i’m always making and filling handmade journals and scrapbooks – scrapjournals if you will – i’ve shared some snaps and what not here so you know what i mean
Ephemera, snapshots, stamps of all kinds, snippets of poetry, forgotten claim checks, former “safe house” addresses, secret compartments and whatnot all conspire to create a passport – with decoder book not included (consider Lamb’s edition of Shakespeare, without the poetry)
Everything is significant, coincidence is futile
Of possible interest to small subset of humans:
current tatami-bedside reading / cycle through these (plus kiddo’s awsum books & – rather under-whelming Paris Review) semi-simultaneously as notion strikes
Includes: L. Ferlinghetti, DT Suzuki, H. Hesse, W. Davis, R. Rubin, K. Babbs & a compilation about Kyoto with my pal Tedward Taylor + own journal musings, natch
Do you read many books at once and delightfully remix them all in your head? Or do you stick to a more sensible and linear approach of one at a time?
{Answer not expected, unless…}
Expired Yugoslavian Passport turned secret diary of poetry & ephemera, shared with a friend never met (like most of you) in Gifu. He’s from BC and met my brother in another life, somehow. Heck of a writer.
Anyhow, we fill up pages as desired and mail back and forth like a secret for everyone to see.
I made some Scrapbooks, they are really quite magnificent.
This is my workbench with stack of Scrapbooks (don’t look too close).
These multipurpose, archival historical record capturing and creating “devices” will make their way out into the world to find forever homes – one here in Japan, maybe one for our family and the rest to friends in BC who I think will love and stuff.
Details include:
Notable that I used my “foot pedal operated overhead laser scanner” to capture steps along the way as well as put a “vintage” iPhone on a tripod facing the bench so maybe one of these days there will be a video documenting the process. It won’t necessarily be “good” but it might simply exist.
The scrapbooks however, as mentioned above, are magnificent by any possible measure (says me ;)).
Opening a big santa sack of recent items by post including aerogrammes/ aerograms, passports, international driver’s licenses, documents, hotel letterhead, records (namechecking recent interview on Rice Field Records), postcards, etc from Nepal, Monaco, East German DDR, probably i dunno… Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, United Nations, others i don’t quite understand.
Also mail from Ukraine which allows mention of intrepid postal workers delivering despite war and displacement, + blabbity blah about guest coming to visit, feeling discombobulated after #MECFS “crash mode” – that’s it except the parts i forgot. Argh prob a ramble about the “passport forgery project” {recalling i riffed about taking “intimate documents” and adding life to them}
{this should and will be a separate bonus post but in the meanwhile…}
Continue reading Sort-ganizing Ephemera by Post (with Royal Dudes & the Muffs)Ambient views and vibes of making a series of 4 very different postcards ~ fiddling with stamps (postal and inky), various pens, scissors, glue and other crafts odds and ends in kura barn in provincial Japan
Stamps and items from: Gibraltar, Malaysia, Diego Garcia, Nepal, Palau, Tuvalu, Japan, Tahiti, Antigua, Sri Lanka, India, BOIT, Newfoundland, CCCP, Canada, UK, & featuring Fredrick Varley, Ichiro Olson, Baden-Powell, Capilano suspension bridge, rabbits and many other notable details and destinations.
No chit-chat or narration, just hanging out.while listening to Bill Janovitz’s great album Walt Whitman Mall (used w/o clearence) on vinyl with admiration.
Remixing expired passports from Romania and Albania into “dossiers of mystery and tactical intrigue” complete with endorsements, visas, assignments, sightings, safe houses, maps, aliases, poetry, ephemera, snippets, stamps – both ink and postal – musings, memos, codes, secrets.
Completely usual behavior – carry on with your diligent efforts.
Checkpoints include: Sri Lanka, Nepal, Diego Garcia, Vatican, Athens, Kyoto… etc + green beavers and diligent dogs
Continue reading Forging Passports, so to speak (“life during wartime”)
A conversation about DIY constructing scrapjournals with board game backs, calendar paper fronts, mixed blocks inside, with a side sewing technique. Including: what materials to gather and adding a few treats to start so you “don’t get precious”.
Plus using a Tin Tin calendar as a substrate for a travel scrapbook with a ephemera (coaster, tickets stubs, boarding passes, maps, etc) from Thailand, Malaysia, Nepal, Greece, Rome , Istanbul (with space for Suez).
Plus a few comments about the Vatican’s reconciliation *campaign* with Indigenous people of current-day Canada. Lighting incense and sage in hopes of sincerity and action.
All from the “Giggling Piglet studio” in a historic storehouse barn in provincial Japan with *Special hellos* to Kim in Austin, Jason in Gifu, Dan in Mass, Vincent in Victoria, Aki in the islands, the students of a school near Yokota, and others along the way.
More Importantcy:
* Indian Residential School Survivor’s Society (donate)
* DownieWenjack foundation (donate)
* First Nations reconciliation & shame of residential school (poem)
As the summer days roll by, items arrive by post, I share here for amusement of both you and me and anyone wandering by.
The originals hang on “a string of honour” for a time before finding a home in a scrapbook of sorts.
First stop is a card my darling wife sent on her recent trip to the Noto Peninsula with Ichiro. (Yes, I was home alone for4.5 days yet survived). This was Ichi-kun’s first airplane ride and he was very excited about it, especially since they travelled was on our favourite airline of them all.
Oh i should add a photo of them onboard (in the meanwhile, this diary shares snaps of me and F-i-L hanging out watching them roll in). UPDATE: Here he is on board:
This next handcrafted beauty rounds out at a trifecta of awesomeness (referenced in the cards and letters scrapbook assembly process video if only briefly), remixing Richard Brautigan’s “June 30th June 30th” book in which he travelled to Japan to reconcile his feelings about his dear uncle who died in the Pacific war. SueAn is starting a web shop so i’ll check it out and add a link when ready [update: linked ^^]
While there are a few more meaning to add to this, consider this a placeholder with the cover of the recent accordion-style scrapbook holding postcards and letters with a special note on the front from a friend in Amsterdam (who is like guardian angel for us from afar sometimes).
He sent me a beautiful new journal with this note on the front saying “scrapbook goes here?” Indeed, indeed it does. Thank you. Thank you.
Just adding beat related ephemera to binders, poems to scrapbooks, cards and letters too, sometimes to one scrapbook, sometimes to another, depending on the form and function, music plays in the background – a compilation for Jack Kerouac – all in a historic kura storehouse barn in provincial Japan.
No commentary, no chit chat, just ya know,… hanging out playing with scissors, glue, tape and whatnot.
Thanks Matt T. and Dan B.
