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 .

  5/ SNAP! That was one of the more satisfying sounds of childhood — to hear the closing of the steel case of water colors. American Crayon Company may have been known among more children for its watercolor paints in grade school than for their crayons. ACC’s most successful brand was Prang, known by their distinctive black cases with red circle or oval. The lids flipped up and contained trays for mixing water and colors. The eight or more color ovals had to be added by hand —a task no machine could manage. Sometime in the mid 70s ACC after they were acquired, they company switched from the steel cases to the white plastic one you see at the bottom of the large picture. Even then, in my kid brain, I somehow felt this was a bad sign and that things were on a downward trend for the company. No more satisfying SNAP!    This and other stories are contained in The Color Capital of the World : Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Company available here .  ...

  4/Art Packaged in Art. In the 1920s and 30s American Crayon issued a series of painting and coloring sets. The sets included coloring books crayons paints stencils and often based on classic children’s stories such as Cinderella and Jack and Jill. The covers were usually done by recognized Children’s illustrators at the time such as Esther Brock.  This and other stories are contained in The Color Capital of the World : Growing Up with the Legacy of a Crayon Company available here .

3/ Crayons and cartoons: American Crayon co-branded with popular cartoons in the 30s 40s and 50s as did other crayons companies. Featuring in today’s post their two most popular co-brands were the comic strips Popeye and Blondie. 

  Second in my crayon series…this one a sample of a few of American Crayons Co’s first products. In the early 1900s, ACC Offered a series of “penny pack” crayons and chalk. Some of the small square packs came w a picture on the back for a child to color. It was early days and there was still some confusion over the term “crayon”. Some were wax crayons and others chalk crayons. Eventually wax based crayons became known simply as crayons. They briefly offered packaging in a small cardboard canister — American Buckeye School Crayons. ***   Color Capital of the World is available with a discount code that gives 30% off (crayon30) for this site only. University of Akron Press   It's also available through your independent book stores and here:  Bookshop.org Indiebound   And of course the big guys   Barnes & Noble Books A Million Hudson Amazon

First in a series about American Crayon Company history. I call this installment Working Crayons. ACC created railroad crayons for marking critical points on the rails, carpenters chalk for marking building materials & tailor’s chalk for marking fabric. ACC even created a Crayon for marking cattle and livestock called Brandum. ***   Color Capital of the World is available with a discount code that gives 30% off (crayon30) for this site only. University of Akron Press   It's also available through your independent book stores and here:  Bookshop.org Indiebound   And of course the big guys   Barnes & Noble Books A Million Hudson Amazon  

    Color Capital Events November 20, 1-3pm - Fireside Books , Chagrin Falls, OH November 20, 6-8pm - Gathering Volumes , Perrysville, OH November 21, 5:30-6:30 - Ashland Public Library , Ashland, OH November 22, 6-7pm - Sandusky Public Library , Sandusky, OH January 11, 7pm - Lakewood Public Library , Lakewood, OH February 25, 6pm- Café Kerouac , Columbus, OH February 26, TBD- Phoenix Brewery , Mansfield, OH More to come.    You can order here . Use Discount code  30% off ( crayon30 ).

Update -- my book will be released November 7. You can pre-order with a 30% discount code crayon30 through the distributor's site . It works best on a PC not on mobile devices. Color Capital of the World tells the story of the crayon and about growing up with the legacy of a crayon factory in the Midwest. It's had some early positive reviews. If you're interested, pre-orders are available through independent bookstores listed in the right side of the page and through the sites below:     University of Akron Press Bookshop.org Indiebound                  and of course the big guys Barnes & Noble Books A Million Hudson Amazon   I'm scheduling book events for November and into Winter and Spring 2023.  Details to follow.  

I  just happen to hear Water Song by Hot Tuna on my streaming service this evening. This prompted me to think of how much we associate certain  songs and music with a time and place. During my time at Denison I made a  lot of strong associations with songs (some I don’t  necessarily like.) I was lucky enough to work at WDUB as a DJ and it exposed me to lots of music. Here's a handful of Dension-Song associations: *The  Rolling Stones - Honky-Tonk Woman . The afternoon I moved into my dorm freshman year at Curtis East, I distinctly remember hearing the clinks of a cowbell and then the crash of Charlie Watts's drums. The dorm mate one floor below had just hooked up his stereo and was turning it up to “11”.  It seemed to say this is freedom. I’ll always associate that song  with my first day at Denison. *U2 - I Will Follow. On a brisk October night I walked into the basement of  Blair Knapp Hall and for the first time into the WDUB studio. There was...

 COMING NOVEMBER 7...