Zakka Embroidery / MR. ROBOT

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 25

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

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ZAKKA EMBROIDERY PRESENTS DESIGNS THAT ARE AN ELEGANT BLEND OF JAPANESE AND SCANDINAVIAN STYLE

Zakka Embroidery: Simple One- and Two-Color Embroidery Motifs and Small Crafts
by Yumiko Higuchi
Roost Books
2016, 192 pages, 8.3 x 0.6 x 5.9 inches, Paperback

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I’m a sucker for fiber arts. I only ever had a passing interest in embroidery and basically did all of my needlework embellishments freehand and on-the-fly. But since hitting the embroidery thread jackpot at a yard sale last summer, I’ve been inching slowly closer to learning the actual craft. Zakka Embroidery was exactly what I needed.

Yumiko Higuchi first draws in readers with a collection of beautiful embroidery motifs (shot clearly and up close so that you can practically feel the stitches on the muslin) with corresponding projects. All the motifs are garden/nature inspired and only use one or two colors of thread. This was a huge selling point for me, as I am not naturally drawn to overly colorful designs and have a hard time figuring out what goes well together (outside of gray and dark gray). The projects range from sweet, floral clutches and satchels, to baby items, to home decor. There are a lot of great gift-projects in this book. The second half is a thorough, photographically illustrated guide to embroidery techniques, and then the actual embroidery and project patterns.

Because many of the projects in this lovely little book do involve sewing, it’s good to have some basic sewing skills to fully utilize it. But don’t let that stop you! You can easily embroider these motifs onto pre-made garments (some projects actually call for this), tea towels, or accessories. You could even make these tiny gardens into your classic wall-hanging, but I think one of the nicest things about this book is that everything is intended to be actually used, worn, and appreciated in action.

– Mk Smith Despres

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MR. ROBOT: RED WHEELBARROW: (EPS1.91_REDWHEELBARR0W.TXT)

MR. ROBOT: Red Wheelbarrow: (eps1.91_redwheelbarr0w.txt)
by Sam Esmail, Courtney Looney
Harry N. Abrams
2016, 160 pages, 7.7 x 0.5 x 9.8 inches, Hardcover

Buy on Amazon

This is without question one of the strangest books I’ve ever purchased. I feel like Amazon just shipped me the handwritten journal of a complete lunatic, at the same time I’ve never felt more connected to a fictional character. If you haven’t seen it, Mr. Robot is an amazing counter culture, techno thriller that I highly recommend. If you’re not a fan, this book will mean nothing to you. If you are a fan, this book is something special.

The book, much like the show, is a total mindbender. It’s a journal that’s actually featured in Season 2 of the series, and the entries follow the plot of the season. It’s written from the show’s main character Elliot’s point of view, in his own handwriting, and features his many…demons. There are also notes added from a secondary character, seen briefly throughout the season, who’s trying to piece together Elliot’s story. Just like reading someone’s actual journal, this offers a lot of perspective and insight into Elliot’s character, and what his motivations are moving forwards.

The printing is amazing. The handwriting in pencil looks like you could smudge it with a wet finger. There’s also a plethora of collected scraps like envelopes, a cigarette package, and a newspaper clipping, all which add to the eerie feeling that this book was ripped from the TV. I haven’t spent nearly enough time uncovering all that it’s pages have to offer. I found a number chart imprinted on the second to last page, I know that’s got to be related to something. If you’re a fan who wants to go further down the rabbit hole, you’re going to enjoy this.

– JP LeRoux

07/30/24

Rental Tools

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 97

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, and the links to them may or may not work. We present these vintage recommendations as is because the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

The right tools to rent

Tool Rental Know-How

The benefits of ownership are often overrated. Renting a tool can be a far smarter way to go than purchasing it. Renting can be far cheaper, and you’ll get the latest version of the tool. You can try out a new-to-you tool. Maintenance is not your headache. For instance you don’t have to store large tools, like a cement mixer. (You do have to return them!) Of course renting is particularly great for those tools you only need for a one-time job. How often do you need a wet saw, or a jackhammer?

But don’t stop there. Most people are unaware of the vast variety of expert tools available for rental from any decent rental store. The choices are mind-boggling and inspiring. Many of these tools will make a tough job easy and smooth. I did a tile fireplace once only because I was able to rent that wet saw to cut through marble like butter.

Every year or so I walk through a large rental place just looking to see what’s available. I come away with ideas like: why use a post hole digger for a fence line when you can rent an auger? Firewood time: rent log splitter, idle rest of the year. At a well-stocked rental store you can rent almost any tool you can think of: paper shredders, moisture meters, gas detectors, chimney brushes, sewer cameras, staple hammers, and so on. I’ll try new things because I know I can rent the right tool.

