Lost Art Press

A Little Touch of Calvin in the Night

Posted on by fitz

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Today, Roy Underhill sent Chris and me a delightful and much-anticipated gift indeed – the (almost) final author edit of “Calvin Cobb – Radio Woodworker!” I was having a bad day; now I am not. I’m having a grand time laughing my way through Roy’s revised copy whilst sipping a little bourbon and petting my three-legged cat, Possum.

On Friday, I’m headed down with Chris to the Ohio Book Store to search for the perfect stack of 1930s novels to inspire the designer – the typeface and look of the book is of great import to Roy, and rightfully so. The right look adds a graphic dimension to your experience of reading by transporting you beyond the words’ denotations and visually into the era in which the novel takes place. (Wow…I sound like an English teacher.)

We’re also still working to select the perfect artist to illustrate Calvin and his cohorts; the choices have been narrowed…but it’s hard. I don’t have kids, but it’s hard enough to count on others to give my cats the same care and attention as do I (it’s why I dislike long trips). And this little baby of Roy’s has been gestating for a long time – to whom should we entrust its care? I don’t know…but I hope to within the month.

In the meantime, here are a couple paragraphs from the manuscript to whet your appetite.

Calvin Cobb dodged through the morning stream of pedestrians on Pennsylvania Avenue and sprang up the gum-dotted steps of the old Post Office building. In the gleaming, Ionic-columned forest of 1937 New Deal Washington, entering this grimy castle was best done quickly—like pulling off a bandage. Today, though, he paused and glanced back at the odd behavior of the sidewalk crowd. Men and women who should have been hurrying to their own offices were, instead, holding onto their hats and squinting straight up at the clock tower high above him. Calvin threw himself flat against the granite column framing the doorway. It took a few seconds of peering upwards into the shadows of the clock tower for him to realize that it wasn’t a jumper they were looking at—it was a painter working on scaffolding suspended halfway down one of the gigantic clock faces. Calvin now shuddered with a new fear as he reasoned in Washington logic, They’re retouching the clock on the iceberg—the wrecking ball can’t be far behind!

…

Calvin took a shallow breath and stared up at the narrow iron trusses of the skylight above him and imagined suddenly finding himself transported there, clinging to a thin iron spandrel high above the cavernous pit. The frightening image worked—a shivering thrill began below his ears, converged in his spine, and broke up into a million rivulets in his legs. Calvin Cobb had charged himself with his full morning dose of adrenaline—just as the one-armed woman patted him on the back.

Who is this one-armed woman? Will they tear down Calvin’s office building? What happens when you spread manure at a speed of 50 miles per hour? How can you build things on the radio? Does Calvin get the girl? I know the answers to all these questions. But you’ll have to wait…just a few more months.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. If you have a recommendation for an illustrator, the perfect 1930s font or what have you, please send those direct to me at meganfitzpatrick@fuse.net (because it’s really weird to have Chris acting as my secretary; it’s usually the other way ’round).

Download or Physical Book? Which is Better for the Author?

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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Several readers have asked us this considerate question: Does the author of a Lost Art Press book make more money when someone buys a physical book or a downloaded book?

The answer is: With Lost Art Press books, the author makes the same amount.

Outside of our little publishing terrarium, many electronic books are just about the same price as the physical book. This usually translates into more money for the publisher because of the lower cost of creating and delivering an electronic book. It’s a complicated equation, but that is the greatly simplified version.

We use a different formula to determine the cost of an electronic book. We remove the cost of pre-press, printing, transporting and storing the physical book. So the cost of our electronic books is the intellectual cost of the book (writing, editing, designing and eating), plus storing it and transmitting it to customers.

And that is why our electronic books cost less than the physical book. We think it’s the fair way to go for readers and authors. Others disagree. We give not a crap.

Here are links to the books we offer electronically:

• Campaign Furniture
• Doormaking and Window-Making
• The Art of Joinery
• By Hand & Eye
• The Anarchist’s Tool Chest
• To Make as Perfectly as Possible: Roubo on Marquetry
• Mouldings in Practice
• The Essential Woodworker
• The Joiner & Cabinet Maker

One last thing: All of our electronic books are free of Digital Rights Management (DRM). That means the files have no passwords and can be transported easily from device to device.

