BOOKWAVES (Words on Books) for KZYX

by Tony Miksak

There are certain people who make a community richer just for living in it. They go their own way, pursue their happiness, and share what they discover. I once embarrassed local book-binder Betty Storz, naming her a "local treasure," and now I'm going to embarrass Mendocino artists Joyce and Dorsey Alexander with the same designation, only plural.

The occasion for this round of embarrassing praise is the publication of Dorsey Alexander's latest hand-made book, titled Fiery Letters for short, and The Fiery Letters that Cadmus Sowed in Greece for long. The book is available in a numbered edition of 200. It runs to only 18 pages, is hand-sewn and assembled, printed on beautiful papers in shades of taupe, orange and brilliant white, and features the ideas and calligraphy of Dorsey and the woodcuts of his wife, Joyce Alexander.

Fiery Letters is a short book that distills a lifetime of study and observation about letters and their meaning. It is about half the length of a typical children's picture book, and like a children's book it's easy to read. Big ideas are distilled to their essence or simply suggested, or, should I say, suggested simply.

Dorsey writes, "Words are by far the most powerful force man has discovered. They are pure idea and being idea have the creative force to bring new things into existence. Spoken words die on the air waves even if, as Emerson suggests, they resound through the universe."

In Fiery Letters he reviews the history of calligraphy and its origins in diverse cultures. Beyond this, his main concern is to present some of the lessons he's learned in many years of quiet reflection and work.

He quotes or refers to Emerson, and Newton, Euclid, Socrates, Aristotle, Darwin, Bergson, Alcuin of York, Parmenides the 5th Century BC Greek philosopher, and Edward Johnston, who at the start of this century almost single-handedly revived the ancient art of calligraphy.

If you get the idea there's more than pretty pictures in this short book, you've got it. Looking up further information on a few of the scholars and philosophers Dorsey mentioned kept me busy for hours.

"Like jugglers we keep many bright balls aloft at once," Dorsey writes in his best calligraphy.

I discovered that Alcuin of York, for example, was an English Christian scholar in the 8th century who became a free agent and signed with Charlemagne's winning continental team. Although Charlemagne had conquered vast territories, scribes at one end of his empire could not read the writing of scribes at the other. This was a problem. Charlemagne himself probably was illiterate, but he knew how to sign up players who could help his team.

It was Alcuin who invented a beautiful new hand-written alphabet named the Carolingian Minuscule, a highly readable script that was used by scribes throughout Charlemagne's empire. It also saved money because more words could be squeezed onto an expensive page of parchment.

In a beautifully illustrated page headed "eternal objects" Dorsey writes, "Our letter shapes, as geometry, exemplify the way in which the human mind grasps the nature of the material world... Our alphabet, being the rational alphabet and being injected into the conscience of all literate youth would inevitably produce a society that would discover atomic power and explore space."

His short poem "Written Letters" reads: