Nancy Norton Tomasko,
editor of the Asian Library Journal, delivered a radiant slide
lecture on contemporary papermaking on mainland China. Tomasko's talk was
of great interest, shaped as it was by her travels in China during last
July and August and her firsthand encounters with various
papermakers.
 Pam
Scheinman concluded the paper session with a videotape interview of
the Mexican artist, Ricardo Anguia. Anguia's humorous account of his naive
experiences in a topless bar in New York City, and his subsequent
compulsive search for one young, beguiling dancer, dramatized how cultural
differences sharpen experience, which, in turn, flows into the process of
creative book making. Scheinman's video, only partly completed by the date
of the Symposium, gave a strong flavor of Anguia's exuberance and his
charismatic physical presence. In summing up the afternoon's papers,
Judith Brodsky passionately argued that The Book slices through cultural
barriers with a remarkable power to shape experience, to provide pleasure,
to inspire one with fortitude to confront hardship, terror, and death,
even to justify one's life.
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