Magic Books & Paper Toys: Flip Books, E-Z Pop-Ups & Other Paper Playthings to Amaze & Delight

Tina Barseghian

Get a Hobby!: 101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle

In this entertaining, informative guide, journalist and "ReadyMade" contributing editor Tina Barseghian invites readers to explore 101 thoroughly absorbing diversions, from conventional to downright wacky, that will satisfy every taste, talent, and timetable. HarperCollins

James Smith Rudolph

Make Your Own Working Paper Clock

Clocksby Isaac AsimovThrough most of history, people hardly felt the need of clocks. It seemed sufficient to consult one's own physiology to tell when one was hungry or sleepy, or to observe the general position of the sun in the sky during the day or that of the Big Dipper at night.Those who were meticulous enough to want something better searched for some regular motion that existed in nature or that could be contrived. In ancient times, the sundial was invented so that the passage of the shadow of a rod could be followed as the sun crossed the sky.Or else one could observe the extent to which a candle burned downward, or wait till a certain amount of sand had sifted through a small opening. Such devices could be used on cloudy days or at night, when the sun could not be seen and shadows were not observed.In ancient times, the best timepiece was the clepsydra, or water clock, which measured time by the regular dripping of water through a narrow opening. As water accumulated in the lower reservoir, a float carrying a pointer rose and marked the hours. The best water clocks were quite elaborate but few in number and fragile. They could not be relied on to tell time more closely ...

Nancy Arthur Hoskins

The Coptic Tapestry Albums and the Archeaologiest of Antinoe, Albert Gayet

Vibrant tapestries of beribboned birds, cantering centaurs, and Dionysian dancers, woven in Coptic Egypt more than a thousand years ago, were artfully arranged in a handsome pair of albums in 1913. Some of the fabrics are shown in unique collage compositions. Sandals, spindles, and a mysterious lock of hair are assembled in a shallow box at the back of one album. Many textiles in this important collection, housed at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, were once joined by warp and weft with those from the Musée du Louvre and other major museums.Nancy Hoskins deftly interweaves the creation of the textiles in the Greco-Roman city of Antinoé, Egypt, with their discovery by the charismatic French archaeologist Albert Gayet (1856-1916). Gayet staged stunning exhibitions of the pieces in Paris at the turn of the century and ultimately gave them to museums or sold them. One collector, Henry Bryon, had his 144 fabrics bound into the two albums featured here.The album pages and covers are illustrated in glowing color, along with archival photographs from Gayet's expeditions. The style, structure, and iconography of each tapestry, tabby, and tablet-woven textile are ...