Decorating with books

Lovely post on BoingBoing about an article in the Telegraph concerning the demand for libraries in homes. I love the Telegraph's links down at the bottom and especially the one to the dealer in antique bookends. As usual. my mind started to wander and I thought I would look for a blog about bookends and of course there is one. While it is really just a marketing site, I had no idea that folks collect bookends, like I collect books.
So I wandered over to Amazon and found a charming book about collecting bookends, and then , once again, found several more. And then I found an old discussion on Palimsest about books on bookends. A quick article about collecting bookends ensued. So now I suppose, one could collect books about collecting bookends - will the madness never end? Now I just need to get a set of pirate bookends!

Edible Books and Bernard Black

I went to the Edible Books Festival in Boulder - read more at the library blog. I can say that I learned an awful lot about the artistic properties of phyllo dough


On a more exciting note, I went to see "Run Fatboy Run" yesterday - an silly movie, really with one major exception - the divine Dylan Moran played best-friend Gordon - while not so misanthropic as Bernard Black, Gordon (and his delightful bum) reinforced my belief that Dylan Moran is, without a doubt, the funniest man alive

Customer: "Excuse me, those books, leather bound ones... "
Bernard: "Yes, Dickens. The Collected Works of Charles Dickens."
Customer: "Are they real leather?"
Bernard: "They're real Dickens."
Customer: "I have to know if they're real leather, because they have to go with a sofa. Everything else in my house is real. I'll give you 200 for them."
Bernard: "200 What?"
Customer: "200 Pounds."
Bernard: "Are they leather-bound pounds?
Customer: "No"
Bernard: "Sorry, I need leather-bound pounds to go with my wallet. Next!"

Giant Pop-up Book

Can you tell that I am getting caught up on my blog reading? Well here is something that I found a Yanko Design - a gigantic pop-up book - can you imagine having one in your library?

A Perfect Cup of Tea

Nothing goes better with a good read than a lovely cup of tea. Well those folks at Improbable Research (THE best science blog) give a link to the Royal Society of Chemistry's instructions for brewing the perfect cup of tea

...ahhh.....all I need now is my lovely leather-bound copy of Parnassus on Wheels, that bathtub with the bookshelves, a cup of Earl Grey in my special teacup and I would be in heaven.

Ooohhh....Bookplates

My favorite discovery of the week is the Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie blog - wow - I have always been fascinated by personal bookplates and knew that some folks collected them, but this blog is a treasure trove of information - As a former Philadelhpian myself, Lewis Jaffe, I salute you!! - now I need to start posting my bookplates online

Electronic books

I saw this coming - according to Cory Doctorow, the folks that sell you e-books are now trying to tell you that you don't own them and therefore can't resell them - if this is upheld, the future looks a little grimmer for used book dealers

Play with the librarian

are you a little bored today? How about dressing up (or down) your favorite librarian

All my life for sale

I started listing my stuff for sale on Ebay and I thought that it would be fun to start documenting why I have this stuff and what it meant to me. Rather than clog up this blog with a database of the stuff, I have started a second blog that is just that. It will have a picture of the items and a link to the Ebay posting. As I get deeper into dealing with all of my things, I will also add pics of things that I am keeping. Along those lines I have also started to keep a spreadsheet of the things I am discarding and how much they weigh. My goal is to get to at least a ton, but who knows? Haven't you ever wondered about just how much stuff you have?

I did get a really fun note from an Ebayer - Roger (cycleminnesota) wishes me luck on going back to my Irish roots (LOL - I have Celtic roots, but not Irish as far as I know) and he was just looking at my set of Jazz videos that I have for sale - anyway Roger, I'll raise a toast to you when I get to Dublin!

Life Changes

Today I am officially embarking on my plan to completely change my life in six months. As part of this project I intend to relocate to Ireland to start work on my largest overdue project, acquisition of a PhD. I first learned of the new interdisciplinary degree offered through Trinity College, Dublin about three weeks ago from the Iconic Books blog and just that my last entry here mentioned the program. A week ago I started thinking that my life just isn't what I wanted, expected or needed and I should make a huge change. I mentioned the possibility of this degree program with Fr. Frank at work and he told me I should go for it. I wrote to Dr. Gribben who runs the program at Trinity and he encouraged me to reply. I have downloaded all of the pertinent information and now I need to get my application ready. I ran my research idea past Dr. Gribben and he thought it would work....sooooooo.....I have told my co-workers that I am applying which is the first step to making a dream come true.

