Lately someone anonymous has been sending artisanal cured meats – charcuterie – to the Lost Art Press storefront. Addressed to “Professor Bespokus,” each small package has contained two lovely sausages but no indicator as to who sent them.
The meats aren’t poisonous (I had Megan and Brendan try them out, and they suffered no ill effects). And the meaty delights have become an important part of our lunchtime ritual at the shop.
So whoever you are, oh meat patron, we thank you.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. And if you don’t get the “Professor Bespokus” joke, read this blog entry and it should make (some) sense.
The printing plant says that “Welsh Stick Chairs” will leave the dock on Thursday and head to our warehouse in Indiana. As soon as it arrives, we’ll start shipping out all the pre-publication orders.
If you haven’t ordered yet and would like to be among the first to receive it, there’s still time to order. The book is $29, which includes domestic shipping, and can be ordered here.
Why is This Book Only for North America? Meghan, who handles our customer service inquiries, has been swamped with emails asking why we can’t ship this book outside North America (not even to Wales, which I know is wacky).
I promise you this: We would if we could.
Lost Art Press was able to obtain only the North American rights to the book. The remainder of the rights are held by a U.K. publisher. We dearly wish we could obtain world rights for this book. And perhaps someday that will happen.
But until that day, we take our contracts and agreements seriously and have no plans or desire to skirt our agreement. So sorry, we can’t ship you a copy (or 100) on the sly with a wink and a nod. We just can’t.
I’m sure someone will smuggle some copies of this book outside North America – it happens with music and books all the time. But we won’t be the ones to do it.
We will have copies for sale at the next Lost Art Press open day on July 14. I’ve never heard of people taking a holiday just to buy a book, but if you are that passionate, here’s a list of other things you could do on vacation in Cincinnati.
I’m teaching two courses in Munich this October at the new and expanded workshop for Dictum GmbH.
Today I visited the new workshop, and it is impressive. Located by the Munich Ostbanhof (east train station), the new facilities are flooded with natural light and have beautiful new German workbenches. And downstairs is Dictum’s Munich store and a huge array of choices for food, culture and lodging.
The classes are taught in English (with German expletives). If you are interested in handwork or getting started in chairmaking, here are the details:
Staked Furniture: 3-legged Stool Oct. 8-9, 2018
I taught this class for the first time this summer, and it is a fun couple of days. In the class I explain how to do compound-angle joinery without math or even numbers. Plus, all the chairmaking techniques I have compiled and refined during my time as a chairmaker. If you do flat work and right-angle projects, this class will open up a new world for you.
Build a Sawbench Oct. 10-12, 2018
This three-day class is great for new woodworkers. The pace is relaxed, and we get to explore all sorts of odd corners of the craft. The last time I taught this class, we also made winding sticks, straightedges and other useful workshop appliances.
Munich is a great city – very easy for international travelers to get to and navigate.
One area of the new Dictum workshop in Munich.
Some of you might be wondering if this new round of classes at Dictum indicates I might teach more in the coming months and years. And the answer is: kinda. I’ve resolved to keep a limited teaching schedule until my youngest daughter has graduated so that I can be a good father.
After her graduation in May 2019 I hope to teach about four weeks a year. (Teaching 18 classes in a year turned out to be a bad idea for my psyche.) I’ll probably teach a couple short courses at our storefront and maybe a week-long course somewhere else (if anyone will have me).
In our research for “Ingenious Mechanicks,” we translated parts of a codex from 1505 that was written and illustrated by Martin Löffelholz. In it, Löffelholz showed what are likely the first modern workbenches with a tail vise and face vise.
During the translation, we also encountered a recipe for what we thought was a love potion.
As “Ingenious Mechanicks” is a woodworking book, and I have no need for a love potion (I’m married), translator Görge Jonuschat and I skipped the love potion section.
Until now.
For my birthday, Görge set out to translate the section and perhaps concoct the potion. But what he found was the “love potion” wasn’t exactly about making someone fall in love with you. Here is his translated text from page 73 of the codex:
If someone fell in love (or else) with you Which comes unwanted or something else, Then from a ditch through which corpses are carried To their grave Take from it one stone, chip off a piece the size of a hazel; Where a crosspiece spans this creek or water, Cut a little splinter Then take moss from a wayside shrine. More accurately arrange a bit of everything, Then add consecrated salt, Place in a neat cloth, Dip into Holy Water, Hang it on that someone’s neck, And it will pass, which is certain. If you’re so inclined, pay heed to remain chaste – If that is your will, etc.
There are a number of ways to read this passage, and I leave that interpretation to you. However, it’s clear that this potion would not be the answer to your awkward high school dreams.
This morning about 4 a.m. I sat bolt upright in bed when the bells at the Niederaltaich Abbey began making an end-of-the-world clanging. Instead of cursing, however, I laid back and felt a small measure of solidarity with the noisemakers.
One of the things I love about teaching (or assisting a teacher) is listening to the students discuss how they accumulate woodworking knowledge. During the last few years of careful listening, I can see how I – as a communicator – am becoming obsolete.
This is not a complaint. I welcome my obsolescence and am happy to stare at it in the face over a beer.
For now, the world belongs to the YouTube woodworker. Advertisers – even car companies – are pouring money into the sector. More important, my students’ conversations revolve around the personalities, projects and exploits of the YouTubers.
This is not a complaint. Maintaining a YouTube channel is damn hard work. Finding an audience has always been the key to surviving in the media profession. And I’ve never chased advertising dollars.
Video is not for me. For me, the best way to learn woodworking is through print and in person. Video bores me to tears. (Yes, I’ve done it. I hated it. I did it to please people I like – not myself.) My brain sees video as inefficient. “Skipping to the good parts” never works. So I have concluded that I have a fundamental disconnect. I would rather read a book, draw on a sheet of paper or go to the dentist than watch someone on my phone build something.
It might have something to do with the way I view sports. I love to play. I hate to watch.
All this is to say that I can feel myself hunkering down for a long winter. Print is – for the most part – in decline. I refuse to give up on it. In fact, I have structured my life so that even if print is flushed down the toilet, processed at a waste treatment plant and then squirted out at some sausage plant in New Jersey, you can’t put me out of business.
My plan is to make woodworking books until I die. Our audience might defect to the short-shorts and man-bun dancing monkeys, but I’ve decided to let the people in 50 or 60 years decide if John and I are doing the right thing.
After you’re worm food and cannot rise to your own defense, that’s the true test.
This idea saturates me here at Niederaltaich Abbey, where I’m teaching woodworking for the next seven days. For the most part, the world has left the monks here behind. And they live a life that is entrenched in an older way.
Brown robes are not my thing (my color analyst says I’m a winter), but yeah, I feel it. Especially at 4 a.m.
The printing plant says that “
