For those of you in need of vocational guidance. (Who isn’t?)

To be honest, Anais Nin always reminded me of women I found deeply annoying in college, but perhaps I am mistaken. Read a great description of the joys of self-publishing and the magic of letterpress here.

I ran 15 miles in an afternoon downpour today. Because I’ve got a lion heart that pumps lava through my veins. I love marathon training.

Anyone want to join me in Chicago the weekend of October 12-13? The list of speakers for the American Printing History Association National Conference is posted.

It’s mid-August, which means the end of summer is near, which means it’s time to say goodbye to my summer interns, who were amazing and learned a bunch and made me proud.

So I made them a pie. They printed a slew of great things, and installed some exhibitions, and were generally all you’d want an intern to be. Thanks for a great summer to Ian McCoy, Kate Trancynger, Samantha Palazzi, Shelley Picot, and Deborah Levinson.

The NY Times says so!

“Our traditional printing business has fallen off,” VonColln said. “But compared to that, letterpress is growing. So the bright spot is letterpress.”

–awesome article on printing in Nashville

“I love the physicality of letterpress printing — it is a very sculptural process, as you more or less have to ‘build’ what you print from,” Baker said

(via ny times)

Earl Kallemeyn is an excellent printer.

The Ink on the Paper

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/32125012 w=500&h=281]

The last part of my time in Rome mostly consisted of walking from gorgeous place to gorgeous place; taking photos of inscriptions, tourists taking photos of each other, huge baroque churches, and fountains; eating; saying hello to the feral cat colony; and more eating.

I like traveling alone because I can do exactly what I want to do the entire time that I am in a place, see the things I want to see, do the things I want to do, and nothing else. I’m a selfish traveler, I don’t really want to be responsible for making sure another person’s vacation is what they want it to be.

I also hate that conversation that happens when you’re traveling with someone and you spend half an hour going back and forth about what you’re going to do next: “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do YOU want to do?”, and then the next thing you know you’re fighting, for lack of a better idea. If I’m traveling alone and I don’t know what to do next, I can just walk in a direction without a plan and eventually something will happen.

Like this:

or this:

Rome is gussied up for the tourists in a way that Naples is not, but despite this, and despite the fact that pretty much everyone around you is a tourist, it is still one of the most amazing places I’ve been. It’s just unbelievable how much history is just piled on top of history.

The closest to anything work-related that I did was one exhibition that I wandered into by chance on the rare books in the Vatican library, (psst-popes are hoarders!) and these kinds of photos- I took a lot of them:

The first three days in Italy I spent catching up with my old friend Miriam and her daughter Esme, who no longer is convinced that I’m out to steal her toys.

The last time I visited Miriam in Italy was way back in 2005? Which seems like another world at the moment.

The first time I came to Rome (2003?) I was with Miriam, and we spent 36 hours trying to see as many Caravaggio’s as we could, with her friend the art historian in tow to guide us.

But 36 hours isn’t enough and I always wanted to come back, and I wanted to see Miriam again, and prove to Esme that I was not as sketchy a character as she thought.

Three days with an old friend was the best way to start the trip I could think of. We ate good food and saw some Caravaggio’s for old times sake and walked around much slower than I would have on my own. And spent a good amount of time sitting in a piazza.