Aldus Manutius

The late 1400s must have been very similar to current times. This was the tumultuous time when the printed word was changing the fabric of society, much like the digital revolution of the early 21st century. The transition from the bibles of Gutenberg to the widely available paperback type books which created a huge reading class of people sowing the seeds of public participation and democratic ways was a time of confusion and struggle as existing structures came tumbling down.

In the middle of this was Aldus Manutius, venetian printer, publisher and inventor. His legacy lives on today five centuries after him.

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Before the invention of the movable type, the predominant books were hand copied bibles. Monks would spend a life time copying every word by hand. The Gutenberg printing press came as an invention to print bibles. The church, calligraphers and illustrators held complete sway over the printed word. These bibles were large, bulky and expensive. Gutenberg made Mainz, the industrial center of printing in Europe. However, the man responsible for democratizing books was not Gutenberg, it is a credit often given to Aldus Manutius and his Venetian printing press.

Aldus created modern typography by standardizing page layouting and printing methods. He created simple layouts by using whitespace. This enabled the printing industry to break free from the clutches of calligraphers and illustrators. He concentrated on the words and enhanced their power to reach the reader by removing embellishments. This was the first time that the gap between the writer and the reader was bridged. He created small and handy portable pocket editions of classics in a new book format called octavos. He innovated binding techniques and methods to standardize design for use on large schemes. Most important of all was his introduction of a standardized system of punctuation and the italic type.

His typefaces were all designed and cut by the brilliant Francesco Griffo, a punchcutter who created the first roman type cut from study of classical Roman capitals. However, he did not use his italic typeface for emphasis as we do today, but rather for its narrow and compact letter forms, which allowed the printing of pocket-sized books. He patented the exclusive use of the italic. He is also believed to have been the first typographer to use the semicolon.

Aldus Manutius used the motto “Hasten Slowly”. His editions are of great typographic excellence, at the same time,he shrived to make it cheap. Despite the hardships of war his work and enthusiasm lead to the production of some of the most remarkable books ever made. These inspired whole generations and preserved Greek literature The great typographer Herman Zapf produced a font in his honor and the publishing software company Aldus produced the page design software called Pagemaker, often given the credit of bringing printing to the desktop. An Italian free text project like the Gutenberg project is named after the great man and is called Progetto Manuzio.

Aldus Pagemaker

Animal Farm - George Orwell

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is a very short book. Its story, insights, concepts and message will ring true as long as humans come together to work. The fact that Animal Farm is entirely about humans is a sweet irony. That is also its main appeal to me. It provides a glimpse into how good intentions, ideas, ideals and lofty thinking fall apart gradually. I see it as a satirical fable that helps explain the ups and downs of history. Simple in its telling, complex in its content, meaning and relevance.

Central to the story is the slow transformation of the seven commandments of the animal farm and the gradual rise of the pigs into a new upper class.
From the initial list of

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
3. No animal shall wear clothes.
4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.
5. No animal shall drink alcohol.
6. No animal shall kill any other animal.
7. All animals are equal.

They are modified to this.

1. No animal shall sleep in bed with sheets
2. No animal shall drink alcohol to excess
3. No animal shall kill any other animal without cause
4. Four legs good, two legs better!

And finally replaced with this.

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Animal Farm works at many different levels. First as a simple straightforward fable. At this level, it is a bit like Aesop’s fables or the Panchatantra. The second level is as a lesson in the history of communism in the Soviet Union. Napoleon the Pig is Stalin, Snowball is Trotsky, The dogs are the secret police, Squealer is Molotov and so on. At another level, the book is about the different kinds of animals representing the types of people in society, the silent majority too fearful to oppose the injustice of ruthless, corrupt, powerful leaders, gullible people who believe leaders do everything in their best interest, sycophants who wait for their chance to be in power and well intentioned, hardworking people who work for betterment and find themselves in a thankless society are all in the book.

The truth in the book about the constant rise, fall and rebuilding of societies is timeless. The powerful undercurrents of rhetoric, politics, misuse of statistics, propaganda, manipulation and exploitation in the story are facts of society and by extension to most collective human endeavours.

