Yet another from Funky Frets in Boyertown. Great for playing at least the intro to Stairway to Heaven… at least I’m working on it. A Lanikai MA-8T. That’s my Maine pack basket it’s leaning on.
Ukulele Number 15
Ukulele Number 14
Still catching up on posting my Uke collection. This one was purchased in 2017 on a trip back past the manor shopping center from a meeting at Millersville University. Why? I didn’t have a cutaway yet, and the style is classic of course. BTW the bowler is a vintage Stetson complete with serial number and blocking instructions. It’s a bit small perhaps, but great for that tough guy blues image.
Monti’s First Book Published
Monti (with the help of Jolene and me) has published his first book about how he wants to go to school. Inspired by his Therapy visits to schools he wants to be a regular student and visits a friend’s classroom to prove he has what it takes.
Hardcover 8″x8″ books are available. Email jolene@randysbooks.com for details. They can be prepaid via PayPal. Books are produced through Shutterfly and we’re taking advantage of special offers to keep the price down and selling them for $20 plus postage with any amount over our cost going to benefit Spinone Health & Rescue.
You can watch a short video of the entire book below:
Leather Pencil Case from Kit
I made this great pencil case from a kit. Took a couple of hours to stitch it together by hand. I was impressed by the materials and instructions, a bit more refined than your typical boy scout leather kit that I may have done years ago. Kit is available here.
Pen Backlog
It’s been awhile since I turned pens, but there are loads of them in various stages of completion on my workbench. I finally found some time to complete a bunch of them. These are all a particular design meant to stand on a desk rather than fit in a pocket or bag. I still have a number of the unmade kits that will are probably next on the list to complete.
My Ship Has Come In
Or at least I’ve finished building it. I made this from a kit I bought at the Maine Prison Showroom in Thomaston, Maine on our last visit. All the parts are wooden and already cut and shaped. The two largest sails were already glued. It just took some painting and assembly. The hard part was the rigging. I was influenced to buy it because of the nice wooden box with a sliding lid that the kit came in.
Ukulele Number 13
Another banjolele actually. Lighter than either the vintage Dixie banjolele (#10) or especially the Luna (#4) whose weight appealed to me. The Firefly by Magic Fluke has a unique one piece construction of head, neck and post that holds the Remo banjo head. I’m not.a fan of the one piece molded fretboard, but overall the design is definitely different than my other ukes, so I like it for that. Got this in 2017 at Funky Frets. (I’m a bit behind in getting these posted.
First Print on the Provisional Press
Saturday I made the first print on the Provisional Press that I bought in kit form and assembled last month. I made at least 14 good prints of a linocut of the finial on the Bronstrup iron press at the Conestoga Press using waterbase metallic gold block printing ink. Initially I planned to build one of these great presses from the free plans that can be downloaded. The plans are for cutting with a CNC machine, but I planned to use traditional woodworking methods. After hearing the creator talk about it at a virtual Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association meeting I decided to just order the kit. They are normally out of stock but you just have to get on the email list to be notified when they will have a limited number available each month. I had no problem ordering one a minute after the appointed time in March.
Irregular ren-ditions / 2
A collection of links and information from recent journeys through life and the internet. Irregular describes the schedule and the path.
A Century of Dining Out – So if you miss eating out as much as you did pre-pandemic here’s a treat. Peruse menus from 1841 – 1941. You can admire them for the art or for the dinner faire. There are menus for restaurants and banquets. Be sure to check out the Broiled Squirrels a la Maitre d’Hotel at the Fifth Annual Reunion of the Railroad Conductors’ Life Insurance Company. For a deeper dive check out the other Grolier Club Online Exhibitions. Thanks to Paul for sharing a link to the Magazines and the American Experience Exhibition which I originally intended to highlight here.
All Aboard! – get these free sample train coloring pages from the Dover Coloring Book series. I used to sell lots of the nature related ones and the best thing about them was they usually included a permission statement on the first page for copying for personal or classroom use. You can sign up to regularly get these samples somewhere, but you’ll have to explore the Dover site for that. I have saved far too many of these files by right clicking on the coloring page and saving it to my computer. You can just print the .jpg file out or paste it into a Word page so you can easily manipulate the size. You can get more at http://www.coloringbookday.com/ .
Audubon’s Birds of America at Bowdoin College – One of the silver linings to the COVID disaster is that fascinating on-line opportunities have proliferated from colleges, non-profits, and individuals. Bowdoin college has these and some pre-covid recordings to watch in it’s page-turning events. It’s probably enough to say I was attracted by the idea that each event shows a page of Audubon’s double Elephant folio (that’s a BIG book), but what got us there on March 5 was an opportunity to hear our friend, Scott Weidensaul share the story of the book, Birds of Maine. His presentation will appear there if it hasn’t already.
Emerson and his Friends – The story went something like this when a customer noticed the Emerson pins available at the Walden Pond gift shop where a friend of mine works. He asked, “How about pins for Lake and Palmer?” With all my study of Emerson lately I completely forgot about them. Seriously, the link takes you to a Royal Albert Hall performance. I missed one of their performances at the Rock Festival at the Pocono Raceway in 1972 (I do have a limited double album vinyl press their performance released in 2019). My girlfriend at the time took me as a graduation present but storms and technical problems extended the concert to well past when we could stay with ELP playing at dawn the next day. I finally got to see Palmer a couple years ago after both Emerson and Lake left us. He played a short set before Todd Rundgren and Yes and I would have rather he kept playing rather than Todd for sure and even Yes. You can get an inkling of his performance starting at 1:01:48 in the Albert Hall Performance. Funny, my favorite was always Emerson, but I have a new appreciation for Palmer as well as Lake through his performance in several concerts available on youtube and his solo of one of my favorite ELP songs, You Turn Me On.
AAPA February Picks
I was honored to be asked to provide the February Picks for the American Amateur Press Association which distributes members’ printing and writing efforts each month in a “Bundle”. You can see my article and other AAPA stuff here.