A little of this, and a little of that

another fabulous find - a true book artist, Jim Rosenau, who turns books into useful pieces of furniture and appears to have a sense of humor while plying his craft





Here is another take on Kerouac for those of you following all the events this year as part of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of "On the Road." Ulin gives a fascinating account of the Kerouac that we might not know - Kerouac towards the end of his life and includes Kerouac's hand drawn cover proposal for "On the Road"





Big news this week for those fond of archived info - the New York Times has dropped is fee service for access to their archives and now Jason Kottke is having a field day trawling through the stuff - I'm glad to see that someone is enjoying the type of research that has gone inside libraries for years

Last, but not least, how I spent TLAPD

Avast ye scurvy dogs!!

This be talk like a pirate day and t' celebrate I thought I would show you what happens t' books when pirates get ahold o' them

aarrrrrrr!!!!!

an o' course if ye be needin' books about pirates check out the fine catch here

or if ye be foolish enough to part with a small amount o' booty try the pirates here


and if ye need to read more about the fairer sex and piratery try here


and what would TLAPD be without honoring me favorite pirates

E-books and goodbye glasses

now I am the sort of person that actually likes to handle books but I am also slightly geeky and fascinated by e-texts. The problem with most electronic books is that you download the whole thing to either a special reader or your PC and I am not convinced that I can ever get comfortable reading that way. Today I stumbled across an electronic book club at ArcaMax (my favorite website for subscribing to Doonesbury) that e-mails you just a chapter a day of classic works. I had lasik surgery on my right eye last Friday and I am already able to read without my ugly old glasses which I kept slung around my neck courtesy of a lovely little chain (shades of Ruth Harrison)

... but I digress....

So the ArcaMax book club will deliver a chapter a day (about my speed) of whatever books you wish... I've never read Beowulf and with the movie version coming out this Fall, maybe this is a good time to get it off my lifelist of books to read. Subscribing was a piece of cake and now I will be receiving it in bite-sized chunks in my e-mail.

...and all of this is because another of my answers was selected as the Best Answer at Yahoo Answers and I received another 10 points......

...and that was because I decided to hang out at Yahoo again after Slam the Boards Day....

... but I digress....

DIY Dylan

Without a doubt, the coolest thing I have seen in a while (even if it is a marketing site) - you can create your own message and Dylan will play it for you

Steampunk Fashion

I found a splendid example of an extremely practical steampunk apron over at Wyldfir Studios. Since the necessary equipment to start our book repair and binding workstation (thanks sq12tk at Ebay) just arrived at work, I think I will have to create an appropriate apron to wear while engaged in such activities. Along the way I discovered my Steampunk Name, courtesy of Brassgoggles (Ms. Lydia Beeching) and IRL I was just inducted into Daughters of the British Empire (if they only knew how I spend my days)

In the last few days I have become fascinated with Vapo Cresolene Vaporizers such as the one on the right - looks like I won one on E-bay

Last but not least, in deferrance to my aging eyes, I succumbed to lasik surgery on my right eye - lets see how this all progresses

Beautiful Libraries

as usual I discovered another lovely blog today - Iconic Books - and lo and behold there is a splendid link to a stunning tribute to libraries at Curious Expeditions - without a doubt my favorite has to be the picture of Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands which has a hint of steampunk about it


On another note...what are you doing to ready yourself for Talk Like A Pirate Day? I'm hoping to spend it a few days late at Full Sails

Blog Day 2007

today is the 3rd annual blog day so I suppose I need to do my bit...

Best site of the day (thanx to Library Garden) has to be Cupcake Bakeshop -today's recipes include Dark Chocolate Truffle cupcakes - if only I had more time today to bake because tomorrow I'm off to Three Stags Autumn Autumn Battle and Faire where our humble theatre troupe will premiere our productions of "The Eel Pie and the Cheese Tart" and "The Pilgrimage"

Now for all of you Star Trek and Edward Gorey fans, here is a treat courtesy of Boing Boing - apparently Gorey was a Star Trek fan and now Shaenon K. Garrity has prepared an illustrated version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" as if Gorey had done it - priceless!



And of course mentioning Gorey reminds me that I need a steampunk link today (isn't Gorey steampunk with humor?) so here goes.. courtesy of The Steampunk Home ... a lovely photo of Boston's Old Charles Street jail - I want a chandelier like that in my house