the elegance of the bone folder

I confess that I have been too daunted by the challenges of binding to achieve much towards my mini book in the past few weeks. I did read a lot about the bone folder and have practiced my technique. I’ve used this tool to fold paper for years but discovered that I should be scoring the paper first. My achievement is shown in the photograph. I think I will abandon any attempts to start with the end in mind and just create a letter. I can figure out how to bind it once it’s made. Right?

I did read The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.  I enjoyed it enormously and found many lines I thought relevant to this blog. 

On intellectuals:

But in my profound thoughts, I am playing at who I am–hey, no way around it, I am an intellectual (who makes fun of other intellectuals).

page 37

On education:

All our family acquaintances have followed the same path: their youth spent trying to make the most of their intelligence, squeezing their studies like a lemon to make sure they’d secure a spot among the elite, then the rest of their lives wondering with a flabbergasted look on their faces why all that hopefulness has led to such a vain existence.

page 23