Friends of the Alphabets, one and all, it’s time to get serious. We’ve been dawdling along until now, but not at a rate that would get us to our goal. So let’s set our first immediate, short-term goal: $5,000 in backing by Monday.

That would take us to the point where the first two weeks of the campaign are done and we’ll need $10,000 in the next two–double the rate up till now, but not impossible.

So please step in. If you’ve been thinking of supporting us but felt we would reach our goal calmly without you, please reconsider.

If you’d like to back us but can’t afford one of the higher-level rewards, we can still get there with plenty of small contributions.

If you’ve already backed us, you’re the perfect spokesperson to convince others to follow your lead.

One way or the other, please recognize the increasing urgency of the campaign and do whatever you can to help. At the Endangered Alphabets, what we’ve achieved has largely been made possible by our Kickstarter friends. Please keep that tradition going HERE.

Thanks.

Tim

Wow. Our last new Kickstarter reward, the Balinese “Om and shanti” carving, was on offer for barely 15 minutes before it was snapped up.
Still slightly breathless from the experience, I went into the vaults and brought up just one more carving, also from my Balinese Period.
There’s nothing like this in English: it’s not, strictly speaking, even a letter. It signifies that the piece of text that follows is sacred or spiritual writing, and as such it advises the reader to adopt a particular openness of heart when reading. It says something about our culture that we don’t understand the need for such a written device.
It struck me that carving this character, and thus converting it from two dimensions to three, implies a metaphorical change: especially if hung on a door, perhaps, it might mean “You are entering a sacred space.”
Carved in an unknown wood with pockets of burl, between and around which the lines flow like grace.
Again, just the one is available, at the $375 level. Go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1496420787/the-right-to-read-the-right-to-write to back us and earn it as your reward.

Continuing thanks to Artemis Walsh, the fine documentary filmmaker Helen Donnelly, and Charles Pryor for backing the Kickstarter.

In other news, a wonderful segment on Everwideningcircles.com was devoted to the Alphabets. Check it out HERE.
Please share this post. And please give whatever you can to this campaign, which is vital for our continuing work.

Thanks.