Stamp Casting, Anyone?

It's not art. It's not poetry; or at least not good poetry. It's not neat, or clean, or even very crafty. It's not even typecasting. Stamp casting, anyone? Was this how it could have been done, before Gutenberg? This is what happens when you venture forth to Hobby Lobby, with your Grandson, intent on just "seeing what they have," without a clear gameplan of what specifically you came for. But at least now we are well stocked. And when all our intricate and fragile mechanical marvels called typewriters are rusted and broken, and no one remembers how to repair them, and no parts are available (or no ribbons can be had, kind of like we can keep our guns, we just can't find ammo), we at least have this to fall back on.

Actually, I think it would be cool to find a set of printer's dies, a complete set of the alphabet, including numbers and punctuation, and try to do this a little more organized, perhaps line them up on a makeshift wooden frame; not really like a true printing press, but just makeshift. Ink the die, pull a few sheets to get the ink set just right, then viola, DIY home printing press. Imagine the work required to typecast just one blog entry using this method. It had better be good; better than just droning on and on about one's writing and typecasting, which is what we (we meaning I) do when we've nothing important to say.

I suppose that is what blogs -- and journals, and diaries -- have always been about, voicing one's inner feelings in some form of concrete media, as if the laying of it down on ink and paper somehow makes the abstract tangible, a pronouncement that what was once just in one's imagination has now been born into the world, attained realism.

Rather than merely drone on and on about writing and art and media, perhaps one (one meaning I) should "free cast" some of my actual writings -- short stories, mainly -- into the outer realms of the interwebs; a setting free of that which has been held captive. In installments. I suppose you could call it self-publishing; or giving it away for free, which sounds a bit less, er, moral? Hmm, perhaps not.

~Joe