For the next few days, we’d be in Chandler-plays-tour-guide mode.

The tables would turn (and turn again) later in the trip, but for this leg of the trip, we were on my home turf.

We turned south (or was that east?) out of Montreal,

and smooshed the final batch of Canadian bugs on our windshield before re-crossing the border.

No need for a carwash, though—the rain started as soon as we crossed back into the States.

It rained so hard that visibility was awful, but that no longer worried me.

That’s because there were no more French signs to read, and we were back in familiar territory:

That’s right, the Green Mountain State, where all the letterpress printers do their typesetting with maple candy. Or at least they would, if I were in charge.

We weren’t looking for them, but we did come across a couple of roadside attractions, both dead…

…and alive. (Don’t ask me, I’m just a spectator.) These were just happenstance, though.

What we really came for was this.

Vermont is peppered with historic covered bridges—they are as much a symbol of the state as those famous Green Mountains. They’re covered because the Vermonters of Old figured out that their wooden spans would last a lot longer if they put a roof over them. Uncovered, a bridge would rot away or break after just a handful of New England winters; with two walls and a ceiling, it could weather centuries of harsh conditions.

As proof, many of the original covered bridges are open to automobile traffic—including this one. This is the Cornish-Windsor Bridge, which spans the Vermont/New Hampshire border. It also happens to be one of the longest covered bridges in the world. And you can drive on it! Now that’s impressive.

We didn’t, though. We walked our horses—the fine was too steep to risk it.

Being a New England state, Vermont is tiny. Even so, after two days of criss-crossing the state, we still only made it to a small sampling of bridges.

This one, in the town of Quechee (that’s pronounced “Kwee-chee”), is a replica. It was only built about forty years ago (all the others we saw were from the mid-1800s). What made me stop and stare, though, was the river raging below.

That summer, Vermont was a victim of the same torrential rains we glimpsed in Saskatchewan. The rivers were swollen, and many towns sustained flood damage. Little did we know, though, that the worst was yet to come. Just two months after I shot these photos, Hurricane Irene ripped its way through the state. The Ottauquechee River here became an uncontrollable whirlpool. Both the Quechee Bridge and the one pictured above, just a few miles upriver in Taftsville, were all but destroyed. It looks like they’ll restore both spans, but the spots I stood upon to take these photos (in both Taftsville and Quechee) are gone entirely. You can see what happened to the Taftsville Bridge here.

Some structures fared even worse, like the Blenheim Bridge in upstate New York, which was washed away entirely.

Not even this one, in West Arlington—which is perhaps the most photographed bridge in Vermont—came through unscathed.

Even at the time, the water level of the Batten Kill was dangerously high (those spots you see in these photos are raindrops—it was pouring), but that was nothing compared to what these people saw during the hurricane.

Illustration by Ralph Hulett. ©1955 Ralph Hulett Estate

I know it’s an uphill battle to preserve these bridges, even under normal circumstances. I only hope we won’t one day be left with nothing more than a memory of their existence.

Oh, man. I’m beat. You people plum wore me out this time. Every year I keep thinking we can’t possibly top the previous year, but Wayzgoose just keeps getting better and better. And this year, the weather was so unbelievably good* that I think half of Tacoma (plus a good portion of Seattle and a smattering of Portland) put on their walking shoes and marched into our midst.

*See all those pairs of sunglasses? That straw hat? You don’t see those much ’round these parts. We’re the pasty-rainy vampire people, remember? Sunshine in April = naw, son, you must be dreaming.

To put it another way: it was absolute crazy sauce.

Or maybe it was just that the word is fully out now about our little printers’ party. After all, the Volcano said, “There are otherwise button-down, Wonder-bread, vanilla South Sounders who lose their ever-lovin’ shizz over Wayzgoose.” Amen, bros.

Big thanks to everyone who showed up to the party (even if I didn’t get a chance to thank you in person); to the Tacoma Arts Commission for being our fairy godparents; to the small army of adorable volunteers who kept everything chuggin’ along; to Rosemary Ponnekanti at the News Tribune for the write-up; to Kyle Durrie for making an appearance in her travelin’ Type Truck; and to sweet pea Flaherty and Jessica Spring for making it all happen.

