"Bond, Michael Bond"

Many good tributes to the creator of Paddington Bear, but this old one from Pico Eyer is a good one (the NYT obituary was nice too):

Bond’s greatest moment is in describing how the attempt to make a live-action film about Paddington began with “a midget dressed up in a bearskin” (though a midget a mite too large). Given that “the person inside the skin couldn’t hear what was being said to him, let alone where he was going”, and given that, according to Bond, “midgets also tend to be temperamental” (especially when stuck inside a papier-mache head), it makes for a scene worthy of its hero – even before the man “who had invented an automatic lawn mower” is brought in to give the bear emotions, producing an artificial head whose eyes blink at different moments, generating an effect both sinister and salacious.

Biscuits

Lucy Sparrow's world of felt. (Via Becca.) This is my favorite:

Cross-referencing: Alan Hollinghurst on "the Bourbon, the sugared Nice, the rebarbative ginger-nut". Also, though in general Icelandic hotel breakfasts are superb, there was an additional frisson at the Geo Hotel Grindavik to find that in addition to lavish spread of eggs, breads and rolls, ham, salami, pate, salmon-roe-in-a-tube (shades of this!), cheese, pastry, fruit, yogurt, etc., there were also two little canisters of biscuits next to the tea and coffee station: Bourbon biscuits and custard creams! Which remind me so much of my English grandmother....

Small houses

A short history of the doll's house (FT site registration required). I wish I'd gone to see that shop while I was in Paris (though truthfully I already did about as much as I can manage): but it does seem as though I should see the exhibition when I am in England next summer....

"Hamster dreams of sushi"

The link did not come from B., but the post title did!

"I want candy"

I want some of these!

Closing tabs

Tiny books of the Bronte children: digital facsimiles here. These are so amazing (I think the link came via Becca?)....

Also:

The Lawn Road Flats chronicled (truth is sometimes more interesting than fiction!).

Jim Holt on the conundrum of personal identity.

Abandoned settlements of the far north. (Via Anna.)

Closing tabs

I'm slammed with work just now: lingering post-semester/post-travel fatigue and lots of exercise are at odds, alas, with the monstrous productivity I otherwise desire!

Two dissertation defenses this week, and a host of other student meetings. I have also rashly agreed to write four tenure letters this summer - it was three, the first two I automatically say yes to as a matter of principle and the third is someone I know quite well and would like to help in any way possible. But then I couldn't say no to the fourth, either - though I now have declined #5, as that is genuinely too many.

Happy to be back at home with cats, but a little dismayed at how fast the summer is slipping through my fingers - hopefully if I can really have a productive week, I will get myself back in a good work groove?

Closing tabs:

Tiny Dubliners. (Via Becca, if memory serves, though that tab has been open for a while now....)

And an additional bit of Joyceana from Anthony Burgess (via Andrew Biswell).

Enjoyed The Gloaming at LPR last night.

Have had some very decent light reading (airports, planes, subways, etc.): a teaser for Taylor Stevens' forthcoming Vanessa Michael Munroe novel, The Vessel (this is the only other series I know of that approximates the pleasures of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books - I really like 'em); Stephen King, The Shining and Doctor Sleep (will save thoughts on this for elsewhere, as I am blogging this week to celebrate publication of the style book at the Columbia UP site and still have four more posts to write!); Rachel Howzell Hall, Land of Shadows (unfair of me to single this out, there's really nothing wrong with it other than a pervasive air of unreality, but I am now officially swearing off the police procedural for a while, I'm sick of 'em!); and James S. A. Corey, Cibola Burn. I loved it - this series is amazing, though I do wish that they would stop having so many different characters have the gift for MacGyveresque engineering problem-solving - it is plausible that one or two would have that sort of imagination, but once you bestow it on everyone, the whole thing starts to seem remarkably fictitious!

My family and other animals

At the FT, Ben Martynoga visits Jane Goodall in her family home at Bournemouth. Really enchanting picture at the bottom of Goodall's "favorite thing":

As a 12-year-old, she joined eight matchboxes together to make a stack of small drawers and filled them with dozens of handwritten scrolls; each slip of paper contains a quote from the Bible. Goodall made this Bible box as a gift for her grandmother and, for more than 50 years, the family have used it as an inspirational lottery.

(Photo credit: Victoria Birkenshaw.)

