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Last week I directed my browser to the Amazon page of my forthcoming book, Master of Shadows; though it’s a bit early to be tracking its ranking—it does not come out until late October—I did want to make sure the excellent early reviews it has received have made it onto the site. They have, but I was also surprised to see another addition. Blaring out at me, just after the title and in all caps, is the bracketed phrase “ROUGH-CUT EDGE.” I presumed, correctly, that this referenced the fact that the book will have what bibliophiles call a deckle (or deckel) edge; that is, the fore edges of its pages (opposite the spine) will be rough hewn as opposed to trimmed to a smooth, flat surface. I thought it odd—a technical glitch?—that the notice about this very nice feature was listed in all caps, and larger than the title. I sent off a note to my publisher, who then put it to Amazon, whose agents responded that the extra-large notice was there intentionally, to avoid blowback from buyers who might be upset about receiving a defective book. Actually, I discovered, that’s nothing new.

The modern deckle edge is factory produced, but previously it was a natural product of the paper-making and binding processes. The deckled edge is produced when a sheet of paper is made; it is simply the loose pulp fibers at the edge of an untrimmed sheet. When printed sheets were folded and gathered into signatures, their ragged edges were often left untrimmed; sometimes, the signatures were even left uncut, leaving it to the reader to slice open his or her own book, albeit with care. (This luxury guaranteed the book’s pristine condition.) By the beginning of the twentieth century, modern printing technology was advanced to the point that books were by standard trimmed at their edges. Ever since, however, publishers of quality books have artificially created the deckle edge to honor the bookmaking tradition, as a conveyor of prestige, and because it simply feels nice in the hand and looks good. (It also makes it easier to keep tabs on your progress as you read.) Needless to say, no good deed should go unpunished. As early as 1900, the New York Times was receiving letters from carping book buyers, outraged by the “deckel trend” or “fad.” Here’s a classic from 1903:

We Brooklynites have always known how to complain. Compared to some of the other letters received by the paper, however, this is actually on the tame side. While I certainly don’t agree with its argument, I will say it’s nice to see how seriously people used to take their books—some still do. In any case, let me just state for the record that Master of Shadows, with its very elegant rough edge, is now available for preorder—and at a 34 percent discount.

Albert Goodwill Spalding was the great impressario of professional baseball in its early years, a pitcher of unparalleled ability who leveraged his skill on the diamond into the sporting goods empire that still bears his name. He was the power behind the National League, the owner of its Chicago franchise (today’s Cubs), and the man responsible for disseminating the game’s ersatz Genesis story, according to which Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented the sport in Cooperstown. When it came to wrapping the game in the American flag, there was no owner more skilled than Spalding, who went so far as to take a pair of teams on a world tour in the winter of 1888 with the stated mission to spread the game and the American way clear around the globe. (That trip is the subject of my book, Spalding’s World Tour.) Given this history, you might think Spalding would make his home in a Colonial manse of ample proportion—something traditional, with a white picket fence and plenty of leg room. Think again. In his golden years, Spalding moved from Chicago to San Diego, where he and his second wife helped fashion a compound for proponents of Theosophy, the inscrutable quasi-mystical religion founded by the Russian-born visionary Madame Helena Blavatsky. It seems unlikely Spalding was ever serious about the religious aspects of Theosophy, though he supported its progressive educational ideas, and appears happy to have humored his wife’s interest in it. (Some conspiracy minded historians have noted a Theosophist connection to Doubleday.)

The house the Spaldings built for themselves (seen at top in 1901) was an oriental fantasy, an octagonal structure with an external spiral staircase, extensive internal carvings, and a crystal on the roof that somehow helped the inhabitants channel their energies. Spalding, for the record, spent most of his time on the private nine-hole golf course he built adjacent to the house, often engaging in Republican politics. After his death, and that of his wife, the entire project lost its chief financial benefactors, and dissolved. The house, however, remains, and today is the administration building for the evangelical Point Loma Nazarene University. They’ve done a lovely job maintaining it, as the photos here illustrate. Whatever one thinks of the school’s teachings, it seems an eminently appropriate adaptation.

When you think about national schools of typography, Belgium isn’t the first country that comes to mind. There’s Switzerland, birthplace of Helvetica and home to an indigenous school of gridded modern design. From Italy we have classicism, from France neoclassicism. Holland generally overshadows its southern neighbor in the design fields. Belgium, however, has a distinctive typographic identity that is both steeped in history and essentially optimistic, if not playful. Two fine examples: the “A” of Antwerp’s city logo, with its blinking hash marks, and the bulbous “B” that is the ubiquitous symbol for the Belgian railway system. Both suggest the national obsession with the comic strip—Belgium, after all, is the country that has given us Tintin.