Speaking of Jessica, I think I laid eyes on her all of twice, all day. She was scurrying around and herding cats outside, while I was camped behind a steady stream of folks at our adjacent tables (thanks, y’all!). There wasn’t even room to sneak a hip shot of how many people were shoehorned in there, so the only photos I could snag were right at the beginning before folks showed up, or at the end, when people finally started to clear out.

I know this doesn’t look like a big crowd, but trust me—it was a total sardine can in there. (Or clown car, if you prefer circus metaphors. I know I do.) But when the room is packed with all your favorite Northwesterners, it’s a win-win.

Among the talented regulars was my lovely friend Keegan,

and of course, Atticus, who frequently thinks he’s a pirate parrot. Yarr!

There was also a very special newcomer this year. Remember my former student Sara? Well, she caught the letterpress bug, and caught it bad. In less than three years since she took my class, she and her husband Brad (pictured) have gone from newbie nestlings to fully-fledged, successful business owners. (And they’re not the only ones!) Sigh. My kids are all grown up and making a hand-printed ruckus! It does my heart good.

Outside, spring was in full bloom at the L’Arche booth,

and the steamroller prints were better than ever. (Special shout-out to Audra Laymon for her goatey Blueberry Park print! I think a hundred people heard me squeal when I saw it.)

Jessica and I decided to sit out the steamroller this year to make room for a few new folks, and that turned out to be a smart move. Just standing at my table for six+ hours hobbled me like an arthritic old woman—I don’t think my knee was up to printing. My only regret was not being able to witness much of the spectacle this year.

I did sneak outside long enough to learn that Tacoma’s own Arts Commissioners had been pressed into service (heckuva job, Scott!)—

and that the print quality was the tastiest it’s ever been, thanks to some tweaked techniques Jessica gleaned from our day in San Francisco last fall.

Attendance reached a new record this year—I think we’re an official Tacoma institution now. Mr. sweet pea says the count of men, women, children, babies and beasties approached the 1,000 mark!

R.J. says: Word to your mother.

Montreal: the end of the road (at least for the Canadian leg of the trip). I’d been dying to visit for years, and it hardly seemed possible that we were really here.

We knew that 36 hours wasn’t enough time to spend in one of Canada’s largest cities, but we were determined to do as much exploring as we could. Besides, 36 hours was plenty of time to get a good taste—and leave with a hankering for a return visit.

The first thing that struck me about Montreal was the odd orientation of the streets. In our hotel room in Ottawa, I spent an hour studying a giant fold-out map (no GPS in this household, thank you)—and it’s a good thing I did. I tend to navigate by cardinal directions, and am rarely lost (it’s one of my superpowers). But if I have to drive in an unfamiliar city for the first time, I like to have a general idea of where I’m going, so I keep the annoying distracted driving to a minimum. And Montreal is mostly in a grid, which helps, but the whole thing is tilted at an angle. Instead of simply ignoring the angle and pretending everything is a perfect N-S-E-W grid (like Manhattan does), Montreal’s city planners, in all their infinite wisdom, decided to rotate the orientation roughly 90 degrees.

This is really hard to explain, except that if you’re used to keeping an eye on the sun while you wander around, this completely screws up your internal compass. Instead of just going on autopilot like I normally do, I constantly had to double check that we were heading where I intended us to.

In other words: what’s “East” on the island of Montreal is “South” as soon as you cross the bridge back to the mainland. And it’s really weird to see the sun setting in the “North” every evening.

The other thing was that Montreal seemed to be a perfect blend of Europe and the New World. Mainly, I think, it was the architecture—there was something both so French and so Colonial about Vieux Montréal.

It was there in the culture, though, too—the city was very walkable, and the pace of life around us reminded me so much of when I lived in Italy and traveled around Europe. And beyond that, it was obvious that we were in a culture of religious sports fans—

—only here the altar was hockey, and not soccer. (My kinda town.)

Place Jacques-Cartier, Montreal. No, there weren’t any raccoons around—I just like filling in all the nooks and crannies of my sketchbook.

The Tailor and I spent our honeymoon in France. We have a bunch of friends who live there, and they treated us to two glorious weeks of excellent company, local secrets and unbelievable food.* They also got me completely hooked on saucisson sec, cidre doux, and gigantic, rural-patisserie meringues—these things aren’t impossible to get in the U.S., but the American equivalents are never quite as good.

