"The cover lithograph was drawn on and printed from the stone by Lila Shull. The wood engraving is the work of Gaylord Schanilec. The panorama, printed on Asuka, a kozo and pulp machine-made paper from Echizen, Japan, is based on a photograph taken by Patricia Hampl. The green and 'beguiling' gold decorative elements were inspired by a stenciled pattern in the vestibule of the author's home, concieved [sic] and exicuted [sic] by Neil Heiderman. The text was cast in Monotype Menhart at the M&H Type Foundry in San Francisco, with the exception of the italic, which was cast by Nick Gill in North Yorkshire, UK ... The text was printed on paper handmade at the VelkeĢ Losiny mill in the mid-20th century, before the formula was changed to include less sizing, thus retaining its pleasing 'rattle' ... This edition was bound by Matthew Lawler Zimmerman at Studio Alcyon. The work first appeared in The American Scholar, Autumn 2021, and was printed by hand, on the Vandercook Universal III at Midnight Paper Sales, in the wild of Western Wisconsin, with the assistance of Molly Brown."--Colophon. "This edition is comprised of 70 signed & numbered copies, with an additional 5 lettered hors commerce."--Colophon. Errata slip laid in. Issued in a clamshell case (32 cm). Special Collection has copy number 28, signed by the author and printer. IaU
Summary:
"It's her meditation on getting older (a worker asked her if she was still driving at her age), the boarded-up windows in St. Paul after the unrest over the murder of George Floyd, and living in this city where she was born. It was first published in the autumn 2021 issue of The American Scholar. ... Hampl had been used to traveling the world looking for inspiration, but COVID changed everybody's life, one of the themes of 'It's Come to This.' 'We were not only in the midst of an international pandemic, separating us from each other, making travel unlikely if not impossible, but solitude can unite us when we're alive,' she says. 'I am in my 70s. It's the whole idea of mortality. It's about the whole racial reckoning going on since Reconstruction, the whole idea of two huge things bigger than the personal: pandemic and murder that took place near our town. I went around in my car taking pictures of boarded-up buildings in St. Paul. It felt like the world was making an incredible pivot; so was my life. All of a sudden I wasn't young anymore. That came back forcefully when we were told that older people were at risk for COVID. Oops. That's me. Yet with all these things, people came together. I felt a deep connection to the world, even though I lived alone with a dog.'"--St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN), Features Section, Page E12 (September 24, 2023).
OCLC:
(OCoLC)1410730176
Locations:
OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.