Bibliophemera

Today is Go Texan Day in Houston. This annual event is ushered in with trail riders on horseback in a symbolic ride from points north, south, east, and west. These trail rides, which last from days to weeks, all converge in Houston's Memorial Park today. The trail riders and their parade through downtown Saturday, along with the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest at Reliant Park, kick off the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo , a celebration of Western heritage and culture that officially starts March 2nd and will run through March 21st. When I was a kid in elementary school, we used to get Fat Stock Day as a holiday from school. That's how big a deal it was. They don't do that these days, but many folks still dress Western for work on this day, wearing their jeans, boots, and cowboy hats. Enough of that... this is about ephemera and, accordingly, I have a piece of ephemera related to the appropriate book for the occasion, Going Texan: The Days of the Houston Live...

Cataloging books the other day, I came across an 1890s multivolume set called Messages and Papers of the Presidents . Inside one of the volumes was a slip of printed paper with a bookbinder's message: How to Open a Book . The set was published by the Government Printing Office, so they are the likely source of this piece of paper, which reprints a passage from a publication titled, Modern Bookbinding . No other bibliographical detail is included for that title, but I have found a magazine from that era, Modern Bookbinding and Their Designers . No clue, though, as to the author of this particular piece. You might wonder (I did) why there would be a need for instructions to open a book. And if you put those instructions inside the book, doesn't that defeat the purpose somewhat? Opening a book is not as easy as you might think. At least if you read these instructions and try to follow them. Here's the gist of it in the opening run-on sentence: Hold the book with its back on a ...