0:00:04.251,0:00:06.091
You know, when I made this book, I didn't think of it

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as something that would be difficult to read at all

0:00:07.857,0:00:11.861
and I imagine everybody who writes something difficult feels that way

0:00:11.861,0:00:15.054
when they send it out into the world.

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So, the book is somewhat confusing because it has

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a three dimensional aspect.

0:00:21.506,0:00:24.504
You can see literally into the book.

0:00:24.504,0:00:27.378
I should describe what the book is first.

0:00:27.378,0:00:32.001
About maybe three years ago, I got an email

0:00:32.001,0:00:34.978
from someone I'd never heard of before

0:00:34.978,0:00:40.781
saying, I'm starting a new publishing house

0:00:40.781,0:00:47.975
a kind of art literary publishing house, and would you like to make a book? And I can't promise you...

0:00:47.975,0:00:50.166
and there's a long list of things she couldn't promise.

0:00:50.166,0:00:52.504
I can't promise you lots of sales. I can't promise you

0:00:52.504,0:00:55.542
an advance.

0:00:55.542,0:00:57.452
I can't promise you this and that and that,

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but what I can promise you is that we'll make any book

0:00:59.673,0:01:01.172
you want to make.

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We'll make it as beautifully as it could be made.

0:01:04.448,0:01:07.001
And it's not that I was bowled over by that

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so much as I didn't believe it,

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and I thought, well she probably doesn't know what she's saying.

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Maybe she thought I would want to

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I don't know, doodle in a book or something,

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but to say we can make any book you want to make...

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and so I started thinking, what are the limits

0:01:24.755,0:01:26.144
of a book I would want to make?

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Not because they were the limits of what a book could be,

0:01:28.419,0:01:30.539
but because they were the limits of what I wanted.

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And I had for a long time been interested

0:01:33.814,0:01:36.432
in a process called die-cutting,

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which is an ancient, I don't know if it's ancient, but it's very, very old.

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It's been used as long as there's been manufacturing

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of pretty much any kind, and it's basically

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taking a material out of a material

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with a stamp.

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Pushing something through a material.

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So your car door is made by die-cutting

0:01:53.098,0:01:55.852
a piece of steel or whatever.

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It's a tough word. I mean, die-cutting.

0:01:58.016,0:01:58.848
Die-cutting.

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When I saw it the first time, I thought, wow.

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Die hard cutting.

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It's almost onomatopoeic.

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It's not because it doesn't make that sound when it's done,

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but it's almost like a Yiddish word.

0:02:10.813,0:02:12.448
It sounds like what it is.

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In any case, I had wanted to do something

0:02:16.351,0:02:17.977
with paper, with die-cutting,

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and so I asked her if that would be possible,

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and she said yes.

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And so we entered into this process that

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ended up taking a couple of years,

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and I started with one of my favorite books,

0:02:27.971,0:02:30.052
which is Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles,

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and tried to carve out of it another story.

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And I did.

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How do you choose words from a text that you

0:02:40.143,0:02:43.538
love as much as you love the text by Bruno Schulz?

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Well, in a way, loving the text didn't have anything to do with it.

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I loved the text because it was so almost exactly because

0:02:50.411,0:02:52.303
it was so good for this purpose.

0:02:52.303,0:02:55.973
You know, it's just so...

0:02:55.973,0:03:01.987
you know, if you were going to eat a food that you love,

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you would prefer that the plate be overflowing with it

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rather than that there be a tiny little bit in the center of the plate.

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I would, anyway.

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That's probably a very American thing I just said.

0:03:10.454,0:03:14.223
But his book is overflowing with things that I love,

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and so when I had to choose the book to commit to a book

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to use this process with,

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I wanted a very rich palette.

0:03:28.099,0:03:31.213
You know, if you're a painter, you don't want a palette with two colors.

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Well you might, but you would rather have the choice of as many colors as there are,

0:03:35.253,0:03:39.897
and I think his book offers as many colors as any book that there is.