I made this purse in two stages: First I completed all of the fusing and sewing some months ago, but I could not find a suitable magnetic closure. Magnets from a discarded hardrive provided the solution. With the exception of the green thread, and a 1/4 long piece of fabric tape used to position the magnetic before sewing it in to place, everything used to make this purse was destined for the landfill.

Another view showing the long, slender, but very strong strap.

It's more labor intensive to make things out of repurposed items. I often wonder if this negates any environmental savings? Fusing plastic bags uses some electricity (to run an iron) collecting objects to create things takes transportation time and energy and it uses human energy which must be replenished by food.

I think it's likely a zero impact situation. The savings balance out the costs. That's better than most manufactured objects so, to my eyes, that makes it worth it.

So, maybe it's the joy one can take in giving an old object new life that attracts me to this kind of project.

The SOUTH BRONX RUNNING CLUB is taking off, I've put these flyers everywhere. What are some other ideas to get people on board?

Life is complicated, running is simple.

Highbridge Park

Bundles clustered in the flickering head,
in the light-weight feathered-skull they multiply.
In this he saw hope for the hair-twirlers,
for muttering mad shufflers in day-lit hallways
shaking (his) tethered, floppy long-sleeved hands.

Once, in the green, when the graffiti was different,
once, under a hundred or so brushed layers of paint,
from The City in brick red and from the lost boys
in green and gold and rainbows spilling over,
daddy died looking for the caves under Manhattan.

Where the Indians once lived
where the junkies shot up and the cars rusted
or burst into flames as he ran from a million voices
where the birds always will sing and fly it turned out
father was right, not paranoid

Demons in the dark do multiply.

Ever since notebookstories mentioned an Ellie magazine article about trendy notebooks I have been desparte to get something... anything from o-check. I mean, just look at these notebooks:

o-check notebooks. (click to enlarge)

This is really good advertising for someone like me, they capture photographically the mood of using a nice notebook. Sadly, o-check is not easy to get in the US at all. They are headquartered in Seoul, Korea. After attempting to order from the Korea website (without knowing any Korean!) I finally found an Australian distributor that sold them, Plain, Ruled Graph. (Is it just me or are all the cool notebook companies and stationary stores outside of the US?) I really loved the website, but I do not love the $33 shipping fee to the US.

But I wanted one of the notebooks... badly. So I found a few things that I liked and placed an order. It just came today! I'm really happy with most of it. Take a look:

My O-check Notebook

The o-check notebooks was everything I dreamed it would be. The quality is exquisite.

It feels just like a library book.

I also ordered a small graph paper notebook from Red Horseshoe Paper. Only after did I realize that they are in Portland, so I can get them without the hassle of ordering from Australia!

Red Horseshoe Graph Notebook: it has both metric and Imperial sized grids.

A nice touch on this notebook is the red thread used to stich it together. Lovely!

A nice touch.

The paper is *very* good for fountain pens.

I also bought these darling envelops made by Midori (of the famous travler's notebooks, I may try those some day as well).

Midori Envlopes

So why did I say I was only happy with "most" of it? Well, I saw this ruler on Plain, Ruled Graph, it's made by o-check so I thought: Hey, why not?

O-Check Desk Wooden Ruler (as seem on the website)

I have quite a few slide rules, compasses and other drafting instruments. (I will do a post in the future on that.) So maybe my expectations were just too high, based on the photo I expected high quality, plastic edges (but the nice kind of plastic they use for slide-rules) and a darling little brass knob to hold it. Sadly, this is what I got:

It arrived broken, and the wood is so soft you can mark it witha fingernail.

It is made of very soft wood almost like balsa, it's unfinished, the numbers are painted on and the little knob falls right out if you so much as touch it. Now it was only $6, so maybe I'm expecting too much. I will be cautious about non-notebook items from o-check. I'll write Plain Ruled Graph and see what they can do about this. Since everything else was very nice this isn't such a big deal.

I have shared my blank notebook collection over the course of three posts: part one, part two, part three.

Now I'd like to say a little about what's inside my *used* notebooks.

One of many shelves in our home filled with full notebooks.

Reverence: It's often a little hard to make my first mark in a notebook, the blank pages are filled with so much promise and possibility. This is how I have ended up saving blank notebooks for years before deciding to use them. In addition the proper purpose must be found for a notebook. Thin notebooks for small tasks, thick ones for big ones.

Christening: When a notebook enters service it's named. I'm certain we all have little rituals that go along with starting a new notebook. I like to leave the first few pages blank, as I hope to add a title page and table of contents later, a hope not always realized...but, I still can't stop myself from doing it. Most of my notebooks get labels for their covers, I also collect nice labels, for this purpose-- I especially like vintage labels. (Though finding a way to revive the paste can be challenging.)

Breaking in: The first entry in a new notebook is done with great care, but as the notebook rides in the bag, gets dropped on the sidewalk, is written in on subways and escalators, it gains a few less-than-perfect entries and a few dog-eared pages. It is this stage that determines what happens next, and once the notebook is half-filled it's time to decide:

Accention to book-like status, or demotion to scrap paper: The great notebooks get page numbers and indices, title pages and a revival in the quality of the entries. The poorer notebooks become my "scratch" notebooks, filled with all of the calculations, random notes and lists that no sane person would ever care to read again. (Especially me) The notebook then earns a place on the book-shelf, or a place in the rubbish bin at this stage.

