

The design of the binding was chosen to illustrate the flowers mentioned within the text. A different composition was drawn up for the endpapers, doublures and the cover and I decided to print the pattern for the endpapers and doublures using the soft-plate offset method. I did a variety of prints using different coloured inks and paper until I was happy with the result.

I then worked on the sample board in order to plan the colours of the body leather and some of the onlays, this is board number 44 in my growing collection!

Once I was happy with this I planned the rest of the onlay colours, using a line drawing of the cover design and sticking small swatches of the chosen leather colour onto it for reference.

All of the onlays were then stuck to the body leather and back-pared before the embroidery could be started. Each flower was embroidered using a variety of different stitches, pricking the holes through the leather using a tracing paper template to ensure they were in the right place.

I wanted to include some gold-plated brass pieces in the binding so selected two of the flower types to apply this to. One of which was the centres of the daisies, I filed the end of a piece of brass rod into a dome shape and then added dots by punching small holes with a metal centre punch.

The patterned ends were then cut off using a metal piercing saw and the backs sanded flat.

Onto the back of these I soldered some wire posts so that they could be inserted through drilled holes in the book boards, they were then gold-plated. I like to mechanically fix these pieces in place rather than trusting glues over time and I find this is a very secure method.

Where these pieces were to be inserted through the boards I had to work out where I needed to place the stitches around them so that they would line up once the leather was on the book.

Once this was done I was able to finish the embroidery…

Front:

Back: 

Hundreds of thousands of stitches later I felt I was ready to take the plunge and paste the leather to the book – always the bit that scares me!

Once the leather had dried following the pasting to the book I could get on with the tooling. I did a mixture of 22 carat gold, carbon and blind tooling to add detail to some of the flowers. I tooled these shapes using hand-made finishing tools.

I didn’t want the book to be titled as I felt that would detract from the cover design, so I made a label for the box instead. I wanted this to be in the font used on the title page of the book for which I had no suitable handle letters. To get around this I pierced the letters from coloured paper and backed this with 22 carat gold leaf that was adhered to a piece of paper.

The box itself was made from tulip wood, with the flowers pattern cut into the lid of the box with a CNC machine.

The book has now been photographed, packaged up and is on it’s way to the USA – I hope it gets there safely! Once it gets there it will be on display in an exhibition entitled “The poet of them all”: William Shakespeare and Miniature Designer Bindings from the Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert. This will be taking place at the Grolier Club in New York, USA, from March 23rd to May 28th, followed by the Yale Centre for British Art, USA, from June 16th through September 21st. I also have one other little book in the exhibition, a miniature binding of, “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”.

For now I will leave you with some photos of the finished binding and box, more of which can be seen on my website : www.han-made.net

[shasskharr]

Now this is the kind of amazing handy-craft I love. Look at this! Workmanship through and through. Beautiful.

[roguedameron]

Artist: Noble-6 @ Society6 Prints available for purchase -  Episode I / II / III / IV / V / VI

[shasskharr]

Yes, please!

[shasskharr]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here hehe #holidays, wutcha gonna do...? Hug it? Nah... Hug me, I’m comfy.

Been meaning to post this here for a few days now. Dat slow start, dat groove, dat sexyschmexy bass, dat raspy voice, soul-y ethereal piano, that sneeky freaking trompete playing from some angelical being’s magic tube, holy shtick on a moses batman! I love this song, this album, I love this Anderson Paak. His funky, r&b, soul sound just captures me, raptures me, makes me move and groove around. Great cooking music btw. Great music for many things, actually. 

This is the opening song, mind. The whole album is riddled with marvelous songs (yes, I marveled at them). Go listen to it! Don’t trust me? Trust the bird:

A bird with the word came to me The sweetness of a honeycomb tree And now my luck was taking over me Couldn't fake it if I wanted to

[nprmusic]

Today, we celebrate the release of our 500th Tiny Desk! There was confetti and cake and The Arcs, a new band from The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach.

[shasskharr]

This is str8up amazing. NPR (aka good music), Tiny Desk Concerts (aka good music), Dan Auerbach (aka good music), The Arcs (aka good music), Confetti and Cake. What else can you ask for?

[tuneage]

Autograf - Dream

While this song was released almost a year ago, we wanted to feature it since Autograf has just kicked off their national tour.

Autograf is a trio from Chicago, each artist with a background in visual arts. And you can see it in their commitment to the still-ineffable “future” genre. There is something multisensory about “Dream.”

A lot of features of future are about crossing genres, and Dream, has all the basics of a that and great earworm song, not too complex, catchy. But there’s something about those synth xylophones and the electronica infused vocals. It makes this nostalgic song feel anything but, mellowing me out without making me feel melancholy.

I just dig it. Fair warning: be prepared to listen it once and then a second time in a row, and probably a third too.

[shasskharr]

I think the description above encompasses my feelings pretty well. What is it with future stuff and good music? Magic’s in the future, that’s what.