Sunday, June 22, 2008

Coffee by the Book.


Coffee: Super H.E.B. Colombian Supremo (whole bean).

Mug: Bistro-style mug from Crate & Barrel or Target (I forget which, but I think C&B).

Note: Another morning on the porch on Atlantis Street in Kyle, Texas. The book is my combination Book of Common Prayer/New Revised Standard Bible. I use it to pray the Morning Office everyday. It belonged to my dad, and he gave it to me (because the print was too small) on Father's Day in 1994. In 1998, I had it recovered in goat skin by Henry Nuss Book Binders in Deep Ellum. Henry Nuss dates back to the late 19th century and the Swiss-French-German La Reunion Utopian colony survivors who moved to east Dallas after the colony's collapse (giving Swiss Avenue it's name, and opening a brewery that is long gone, Rudolph's meat market that remains, and countless other professions and trade shops that gave early Dallas a character that still lingers).

Like my dad, Henry Nuss' is now gone. But neither is forgotten.

2 comments:

Ed Darrell said...

Sometime last year I had feared you'd let this blog go dormant. I'm glad to see it's up and running.

Interesting bit of history, about Henry Nuss. Did someone buy the company out? Does anyone locally do such work.

PM Summer said...

The family just got tired. Nuss' great-grandson and great-granddaughter ran the place, with their parents in the background. I don't know if they sold it, or what. Sort of like Worth-Walden (hat maker on Jefferson), another Dallas institution drying up and blowing away.

As for another local book-bindery of their craftsmanship, I can't say. Most folks send that work out now. Commercial binderies are plentiful, but they won't rebind an heirloom. Curatorial binderies USED to exist at SMU, Dallas Museum of Art, and the Dallas Library. They would sometimes take in outside projects, but would request an arm or a leg for deposit.