Second lives: Some of the time I try to give a "scratch" notebook a second life. I carefully remove all of the pages with writing, take off the title tag and place it back on the shelf with the other blanks. Now with fewer pages it's better suited to small projects. Perhaps it will "ascend" in its next life time.

These notebooks acceded to book-like status, earning a place on the shelf.

Notebooks from classes I have taught and taken.

Drawings and color add so much to note books, I rarely throw away a notebook with good drawings. Some of the time I'm surprised by the work that I did. It's fun to spend an evening reading old notebooks. My oldest notebooks are from 2nd grade. I was laughing so hard I was crying at some of the stories (and spelling) in them. Some notebooks are time machines.

This is my third post on my extensive collection of notebooks. You can find part one here and part two here.

Japanese Notebooks

I have a lot of notebooks that are manufactured in Japan. Shown here are several of these from Kinokuniya Bookstore near Bryant park and from Mitsuwa Marketplace in New Jersey. I also have a few of the Japanese-style Molskine notebooks, which are not really from Japan, but pay hommage to a very useful binding method. (I wish Molskine made extra large versions of these notebooks.)

The quality of pens and paper goods from Japan tends to be quite high, they seem to have a better selection of pens that write with a very fine lines. The notebooks often have english phrases on the cover, mostly as decoration, the words don't make much sense. So that seems to suggest that in Japan some western things can be desirable or fashionable. In the US Japanese things are fashionable. And I find Japanese things that go for a western "feel" fascinating. Take "campus" notebooks, they try to evoke the classic leafy green American (or maybe British) college campus with their name and designs. I, in turn, buy notebooks that evoke a Japanese paper company evoking an idyllic campus. Soon in Japan, no doubt, it will be fashionable to get American things that are trying to be like Japanese things that are trying to be like American things. This will create an infinite loop and collapse into a notebook perfection cross-Pacific cultural black hole.

What was I saying? Notebooks. From Japan. (Mostly) Let's look inside!

Pure, white pages.

The pages are smooth and "fountain pen friendly" as they say over at The Fountain Pen Network a great online community with it's own collection of notebook lovers! One of the last courses I took for my masters degree was Topology. It was a lovely course and I used one of these as my "final" notebook. (I always reorganize my notes from class in to a neater, more comprehensive format in my own words and a means of studying. I call this the "final" notebook, since to study for the final I only need to sit down and read it.) At any rate the notebook I kept for that course was one of my best ever. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back to take more classes!

Giant mother of a molskine

Would you look at the size of this thing? "The Folio Sketchbook - A3" is just like a regular Molskine (it even has the elastic strap and back pocket!) but it's the size of a movie poster. I saw it and fell in love instantly. I can't quite make up my mind what to put in it yet, but I know something will come to me. What would you use it for?

The vast expanse of pure, white, paper waiting for creation.

Opening this thing is almost emotional. It's like opening the door to a special room that's just waiting for you to shape it in to a wonderful place. There is something about having a book so big that you must turn your head to look around the page that just makes the whole experience more immersive. This is why I love books with big pages so much. Most of my collection is on the larger side, I find I can do more with more space to write.

And speaking of big books. Look at this beast. It's the "The World's Largest Italian Leather Journal" -- due to the leather cover and other fine materials (leather increases in cost rapidly the larger a piece you require) this book costs $2,000. It's mostly used by big hotels and universities as a kind of guest book. At least they don't have to worry about someone wandering off with it!

The World's Largest Italian Leather Journal, I secretly want one.

Wouldn't you love to sit down in front of this with a nice inky pen? What would you create?

This brings to a close post on the collection. But I will continue to review new additions to the collection from time to time. In my next post I'll share what's INSIDE of some of my full notebooks.

This summer is one I will remember. I taught both differential equations and calculus II for the first time. Seeing these subjects from the instructors side has really opened my eyes to all kinds of details I never noticed before. One of the most striking new insights is how much these two courses have in common. They both rely deeply on sequences and series. Sequences are like a hallway in mathematics, one that connects many many many rooms.

I am working on two math book projects. The first is a Japanese-styled art book on the topic of sine and cosine. It's inspired by many of the lessons I taught this summer.

Japanese-style book about sine and cosine

I want to bring all of the different ways that sine and cosine are presented in elementary and undergraduate mathematics in to one (long) pictorial document. I start with the differential equation, then solved it (using the series method from differential equations) producing and

Next I wanted a pictorial way to relate these power series to the unit circle. I have found it in this spiral (the first image shows how it is constructed as an involution):

Constructing The Involute Pinwheel

a sequence of involutes: the vertical and horizontal components will form the power series for sine and cosine respectively.

The vertical and horizontal components will form the power series for sine and cosine respectively. Take the series of vertical line segments: and so on, the segments repeatedly over and under-shoot the accutal value of sine. The full paper by Leo S. Gurin, "A problem", can be found here.

I'm going to incorporate Gurin's spiral in to my book. I want to show the power series literally flying out of it, like they have come to life. I wonder if I can make it like the famous drawing of the sine curve projecting out of the unit circle?

Naturally, I already have planned to put that diagram in my booklet.

Work in progress

The Japanese-style book is perfect for series and periodic functions It's one long continuous piece of paper:

Yet very compact:

I'm also working on a very silly book about hypercycloids (that's the "math" name for the shapes drawn by spirographs, did I mention I collect spirographs?):