A good book brings to light new and interesting aspects on each reading. This might be because it is multi-layered and frees the imagination to ponder on the subject being tackled. As a person keenly interested in sociology, the mechanics of human society, I find that animal farm is definitely a book that belongs to this category.

Procrastination is a learned behavior. Here is a very interesting metaphor of procrastination that I ran into recently in the book The Now Habit by Neil Fiore.  I am not much of a self help book reader, however, this section on procrastination was highly recommended to me. This helps us to understand how we procrastinate. What goes on in our minds that leads us to develop habits of procrastination. I found the part very interesting and would like to share it with you here.

Imagine for a few minutes that the test or task in your life is to walk a board.

Situation A. The task before you is to walk a solid board that is thirty feet long, four inches thick, and one foot wide. You have all the physical, mental, and emotional abilities necessary to perform this task. You can carefully place one foot in front of the other, or you can dance, skip, or leap across the board. You can do it. No problem.

Take a minute to close your eyes, relax, and imagine yourself in that situation. Notice how you feel about this task.Are you scared or blocked in any way? Do you feel any need to procrastinate? Fear of failing or making a mistake cannot be an issue here, but you might find that you delay starting out of a need to assert your independence and to resist being asked to do even a simple task such as walking a board.

Situation B. Now imagine that the task is just the same, to walk a board thirty feet long and one foot wide, and you have the same abilities; only now the board is suspended between two buildings 100 feet above the pavement. Look across to the other end of the board and contemplate beginning your assignment.

What do you feel? What are you thinking about? What are you saying to yourself? Take a moment to notice the differences in your reactions from situation A. Notice how rapidly your feelings about the task change when the height of the board changes and the consequences of falling are greater. You may find yourself responding, “I’m thinking about the height. What If I fall? The consequences of falling or making a mistake would probably be death.”

Of course, while you are focusing only on the danger of falling you are losing sight of the simplicity of the task and forgetting that just a moment ago you had all the ability to do it with no problems. The danger of a mistake is now so great that you must stop to consider this threat to your life. It’s no longer just a job, a test, a project; it’s your life, your future that’s at stake. There’s no way you can be calm now; you’re already feeling the adrenaline rush of the stress response as you look over the edge, presenting to your mind and body the image of falling 100 feet. There’s real reason to fear: “If I made a mistake I would die.” Regardless of how simple the task, and regardless of how capable you are, the fear that a mistake could mean the end of your life makes it impossible to take that first step.

Ironically, on a psychological level you are often the one who raises the board off the ground by changing a straightforward task into a test of your worth, proof that you are acceptable, a prediction that you will be successful and happy or a failure and miserable. In most cases you are the one who confuses just doing the job with testing your worth, where one possible mistake would feel like the end of the world. When your early training leads you to believe that your self-worth is determined by your performance, you focus on psychological self-protection from fear of failing (and falling), rather than on just doing the job.

Situation C. In this scene you are still on the board suspended between two buildings, 100 feet above the ground. The task remains simple and you still have all the ability necessary to do it, yet you remain frozen on your end of the board. While thinking about what to do, you suddenly notice that the building supporting your end of the board is on fire.

What thoughts and feelings occur? How have you changed your focus from the previous situation? Remember, just a moment ago you were frozen in fright about the possibility of falling 100 feet. Do you find yourself thinking, “I’ve got to get across now. No time to worry about falling or doing it perfectly, I’ll do it any old way I can. Dignity and embarrassment are no longer relevant.”

A moment ago, the mere image of a life-threatening situation may have caused you stress. But notice how quickly your mind and body redirect your energy away from worry, ambivalence, and procrastination toward productive action once you’ve made a decision. (If the image of the fire was not a great motivator for you, see how your worries about the task and the dangers of falling change when you imagine that a small child is on the other side crying for your help.)

