THE PRINTING OF 'PULLING WIRE' BY BARRY LOPEZ
Printing "Pulling Wire" by Barry Lopez
"Ah, said Crow. But it takes your life to learn to do these things."
from Crow and Weasel, by Barry Lopez
When Crow and Weasel was published in 1990, I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota working toward a degree in environmental engineering, researching trace metals (like mercury, cadmium, lead and others) in fresh water lakes. But I was beginning to rebel and stray from the constraints and clean hallways of a scientific career toward a life with books. Also, I had begun to write poems.
By that time, I had read several books by Barry Lopez. To this day, the story, told in Winter Count of an encounter with a French book restorer in, of all place, North Dakota, remains vivid. It's obvious to me now that a kind of sympathetic magic occurred, that I was guided down the unforeseen and unconsidered path toward being a printer of books. And so, more than ten years later, mysteriously and somewhat surprisedly, I find myself practicing this profound craft, deeply enchanted by its traditions.
As a printer of poetry, it's been necessary, on occasion, to take on a certain amount of job work at the press in order to pay the bills. One of the jobs I look forward to is the occasional printing of invitations for the University of Minnesota's English Department. In the spring of 2002, I printed a small invitation for a reception for Barry Lopez who was to be a visiting lecturer. My wife and I attended his lecture. After the lecture, I stood in line to thank him for his work and his lecture and introduce myself as printer.
The next week Lopez called to ask some questions about the small card I had printed. The Rediscovery of North America, Weiss Initials, California Old Style, Twinrocker hand-made paper were some of the answers. And then we talked for a few minutes. I remember that not long afterwards, I sent him one of my poems and a book that I had printed (Succor by Floyce Alexander, because of all the birds). And the following winter I sent him a copy of Old Man Moon, a native Siberian tale, which I had printed (also the first prose work I had printed). I asked if he might have a small story or essay that might be printed in a like manner. It wasn't long before a manuscript arrived in my mailbox.
As I began work on the book, determining the page size, winnowing the chaff from the dreams, one of the books that came to hand was The Tremolino by Joseph Conrad (designed by Bruce Rogers and printed, in 12 pt Bulmer, in 1942). The two-page spread of this little book could not be more perfect. I was committed to the use of 12 pt Cochin. It had worked so well for the prose of Old Man Moon, and was the one typeface I had in abundance, enough to set an entire short story. The three cases of used type had been purchased from Chad Oness of Sutton Hoo Press. I set a few trial lines. I even re-set a few lines from The Tremolino for comparison. Because Cochin is darker, with a crisp spikiness like the leaves of thistle or holly, and because the set-width of the letters is wider, the measure of the line had to be extended. Which led to a page larger than that of my model.
Once the measure was decided, the long hours of typesetting began. Setting type is slow going, physically reaching with the right hand for each letter of each word and standing it on end in the composing stick held in the left. Double justifying the text is a further step down the asymptotic slope toward non-progress, complete and utter motionless. Machines were invented that could adjust the spacing between words to fill the measure in a flash, with a simple push of a button-my hands were not. Over several months, days were dedicated to the task and, eventually, all 253 lines of the story were set (though I ran out of sorts of the lowercase 'k' toward the end, an upside down letter of the same set-width was used instead-the black rectangles can be seen on the proof sheets-for ease of replacement later).
Proofs were pulled. One set was sent to the author & another was sent to my mentor, the late Don Olsen, for their inspection and advice. The returned sheets with corrections would be consulted when the pages went to press. Between the three of us we were able to spot most every typo, I believe (the one typo in the final book, a space mistakenly dividing the word "the," must have occurred when I was re-setting the line). Don Olsen pointed out that the type was worn and dirty, that there were many broken letters. I took pains to remove and replace the broken letters, on some pages there were as many as several dozen characters to pull out of the form and replace. Less could be done about the unevenness of type height due to wear. In the end, I felt that the use of this old type was a form of salvage, not unlike the salvage undertaken by Eliot in the story, perhaps.
I had set the book without knowing what paper I would use. The Somerset Book paper which I had used for Old Man Moon was an option, it had a wonderful texture after being dampened and dried, it printed well, and it had a good "heft," as Barry had observed. However, it was torture to dampen. The sheets, once dipped in water, expanded nearly a half inch. Interleaving them with the dry sheets, caused the sheets to wrinkle and no end of duress to the printer. So, when Chad Oness at Sutton Hoo Press offered me enough Iyo Glazed paper for the edition at a good price, I took him up on the offer. A book that he had printed using this paper became model for the dimensions and binding of Pulling Wire. Little did I know, that the dampening of this particular paper would be just as much of a challenge. The old, worn type printed better on the Sommerset Book because the sheets were thicker and more uniform. Though the texture of the Iyo Glazed added something, some luxury and comfort to the fingers of the reader.
Somewhere along the way I remember I had cached a small quantity of Barcham Green handmade paper. As this historic paper mill had gone out of business some years prior to the discovery of a hundred or so sheets at a local art store, I had bought it and vowed to save it for a special project. The sheets were gorgeous, with a different watermark on each corner. There was enough to print 36 copies, a deluxe edition. This paper would prove to be an absolute dream to print.
Serendipity then took a hand in the design the day I drove to Winona to meet Gary Young, who was visiting Chad Oness at Sutton Hoo Press. They were at work printing the woodcuts Gary Young had made for an edition of his poems that the press was printing. As luck would have it, here were a few extra cuts, and one that struck me as fitting for Pulling Wire. Graciously, Gary agreed to let me use the cut. Now everything was ready, all that remained was to finalize the layout and then start printing.
Always there is a resistance, a reticence to print the first page of any book. Once begun there is little room for change or modification to the design or layout of a book, so there is that signing off. There is also, in this reluctance to put ink to the page, an acknowledgment of the physical labor of printing. I would be printing pages two-up, and as the paper would be damp, I would need to print the back sides of the sheets the same day, well over 500 pages run individually through the old Challenge proofing press, the second half slip-sheeted to prevent the off-setting of ink. In the end, I would walk the cylinder from one end of the bed to the other and back again close to 4,000 times.
After the sheets were dried in blotters they were folded and gathered. The signatures for the deluxe edition were shipped off to the Campbell Logan bindery in Minneapolis with instructions to use black mohair book cloth on the thinnest boards possible, and to foil stamp the author's initials without foil onto the front cover. A month or so later they arrived in a box on my back step, sitting just inches out of the rain for several hours. They were exquisite. Simple, thin, and elegant. I was certainly pleased.
As the finished books go out in the mail, I come full circle with a smile one afternoon pulling my copy of Crow and Weasel off the shelf, deciding to read it again after a number of years. There is a certain sparkle to the text, a delight to the letter shapes that I recognize. This book, a treasure from the years before I had ever given thought to the work of a printer, had been printed in Cochin as well!
Scott King, June 2004