Covered some stuff in this exhibition I had, not joking, less than two weeks to do from start to finish (labels for 51 objects coming now)

This gilt paper that I still don't know about after a week of working on it is in the lower right. Italian? Sure, why not. Just an exhibition object.

If you are curious about different paper wrappers as bindings, this catalogue has it all. Paste papers, Dutch gilt, marbled papers, a feast for the eyes. Truly an impressive collection. ilab.org/assets/catal...

So excited for this book! Not the least because I literally have no idea what I would be doing with my life without Ann's early support and mentorship. One of my favorite thinkers in all ways.

RIP to the mighty Robert Gore, the UCLA Arts Librarian. Robert knew everything about every artist book at UCLA. Robert was always such joy and light and seriousness. Feel so lucky that I managed to convince him to read his poetry in a bar last May. He was the best of what it meant to be a librarian.

Grateful to have been gobsmack out of intellectual ennui by Manila and the brilliant @periodeye.bsky.social I needed a bit of a reset, a bit of familiar/strange. Finally feeling optimistic about this early mid career moment... and maybe someday finishing my damn book.

Everyone in LA has this exact same job.

You could center it on paintings like these: knowledge is labor. It is hard. It is sometimes fun, but mostly, it is work.

Between my final leg in Manila and getting back to New Spain (i.e. LA), this is going to happen. It has been real folks

There is much more. But this is the final indignity. The rubber ear bud went awol between the curb and where I am now drinking wine.

Off to London tomorrow to judge these bad boys. Happy that we have three entries from East Asia. The Japanese submission is, funnily enough, on Conrad Gessner ilabprize.org/breslauer-ye...

It is wild to me that I am in charge of this collection: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_B... Unfortunately, because it was rolled into special collections, it lost its dedicated librarian. Now, it is only occasionally used. I feel as a queer, dyslexic, eccentric, I really should get people into it.

Ok Bluesky. I am planning on buying this for UCLA, but neither the dealer nor I have ever seen one. Probably circa 1780s, prints are from a 1730s series. You spin the knows and the picture scrolls through narratives of the old testament. Anyone seen one before? Know what they are called?

This is like ultimate nerd fan girl content for me: Jean Mabillon letter. Aka Paleography daddy

The is a book I helped a private collector get off ebay in 2019 or so. If it sells, I will have given him a 300k+ k profit (counting comission).

A simple example, but you can see the toc of vol 2, which is in the hand of Huang Siyong 黄思永 next to the ch in the hand of Wang Renkan 王仁堪. I have never seen a litho that recruited famous artists like this! It's listed in any description anywhere.

Well, it is a bluesky musing and not historiography. But a lot of writing on it says stuff like this screen shot: But for the sake of argument, I mostly don't care - and rather like using it as a chance to reflect on work coming from misfortune and growing in interesting ways.

Tokugawa print culture is just beyond rich. Kobayashi Fumiko's talk is blowing my mind.

A visiting scholar found quite the provenance hiding in a heavily annotated book. Signature had been washed, but it's definitely en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatus_...

Just a note on the book, which is a mid Mind government edition, although water damaged. Probably printed just before Gutenberg

Love notes like this left in books by earlier librarians. This profession runs on the hope of ever having time to love things as they deserve, and our archives are full of the epitaphs of good intentions.

Totally nutty: A rubbing of the calligraphy of Yan Zhenqing (d. 785), cut and pasted into a Ming 1600s directorate of education Song history.

Metal AF, from 1751 'Vida, maritirio, y beatificación del invicto proto-martir del Japón San Felipe de Jesus, patrón de México su patria, imperial corte de Nueva España en el Nuevo Mundo' printed in Mexico city. A biography of the San Felipe de Jesus, the first Mexican saint, martyred in Japan.

I have a basic pattern I stick to: Routledge Colloquial (until about ch 8), LingQ for as many mini stories (very good for high input audio and getting vocab), and pimsleur. Usually I do that for a month or two before having a conversation. I tend to prefer to have most grammar done before tutors.

Can I get three chapters in a readable form by Jan 5? No! Will I be disappointed that I failed? Yes! Happy holidays from the beginning of my final failures of 2025. May you and yours also find impossible self imposed expectations and epigenetic Protestant shame!

As an example of the LOW hanging fruit of visual analysis. Everyone talks about how important it is that Fujian printers crowed the page for profit etc. in the 12th century. But you know what, a Fujian commercial imprint also looks.... Exactly like a Northern Song government imprint (1 above)

While there probably aren't more than... 60 or 70 books/fragments surviving from this period, I think they have a lot to tell us. For example, this imperially sponsored classic of filial piety and encyclopedia - compared to Buddhist printing or this later Southern Song (1126-1279) example.

This book is interesting. While it no doubt furthers the case that print had a major impact during the Song dynasty(960 to 1279), when it was adopted by the state and state actors, a couple of areas were completely unexplored. For ex, not a single surviving material text is discussed.

Me when it comes to asking for books (I'm on the beast)

Also, I'm not too picky. Would really like a Theuerdank or Durer's apocolypse. Think of the state school children of California and how they would benefit from this Christmas miracle.