Here is a small selection of tools you can rent. Most great rental centers seem regional. (Can anyone suggest a great national rental store?) I’ve given approximate rates per day as a guideline, but most will also rent per hour, or half day too. — KK

Rototiller

A mini horse and plow. Really useful when starting your garden area from sod. $85 per day.

Heat Cannon

This is a mega heat gun. Used to hurry the drying of paint or sheet rock spackle. It eats lots of propane and oxygen – ventilation is a must. $135 per day.

Mini Mortar Mixer

You don’t need a full-sized cement mixer to do mortar jobs like laying brick or stone, or making stucco. $50 per day.

Mini Excavator

Aaaah, so cute! This 3-foot wide excavator will go where its big brothers can’t: through a gate, in between houses, onto landscaping, near foundations, into backyards. Its arm can reach out 13 feet and dig down 8 feet, and is strong enough to do minor earthwork. Some have a self-leveling cabin that really helps offset that paralyzing feeling on a slope that you are going to tip over. I recommend practicing before you get in close quarters. $275 per day.

Stump Grinder

No other way to remove a stump. The grinder swings back and forth, throwing off a huge pile of chips. Despite its power, slowly nibbling across the stump down to its roots (don’t even think of using a chain saw) will take longer than you think. $125 per day.

Wet Saw

An abrasive wheel lubricated by water hooked up to your garden house. Will easily and fairly accurately cut tile, pavers, concrete, stone, etc. Use outside if possible. $85 per day.

Steam Wallpaper Remover

Removing wall paper is an ugly mess, and hopefully only a once-in-your-lifetime job, but this makes it possible. $40 per day.

Airless Paint Sprayer

Will lay paint or stain as fast as you can walk. Sucks the paint from its own 5-gallon bucket. You’ll need long cords to feed its electric motor. $90 per day.

Electric Jack Hammer

This has one moving part: it. Will pulverize concrete, whether in a wall or on the floor. Not easy to handle, it will give you a workout. Even though it is electric, it still requires ear protection. $100 per day.

Carpet Dryer

When a flood soaks your wall-to-wall carpeting, you need to dry it out as fast as possible. Stick the “nose” of one of these under the yanked up edge and keep it running till everything dries out. You’ll probably need more than one, and you’ll need to have electric power on. $30 per day.

Ditch Witch

These walk-behind ditch diggers come in all sizes. The small ones will dig narrow trenches for irrigation and cables 12 to 18 inches deep; larger ones for larger or deeper pipes. Call 811 to make sure you ain’t cutting through underground utilities. $280 per day.

Fence Post Driver

Really the only way to bang metal fence posts into the ground. Lift up the weight with two hands, pull down hard over the post. It will employ muscles you have never used before. $13 per day. $80 per day.

07/29/24

Retro Recomendo: Podcast Listenables

Recomendo - issue #420

Our subscriber base has grown so much since we first started eight years ago, that most of you have missed all our earliest recommendations. The best of these are still valid and useful, so we’re trying out something new — Retro Recomendo. Once every 6 weeks, we’ll send out a throwback issue of evergreen recommendations focused on one theme from the past 8 years.

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Learning from death

Frank Ostaseski has accompanied over 1,000 people as they died in a hospice, and in this 60-minute podcast (recorded at a Long Now seminar), he distills what lessons the dying — and death — have taught him. Their wisdom is deep, complex, potent, intimate, and unexpected (not cliche). It will shift your relationship to life. Listening (or watching the video) will be one of the best hours in your life. — KK

Exit Scam podcast

I have only listened to the first episode of Exit Scam, an eight-episode podcast about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the founder of Canada’s biggest Bitcoin exchange. When Gerald Cotten died, the password to $215 million of cryptpcurrency was lost, and some people think he faked his own death. This is my favorite podcast since Serial. — MF

The Video Archives Podcast

In 1983, Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery worked at the Video Archives movie rental store in Manhattan Beach, California. Nearly 40 years later, Tarantino and Avery have teamed up to host The Video Archives Podcast, where they talk about their favorite cult movies of the era. It’s a blast listening to these hardcore film fans reminisce about the films they loved growing up, and they have some great stories to share. — MF