Now that you have an immediate time pressure, a real deadline, you jump into the task with both feet, doing it any old way you can. You’re no longer just facing a possibility or fear of pain and death, now you’re confronting real pain and certain death. Now you find yourself unstuck and motivated. And that’s how we use procrastination to get ourselves unstuck from a situation we created in the first place!

When you procrastinate, it’s as if you are the one raising the board off the ground, getting yourself frozen, and then lighting that fire to create the pressure of a real deadline.

First you give a task or a goal the ability to determine your worth and happiness. Through perfectionism you raise the task 100 feet above the ground, whereby any mistakes would be tantamount to death, so that any failure or rejection would be intolerable. You find yourself frozen with anxiety.You then use procrastination to escape  your dilemma, which brings the deadline closer, creating time pressure, a higher level of anxiety, and a more immediate and frightening threat than even your fear of failure or of criticism for imperfect work.

Situation D. You’re back on the board again, 100 feet above the ground. There’s no fire this time, but there is a net a strong, supportive net, just beneath the board.

What are your feelings now? Can you imagine yourself walking that board, contemplating the completion of this task? “No problem,” most people say. “I can do it now. It might even be fun. Even if I fell, I could bounce in the net.”

You now know that if you fall the worst that could happen is that you might feel a little embarrassed. Falling no longer means death. A mistake does not mean the end of the world. You can recover from any fall. No single mistake would mean the end for you. You can always give yourself another shot at the task.

It’s interesting to note how many times successful people suffer through catastrophes and bankruptcies. The successful person fails many times and bounces back; but the failure fails only once, letting that one failure become a judgment of his worth, and thus his label. Following the example of most successful people, you could fall many times, repeatedly using your net to bounce back in order to work for another success. Failure and mistakes then cannot stop you because they can’t take away your inner worth and drive.

However no book can teach you self-worth.

Every time I pick up this book for a read, I end up going through it with the same enthusiasm I felt when I read it for the first time. Despite being a recurring book in my bookshelf for more than a dozen years, this book retains a freshness. The kind of freshness one feels when plunging into reading a new, interesting book. I am not a big fan of philosophical books. Dreary arguments are not the reason I pick it up to read.

There is more to it.

Reading a book is often termed by enthusiastic readers as a journey. This book is actually about a journey. In fact, about two journeys. The physical motorcycle journey and the mental one. I feel that I am rejoining and reliving the trip with the author. I simply relish this aspect of the reading.

Over the years, like an experienced traveler in the realms of this book, I have, quite unintentionally developed a mental map. This leads me to check certain parts of the book first. I think most people do this when they read their favorite books. This is most visible in children who insist on hearing the same parts of a story over and over again.

Let me point out a few of the parts that I go through in this book. I will leave the philosophy, raves, rants and evaluations for the philosophers, ravers, ranters and evaluators! I just read the book and like what it talks about.

The first interesting part (page 27) is where he talks about the spectator attitude which prevents from identifying and caring for the work we are doing. The sentences that I absolutely like are these.

“And it occurred to me there is no manual that deals with the real business of motorcycle maintenance, the most important aspect of all. Caring about what you are doing is considered either unimportant or taken for granted.”

Deep down, I think that all of us should wear a mental badge or cap to do something well. That cap would say what we are. I am a mechanic, I am a writer and so on. This mental identification is not as simple or childish as it sounds, The level of awareness required to do this is very difficult to maintain.

The next part I like reading is a quirky little spot (p46) where  he talks about his moldy old gloves. This whole page is interesting to read. It talks about the quirkiness of machines and their personality changes over a period of time. I can relate to that and extrapolate it not only to motorcycles but to all kinds of machines, devices, software and websites.

The groovy dimension (p57) is something I can identify with. This part of the journey is all about identifying what the other person means. Why do communications break down? Why do we look at the same thing and yet see so differently? Science and Art are ways to relate to reality.

Pages 77 to 79 is about the romantic and classical modes of thinking. The fact that both these modes have their strengths and weaknesses and much is to be gained by balancing the approach is poignantly brought home.

