Finished Broadside Pictures Located Here

The Bean Eaters
by Gwendolyn Brooks


They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
          is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
          tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

Yay!

Oh, fine, okay, I'll go.

I spent THIRTEEN HOURS at school yesterday.

I keep changing my mind about whether or not I'm going to this production of Hamlet.

Read this, it's neat.

It will cost more than I want to pay, but I keep hearing about it from teachers and fellow students.  "The University's award-winning Shakespearean scholar" is my Shakespeare teacher and this is the moment where he would tell you about his book:

The Shakespeare Thefts: In Search of the First Folios

My teacher has been trying to get Ben Crystal, the visiting Brit who plays Hamlet, to come talk to our class.  He and Ophelia (who is in our class) talked about their interpretation of the roles and we got to hear a bit of the original pronunciation.  Some people in the class have been already, and gave their impressions.  The consensus is very positive.

Read read read read read read eat lunch read read walk to photography read read

In photography, I presented my portrait project.

Chris

Justin

Ant

Jenea

James

Frank

Dezmond

I got some really nice responses.  Yay!

After 3 hours of critiquing portraits, I went to my American Novel class.  The teacher started by encouraging us to go see Hamlet, and some people in the class started giving their reviews.  Again, very positive.  Then we started talking about Song of Solomon.

Walk to Jimmy John's eat dinner read read read

Went to meet Lena at the Black Rock Press.  She's the other Book Arts student who took the class last spring.  We were not required to attend the class again.  We are left to accomplish projects on own, which is a terrible idea.  After the move and Shannon's wedding, half of September and the entire month of October had suddenly disappeared.  Lena's shelf is FILLED with containers and supplies, and I started to freak out.  Last night we met up to print and she confessed that she's only finished the broadside so far.  WHEW.  She made a suggestion for my project that will make it not just easier, but possible.  I always try to make things way harder than they need to be.  :D

So I started working on my project.

I set each line of type several weeks ago.  You have to imagine skinny metal pieces, one for each character.  It takes a while, especially if you drop anything.  There are long leads that brace up each side of the text so you can move it around once you put it on the press.  If you were a normal person, all your text would be facing the same way.  I had to make sure that all my text was backwards and upside down, which is harder than it sounds.  If you look on the top of the press, that's my proof.  I have to line the type up to be a mirror image of that.  That doesn't mean exactly alike; it means ass end to ass end.  Would you believe that I found all my mistakes before I printed a thing?  I won't share my proofs, not because I'm embarrassed, but because it would take too long.  Everything was facing the right way, but it was off center.  It doesn't matter how you measure it- it will ALWAYS come out crooked.  See all those wooden blocks?  They are all different measurements and you have to redo the puzzle every single time you make a change.  You set the type, measure the empty spaces, fill them in with blocks that fit exactly, run a proof, laugh at how off it is, measure, move text, measure and redo the puzzle, run another proof, and keep doing it over and over until it is close enough to what you want.

Lena suggested that instead of trying to line up the linoleum block and waste countless copies trying to get it right, I should run it on another piece of paper and glue that sucker on!

Today I shall assemble the broadside and show you the finished project.  Lena was going to print as well, but the other press had type on it, so she worked on another project.  We talked and laughed for four hours.  It was a lot better to be able to confer with each other about the press rather than go to the teacher for help.  At 10:00, she called Campus Escort, the best service at UNR.  They arrived faster than their estimate (and their estimate was fast), and there were two people in the minivan: a guy and a girl, both wearing CAMPUS ESCORT jackets.  The minivan was painted white with a big, bold CAMPUS ESCORT on the side.  They drove us each to our cars, and waited until we were inside with the car started before they drove off.  It's free to students and they work from 5 pm (new hours with daylight savings) until 1 am.  Love it.

And we're going to see Hamlet.

Free fixes are the best.

Because I don't have time to, I'm reading Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games series.  I don't have much time left in this semester and I'm pretty freaked out about all I have to accomplish, but reading a non-school related book per month is probably the only resolution I have ever kept in my life and I only have a couple more months to go on that, too.  I intend to finish both, dammit.  I think my plan of sticking to the Hunger Games series is the only way to do that, because I am burning through Catching Fire, ha ha.  I think once I finish this one I will read the last one during Thanksgiving break.  That will be nice.

Okay, so last night I got up when Chris called around 1 and bundled up.  There are only the two front seats in the van so I couldn't take the girls with me.  I couldn't take the Dodge because the headlights were not working.  Chris had said not to take the freeway in the snow, so I was going to have to take the deserted back way.  I started driving and realized that there was NO gas.

Oookay.  Driving a light, high profile, long vehicle with no weight over the rear axle in the snow in the middle of the night... and I am totally unfamiliar with both the van and the back way... and my phone doesn't have much juice... and I am going to run out of gas?  No dice.

The van has two fuel tanks and I didn't know which one to fill.  I got a hold of him and found out which one he uses but this plan was just doomed to fail.  The tanks are locked and though I read the directions, I could not open the tank.  Garrrggghhhh.  Chris said he'd find somebody to give him a ride and I went home.

I wanted to wait up for him and tried to occupy myself with mahjohngg, but I remembered what Dad said earlier about it possibly being a fuse.  I went out to the Dodge with a flashlight and found the fuse box.  I couldn't tell which one was the headlights so I took the cover back in the house to look up the codes.  (Chris tells me later that the fuse for the headlights is under the hood.  Oh.)  I started to look up the codes, but then it occurred to me to do what I always tell Ant: Google exactly what you're looking for.

"both headlights"... and it pops up with "both headlights out at the same time."

The first answer is Greek, but the next one says oh, I had that problem once, I could only use my high beams...

High beams!  How could I forget that?  I went back out and turned on the lights.  Still nothing.  Turned on the high beams.  Success!  Yes!  Now I can call Chris back and come get his poor, cold, drugged ass.  I turn the high beams off and I still have light.  Whaaaaaaaat.  I turn the lights off.  Turn them back on.  We have headlights.  WTF.