* I should tell you about it sometime—many of the stories involve our friend Gilles plunking himself down on the lawn of some castle or other, whipping out a Swiss Army knife, and producing an entire French picnic lunch for us, out of the combination of his hiking pack and thin air.

So you can imagine how excited I was to discover that when it comes to French cuisine, Montreal knows its stuff. At dinner we even had a French waiter, who was working his way across North America on a student visa. We ordered everything he recommended—which, as a general policy, continues to prove itself a good one.

As we lingered and the other customers dwindled, we fell to chatting with the waiter. We asked him if he’d noticed any major differences in the language in his stay in Montreal. He said, “The Québécois swear a lot more than the French do.” We raised our glasses to that, and everyone cracked up.

We only ate that one meal in a restaurant, as it turned out. The rest of the time, we just visited local markets (mostly lots of hidden, non-English-speaking Mom n’ Pops in the Plateau) to get our fix of all the French goodies we’d been craving. Then we did our best Gilles impression and just picnicked around the city whenever we felt hungry.

In the meantime, we walked.

And walked.

We walked until we could barely stand up straight. But we wouldn’t have anything else.

The weather was flawless, and it just seemed like the perfect way to get acquainted with the city.

After all, this was our last night in Canada. The next morning we’d be heading south—or east—or west—oh, whatever!—back to the States.

After over five days and thousands of miles of countryside, we loved being able to bask in city life again.

We’d arrived in Ottawa, the nation’s capital.

This wasn’t our final destination for the day; since the end of the road was still an hour or two ahead, we didn’t have much time to stay. Still, my brother was born in Ottawa—there was family history here. I wanted to see the place for myself.

It didn’t take long to fall in love with the bustling, multicultural vibe all around us.

Ottawa is a beautiful mix of historic and modern, of cityscape and green space.

What impressed me most, though, was something that I never even thought to photograph. (Doi.) Ottawa is bisected by the Rideau Canal, which connects the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario. Beyond any feats of engineering or city planning, the Rideau Canal gets a blue ribbon in my book because in the winter, you can commute to work by skating on it. Ice skating as public transit! That is the best idea ever, as far as I’m concerned.

Next time we visit, it’s going to be January, and I’m going to have my hockey skates with me.

But this was June, not January, and we had to make tracks. So I had just enough time to make a quick sketch (the statue, not the house),

wave hello to Gatineau across the river,

and grab a quick lunch before hitting the road again.

You can bet, though, that we’ll be back—with bells skates on.

This day was all about the journey, rather than the destination. It was the kind of day that put the “road” in “road trip.”

Like when a bear crossed the road (presumably to get to the other side), directly in front of our car. And we all—myself, Tailor, and bear—shrieked in alarm as we narrowly avoided disaster. At least we didn’t end up like Tommy Boy and that deer.

Right. Anyway, the whole reason we crossed the continent via the Trans Canada Highway, as opposed to zooming down some Interstate freeway, was to take a little extra time to enjoy the journey. Besides, our travels gave us a lovely and broad sampling of what Canada has to offer—we were treated to art museums, historic architecture, incredible restaurants, live music, friendly folks, and natural beauty. Still, while I soaked in as much Canadian culture as I could, I also had a craving for something a little more…lowbrow. This was a road trip, after all, and more than anything else, I associate road trips with roadside kitsch.

I’m just as likely to get excited over a roadside attraction as a national park. (I’m not even going to think about what that says about me.) I will happily travel hours out of the way to see such things as:

• giant animals, vegetables, dinosaurs, or mythical creatures
• Wall Drug (where the heck is it? Fifty miles east of where I was born, that’s where.)
• animatronic dioramas (there’s a really creepy Gold Rush one at Wall Drug)
• world wonders recreated out of things like cars or tractors
• two-story mosaics made out of corn
• really absurd, anthropomorphized taxidermy
• buildings shaped like food
• Paul Bunyan statues
• any random object that claims to be the world’s largest

I know. Classy, right?

But hey—at least giant fiberglass animals don’t dart out in front of moving vehicles. One can enjoy them at leisure, without risking one’s life.

