It's Friday the 13th! Here, have a book completely unrelated to that:
It looks fairly straightforward from here, but this is a bind of @dietraumerei's wonderful Good Omens series, The Sprawl of Life. It's a canon universe, pre-season-2 South Downs Cottage fic, and I typeset it when I did because I'd just watched season 2 and wanted the fluffiest, sweetest, most slice-of-life thing I could think of and this was it. Seriously, if you have been personally victimized by the season 2 finale this might be the antidote you're looking for. Though admittedly some of the lines do hit a lot more bittersweetly now than they did when I first read it in 2019.
More pics under the cut! This one's got an unusual format, go have a look!
It's a dos-a-dos! My first one! Before I started making books I'd never even heard of this format, but I've been wanting to try it ever since I found it. It's hard to find stories that suit the format, though--they've got to be within a certain word count, about the same length, and related to one another, and they have to be a pair, not a three or four part story. They look super complicated without (I've found, anyway) actually being that hard to make. If you want to impress a non-bookbinder make one of these to show them; all my family were fascinated by it.
For materials, the floral cover is scapbook paper from Joann's (the fancy stuff that's very flexible and feels handmade) and the spine is Allure book cloth from Hollander's in the wisteria color. It's a perfect match for the lavender in the paper. I've only previously used the Lineco/Books By Hand book cloth and gotten good results, but my experience with that brand in general was that it's a cheap, readily available base for starting out, but there are wider and better quality options out there once you get away from chain craft stores. Working with this cloth was proof of that. It's stiffer than the Lineco stuff, which made it a little harder to glue down but not enough to cause problems, and it took HTV better than any other surface I've used it on. Here, check out the spines:
Images of the spines. In case the photos are a little blurry, that's Demolishing Proofs We Never Believed In on the left and The World and its Beautiful Particle Logic on the right. The titles gave me some worries. I didn't want to obscure more of the florals by putting them on the front, but was worried they wouldn't fit on the spines since they're so long. I got them on, but it took a lot of careful measurements. Still, though, I couldn't be more pleased by them, and I barely had any of my usual trouble getting the HTV to stick.
Handmade end bands on both sides, in colors matched to the cover paper. I was a little worried about making my own for this project since the text blocks are only about 100 pages each. I was worried they'd be too short. But they're not, and I got a really nice front bead on them. I wanted to do three colors but that proved too challenging for my current skill level. Maybe next time. The second image is the endpaper. Specifically it's the back endpaper, so you can see how the second spine fits into the case. When you read a dos-a-dos, you read the first part, then flip it over like you're going to read the back blurb and there's the second part ready to go. I only explain this because, having never made one, I thought you flipped it over top-to-bottom until I did the case fitting for this one. The top-to-bottom one it called a tete-beche and I think does not have the shared cover board in the center; the pages are connected upside-down. (This is all from my limited research; pro bookbinders please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Couple of interior images. All the graphics came from rawpixel and they are the same in both halves. I kept the typeset really simple on this one, without any extra graphics. Partly that was to keep the page count down (images can take up extra space) and partly it's a reflection of the text. It's a happily ever after story, mostly. Their lives are so much easier here than in canon, and the focus is on communicating without barriers or frills and on building their relationship without other things getting in the way. So it's got a fancy title page, because it matches the cover, but the rest is straightforward with just some simple swirls around the chapter numbers.
I couldn't be more pleased with how this turned out. I was worried it would be very complicated since it's a new-to-me build, but I was exaggerating the difficulty and that made for an easy bind. I hope the author likes it too.
the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again
are u ever sick w longing. and i don't just mean romantic longing. i mean longing for a place you barely get to see, longing for friends you no longer have, longing for feelings you might have left behind in your childhood, longing for creativity, longing for a rich and more expansive life, longing for less inhibition. longing for more passion. longing for ur life to be so incandescent w something it thaws all the frost in ur bones. are u ever so consumed w it it rends ur heart in two. do u understand me
nimona (film that was saved by netflix after disney canned it along with closing the studio that was making it) and the boy and the heron (2d animated movie, the type that disney doesn't make anymore due to "limitations with the medium") getting animated feature noms at the oscars this year and not wish... bro that's funny
a man self immolated in front of the israeli embassy in washington dc yesterday. not just any man. an active member of the us air force. he live streamed his death, and said that he refused to be complicit in a genocide any longer. he said that compared to what palestinians were facing every day, setting himself alight was nothing.