— Christopher Schwarz

‘The Map is not the Territory’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

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The first words of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” are “disobey me,” a paradoxical expression that underlies much of my favorite absurdist Russian literature. You can take the expression at face value, or you can think about it for a minute and consider that perhaps Gregor Samsa has not really turned into a cockroach.

When I finished writing “Campaign Furniture,” I wanted to begin the book with Alfred Korzybski’s dictum, “The map is not the territory.” But I decided to just play it straight and not include any discussion of semantics. The book itself is a straightforward discussion of the furniture and how to build it. I don’t think this book will get me in trouble like my last one did. So I didn’t include the Korzybski quote.

That doesn’t stop me, however, from talking about my unspoken motives for the book here on the blog. While the book (the map) is about campaign furniture, the uncharted territory it describes is far different.

After 15 years at Popular Woodworking, I concluded that our craft is strapped into a stylistic straightjacket (Shaker and Arts & Crafts) that does more harm than good. Now before you get your panties in a bundle, let me be clear about a couple things: There’s nothing wrong with either of those styles. I love them both. I also love Oreos, but an exclusive diet of them is a bad idea. Also, I was part of the problem. I wrote, approved and encouraged the publication of hundreds of pieces dealing with Shaker and Arts & Crafts.

So I also want to be part of the solution. “Campaign Furniture” is part of that. “Furniture of Necessity,” my next book, is the next step in that direction.

I want readers to explore other styles, even if it isn’t campaign style or vernacular furniture. There is a world of furniture styles out there that are begging to be built. And it’s furniture that beginners can handle. Danish modern, Bauhaus, Japanese Tansu, Chinese furniture (a fricking world of Chinese furniture) are just a few of the styles out there that don’t require an 18th-century apprenticeship to build and are beautiful.

And I’m willing to take a personal hit to my income to try to open your eyes.

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If I were smart, I’d write a book on birdhouses, which usually sell twice as many units as any traditional woodworking book. Or I’d do another book on workbenches, Shaker furniture or Arts & Crafts.

Writing a book on an obscure furniture style is economic stupidity. If people don’t like the style, they won’t buy the book, no matter how good it is. Books on a furniture style (even Shaker) will always sell worse than books on skills, tools or workshops. Books on an obscure furniture style usually go from the printer right to the bargain bin. (Ever seen the fascinating book on Mormon furniture? That’s exactly my point.)

Today I received my copy of “Campaign Furniture,” and it doesn’t completely disappoint me. The printing job is nice. I like the end sheets. The binding looks good – not too much glue and the stitching is solid. So I’m drinking a Stone “Old Guardian” right now to celebrate the release of what could be a monumentally unsuccessful book.

I also take a sip to hope – that some of you are willing to step outside the narrow confines of our craft and start to explore the immense uncharted territory ahead of us.

“Campaign Furniture,” for better or worse, has a map inside.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Status of the Apprentice

Posted on by fitz

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Let the boy learn a trade. Watch him at his work and at his play; study his likes and dislikes; place him in a position where he can exercise his talent— if he has any—or his creative genius. Place him where he can learn a trade for which he is best adapted, mentally and physically, and if in after years, he chooses to follow any other line of endeavor, business, law, polities, literature, the stage, the lecture platform, or whatever he considers himself best adapted for, he may do so.

Then should his efforts prove a failure he has always a trade to fall back upon which will at least give him a chance to earn more than the pay of a day laborer. This argument was much in vogue years ago, and we sometimes hear it today, but the obstacles placed in the way make it impossible of achievement. Times have changed, and more’s the pity.
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A Link with the Past—Broken

Posted on by fitz

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The passing away, recently, of Gabriel Edmonston, that well-known veteran member of our organization and its first President, held an interest for us quite apart from the element of personal loss which it was only natural that all keenly interested in the affairs of our organization should feel, for his death, in a manner, marked a definite breaking with the past—or to be more precise, with that period when our organization was as yet unborn and the plight of the average journeyman carpenter in the world of American labor was comparable with that of one of the lost tribes of Israel.

Edmonston, picturesque figure that he was, in recent years, more and more appeared to stand out as one of the last links in the chain which bound us to the unorganized, or shall we say, the disorganized past, when the carpenter was almost a pariah wandering over the land, the victim of miserably low wages, excessively long hours of toil and wretched working conditions. One might say that in his later years he became a living testimonial to the efficacy of the instrumentality which brought about the amelioration and betterment of the carpenter’s condition—and that instrumentality was organization.
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