Anyway, the U.S.—especially the western half—is a treasure trove of things like these, and I like to think of myself as … I dunno. A connoisseur? Collector? Curator? Whatever. I like ‘em.

I wasn’t sure what I might find north of the 49th Parallel, however. So over dinner last spring I posed the question to a Vancouverite, and he came to the rescue with a list of recommendations. Many thanks (and maybe a bit of the blame) to Paul Razzell for making this post possible.

At the end of our crazy midnight trek around Lake Superior, we stayed in a motel in Wawa, Ontario. The name Wawa is derived from the Ojibwa word for “wild goose.”

So it’s no surprise that Wawa has a 27-foot goose standing ready to welcome you to the town.

They didn’t just stop at one, though.

There are three giant geese in Wawa, which of course I hunted down—talk about a wild goose chase. These fellas induced all kinds of gleeful cackling on my part (and eye rolling on the part of the Tailor).

Down the road, Sault Ste. Marie gave us a little reminder of Moose Jaw, but it was the little town of Blind River that provided the biggest adventure that day.

We’d read about a Paul Bunyan statue there (complete with blue Babe), but a quick search of the main road turned up nothing. So when we stopped to buy petrol and a newspaper, the Tailor took a chance and asked the young clerk about it. Thankfully, she was on the same wavelength about the utter coolness of Paul Bunyan statues, and provided a wealth of enthusiastic information.

She said the statues had been split up and sold. Babe’s whereabouts were a mystery, but Paul now belonged to an area resident. She gave us complicated directions through the wooded back roads, and wished us happy hunting.

Just as we began to think we’d misheard the gal’s instructions, we turned a corner and there he was—demoted to outlandish lawn ornament. Poor Paul.

To be honest, I thought he looked a little more like Louis Riel than everyone’s favorite lumberjack, but still—we found our Canadian Paul Bunyan. We’d braved the wilds of Ontario and come out victorious.

Mission accomplished—it was a good day. To celebrate our success, we capped the event with a big plate of the ultimate Canuck road food.

And now I have just one question: is there a giant poutine statue somewhere in Canada? If there is, tell me where to find it, and I am so there.

We left Winnipeg at a ridiculously dear-lord-more-coffee-please hour. To stay on track for the trip, we had to cover over 1100 miles (miles, not kilometers!) that day. Ugh.

It’s not like we had much choice; there are very few places to spend the night between Manitoba and Sault Ste. Marie. Still: ugh.

From Winnipeg it isn’t far to the Ontario border. And well before you even cross it, the prairie disappears and the woodsy-granite Canadian Shield takes over. We were due north of my old stomping grounds of Minnesota, so the terrain was familiar, if not previously traveled.

The first sizable town we came to was Kenora (which also had its name prettified from the original Rat Portage!), on the north shore of Lake of the Woods. If you’re from Minnesota, you know all about Lake of the Woods. Half of it is located in the Northwest Angle, the canoe-heaven chimney of the state beloved by outdoorsy folks.

Kenora gave us a healthy dose of perspective. From where I lived in Minneapolis (already considered by Americans the Great White North of the Lower 48), the remote Lake of the Woods was practically the edge of the earth. Locals (faking their best funny accent) referred to anything that far upstate as simply Up Nort’. Yet here we were on the Canadian side, well within the bounds of civilization, along the major cross-country highway route, and quite decidedly “Down South.”

That messed with my brain a little bit, eh?

Anyway, Kenora is a lovely place, but it was a giant fiberglass fish that really touched my heart.

Can you sense a theme for this trip?

I have a major, passionate thing for cheesy roadside attractions.

Anyway, onward we went. After hours and hours of thick evergreen and birch forest, winding around tiny kettle lakes, the Trans Canada dumped us out just north of Thunder Bay (doesn’t Canada have the best names?) and the mighty Lake Superior.

We stopped briefly to pay our respects to the Hero of Canada,

but there were many hours to go before we could rest our weary heads.

I glanced in rear view mirror, and hastily pulled over for one last photograph. Then we chugged the last of the coffee, put on a good audiobook, and hit the road again.

Luckily, our midnight ride was well lit.