The Gateway by Gizmodo

I was on edge weekly, waiting for the next episode of Gizmodo’s 6-part podcast, The Gateway. Journalist Jennings Brown investigates the dangerous effects of YouTube guru Teal Swan on her loyal Facebook followers. Teal Swan is not a licensed therapist and admits to using SEO and tags to target depressed and suicidal people, as well as creating her own therapy practices to treat them. She is hypnotic, alluring, and adamant that she is not the leader of a cult, even though her followers call themselves the Teal Tribe. There’s much more to this story that I can’t give away, and it made me wish this podcast would never end. — CD

Vital podcast

Supreme Court decisions can be monumental in their consequences, but they often hinge on very specific, sometimes messy cases. More Perfect is a super podcast from the folks at Radio Lab that burrows deep into the specifics of Supreme Court cases, in order to illuminate their logic and meaning. All the episodes are fantastic, but a recent one on the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution — One Nation, Under Money — is especially great. I was shocked how little I knew about this clause, and consider this audio lesson to be essential listening for any American. No matter what your political tilt you’ll be perturbed and educated. Afterwards, listen to the rest of the shows. — KK

Long conversations

A “long conversation” is a new format for a conference. Two speakers begin a conversation on stage. After 15 minutes one of the two speakers is replaced by a new speaker and the conversation continues, and every 15 minutes for the next 8 hours a speaker is swapped out. (Each speaker converses for 30 minutes.) The day is engaging, unpredictable, passionate, diverse, informative, and entertaining. It’s a format invented by Long Now Foundation that is worth stealing. For an example, here are highlights from a long conversation held at the Smithsonian. — KK

07/28/24

Most Flight Legroom/Longer Thailand Stays/Global Entry Delays

Nomadico issue #114

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

The Most Legroom on Long Flights

If you have a long-haul international flight coming up and you’ll be in the back of the plane, this guide to the roomiest seats in regular economy could be useful. Noting seat pitch, width, recline ability, and roominess of the cabin, it’s a list of which flights will be the most comfortable. I’ve been on two of them and will vouch that flying on Emirates in an Airbus 380 felt like going back in time to the 1980s, as in a far superior experience than what we’re stuck with now most of the time.

Hidden Costs of Home Ownership

If your parents are asking you when you’re going to settle down and buy a house, you might want to send them this Bankrate article on how much it really costs to own a home. When you add in insurance, taxes, maintenance, and repairs, the average U.S. homeowner with an average house is paying an extra $18,118 every year on top of their hefty mortgage. (It’s much higher in states like California.) You could probably pay for a year’s worth of Airbnb monthly rentals in much of the world on that amount alone.

More People Can Stay in Thailand for 60 Days

Thailand’s visa rules change more often than I buy new shoes, but the latest tweak is a positive one all around. First of all, citizens of more countries can enter without getting a visa in advance, from 57 nations to 93. In a great change for nomads passing through, visa-free visitors can now stay in Thailand for up to 60 days, compared to the earlier limit of 30 days. Get the full story here.

Global Entry Renewal Delays

My wife applied to renew her Global Entry status back in December, paying and then getting reimbursed from a travel credit card. As of July 17, she’s still waiting for a response. Apparently that has become so normal that the agency is giving a two-year grace period: you can keep using the program (and TSA PreCheck) as long as you applied in time to renew. According to this article that has a response from the agency, 77% of applications are handled automatically and are swift, but the 23% that are randomly reviewed manually are getting stuck in a huge backlog.

07/25/24

Book Freak 165: Amusing Ourselves to Death

Neil Postman's Prescient Warning About the Age of Digital Distraction

Get Amusing Ourselves to Death

Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death was a 1985 wake-up call we didn’t know we’d need forty years later. Postman (1931-2003), a media theorist and cultural critic, argued that television was not just changing what we watch, but how we think and communicate as a society. While Postman’s focus was on television, his insights have become even more relevant in our current digital age. In an era dominated by social media, smartphones, and an ever-expanding array of digital entertainment options, Postman’s warnings about the impact of media on critical thinking and public discourse have only grown more urgent.

Here are four excerpts that are about television but easily apply to social media today:

Instagram:

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

Twitter:

“We are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore without essential seriousness; that is to say, news as pure entertainment.”

TikTok:

“Now … this” is commonly used on radio and television newscasts to indicate that what one has just heard or seen has no relevance to what one is about to hear or see, or possibly to anything one is ever likely to hear or see. The phrase is a means of acknowledging the fact that the world as mapped by the speeded-up electronic media has no order or meaning and is not to be taken seriously. There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly—for that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so threatening—that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying, “Now … this.” The newscaster means that you have thought long enough on the previous matter (approximately forty-five seconds), that you must not be morbidly preoccupied with it (let us say, for ninety seconds), and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial.

