Talking with a Woman Who Restores Stained Glass
She has spent thirty years putting broken windows back together, and says the actual skill is knowing which cracks to leave alone.
Column
Conversations
An Interview with the Cartographer Who Refuses to Finish Her Map
Cartographer Noor Aziz on thirty years spent redrawing the same coastline, and why a finished map is a kind of lie.
An Interview with the Beekeeper Who Doesn't Wear a Veil
He works his hives bare-handed and bare-faced, and insists the veil is less protective than the stillness it usually replaces.
Talking Shop with a Third-Generation Bookbinder
Bookbinder Rosa Delacroix on repairing spines, resisting digitization, and what a book owes its reader physically.
A Conversation with the Archivist Who Reads Other People's Mail
She has read thousands of strangers' letters for a living, and says the job taught her more about privacy by violating it than any principle ever could.
A Conversation with the Man Who Still Winds the Town Clock
The town clock could be automated in an afternoon. He climbs the tower every Sunday anyway, and has for thirty-eight years.
An Interview with the Last Lighthouse Keeper on the Point
He kept the light for twenty-nine years by hand, then for six more after it no longer needed him, out of something closer to loyalty than duty.
Talking Shop with a Typesetter in the Age of Screens
He sets type by hand for a readership that mostly finds him through the internet, and sees no contradiction in that at all.