Uh, remember that epic road trip I said the Tailor and I were taking—last summer? Yeah. I owe you some posts, don’t I?

With over 7,000 photos to sift through, not to mention a bunch of unfinished sketches, putting together some sort of cohesive narrative was a little daunting. So I’ve decided to organize this exactly the way my daily sketchbook goes: in order, one day at a time. A few posts will cover more than one day, but I’m going to do my bestest to post something every day until we get to the end of the trip. Our trip was something of a whirlwind, and I want to try to reflect that feeling here. (Get ready for a little visual whiplash.)

So: thirty-six days across Canada and the U.S. Starting … now.

Day One: Tacoma to Cranbrook

The first three days of the trip are a blur in my mind.

We had such grand plans. We were going to take back roads through the Cascades, then wind our way through the Okanagan and the mountains of British Columbia. But we had so many last-minute phone calls to make and things to pack and fires to put out that we didn’t get out of the house until 3 pm. The fifteen hours we’d allotted for squiggly two-lane travel evaporated to nothing. So the Interstate it had to be, all the way to the Idaho border, and then up through the panhandle by U.S. highway. It was still midnight by the time we reached the Canadian border.

As a matter of chance, this was the evening of the Stanley Cup Final (which was why we had planned to enter Canada east of the Cascades, rather than deal with post-game traffic in Vancouver). Despite being a genetic Bruins fan, I was actually hoping Vancouver would win—being the underdogs and all. We couldn’t get anything on the radio at midnight in northern Idaho, let alone hockey in a decidedly un-hockey part of the U.S. By the time we reached the checkpoint, I was dying to ask the friendly border guard what the final score was.

Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t, because this is what was on the CBC when we pulled into our motel room in Cranbrook:

Rioting. Yikes.

Yeah — “So! Who won the Stanley Cup?” wouldn’t have been a great question to ask a border patrol officer in the middle of the night.

But suddenly, this was my local news, even if only for the duration of my stay in Canada. When I used to go on road trips as a kid, my dad used watch the Weather Channel in every motel room. It made us feel just a little less like tourists to know what was going on locally. So on this trip, instead of the weather, the CBC was our evening companion.

Day Two: Cranbrook to Regina

We picked up the Trans-Canada Highway the next morning. I have zero photographs of British Columbia or Alberta. None. Good planning, I know.

It’s too bad, too, because we traveled through some gorgeous country. I wish I had more to show you of this leg of the trip—especially of the Frank Slide, which was one of the most astounding things we glimpsed on the whole trip (they really should teach Canadian history in American schools). But we had a staggering number of miles kilometers (this is Canada!) to cover, and for whatever reason I ended up doing most of the driving those first few days. Note to self: road trip back to Alberta, and soon!

I did manage a couple of photos of Saskatchewan, which was beautiful, and almost entirely empty until we reached the capital.

Which is a long, long, long, long way from Cranbrook. Especially when you only stop when you absolutely have to.

Luckily for me, the ten-meter moose in Moose Jaw counted as a necessary stop.

Day Three: Regina to Winnipeg

I’m sorry to tell you that I also have zero photos of Regina (my excuse this time is a torrential rainstorm), but I did manage to sketch our hostess. We spent our stay in Regina at the home of the lovely Mrs. Wakeling, our friend Chrissy’s grandmother. She has a wing named after her in the (excellent) MacKenzie Art Gallery, and proudly showed it off to us—along with the rest of her home city.

Regina is charming (and curiously, entirely lacking in suburban sprawl)—my only complaint is that it isn’t still named Pile-O-Bones. The city is a shining example of what urban planning can do. Unfortunately, you’ll just have to take my word for it, as I have no visual proof. Last summer, Regina (along with most of the Canadian Midwest and the Dakotas) was battered by storms and devastated by flooding. The day we were there, it was raining so hard you could barely see across the street. By the time we bid a nervous farewell to Mrs. Wakeling at noon, most of the underpasses were flooded (a major problem in perfectly flat towns), effectively cutting off the city from the outlying areas. We got lucky and rejoined Highway 1 via slightly higher ground, but we didn’t dare stop for lunch until the rain tapered off.

By the time that happened, we were starving, and nowhere near a bevy of restaurant choices.