let me reiterate. an active duty air force member burned himself alive because he was so disgusted by what the us government was openly supporting. he live-streamed his own suicide, so the whole world could bear witness as a man in his military uniform set himself on fire to protest his government’s complicity in the horrors that we have all been forced to watch happen in real time. he became a new horror. footage of the immolation blurs him out the moment the fire catches, but you can hear him. it is over in seconds, really, but you can hear him screaming. he shouts “free palestine” until his body physically cannot make any sounds other than guttural screams of agony. and then he falls silent. a police officer arrives and points a gun at his still burning body, shouting at him to get down on the ground. and it is over.
his name was Aaron Bushnell. he was twenty five years old. and he isn’t here anymore because the political ruling class has decided that genocide is perfectly fine as long as it preserves imperialism. in the coming days, people will try to discredit him. to say that he was mentally unstable. they will try to bury his actions to save face and defend israel’s propaganda. do not let them. aaron knew what he was doing. he knew what he was doing when he put on his military uniform, set up his twitch stream, and made his final walk up to the embassy. he knew what would happen to him when he flicked that lighter. do not let them forget. aaron’s blood is on the hands of the political ruling class.
THIS is deux face, a two-headed cow who is 7 (seven!) days old as of writing. She was born on a farm in Louisiana in the US and she is a beautiful miracle. If u want to learn more about her check out this post where I share updates from her farm (last updated: 3/6)
Now that the quality of Duolingo has fallen (even more) due to AI and people are more willing to make the jump here are just some alternative apps and what languages they have:
Language Transfer (Languages: French, Swahili, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, English for Spanish Speakers)
"I want a good audio-based app and money's no object"
Pimsleur (Literally so many languages)
Glossika (Also a lot of languages, but minority languages are free)
*anecdote: I borrowed my brother's Japanese Pimsleur CD as a kid and I still remember how to say the weather is nice over a decade later. You can find the CDs at libraries and "other" places I'm sure.
"I have a pretty neat library card"
Mango (Languages: So many and the endangered/Indigenous courses are free even if you don't have a library that has a partnership with Mango)
Transparent Language: (Languages: THE MOST! Also the one that has the widest variety of African languages! Perhaps the most diverse in ESL and learning a foreign language not in English)
"I want SRS flashcards and have an android"
AnkiDroid: (Theoretically all languages, pre-made decks can be found easily)
"I want SRS flashcards and I have an iphone"
AnkiApp: It's almost as good as AnkiDroid and free compared to the official Anki app for iphone
"I don't mind ads and just want to learn Korean"
lingory
"I want an app made for Mandarin that's BETTER than DL and has multiple languages to learn Mandarin in"
ChineseSkill (You can use their older version of the course for free)
"I don't like any of these apps you mentioned already, give me one more"
Bunpo: (Languages: Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Mandarin)
my prof just explained on the syllabus that he’s included more points in the class than we needed to pass, so we could skip up like?? 20 small assignments/quizzes/participation!! and still get a very high grade!!
the idea was that we could focus on assignments that played to our strengths - only do the participation stuff if we like to talk out loud - only do the quizzes/readings if we want to do the class remotely - only do online discussions if we like to talk and share opinions but struggle with anxiety in class ect.
and that’s cool enough but then he pulled up DnD character sheets with drawings he’d done of these hypothetical student player classes and how our various accessibility needs could be gamified to ‘max out’ different aspects of the class to get high grades and like!!!!!
hell yeah!!!! let’s treat accessibility in higher education not just as a necessity but as the fun, engaging, and creative aspect of learning that it is!!! I love this!!
EDIT: For proper credit or further questions about his system please find my professor on twitter @/kurtishanlon