Snapshot from GA

Bones and the LSW

I thought you might like to see a snapshot of me and the LSW (Long Suffering Wife) taken at our Dry Bones Haggadahs booth at the "GA" convention in Jerusalem last week. * * * Go to store.drybones.com to peek inside the Haggadah, find out why the Haggadahs come in "plain brown boxes", and maybe decide to order a box of Haggadahs for you and yours (while supplies last, and don't say we didn't warn you).

Shipping the Haggadahs

The Haggadahs in our Livingroom

If you ordered copies of the Dry Bones Haggadah, they're now in the mail or about to be. * * * We're not on Amazon. This is a personal outreach from us to friends and fans and those they love. The LSW (Long Suffering Wife) and I are now boxing up and shipping out the hot off the press, first edition copies of our gorgeous Dry Bones Passover Haggadahs. Our inventory is warehoused in our livingroom, and we're shlepping the books to mail from our local Post Office. * * * Go to store.drybones.com to peek inside the Haggadah, find out why the Haggadahs come in "plain brown boxes", and maybe decide to order a box of Haggadahs for you and yours (while supplies last, and don't say we didn't warn you).

03 - the Blackout

Thursday, October 31, (continued)

"What else could possibly go wrong? We were soon to find out."

 -the closing entry in previous Diary Episode 02

* * *

New Print Run!
Our printer agrees to do a new print run with careful quality control!  But we'll get the Haggadahs just hours before the opening of the  General Assembly of the Jewish Federations  where we've taken a Dry Bones Haggadahs booth to launch our "campaign to make our Haggadah THE Haggadah for 2014 and generations to come".  

Back to Work!
 as explained previously, Kim, our talented book designer and cover artist had come to visit so we could work on designing the Dry Bones Haggadah "roll up" standing sign for our booth at the  GA. ...and so we settled down to do just that. We've already done a large cartoon backdrop for the booth which shows Mr. Shuldig and a Haggadah. It is wider than it is tall. The "roll up" is taller than it is wide. I'll have to redraw the picture so that it is vertical. Simple.


The Blessing:
In Israel rain is a blessing. The land, after our long hot summers yearns for the refreshing water of our rainy season. And so, suddenly the skies opened and thunderstorms broke out. Unfortunately the brief torrewntial downpour took out the electricity in our neighborhood. Kim's computer could continue on battery power but how could I draw in the pitch blackness of the total darkness? By the way, pitch blackness in contemporary Hebrew is "Egyptian Darkness" pronounced Hoshech Mitzrayim  ( referring to the Passover plague that the Egyptians were hit with). Hmmm.

And So:The LSW held a flashlight while I drew the line drawing to scan which Kim could then color on her Mac. So far, so good, but then, having drawn the cartoon, we realized that without electricity the scanner wouldn't scan! Kim came up with the answer. I held the flashlight to light my drawing, while she shot the cartoon with her iphone and then emailed it to herself, and opened it on her Mac.

The LSW snapped a photo of Kim and me. Her flash has illuminated the total darkness. Kim is on the left facing the bright screen of her laptop Mac: I am to her right on a couch, behind one of the many many candles  that the LSW had set out. One is tiny and on the floor (bottom right, next to chair leg) a third is above and behind that.

Below is the drawn-in-the-dark "roll up" sign after Kim's coloring. Not bad.

* * * This is Haggadah Diary Episode 03 Click for Haggadah Diary Episode 02 Click for Haggadah Diary Episode 01

To Be Continued . . .

You can get your set of haggadahs (in plain brown boxes) in one of two ways. One, online at the http://store.drybones.com and two, at our booth at the upcoming General Assembly of the Jewish Federations to be held in Jerusalem on Nov 10-11.

02 The Wrinkle

Thursday, October 31,

The upcoming General Assembly of the Jewish Federations is set to open in 10 days where we've taken a Dry Bones Haggadahs booth to launch our "campaign to make our Haggadah THE Haggadah for 2014 and generations to come". We paid for an initial printing of 1200 Haggadahs, with the LSW (Long Suffering Wife) hovering over the printing press, inspecting, examining, and color-correcting each page before giving the go ahead to start the print run.
The Haggadahs have now been printed and bound. They are now in boxes of 80 (at the print shop in Jerusalem).
Kim, our talented book designer and cover artist is coming to visit today so we can work on designing the Dry Bones Haggadah banners for the GA.  As she'll be driving from Jerusalem, she's offered to shlep five boxes of Haggadahs to us.

Everything seems to be on track.

* * *

The Haggadahs Arrive!

Above: The LSW (Long Suffering Wife unloads the first carton of books from the trunk of Kim's car. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Below:  Shlepping the cartons through our backyard and into the house.

The Plan:

We've printed out mailing labels for the hundreds of folks who have pre-ordered Haggadahs at our Mom and Pop Store, We've got the plain brown boxes, we've become expert at tape sealing, and we're going to mail out the Haggadahs tomorrow. The rest we'll present at the GA where we hope to cut some bulk order arrangements.

The Wrinkle!!!?!
In our living room:  The LSW (sitting on the steps) and Kim (sitting on the floor) discover that something is wrong! there are "wrinkles" on several pages of each Haggadahs. After a solid year's effort to produce the most beautiful and perfect work possible it is decided that we have to reject the books and reprint. But how? Yikes! 

What else could possibly go wrong? We were soon to find out.

* * * This is Haggadah Diary Episode 02 Click for Haggadah Diary Episode 01

To Be Continued . . .

You can get your set of haggadahs (in plain brown boxes) in one of two ways. One, online at the http://store.drybones.com and two, at our booth at the upcoming General Assembly of the Jewish Federations to be held in Jerusalem on Nov 10-11.

the Plain Brown Box

November 16th will be one year since the close of our successful Kickstarter project to fund the creation of a Dry Bones Passover Haggadah. The manuscript is now done and the work is at the printer. If the events of the past year are any indication, we're in for another wild life-changing and exciting year, and I thought I'd keep you posted on what's going on. The plan is to keep a diary of our campaign to make the Dry Bones Haggadah THE haggadah for Passover 2014-5774, and this is the first diary "entry". It's called the Plain Brown Box.
* * *

the Plain Brown Box

I was a child in Brooklyn in the 1940’s. One of my earliest Passover memories is of a plain brown box that sat on the Seder table. A guest had brought it as a gift. The box held slices of special matzahs that had been prepared under the strictest supervision of super religious Jews.
I couldn’t understand why such a precious gift was in such a plain undecorated ugly brown box. The lesson was that these holy men had directed all their attention to the product that they had lovingly produced and didn’t waste an extra penny on fancy packaging.
So our Dry Bones Haggadahs will come to you in plain brown boxes along with my hopes that they will find a place in your heart and on your Seder table. So the cardboard cartons, ready to put together are now "Warehoused" in our livingroom.

The chief box-assembler will be the LSW (Long Suffering Wife). shown here learning to handle a tape sealer from Lee Glassman, friend, tourist guide, and experienced "tape sealer".

You can get your set of haggadahs (in plain brown boxes) in one of two ways. One, online at the http://store.drybones.com and two, at our booth at the upcoming General Assembly of the Jewish Federations to be held in Jerusalem on Nov 10-11.

To Be Continued . . .