We crossed our fingers and pulled into historically-up-and-coming but now-tiny village of Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan, and quickly found the only restaurant in town. Used to being a form of entertainment as an out-of-towner, I expected to receive what my mother calls the “Turn-Around Alice” when we walked in.

Oh, some people turned around and stared. But when the folks in the back of the room stand up to get a better look at you, you know you’re really in for a treat.

The big lesson of the day was that in Canada, a buffet is called a “smorg.” (Short for smörgåsbord.) If you are American, and you’ve never heard that term abbreviated as such, despite having a Canadian mother and sibling, smorg suddenly rates high on the list of Funniest Words You’ve Ever Heard. So I guess they kind of got a Turn-Around Alice from us, too.

After Qu’Appelle, it was a long, rainy slog to Winnipeg, Manitoba. By the time we reached Winnipeg, we’d be back on my mental map (briefly; I’d been there once before, when I lived in North Dakota). I was looking forward to exploring the heart of what I remembered as a lovely city, and taking pictures all evening. But the luck that held while evading the flood ran out on us when we got to the Peg: it turned out to be the night before the annual, super-big-deal, Manitoba Marathon. It was 10:30 by the time we found a hotel room.

So instead, all I have to show you of Manitoba is a photo of a giant Coke can.

The best laid plans of mice and men… sigh. Until tomorrow, when the visual aides will increase. I promise.

• • •

P.S. Smorg!

Speaking of North Carolina, when Jessica and I were there last summer for the Ladies of Letterpress Conference, we sneaked away during one of the panel sessions to play a little hooky. (Shh! Don’t tell anyone…)

Our destination: Flat Rock, home of famed writer Carl Sandburg and his wife, Lilian.

Carl and Lilian didn’t move to Flat Rock until they’d reached retirement age. They were well-entrenched in the Midwest, and he was already famous, enjoying the fruits of a successful career—including his first Pulitzer Prize. It was Lilian who requested the move to North Carolina. The reason? The Blue Ridge Mountains have the best climate in the world—if you happen to be a goat.

For years, Lilian ran a hobby farm in Michigan, raising and breeding blue-ribbon dairy goats. When she learned they’d be happier in a warmer climate, she ran the idea of relocating past Carl. He reportedly replied, “Darling, I’ll follow you anywhere.”

They bought an existing farm named Connemara in 1945, and lived out the remainder of their lives there. After Carl’s death in 1967, Lilian willed the property—and all of their possessions—to the National Park Service. Today, the descendants of Lilian’s goats live easy on the farm—the only National Historic Site I know of where you can buy goat cheese.

We had some time to wander before the tour of the main house started, so we hung out with the livestock. Jessica found a friend (who I think was more interested in eating her dress than chatting),

while I watched this little cutie play Follow the Leader.

Everybody else was sleepy in the heat,

including this gal. It’s hard work being a mama cat on a goat farm.

“David Bradley” here was working hard, too, waiting for the milk pails to come in.

By the time we’d made the rounds of all the farm critters, it was almost time for the house tour. So we wound our way back past the garden,

around the out buildings,

and into Carl and Lilian’s world.

They say a messy desk is a sign of genius—Carl was one of the greats.

Lilian’s study was tidier, but still an explosion of papers. It was either like a scrapbook den, the headquarters of the local 4H club, or the war room of some environmental lobbying firm. “Save the [Fill-in-the-Blank]” posters fought for dominance over family photos and prize ribbons for the goats.

One thing that struck me about the house was how the National Park Service left almost everything untouched. The place looks like they just stepped out for an errand, and would be back at any moment. I’m sure Carl would approve—he couldn’t bear to throw anything away—as his magazine piles are just where he’d left them last.

Lilian’s presence is everywhere, but in a subtle, homey way.

Carl’s spirit, meanwhile, haunts every nook and cranny. There was a typewriter in each room: he liked to work wherever the mood struck him. (They lived on opposite sides of the clock—she tended goats by day while he was a night owl.)

This must have been what Carl said was “my room for books and study or for sitting and thinking about nothing in particular to see what would happen.”