It is difficult to overstate the extent of my youthful obsession with Goodall: I really thought for many years that it would be my vocation in life to go and study chimpanzees (or perhaps gorillas) in their natural habitats. I can't pin the date down exclusively, but the book that was my utter obsession the year I turned eight was In the Shadow of Man. I read it again and again - and in fact in childhood times of stress and trouble I would retire to my room and contemplate the chimpanzee family trees on the endpapers and think about how much better life would be if I were living with a tribe of chimpanzees instead of a human family!

More things I like

I really want some of these! (Via Brent. It seems reasonable, doesn't it? Two cats and a small herd of pygmy goats: I think really they would be better pets than the capybaras....)

Cutest tool ever

Hopefully now I've replaced the battery my Garmin heartrate strap will work properly again.....

Strait is the gate

Octopus squeezes itself through small hole. (Via.)

Eye of the needle

The smallest printed book in history.

Made it safely to Cayman yesterday, though the early flight essentially means missing a night of sleep. Will go to 10am hot yoga to try and recombobulate! Signed on for double spin class tomorrow morning and a long ride outdoors on Sunday, weather permitting.

Style manuscript beckons - those revisions will be the main work I'm doing while I'm here, though I have a bit more work to do on the particular detail essay first.

Three entries

from Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book. If Barthes and Perec were both reading this, it would explain certain similarities between their writing that I've always been curious about (probably not very deep delving into the question would get me a satisfactory answer - I will follow up on this when I am back in New York).

Refined and elegant things - A girl’s over-robe of white on white over pale violet-grey. The eggs of the spot-billed duck. Shaved ice with a sweet syrup, served in a shiny new metal bowl. A crystal rosary. Wisteria flowers. Snow on plum blossoms. An adorable little child eating strawberries.
...
Cats – Cats should be completely black except for the belly, which should be very white.
...
Endearingly lovely things . . . Things children use in doll play. A tiny lotus leaf that’s been picked froma pond. A tiny aoi leaf. In fact, absolutely anything that’s tiny is endearing.

Data covered in cats

Twitter account details plotlines from unaired Season 8 of Star Trek: TNG. (Via Brent.)

NB this is clearly written out of same impulse that prompted the only short story I've written in adulthood! I should write another one like this sometime - many life stress problems would be largely solved if I could write shorter pieces instead of books primarily!

Sheets of jute

Olivia Fraser's neo-miniatures.

One writer cherishes the feeling of "seclusion and power" an attic room gives him.

I'm at the gate at the terminal at JFK. Slept one hour only, barely. Weary! Pilots just boarding plane: looks like it's a go....

Closing tabs

A conversation with Randall Munroe, including a fascinating description of the origin of the What If? series (via GeekPress):

It actually started with a class. MIT has a weekend program where volunteers can teach classes to groups of high school students on any subject you want. I had a friend who was doing it, and it sounded really cool -- so I signed up to teach a class about energy, which I always thought was interesting, but which is a slippery idea to define. I was really getting into the nuts and bolts of what energy is, and it was a lot of fun -- but when I started to get into the normal lecture part of the class, it felt kind of dry, and I could tell the kids weren't super into it. And then we got to a part where I brought up an example -- I think it was Yoda in Star Wars. And they got really excited about that. And then they started throwing out more questions about different movies -- like, "When the Eye of Sauron exploded at the end of The Lord of the Rings, and knocked people over from this far away, can we tell how big a blast that was?" They got really excited about that -- and I had a lot more fun doing it than I did just teaching the regular material.

So I spent the second half of the class just solving problems like that in front of them. And then I was like, "That was really fun. I want to keep doing it."

A journey into the opium underworld.

Miniature car models photographed (via Things).

Uganda's Royal Ascot goat races!  (Via Khakasa.)

Closing tabs

The most amazing tiny food ever!   (Link courtesy of Julia.)  His Etsy store also has some very good things: I will have to get the Christmas cookie earrings for someone I know will like them.

Stephen Burt on zines.

Edmund White on Cranbrook.

Minor opera thoughts to follow later this evening once I have (I hope!) finished my grading....

Dogs, cones

Tantalizing miniatures.  (Would be even better if edible!)  (Via Things Organized Neatly.)

Tiny Brontës

Tiny books at Houghton Library.

19 grams

Nano hummingbird!