Merrily Scrolling Along
This one is about finding something else to rabbit hole on and the value of archives.
I have a set of calendar pages depicting a modern Labours of the Months over on Itch.io, there's a free option with a nice size for digital things and for $2 you can get a nice printing size. Both come with a text file describing the images and what all is represented in them. I'm proud of this project, and for finally finishing it!
What if for this newsletter I just share some of my favourite resources? And I mean like: museums. People talk a lot about the bad parts of the internet but the part I love is how much there is to find. And yes, also I was so excited to start a new year of newsletter but then also my brain has been very busy with many things! There is a lot going on in this world!! So lets look at stuff together.
First though, let's set the mood. Tree.fm is what it says on the tin. Click in and listen to a random forest. Birds, water, wind. It's just forest soundscapes from around the world and is very cool.
Most of the cool stuff I look at is things from museum collections. Museums get all the stuff. One of the Big Names, The Getty, has a pretty dang impressive collection available to browse online. That link there takes you specifically to images that are open content, so you can download them! Which is great because The Getty is kind of hell to get to. We did go there at the start of the year, and I'm still thinking about this bed.
Image description: An over-the-top very pink upholstered bed with shiny rich upholstery that begs your fingers to trace the patterns. The frame of the bed is gold, with chunky floral details. It's a dog bed for fancy dead French people. End ID.
From the caption, please take in the dimensions?!
Jean-Baptiste Tilliard (French, 1686 - 1766) Bed (Lit à la turque), about 1750–1760 Gessoed and gilded beech and walnut; modern silk upholstery Object: 174 × 264.8 × 188 cm (68 1/2 × 104 1/4 × 74 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 86.DA.535
We had gone to Getty so I could look at some manuscripts, because mostly that's what I'm going to go stare at, if you have them. What is very cool is how many manuscript collections exist online. Yes, zooming in is not the same as peering very close to the glass and getting a little teary eyed at the history of bookbinding but!
The British Library was recently able to bring back over 1,000 of their manuscripts after a cyber attack in 2023, and I know that people are always hot for the gold and colour of things like books of hours, but please? This bird?! I immediately lost what page that was on but all the birds in this one are Good.
Image description: A crop of manuscript with the kind of Latin calligraphic text you'd expect. There are two simple line drawings with a lot of feeling; one of a bird looking kind of bummed and kicking a foot up, and the other of a bird perched on the legs of a smiling reclining person.
MS 11283. Bestiary, 4th quarter of the 12 century. Latin.
I love collections, the array of archives and how different things must be preserved. While my partner was getting their Master of Library and Information Sciences I tried to soak in all the info ambiently. Europeana takes thousands of collections, from all over Europe, puts them together in one easy to browse spot. Want to look at snowball fights scattered across place and time? Learn about iridescence on objects and art? Stare at some illuminated initials? They got you.
Speaking of archival preservation though, thinking of the particular issues for this plant specimin, which is a climbing shrub, could you tell? Like, whew. This is from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands which frankly looks a dreamy place.
Image description: Faded crunchy leaves attached to a looooong stem wrapped in gentle loops and taped in place. A sprig of probably a twiggy flower is included. End ID.
Capparis erycibe Hallier f. - Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Netherlands - CC0.
Obviously, libraries are a great source of collections you can just poke around in. And a lot of them have menus, which are weirdly fun. NYPL's What's on the Menu project was finally retired, but the digitised menu collection is still available. There's some fun stuff in there, like a menu cover that looks like a mussel shell, that also has some hand-written additions inside it. LAPL has their own menu collection and I'm sure there are plenty of classy wonders in here but I'm desperately taken by the laminated, spiral-bound vibrancy of this one for the Acapulco. The specials card for the day or week is still on this page!
Image description: A scan of an aggressively teal and mustard yellow early '90s menu page that features a lot of torn paper edges as aesthetic. A little clip is visible on the page that holds a shocking pink card listing the specials. End ID.
Anyway, there are a lot of things to scroll out there, and a lot of them are joys and wonders.
Now some books, haha, the original scrolling (lol, not really, scrolls are the original scrolling, not our modern codices). Links go to the Storygraph entries for each title, a great place to check out content warnings and find ways to read them.
- The Winter Knight by Jes Battis is a queer urban fantasy that was particularly fun for me, a person who only knows Arthurian stuff from The Sword in the Stone and other not-quite-it media. I knew just enough to be like "ooh I think this is alluding to The Green Knight (which I have read)" but also to not get somebody was Galahad until like three-quarters in.
- Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O'Reilly is a heartfelt, funny delight of a memoir. Multiple laugh out loud moments for me and also just such a loving portrait of a family.
- Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban is one of those classics you might not know about, though you've seen the ripples. Set in the far distant future, the language is its own creation, and it takes a bit to get into it but once you do it goes. If you've seen Mad Max III, with its colony of feral kids, you've heard a little of what the language is. It's post-apoc, it's got Punch and Judy, it's something else.
Fog and clouds, as I think befits February!
Image description: A photo of clouds like pulled-apart cotton balls, grey against a blue sky so pale they feel the same colour. End ID.
Image description: A photo of bare tree branches against a night sky, a streetlight glowing behind them to throw them in to silhouette. End ID.
Image description: A photo of a smooth, empty, four lane road going under the spoked white arch of a bridge, all of it fading dully to fog, the dark scratch of a tree line in the background. End ID.
Some small delights and small steps.
- Speaking of archives and collections, The Transfeminine Review has a great and important recent piece on preserving trans literature that has some very easy actionable items, like creating a micro library.
- Back a million years ago (like almost 20) I used to be part of Swap-Bot, which is a mail-based swap community. Everything from bookmarks and postcards to Artist Trading Cards (remember those?!) and other crafts. There's some big joy in sending and receiving mail, in creating physical connections, and this is a fun way to do it.
- Speaking of scrolling, this food timeline from is a simple scroll with lots of little links to learn more about foods (like grapes) and recipes (like goulash)
- Forward Momentum and a Parallel Toss by AnaMaria Curtis is a great short story about farming, marching band, and also rebellion.
- Having trouble remembering a word? One Look thesaurus does a pretty decent job taking a couple of words around a word and finding the thing you're looking for.
I always share some resources for supporting Gaza here, but if you're looking closer to home, Black And Pink is a Black-led prison abolitionist organisation that supports LGBTQIA2S+ folks and those living with HIV/AIDS within the criminal punishment system.
If you've thought of donating eSims, this guide was very helpful, and Crips for eSims for Gaza is a good option if you can't easily manage topping them up. There are also more traditional donation targets like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, UNRWA, and Doctors Without Borders. If you prefer giving directly to families, Gaza Funds is a nice resource that facilitates finding campaigns.