Any discussion of Belgian typography naturally begins with Antwerp’s Plantin Press, founded in 1555 by the French emigre Christophe Plantin. Under his direction, and later under the oversight of his grandson Balthasar Moretus, the press, distinguished by its famous compass colophon, was the preeminent clearinghouse for humanist ideas in Northern Europe, and was renowned also for its elegant, beautifully made books. (Peter Paul Rubens, a childhood friend of Moretus, often contributed illustrations and designs, and also published with the house.) Today, a visit to the Plantin-Moretus Museum is one of the great pleasures of any trip to Antwerp. The old presses and type matrices look like they’re still in working order.

I would suggest that there’s no more enjoyable place for the modern typophile to stroll than a quiet lane in Brussels or Bruges, Ghent or Antwerp. To each his own, we all have our favorites. I’m partial to the elegant curling serifs that mark an old Antwerp warehouse. Not hard to figure out why.

Metropolis has posted a slideshow of the outtake photographs by Sean Hemmerle for my story on New York’s ballparks. The pictures are phenomenal, so click over and take a look. And if you haven’t read it, the story is here. I’m happy to say it’s been getting much positive feedback. Here’s how it starts:

There are times—too many of them—when it is hard, very hard, to be a baseball fan. I do not mean those days when your team has fallen to its rival by some ignominious score, though that is frustrating. I refer to something more corrosive, a breaking of the unspoken covenant between fan and team on which professional baseball depends. By this agreement, the fan pledges undying loyalty to his team, and in return, said team makes every possible effort to disguise the fact that said fan’s loyalty has been pledged not to a benevolent civic institution but to a mercenary corporate oper ation. It is this suspension of disbelief that allows us to enjoy the game in all its innocence; and this, to a large degree, is why we become fans in the first place. Baseball is at once our national pastime and national palliative.

Continue.

Best wishes to Kevin and Jennifer, old friends and colleagues to be wed today. The bliss of marital union—there is no greater satisfaction. Many, many happy returns.

A century ago today, the French industrialist/inventor/daredevil Louis Blériot took off in an airplane of his own invention—really, more like a moped with wings—flying across the English Channel from Calais to Dover. It was the first crossing of the Channel by air, and won him a prize of £1000 from the London Daily Mail, not that he needed the money. It was the first crossing of any major body of water and across international lines. Blériot was the French Wright and Lindbergh all rolled into one. He made a fortune building automotive headlights, then turned his attention to aviation. He became a leading manufacturer of airplanes in the years after the crossing, which was celebrated as a heroic event at the time. He barely made it across in his rickety contraption. Afterward, he was regularly featured an advertisements for cigars and other products. Bravo Blériot on the centennial of your historic day! An honor to have you on our wall.

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of touring Antwerp with the photographer Sze Tsung Leong, who was there working on an ongoing project documenting cityscapes. We scouted out some of the places from which he’d shoot, and a few of the extraordinary results are produced here. The image above, of the winding lanes of Antwerp’s elegant historic center, was taken from the bell tower of the Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal (Cathedral of Our Lady). The single baroque church facade standing out in the middle right is St. Charles Barromeo, designed by none other than Peter Paul Rubens—he was an architect in addition to his many other careers. Rubens’s tomb is at the Church of St. James, visible in the upper right corner of the photograph.

Continue reading The Photographs of Sze Tsung Leong

I’ve written a good deal about New York’s two new ballparks in various publications and on the web over the last few years, but this new piece, from the July issue of Metropolis magazine, is my last word on the subject, and—I humbly submit—the most comprehensive look anywhere at the stadium game as it has played out here in New York. But I leave that for you to judge. Please do read it; I will not recapitulate the arguments here, but will say that I believe that the two new ballparks, and others of their ilk, reflect a fundamental shift in the way we watch and think about professional baseball.

Magazine stories don’t typically warrant acknowledgments, but in this case there are a few individuals I’d like to thank for their participation in this story, directly and otherwise. Editor Martin Pedersen, fellow Yankee agoniste, commissioned and shaped it. Criswell Lappin designed it. (It looks phenomenal; buy the magazine, it needs your support.) The amazing photographs are by Sean Hemmerle. Jay Jaffe and Ivan Drucker were my intrepid co-explorers. For their time and thoughts, I thank Jim Bouton, Neil DeMause, Alex Belth, Greg Prince, Ben Barnert, Cliff Corcoran, Susan Carroll, John Thorn, Andrew Bernheimer, and the YFSF community.