YouTube:

Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television. No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement and pleasure. That is why even on news shows which provide us daily with fragments of tragedy and barbarism, we are urged by the newscasters to “join them tomorrow.” What for? One would think that several minutes of murder and mayhem would suffice as material for a month of sleepless nights.

07/24/24

Glasswork / Bakuman

Books That Belong On Paper Issue No. 24

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

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HOT GLASS IS COOL IN THE HAND’S OF THE MURANO MAESTRO

Lino Tagliapietra: Glasswork
by Lino Tagliapietra
Marsilio
2017, 172 pages, 8.5 x 0.7 x 11.9 inches, Hardcover

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In the world of glass art, Lino Tagliapietra is widely revered for the technical virtuosity and mind-boggling beauty of his work, which expresses itself through forms that range from muscular to delicate, exuberant to tightly controlled, sometimes all at once. At 82, the Murano-born Maestro has been a mentor to generations of glass artists around the world, a hero to every would-be gaffer who’s picked up a blowpipe for the first time, dipped it into a furnace of molten glass, and given it a quick puff.

It would be a shame, though, if only those who appreciated glass art were familiar with Tagliapietra, which is why I wish Lino Tagliapietra: Glasswork made more of an effort to connect Tagliapietra’s work to the era in which it blossomed — the middle of the 20th century. That’s not to take anything away from the inspiration Tagliapietra has provided to such exemplary glass artists as Dale Chihuly, Dan Daley, Richard Marquis, and Dante Marioni, each of who contributed a short statement to Glasswork in praise of the Maestro. But Tagliapietra’s connection to glass is obvious — he deserves a place next to Charles and Ray Eames, Hans Hofmann, and Eero Saarinen, for a start.

On the other hand, Tagliapietra’s Mid-Century Modern aesthetic doesn’t need to share any spotlights to announce its roots, as the glorious images in Glasswork show. From his clear, candy-wrapper shaped vases of the early 1960s to the lacy teardrops and sumptuous saucers of the past few years, Tagliapietra’s work is effortlessly confident, which is probably what makes it so cool. We sense its authenticity immediately, and for good reason — Tagliapietra is not riffing on MCM, he helped invent it.

– Ben Marks

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THE BESTSELLING SERIES BY THE CREATORS OF DEATH NOTE, NOW AVAILABLE IN A COMPLETE BOX SET

Bakuman. Complete Box Set (Volumes 1-20 with premium)
by Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata (Illustrator)
VIZ Media LLC
2013, 3864 pages, 7.5 x 5.3 x 5.0 inches, Paperback

Buy on Amazon

“Is becoming a successful manga artist an achievable dream or just one big gamble?” The back cover of every Bakuman. poses this question, the central question to a series about the highs and lows of professional art, and the troubles an artist has to endure for their work. In Bakuman., two high school students named Mashiro and Takagi team up to create manga, taking on the roles of artist and writer, respectively. They have different and unique motivations for pursuing this path, Takagi doing it to avoid falling into the trap of a boring life, while Mashiro endeavors to impress the girl he loves. They’re both incredibly well developed characters that struggle, win, lose, and never accept defeat. Over the course of the 20 volumes in this set, we’re offered an in depth chronicle of their attempts at success.

Manga fans may recognize creators Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata as the team behind the popular Death Note. While Death Note was a high concept mystery, Bakuman. is a much more accessible “everyday life” kind of story that blends comedy and drama with ease. Now excuse me while I gush a little, because I think Bakuman. may be my favorite manga series. Any manga/comics fan should read it, but I cannot recommend it enough to anybody working in an artistic medium. Ohba & Obata use the simple plot to develop a complex reflection on the nature of creation. In their journey, Mashiro and Takagi have to confront the reality of achieving their dreams, struggling to discover if it was worth the struggle. They make sacrifices in the balance between art and commerce. They learn that life is what happens while you’re working towards your dreams, and that while it’s important to have a goal, it’s also important to appreciate where you are. There are no superpowers, no fights, no action scenes, just real character driven drama.

The complete set pictured here also includes a double-sided full color poster, and a bonus “issue” of Otter No. 11, a fictional comedy series produced within the main story of Bakuman. The box itself is of high quality, with gorgeous illustrations on every side, and a velcro flap that seals in the volumes. If you’re already a fan of Ohba & Obata, this is the best value for your money. New adopters should at least check out volume one, which introduces the boys on their first summer creating manga, racing to complete a demo work before school starts again. If you’re looking for a change of pace from your usual superhero or shonen fare, Bakuman. will not disappoint.

– Alex Strine

07/23/24

What’s in my NOW? — Luisa de Lachica