Book of Days | from convivio bookworks

Sep 22 2021

September Equinox

I had a whole other chapter written for today’s Convivio Book of Days and this first day of autumn by the almanac, but then my niece, Isabella, and I were chatting (the same niece who had a flying lesson for her 15th birthday in the most recent Convivio Dispatch), about autumn and the equinox and she sent me a link to one of her favorite songs, one that reminds her of autumn. It’s Astor Piazzolla’s “Café 1930,” performed by Alexandra Whittingham and Esther Abrami. She and I wondered what is it, exactly, that can make a collection of sounds epitomize a season. We decided that we didn’t know what it was, but being unable to unlock that particular mystery makes it even better. I listened to her song myself, and she’s right: there is a hint of autumn about it. Then I decided all you need to know about today’s equinox is depicted in the photograph above, showing this old earth at its moment of equinox, which happens to be 3:40 PM here in Lake Worth. That’s Eastern Daylight Time. An equal share of day and night, of light and dark, across the planet: balance. That’s what the equinox is all about. Tomorrow things will begin to shift slightly as the Northern Hemisphere enters its darker half of the year and the Southern its lighter half.

With the academic stuff out of the way, we can listen instead to Isabella’s song of autumn, Astor Piazzolla’s “Café 1930:”

Do you have songs that remind you of autumn? I do, and I’m glad to know that my niece does, too. Feel free to share (please do, actually) your songs in the comments below.

NEW! BIG AUTUMN SALE
It’s looking good for us to return this autumn to the Dia de Los Muertos celebration in Lake Worth and maybe even Fort Lauderdale. But we’re still bringing back the big autumn Street Fair Sale this year!

Now through Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos), use discount code STREETFAIR at checkout for $10 off your purchase of $75 on everything in the shop, and get free domestic shipping, too! What’s new? A big bevy of brand new advent calendars from Germany. Lots of great new hand embroidered tea towels by my mom (Millie’s Tea Towels––Mom’s been embroidering every day!) plus more tea towels hand printed by the folks at Kei & Molly Textiles in New Mexico (as well as eco-friendly reusable cloth bags and compostable sponges, all with fun Kei & Molly prints). And of course lots of great new artesanías méxicanas for Dia de Los Muertos: Day of the Dead. New Christmas goods from Sweden and Germany arriving soon, too. Shop here!

Image: Earth daylight distribution on the September Equinox (Northern Autumn; Southern Spring) as seen on w:SpaceEngine. Creative Commons, 2021, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sep 02 2021

Autumn, Book of Days Calendar

A Hatful of Apples, or Your September Book of Days

Short and sweet: Here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for September. Autumn is coming, and so is, hopefully, an abundant apple crop. This is what we dream of here in Florida, where apples will not grow. Oranges, mangoes, carambola and papaya…. all grow readily here, but it is the humble apple I wish for most.

Cover star this month: a painting, most likely from the late 1890s, called “Harvest.” It’s by American artist Levi Wells Prentice, who was self-taught and associated with the Hudson River School––and there you have another thing I tend to look longingly toward as autumn color sweeps across the land: the Hudson River Valley and the legends and lore of writers like Washington Irving. Each autumn, I find myself pulling down one of his books from the bookcase. I find myself a cozy chair and read a tale or two about the Hudson Valley he loved so much. Washington Irving: he’s like Father Christmas to those of us who love autumn.

I already know I’ve got busy days ahead so I cannot guarantee you’ll hear from me before a couple of red letter days pass this month. Both come on Monday, when it will be Labor Day once again. We think of it as our unofficial close to summer in these United States of America, but more than this, it is the day we set aside to honor the workers upon whose labor this nation was built. Later that evening, with the setting sun, Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year celebration, will begin. It is a time for sweet things, as simple as a slice of apple, dipped in honey.

And there, short and sweet as promised, is your invitation to this month’s calendar. I think you’ll like it. It’s a PDF that you can print and pin to your wall, and it is a fine accompaniment to this blog. Over at the website, our Summer High Five Sale continues for just a few days more, but I’ll be writing again soon with news about our upcoming autumn sale, which features a bigger discount but also a higher minimum… so if you’re planning a purchase, well, plan accordingly. Currently, and for the next few days, take $5 off your order of $35 or more with discount code HIGH5.

Summer here persists a while longer, but knowing autumn is coming to the Hudson River Valley and other points north is all I need to know. I’m with you in spirit.