Update: On an unrelated note, I have another piece running now on the Metropolis home page, on the threat to Moscow’s architectural patrimony.

The first notices for Master of Shadows are beginning to flow in, and I’m happy to report that the initial response has been very positive indeed. To follow are the words of some distinguished writers and scholars who’ve had a chance to look at it. Not to be indiscreet, but the book is now available for preorder from the bookseller of your choice (links in the sidebar at right, for your convenience).

“In elegant brushstrokes, and using as his subject the painter/diplomat Rubens, Mark Lamster gives us here a vivid portrait of 17th century Europe and the political intrigue that led to the modern world.”—Russell Shorto, author, The Island at the Center of the World

“Mark Lamster looks beyond Rubens’s talent for era-defining sensual nudes and delves into his little-known career as a diplomat and spy. The result is an exhilarating portrait of an age as dramatic and richly toned as one of Rubens’s gigantic canvases.”
—Ross King, author, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

“This adroitly crafted biography of Rubens brings to life an artist so busy wheeling and dealing with the crowned heads of Europe that it’s amazing he found the time to put brush to canvas. Lamster’s account engages the student of history as much as it opens the eyes of those who love Rubens’s art.”—Timothy Brook, author, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World

“Master of Shadows is a fascinating account, as lively as it is informed. This utterly intriguing narrative has the knowledge and verve that infuse Rubens’s brushstrokes; Lamster writes with the panache and enthusiastic engagement, as well as the capability, warranted by his marvelous subject.”—Nicholas Fox Weber, author, Le Corbusier: A Life

“Imagine that Pablo Picasso, in addition to painting the most famous masterpieces of the twentieth century, had also devoted decades of his life to secret diplomacy aimed at preventing another world war. That is exactly what Peter Paul Rubens, the most revered painter of his era, did in seventeenth-century Europe. Mark Lamster tells this little-known story with a combination of brio and historical erudition bound to appeal to anyone who cares about beauty, passion, war and peace. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Susan Jacoby, author, The Age of American Unreason

“Art, war, diplomatic intrigue, secret spy missions—all rendered with the erudition of a scholar and the deft touch of a gifted writer. This is exactly what popular history should be. I was utterly transfixed by this book.”—
—Jonathan Mahler, author, The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

“Piercing the darkened, secret world of agents, operatives, and diplomats is a difficult task at the best of times–and in Rubens’s case, one thought impossible–but Mark Lamster brilliantly succeeds at shedding light on this most enigmatic, and aptly dubbed, Master of Shadows.”
—Alexander Rose, author, Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring

“Mark Lamster, a master of vivid writing, provides a highly readable account of the national rivalries and endemic warfare that fostered secret diplomacy in seventeenth-century Europe. Master of Shadows is a page-turner not to be missed.”
—Lita-Rose Betcherman, author, Court Lady and Country Wife: Two Noble Sisters in Seventeenth-Century England

“Rubens’s story surprises and dazzles.”—Kirkus

The photographer Julius Shulman, who died last week at the age of 98, will be forever linked to California’s modernist architecture, of which there was no greater champion. For me, however, he will always be associated with Ezra Stoller, his East Coast contemporary, who died a few years ago, to slightly less fanfare. The two were the alfa and omega of American architectural photography (don’t ask which was which), informal competitors in the same field, a true New York-Los Angeles rivalry, though both were Brooklyn-born Jews. Shulman moved west, lived in a home in the Hollywood Hills designed by Raphael Soriano, and documented the architectural efflorescence there at mid-century. His images were dramatic and clean, like the lines of the modern buildings he shot, but also playful, redolent of the sybaritic California lifestyle that he surely helped to define. His specialty was domestic architecture, and in his later years, with the rediscovery of mid-century modernism and the helpful promotion of the publisher Taschen, he became something of a minor celebrity. Stoller was always the less visible and more clinical of the two, though in the long run he may be more influential. (I had the great pleasure of working with Ezra on a series of books.) He also lived in a wonderful modern house, in Rye, New York, and it was of his own design. If Shulman specialized in domestic spaces, Stoller’s forte was surely the public building: his images would define the way progressive modern architecture—the work of Wright, Le Corbusier, Mies, Kahn, Rudolph, Saarinen, SOM—would appear in print, perhaps how its architects imagined it themselves; it was said that no project was complete until it had been “Stollerized.” Both men will be missed, but their images and ways of seeing will remain for a long time.