“These tools for example…this wrench…has a certain romantic beauty to it, but its purpose is always purely classical. It’s designed to change the underlying form of the machine.”

These words (p97) must have inspired the covers for the book. The idea of looking at work from both the classical(scientific) and romantic(artistic) mode and using this to engage with the work at hand is a powerful mantra.

Every system, every process can be systematically examined and understood. The motorcycle as a large system of concepts in someone’s mind is described beautifully in page 101.

The infallibility of relentless, unstoppable deductive and inductive logic for trouble shooting is described in pages 106 to 110. The power of the scientific method is something that is awe inspiring.

“Suppose a child is born devoid of all senses; he has no sight,no hearing, no touch, no smell, no taste…nothing. There’s no way whatsoever for him to receive any sensations from the outside world. And suppose this child is fed intravenously and otherwise attended to and kept alive for eighteen years in this state of existence. The question is then asked:Does this eighteen-year-old person have a thought in his head? If so, where does it come from? How does he get it?” (p130)

The apriori motorcycle of Kant makes an appearance in page 134. This is a favourite place for me in the book. It reminds me of the famous “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe!) painting by René Magritte.

“Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great peace of mind.”

This small line appears as quote which begins one of my favourite parts in the book.

“It’s an unconventional concept,” I say, “but conventional reason bears it out. The material object of observation, the bicycle or rotisserie, can’t be right or wrong. Molecules are molecules. They don’t have any ethical codes to follow except those people give them. The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquillity it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed. The test of the machine’s always your own mind. There isn’t any other test.”

“Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad workman and compare his expression with that of a craftsman whose work you know is excellent and you’ll see the difference. The craftsman isn’t ever following a single line of instruction. He’s making decisions as he goes along. For that reason he’ll be absorbed and attentive to what he’s doing even though he doesn’t deliberately contrive this. His motions and the machine are in a kind of harmony. He isn’t following any set of written instructions because the nature of the material at hand determines his thoughts and motions, which simultaneously change the nature of the material at hand. The material and his thoughts are changing together in a progression of changes until his mind’s at rest at the same time the material’s right.”

“This divorce of art from technology is completely unnatural. It’s just that it’s gone on so long you have to be an archeologist to find out where the two separated. Rotisserie assembly is actually a long-lost branch of sculpture, so divorced from its roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that just to associate the two sounds ludicrous.”

It is these kind of nuggets that make me read this book again and again. Of course, there is a lot more ground to cover. I have only put together a small list of paragraphs to visit in the journey which the author take us through in the book.

The book touches some deep chord which resonates with my own desire to connect meaningfully with the work I engage in. This is perhaps the one main reason I find it a good read every time I pick it up.

“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.”

And the message of this book has lasted quite well for more than three decades.

After spending 20 to 30 minutes, I seem to be drawn towards the stationery section. There, I usually pick up a beautiful, luxuriously built blank notebook. The kind that would have lavish binding, gilded pages and superb paper quality.

What’s going on?

Before this blank book phase, I used be drawn to buying the same titles again and again. This is a curious phenonmenon. Being slightly disturbed by this, I decided to investigate this strange case of recurring books. I found that there were many other friends in whose bookshelves there lived these kind of twin books. They appeared in slightly different covers, older versions, different formats and typography. These books were different for different people.  The recurring book phenomenon is puzzling. It is like a peculiar case of deja vu. Something is wrong with the Matrix!

Like all book lovers, I end up amassing quite a bit of them and procrastinate endlessly on giving them up to make space for new and more interesting ones. When faced with the inevitable option of having to dispose off books, I still seem to cling to the twin books preferring to sacrifice less dearer books.

In case you are wondering, my two main recurring books are Animal Farm and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Funnily, when I lend it to someone, I insist on getting it back as soon as possible. Let it be known for the sake of these recurring twin, triplet and sometimes (OMG!) quintuplet books, a lot of shelf space and books have been sacrificed!

Recurring Books!

Do you have multiple copies of the same books?

What is your excuse/explanation?

:)