Category Archives: Book of Days Calendar

Aug 01 2020
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Book of Days Calendar, Lammas, Lughnasadh, Wayzgoose

Print Culture, or Your August Book of Days

This month, we’re giving you a little glimpse into the Convivio Bookworks printshop––the heart of Convivio Bookworks. The presses, the movable type: letterpress and books are the core aspects of our business, and we’re celebrating them in this month’s Convivio Book of Days calendar. For in the wheel of the year, come late summer, one of August’s traditional celebrations is the Bartlemas Wayzgoose. It comes each August 24th with St. Bartholomew’s Day: a bittersweet day, reminding us of summer’s waning, for it is a celebration influenced entirely by the sun. Come Bartlemas each August, printers in England would begin bringing lanterns back into the printshop, as the sun alone no longer provided enough light. As sunlight wanes, so does the summer season.

Ah but that celebration comes on the 24th, and I will send you an invitation to our online Library Wayzgoose Festival at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. Save the date, in fact: Monday August 24 at 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time. We’ll be posting a link on Vimeo and on Facebook, where Convivio Bookworks will be hosting a watch party. And if you can’t make it then, worry not, the video will be available afterwards, too, anytime, from wherever you are. We may not be able this year to gather together for the Library Wayzgoose Festival, but the good news is this year you can join us from anywhere.

As August begins, though, it’s time for another old celebration: Lammas. It is a cross quarter celebration, an old festival of the first harvest, also based in that same idea that summer is ripening, slowly giving way to fall. The Celts called the day Lughnasadh (LOO-na-sa). We find ourselves now at the midpoint between the midsummer solstice of June and the autumnal equinox of September. A freshly baked loaf of bread is a traditional part of the celebration. Indeed, the name Lammas descends from the Old English hlafmaesse, or “loaf mass.”

This Lammas, we wish you good health, we wish you glad tidings. We have our challenges here in Florida right now. Those of us who feel quarantining is best in the current situation, or who at least see benefits to wearing masks, see no end in sight to our isolation. It’s frustrating, and small family businesses like ours are affected disproportionately than corporate businesses. Friends of ours who own small restaurants are afraid to open. For us, pop-up shops are our livelihood, and these are not an option now, and won’t be anytime soon––not in a state that sees over 10,000 new cases of Covid-19 each day. But we stay at home and we know others who do, too, and we know that eventually, we will get through this. And, as we always do, we do the best we can. The Library Wayzgoose Festival on the 24th of August is a fine example of this, and I am so excited to share that special event with you. Mark the day. This month’s Convivio Book of Days calendar, by the way, is, as usual, a printable PDF document… and a good companion to this blog. See you on the 24th? Good.

 

Jul 01 2020
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Book of Days Calendar, Summer

Lago di Como, or Your July Book of Days

And now six months of the year have flown. We have passed the point of solstice––of “sun stand still,” when the sun seems to stop its motion. We had about three days then of longest days in the Northern Hemisphere, the days where we reached the apex of daylight, the number of hours of daylight remaining constant. And now, on the other side of the solstice, our days decrease in length. Just a little each day. Summer is maturing. The leaves have lost their springtime brightness and have mellowed into a deep dark green. Fruits and vegetables are coming in from the orchard and the garden. By the end of July, we’ll be welcoming Lammas Eve and the first of the harvest festivals. In the wheel of the year, the only thing that stays the same is change. The Earth constantly is rearranging.

Last year at this time Seth and I were visiting Northern Italy, Eastern Switzerland, and Western Austria. From one lake to another: Lago Maggiore, Lake Constance––the Bodensee, Lago di Como. Lake Como is our cover star this month. Here it is: your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for July. It is, as usual, a printable PDF document, and a fine companion to the Convivio Book of Days Blog.

Join me today, Wednesday July 1 (and every Wednesday) at 3 PM Eastern, for Book Arts 101: Home Edition, live on our Facebook page. Each week I spend about half an hour chatting about books, craft, design, and whatever else drifts through my head. For Episode 14 today, we’ll be focusing on Real Mail and the joy that comes with spying something special in the mailbox amongst all the bills and clutter. I’ll show you some brand new arrivals by great printers like David Wolfe of Wolfe Editions in Portland, Maine, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. of Kennedy Prints in Detroit, and Catherine Alice Michaelis of May Day Press on Vashon Island, Washington. I’ll show you some books, too, from the Convivio Collection that have their roots in letters: books that were inspired by letters, books that are letters, books that feel like letters. Here’s a direct link to today’s live broadcast. If you can’t be there at 3, fear not: video is posted soon after the broadcast is done and is always available at our Facebook page.

 

Jun 01 2020
2 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Midsummer, Transitions

Midsommar, or Your June Book of Days

Here is the sixth month of the year, June. Late in the month comes the midsummer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere: the longest day of our year, the day with the most sunlight. This is an important time in places like Sweden, where, near the Arctic Circle, the sun will be above the horizon for most of the day––the other side of the coin from midwinter in December. Seth’s cousin married a Swede; when she got to the States, this may be what she missed most from her homeland: the celebration of Midsommar around St. John’s Day, the 24th of June. All these years later, perhaps Ulrika still misses this each June.

Be that as it may, here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for June. We rarely use Convivio Bookworks products as cover stars in our calendars, but this month we did. Our photo this month is of the little tableau we’ve created in the corner cupboard in our kitchen. It features a pine tree candle and the new midsummer ornament we sell in our Convivio by Mail catalog. It’s handmade in Sweden of painted wood and ribbon.

I hope you’re doing well enough as we come to welcome summer. The times are challenging, this is for sure. Lake Worth has become a hot spot for new Covid-19 cases in the past week or two, but Seth and I: we go nowhere, really. The governor says it’s fine to be out and about, but we’re not paying attention to politicians in general these days. These same politicians are also not helping things much in that our country is suffering not just from a new virus but from a much older disease, one that goes back to its history of being built on a foundation of slavery. A century and a half later, we still can’t shake the inequality that is its legacy; it only grows worse. As much as I like to close each Convivio Book of Days post with something positive and uplifting, for the time being, I don’t think I can. The people in charge are divisive, concerned only with casting blame, which gets us nowhere. Violence, I feel, is never a good idea, and yet I see that the people who want to affect change find themselves cast as thugs, or undermining American ideals, even if they take a peaceful approach. What are American ideals? Equality, I think. And being able to live our lives without fear. These are the basics, and yet an entire segment of Americans do not have these luxuries.

 

Join me if you can each Wednesday at 3 PM Eastern time for a live, unscripted broadcast on our Facebook page of Book Arts 101: Home Edition––a weekly ramble through the book arts, craft, design, and whatever else drifts through my head. You can watch later (again, at our Convivio Bookworks Facebook page) should you not be able to watch at 3.

 

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