Another feature of the house is the weirdest dining room I’ve ever seen. Among the usual things like table, chairs and dishes were more of Carl’s personal quirks:

the television he almost never watched, the radio, and—I kid you not—a toaster. You know, for when he was sitting in his easy chair, listening to the radio, staring at a blank screen…and just wanted some…uh, toast. Within reach.

Here’s my favorite part: every single book in the house was marked with several bookmarks. There had to have been thousands and thousands of them. It was as if we’d interrupted him in the act of looking up a passage, and he’d just put the book down for a moment—over and over and over again. Visible evidence of a never-ending train of thought.

I wish I could have known the Sandburgs—they strike me as kindred spirits for sure. Their hodge-podge life and quirky, eclectic home remind me of my favorite of Carl’s quotes:

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

When Jessica and I were in North Carolina last summer, we had just enough sightseeing time to squeeze in a short trip along the aptly-named Blue Ridge Parkway.

Between the dappled sunlight,

the lush Southern greenery,

and the unexpected splashes of color,

we were enchanted in an instant.

(I, for one, was tempted to do a little Katniss Everdeen impression—just run away from it all and head for the hills.)

It wasn’t hard to imagine sitting down and breaking out the paper and paints, with all that blue haze as inspiration.

Photo from Wikipedia

The folks at the nearby Penland School of Craft certainly agree. Since Lucy Morgan founded it in 1929, Penland has become a national center for craft education. Widely respected for its preservation of handcraft traditions, Penland is centered on total-immersion study and both traditional and experimental techniques. Settled in a quiet pocket of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it’s an inspiring setting for focused work. Thanks to its reputation and location, the school attracts some of the country’s best artists and fine craftspeople to study and teach in the Penland studios.

So you can imagine how thrilled and honored Jessica and I were when they asked us to come and teach a letterpress workshop there this summer.

We’ll be teaching a one-week printing intensive, and doing our very best to turn the printshop upside down. This ain’t your grandpa’s letterpress. Here are the details:

Letterpress: Old Dog, New Tricks

A printmaking intensive with Chandler O’Leary and Jessica Spring
Penland School of Crafts, Penland, NC
Summer Session 7: Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, 2012 (scroll down the listings to find our class)

In the class, we’ll work with both hand-set type (don’t worry, we won’t monkey with any linotype machines…) and photopolymer plates to produce editioned prints that combine the two techniques.

We’re going to get pretty technical, pretty fast, but don’t worry—the workshop is open to all levels of experience. That way we can bring letterpress newbies up to speed quickly, and give more experienced printers the chance to go nuts and geek out with us.

Unnatural Light by Jessica Spring

You’ll be doing some death-defying typesetting by hand, using Jessica’s acrobatic techniques,

On a Mission Dead Feminist print

and I’ll teach you the ropes of designing for photopolymer, so you can throw a three-ring hand-drawn circus into the mix.

So get thee to the mountains and join us! Registration is open now, but don’t wait too long—the class is capped at 12 students.

See you in North Carolina! Save me some grits, will you?

First up is an animated short I mentioned over a year ago, after I saw it at the Codex Bookfair in California. I’m pleased to announce that Old Time Film, by Barbara Tetenbaum and Marilyn Zornado, is finally viewable online! So let’s get this party started:

Oh, man. I love that. If you want your very own copy of the film (trust me, you do—there’s a little making-of featurette on the DVD), you can purchase it here. No, Barb and Marilyn aren’t paying me to hawk their movie—I’m just a believer, that’s all.

I’ll leave you with one of my very favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone, circa 1963, where a gleefully terrifying Burgess Meredith gets a newspaper job as the world’s fastest linotype caster. There’s a catch, though: Mr. Smith has a secret. To get in on it, you need to understand the little letterpress inside joke behind the episode’s title.

You see, a typesetter’s inky hands (and quite possibly the inflammatory writ published by the early masters) earned printing the moniker “the Black Art.” So there are all sorts of clever nicknames to go with that title. For instance, a letterpress apprentice was called a “printer’s devil,” and old, broken type gets thrown in the “hell box” to await being melted down. The list goes on.

Get it yet?

Well, watch and you’ll see what I mean. (Gaah! That face.)

Da, da, daaaaaa!

Join us on April 22 for the Wayzgoose, and get in on the devilish fun.

In the meantime, I’m going to practice lighting cigars with my index finger.