Sunday, February 24, 2008

Happy Birthday Gutenberg



1.
Gutenberg
Proposed to mass-produce
32,000 mirrors
For the Aachen pilgrimage
And make a return of 16,000 gulden
For an investment of 600 gulden


Circumstances
(Like the plague, lack of finance and a law suit)
Ensured Gutenberg
Could not produce mirrors for one lakh pilgrims

Instead
He invented
The movable type


2.
Amor vincit omnia
Love, she conquers all
And eros, she is the mother of everything

Print merely illustrates this
So that we follow our own pleasures


3.
You and I see
Bark of trees, hemp waste, old rags and fish nets
In a dirty pond with mortar

But in this
Ts'ai Lun conceived the idea of paper