In order to make this huge change, I need to eliminate virtually all of the physical and emotional stuff that I have carried around with me for the last 54 years. Yes, I am a hoarder! I used to just think I was a compulsive collector but now I realize that I am really a hoarder. I have boxes and boxes of things that I have moved and never examined. I have all of the stuff left over from the bookstore that needs to find a new home. I have boxes and boxes of books that I need to repack and ship to Better World Books. I need to come to terms with all of this stuff and let it go. In that way I will be ready to embark on a new life across the sea. I plan on selling as much as I can on E-bay, giving away what is not sellable and throwing away the trash. I plan on recording all of this so I can see what the cumulative weight and value of my possessions is/was. Along the way I plan on digitizing those things that I wish to remember but don't need a paper copy of and to finish up with just the bare necessities to start my life anew.

Let the journey begin!

Books that make you dumb

I'm finally getting caught up with my blog reading and found this wonderful link on BoingBoing to Virgil Griffith's fun look at the relationship of SAT scores to various book based on matches found on Facebook.

Bookride is featuring one of my favorite books, Wind in the Willows, which, thankfully, is not included in the Books That Make You Dumb.

Iconic Books has posted a link to the new PhD program in "Texts, Contexts and Cultures" which makes me wish that I wasn't too lazy to go back to school.

and last but not least, I've stumbled across a blog that is made up of transcripts from a World War I soldier and posted 90 years to the date of their original writing - you can following his experiences and find out more about Harry Lamin and his family during wartime.

Funny stuff

Graham Linehan writes one of my favorite blogs (not mention such lovely shows as Black Books and Father Ted) and today his post about Porn for Girls By Girls is ...is... delightful

If you are at loose ends in Denver this weekend, consider joining in on Santacon frivolity...it starts Saturday December 22nd around 1pm at 29th and Welton

Need something a little more traditional? There is still time to see Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol at the Denver Victorian Playhouse...I'm giving them a plug because I'll be working crew for their next production...The Lion in Winter

Need more book content in my blog? How about this...Loome Booksellers is closing and posted this lovely video about what happens to books when a bookstore closes




and this is what I want for Christmas




now that is what I call a boombox

three gems worth exploring (ok so I listed 4) (oops...make it 6)

good news from America's Libraries
Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: October 22, 2007
Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books, instead signing on with a nonprofit effort.

fabulous video from Michael Wesch (did that great Web 2.0 video earlier)
"This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively."

and a delightful blog on book related ephemera - who is Leonard Deming? (wouldn't this have a great theme for a noir mystery?)

last but not least went to see "Across the Universe" this weekend - what a delight - even better than "Once"

and now I can't get into Wall Street Survivor because the filter at work has decided it's a game .... however the filter is not blocking access to the website for buying World Series tickets and I have a better chance of winning Wall Street Survivor than I do scoring Rockies tix ... what is the world coming to....ay, yi, yi.....

Halloween

We have been talking about spooky things to do at work so I decided to start looking around for book or library related things that would help with a Halloween decorating contest....sooooooo.....I found this possessed book

I also found a fer real haunted library in Wyoming and another in Easton, Pennsylvania and then a whole blog post listing haunted libraries


now I need to get to work on sme decorating ideas

Been busy this week....

trying to get caught up on others blogs and I ran across:

this charming discussion about book collections, relationships and the Gaylord catalog at Paper Cuts - I love the comment "Take my car, take my money, but walk away with my books over my cold, dead body"

a cool recipe for Medieval ink - and recipes for Monster cupcakes (I know, I know, it's not book related but it IS Halloween)

a wonderful look at The Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris courtesy of Brass Goggles

a nifty calculator for determining the library's value to you courtesy of the Maine State Libraryy

a lovely article from The Guardian about the rooms where writers write

and last, but not least, J Godsey's post about the the upcoming release of Season 3 of Black Books

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