Book Twenty-Six

Book26.jpg

Sometimes a book is not about what is between the covers - sometimes a book is about itself.

This is the case with book twenty-six. A rather extreme experiment with heft, the covers are 1/8 inch thick sheet metal. The book weighs 14 pounds (about 7 kilos) making it a bit less than portable. On the other hand, if you believe that one must suffer for art, carrying it around might be just the thing.

I went to the local scrap yard to get the metal. When the man finished with the acetylene torch I asked him to leave the dribblings on the edges. "What ya gonna do with these?" the man asked, file in hand and a bit disappointed that he couldn't clean the edge. "They're for a book." I replied. "A book? I've got thinner sheet than this. Wouldn't you rather something lighter?" He said. "No. No. this'll be perfect."

This book has not been started yet. It sits rather uneasily on the shelf with the other completed journals waiting for the right time. What project could fill it? Perhaps an impossible project like Borges Book of Sand would be appropriate.

Here is a list of books.

Tim McLaughlin

Photographer and writer based in Vancouver, Canada