July 4, 2018 at 12:00 am

Note: All my posts on the ’60s are gathered under “The ’60s,” above. Being a blog, these posts would normally be in reverse order, with the newest post on top. However, for this particular category, they are arranged with the oldest posts at the top in order to clarify the sequential nature of the posts. The newest posts will be at the bottom.

I’m Off to the Winter Institute in Baltimore

January 20, 2020 at 1:59 pm

Tomorrow morning (January 21st), I’m heading to Baltimore for the Winter Institute, the annual American Bookseller’s conference for independent booksellers. I’ll be signing copies of The Half-Acre Homestead for book buyers. This is the book lovers’ book conference, always with a wonderful spirit of independence and love of real hold-in-your-hands books from real live dedicated book people. I’ll be posting from Instagram during the week: www.instagram.com/lloyd.kahn

My first trip to Baltimore; have always wanted to go there. Hey, if anyone has suggestions of things to do there, please comment. (Are there cold water swimmers in Baltimore?)

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Gimme Shelter Newsletter – Shelter’s 50th Anniversary – Jan. 2020

January 10, 2020 at 5:30 am

This is a newsletter I send out maybe once a month. If you’d like to be on the list to receive it, you can sign up for email delivery of the Gimme Shelter newsletter here.

This is so un–de rigueur in these days of concise communication, but here I am with a long, rambling newsletter to start off the new year.

Shelter is 50 Years Old!

In 1970, we printed 5,000 copies of Domebook One and began our publishing career. We’re trying to figure out if we should have some sort of event celebrating the occasion this year. We’re still rolling!

The Half-Acre Homestead: 46 Years of Building and Gardening

I picked up 12 copies of the just-bound book in San Francisco recently. The thrill is NOT gone! After a year of putting it together, page by page, not being sure how the whole would look, came the moment of truth — it, ahem, looks really good. The size, the colors, the soft cover. It seems friendly. From us to you, here’s how human hands have created shelter and food.

The shipment of 5,000 books is now on the high seas, heading from Hong Kong to LA, where they will then travel by truck to the Ingram warehouse in Tennessee. Books should be in bookstores in late February.

Shameless Commerce Department: We’re offering it on our website for pre-order, with free shipping. It won’t go out until mid-February or so, but pre-sales will help us with printing bills. www.shelterpub.com/building/halfacrehomestead

Here’s a link to how I did the book (this was in the previous GIMME SHELTER newsletter). www.lloydkahn.com/2019/11/the-half-acre-homestead-book-is-finished

The 40th Anniversary Edition of Stretching

I discovered a homemade book called Stretching in 1979. It was aimed at athletes, with stretching routines for some 20 sports.

I wrote the author, Bob Anderson, and suggested he add stretches for builders, waitresses, truck drivers, kids, and older people. We started talking. He said he and his wife Jean (who did the drawings) had sold 35,000 copies from a garage in Southern California. Wow! End result: We rented Bob and Jean a house on the beach here in Spring, 1980, and in 3 months, we did a complete revision of the book.

We did a first run of 50,000 copies, and the book took off, with Random House as distributor, selling madly. It’s been selling ever since, now over 3¾ million copies worldwide, and in 23 languages. As far as I can tell, it’s the best-selling fitness book of all time.

Tech Neck  An important (and timely) addition to this new edition will be stretches to combat the bad posture caused by (1) cell phone usage and (2) working on computers.

Take a look at how bent-over people are when talking on their phones. It’s called “tech neck.”

The point is, we all spend too much time at screens of various sizes, and it’s not healthy. Not good for the body.

Want to take 30 seconds and stretch right now? shltr.net/stretch

Analog Tool in This Day and Age

We’re going to print up some self-adhesive stickers to go on the back of phones. You don’t have to turn on an app: just flip your phone over and take 10 seconds to s-t-r-e-t-c-h.

This is just a rough first copy of the sticker. It will also have drawings of bad and good posture.

The new book (and stickers) will be out by May, 2019. Read More …

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“Tree of Life” Window

January 9, 2020 at 5:56 pm

From Uncle Mud, who wrote: “I’m off to the mountains of Jamaica to teach mud building again next week. The village of Nine Mile is very sweet to us. The little kids call me ‘Meesta Mood’. People there make $20 a day but a sack of cement costs $10 so no one every finishes their house. When we were there in 2018 we taught them how to make windows out of bottles that get thrown by the side of the road, putting up a rough ‘Tree of Life’ window in the dead of night before our flight home. When we came back in 2019 we were treated to this lovely view of the finished window.”

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