Compulsively Aimless

Seems there's no shortage of booklists at the end of every year. I like to wait till the end of December as I get some of my best reading done in the last days of the last month of the year. I use Goodreads to track my reads for the year-- here's my list for 2022 .             I continue to read mostly in the category of memoir followed closely by travel. I suppose the memoir reads were influenced by the fact I published a memoir of my own this year, The Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Company and looked at how others had told their stories. I enjoy memoir for all the times and places it can take the reader. I'm slowly working my way through the five volume memoir of Osbert Sitwell, which allows me a glimpse into an English artistocratic family of eccentrics in the Edwardian period--a life I'd never have a clue about in my here and now.   Other memoirs I've sampled: Rock and Roll legends, television celebrities,...

9/ Boxing Day. American Crayon made its own packaging building durable wooden dovetail boxes suitable for shipping chalk and crayons. By 1921 the company made over 1 million maple boxes a year. The boxes were so sturdy that they came to the attention of the giants of the automobile industry. Henry Ford ordered them by the thousands to hold electrical coils sat in the engine compartment of the model Ts rolling off his Detroit assembly lines. This and more stories in my book Color Capital of the World. https://blogs.uakron.edu/.../color-capital-of-the-world/

                        8/ Merry Christmas from American Crayon Company. ACC was more than crayons. They made a significant portion of the sales in tempera paints. For a couple of decades they made festive holiday linoleum blocks so their customers could make their own Christmas cards rolling the paint on the blocks and pressing them onto paper. This and other stories in The Color Capital of the World: Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon company. https://blogs.uakron.edu/uapress/product/color-capital-of-the-world/

                    With the end of 2022, I'm cleaning out the nonsense from journal (usually from the left side of the page) and set it out for one last chance that someone will come and get it.   Cold Portal Fridge light is both tractor beam and time machine last night's dinner - made my plate clean JAVA AT THE PALINDROME CAFE Coffee maid made coffee. WHY I WAS A WEIRD KID (from my unauthorized unwritten autobiography - "Stories of No Consequence") Listened to records of Gregorian Chant or Henry Mancini and ordered transcripts from Firing Line Band Names and some of their possible songs  (these could also be reversed) Failed Lineage - Unclaimed Days Walk Ons - Glories in Decline Back Channel - Frozen Star Dunce Master - Turrets and Jesters Bolt Hold - Live Round Ragglesedge- 20 Hags Replacement Memory - Love it Sometime My Legal Poem The Frolic and Detour was arbitrary and capricious but the trespass to chattels lead to a rig...

  7/ Blendwel: Evolution of a Brand. Blendwel was one of American Crayons best selling brands. Developed for children for everyday use, the brand started in the 19-teens and continued all the way through the 70s even after the company was taken over by Dixon crucible. My grandfather took a cross country drive in 1919 (see earlier blog post) and reported seeing them in a general store somewhere in Kansas. My favorite packaging is the one with the kids on the rocket ship flying through what looks like a city of the future. For a time they also issued the packages in snap tight metal cases. This and more stories from my book The Color Capital of the World.

  6/ Crayons Go to War. During World War II American Crayon, like its competitors, modified its packaging to show patriotic themes including a set of color bright watercolors issued in 1942 showing children in tin-pot helmets and paper hats driving miniature jeeps and tanks and firing toy guns. Crayonex issued a cover showing the likeness of a B 29 for its box of 16 assorted colors. And then there is a set of watercolors called the American showing Uncle Sam smiling at a small parade of three children playing a drum and carrying a sword. All part of the story of The Color Capital of the World available here .