i been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored

we had an open-house event for departing seniors at the john hay library this week.  they were invited to come in & see some incredible items in the collection, they were even allowed to handle a few things!  very popular was, of course, the three books bound in human skin.  the lighting is really terrible & most items were under glass so my photos are quite awful, but below is the book of Vesalius anatomy drawings & Dance of Death, a tiny medieval morality play, both bound in human flesh.  aside from telling people about the practice of using human skin for bookbinding, i also turned pages of one volume of Audubon's double elephant folio of the birds of america.  i can answer quite a few questions about that now, too...

there was also the manuscript for 1984 where Orwell wrote "big brother is watching you" (above), the first folio of shakespeare, a handwritten Lovecraft manuscript, Nuremberg bible, early needlepoint of Brown University (above), quite a few interesting aritist's books, a sweet little edition of In Praise of Omar by John Hay:

and this incredible Kammavaca written in burmese script in the pali language, it's made of laquered palm leaves with bejeweled wood covers & wrapped in cloth.  i had never seen anything like this before and, being a visual person, it completely overshadowed everything else in the room for me.  a student came by who could read it & put it in the right direction & order for us, but i believe it is still upside down in my photos.  i could just stare at this for hours:

Comments

[Vicki Wilmarth]

I'm writing to you on a non-knitting matter. Actually, I am trying to find the Cedar Creek Dog Run Association website and am having trouble. All that came up was your website. Could you help me? I know it's CCDRA, but I keep getting something else. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for helping me out.

[Denis]

Hello!

I was very interested by your comments on Kammavaca. I would like to know whether you have been able to find the right orientation and order since you wrote your note.

Thank you and kind regards,
Denis.