Image: “Harvest” by Levi Wells Prentice. Oil on canvas, circa 1890s [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

Aug 28 2021

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St. Augustine's Day, Wayzgoose

For the Brewers & the Printers

Benjamin Franklin was a printer by trade and if he indeed said the words that many attribute to him (“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”), he probably would have been a big fan of the Feast of St. Augustine, which comes today, this 28th day of August, for St. Augustine is a patron saint of printers and of brewers, too. Ah, but the attribution, we know, is false, and there is some evidence that Mr. Franklin was not terribly fond of beer in printshops, anyway. He was known, when he was a London printshop apprentice, to have been more interested in water than beer, much to the astonishment of his fellow typesetters and printers, many of whom would down a few pints over the course of a workday.

Be that as it may, this closing week of August each year is a big one for us printers. Well, for book artists in general. And for brewers. We began the week with St. Bartholomew’s Day on the 24th, bringing with it the Bartlemas Wayzgoose, the biggest printshop party in town. And now, four days later, comes St. Augustine’s Day. I always imagine it being not the best of weeks to bring a delicate print job to your local printer, just in case there’s been a healthy measure of imbibing going on. Best save your print jobs for the first week of September.

St. Augustine of Hippo is not just a patron saint of printers and of brewers, but also of Aviles, the city in Spain that was home to explorer Pedro Menéndez, who sailed to the New World in 1565. The day his ships arrived here at this continent also happened to be St. Augustine’s Day, the 28th of August. He and his crew sailed into the area around Matanzas Bay, up in the northeast corner of La Florida, and he named the new Spanish settlement there San Agustín, in honor of the day he first spotted land and in honor of his hometown’s patron saint. That town is St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States.

As for St. Augustine himself, he was born in Northern Africa, in what is now Tunisia, in 354, the son of St. Monica. He became a patron saint of printers thanks to his prolific writing. Books like his Confessions probably kept a lot of early printers in business. The confessions were easy to come by for Augustine: he was a fellow who liked a good time, at least early on in life, and this is the root of his patronage for brewers. His mother prayed for his conversion. Eventually he did convert and the time he spent drinking earlier on he now devoted to writing. He was long considered a Doctor of the Church and was canonized at the turn of the 14th century, about 150 years before Johannes Gutenberg perfected the idea of moveable type and ushered in the information and literacy revolution that came with the proliferation of printing. It is said that on a wall of his room St. Augustine had written these words, in large letters: “Here we do not speak evil of anyone.” Words of wisdom, worthy of writing on our walls or printing on our presses or sending to our elected officials, and words to live by in this week of celebrations print and book related––this week of Bartlemas Wayzgooses and related celebrations of papermaking, printing, bookbinding, brewing. All crafts of the human hand and heart, all––in their way and in proper doses––portals bridging earth and heaven, assisting us mere mortals to attain that graceful state of happiness in flow. I’ll take that.

Speaking of Bartlemas Wayzgooses: now that the hustle and hubbub of the premiere of our own Bartlemas Wayzgoose has passed, we welcome you to watch it anytime, from wherever you are in the world. This video experience is posted now and for posterity at the Vimeo Channel of the Jaffe Center for Book Arts. (Actually, I’ll include the video right here below… but be warned, at 90-minutes, this Bartlemas Wayzgoose is an experience, one that is best with some proper Wayzgoose fare and libation.) I think you’ll really enjoy my interview with printer Ben Blount and the beautiful Wayzgoose concert by Jay Ungar & Molly Mason. There are even a couple of songs to singalong to. All this would go very well with the work of your local small brewery, especially tonight, for St. Augustine. Cheers and huzzah!

Summer Sale!
At our online shop, our Summer High Five Sale continues: All summer long, use discount code HIGH5 at checkout for $5 off your purchase of $35 on everything in the shop. Take it to $50 and earn free domestic shipping, too. Click here to shop! We’ve lowered the price on our popular embroidered face masks from Chiapas. I’m actually sad to report that the masks are once again a hot item. Still, they’re now just $10 each. Perhaps the family who makes them was a little too optimistic when they decided last spring to stop making masks. Our favorite new thing in the shop? Millie’s Tea Towels, embroidered by hand by my mom Millie, under our new Linens & Textiles category.

Image: “Franklin the Printer.” Reproduction of a Charles Mills painting by Detroit Publishing Company, circa 1914 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons].