#and maggie’s bookbinding

[licnheartedd]

i will forever be obsessed with how talented my friends are

[symptomofloves]

tagged by @hauntedwoman! thank you <33

are you named after anyone? no, my parents chose my name because it's pretty :)

2. when was the last time you cried? a couple of weeks ago when i had to admit my academic struggles to my mom... we decided that i should become a part-time student next semester.

3. do you have kids? no, & who knows if i will someday

4. what sports do you play/have played? now, my main forms of exercise are yoga, biking, walking, & the occasional run. when i was younger, i did gymnastics for nearly a decade <3

5. do you use sarcasm? sometimes, but it's not my main form of humor.

6. what's the first thing you notice about someone? in terms of physical appearance, their hair, the way they dress, & how they generally carry themselves. in terms of personality, how they express themselves & whether they make me feel welcome.

7. eye color? blue/green/grey - i like to say they're speckled like lichen

8. scary movies or happy endings? neither, i prefer bittersweet endings.

9. any talents? i like to think i'm a good writer & cook

10. where were you born? in a little university town in the south

11. hobbies? journaling, reading, bookbinding, letter writing to my grandma & friends, going to concerts, singing, sunbathing, collecting little things like acorns & shells to put on my dresser, burning cds

12. any pets? our little tabby cat miss misty :3!

13. height? 5'4" (162.5cm), same as maggie :)

14. favorite school subject? well, i'm an anthropology major with a double minor in art history & history. some of my favorite courses so far have been environment & culture, contemporary art & the search for meaning, & intro to the african diaspora.

15. dream job? i'm planning on becoming either a librarian or archivist, but i think being an ecologist, a bookstore owner, or a museum curator could be cool. also, i agree with you about being a radio show host!

tagging some newer mutuals: @hammondb3organcistern, @seconddoubt, @stellacadente, @unyearn, @yarrow-heather-and-hollyhock & anyone else that wants to do this :)

[itsjaywalkers]

hiii how about 💖, 📚, and 👽 <3

hi maggie!!

💖A drabble that made you want 100k more words

i don't think i can mention just one, bc i follow a lot of incredibly talented writers. honestly any drabbles or microfics i've reblogged here apply to this ask, i'd read a full chaptered fic based on them any dayyyyy!! but one that comes to mind is kat's (@messrsage) jegulus tatbilb au <3

📚A fic you wish you could display on your bookshelf

already answered this but i have ANOTHER ONE: i'll be home for the summer by @carniferous <3 i've talked about this fic A LOT and i literally reblog all of dil's writing immediately bc i'm in love with their brain but goddddd this story means the world to me. i discovered it so casually and i had no idea it would become one of my fav stories ever but here we are. i'd literally learn to bookbind just to have a physical copy of it as soon as it's done!! ibhfts lives in my mind rent free

👽A fic that isn't prose (poetry, text fic, etc.)

quite like us by @alarainai <333 one of the first jegulus fics i read and one of the main reasons i fell in love with the ship!! i devoured that story and it had me crying happy tears. i've reread it a few times and it's such a comfort fic, it has a special place in my heart

fic rec game

[twisted-tales-told]

Assumptions: you like fluffy socks, you own crystals, you have a clean bedroom/messy nightstand, you prefer hardbacks over paperbacks and you’re a foodie (lmao imagine I got everything wrong)

I own so many crystals & if you guys want, one of these days I’ll give you a tour!

My solution is throw everything on The Chair and still try to sit on it even though Stuff. I am the worst at Cups In The Room Never Leave.

So u are right about everything but two: I can only wear puma ankle socks because every other sock gives me sensory overload

And I’m a paperback bitch. If I could bookbind in softcovers without having to spend thousands of dollars in book binding technology I would do it in a HEARTBEAT. I love paperbacks so much, just…Cronch that spine. Cover rips? It’s called a Personality.

U can destroy a paperback and it looks LIVED in. A hard cover just looks like shit.

I do consider myself a bit of a foodie but in an Adhd & Autism way where it’s like the same 18 ingredients in new and interesting ways.

My assumption for you is: if you have not read the raven cycle series my Maggie steivater it would be ur favourite ever. (Now u have to read it to find out if I’m right hehe)

[formerlyknownas-delight]

I feel like participating bc New Year and such. There we go! Name: who's asking, the FBI?

Pronouns: She

Star sign: Pisces. I don't like that it's the only sign that's plural. Except gemini, but there it makes sense. Why several fish?? What are they doing together?

Number of siblings and fun facts about them: A slightly younger one who always has the best song recs. We mostly communicate via cat sounds.

Number of pets and their names: Bantam Silkie chickens: Fiederich the rooster and the hens Wilhelmine, Hilda, Rosalie, Agnes and Anathema Five cats: Charon "Fritzi" the former stray, Gwynn "Körnich" the beautiful orange idiot, Lieselotte "Lotte" the chonky introverted senior, Mucki "Don Muckelone" the scröngely mobster granny and Beau "Böbi" the visually impaired, kitten-sized annoying little sibling.

Fandoms: Alltime: Tolkien, Buffy, Ink-trilogy (which made me pick my path to become a bookbinder), The Tribe The Raven Cycle, The Locked Tomb, Discworld, The Sandman Call the Midwife (such a feelgood show), Critical Role

favorite color: Purple

favorite song: Alles ist Gut by Reinhard Mey

favorite author (books, fanfics, zines, webtoons, etc.): Tolkien, N.K. Jemisin, Maggie Stiefvater, Cornelia Funke, Tamsyn Muir, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

Favorite fic type: I very very rarely read fanfiction. I'm a simple woman: Explicit f/f with 3 chapters max

Favorite holiday: Halloween. No active christianity, no family obligations, recently a workfree day where I live

Do you have a partner (romantic, qpr, etc.)? 2! One for 13 and one for 3 years. We recently moved in together and it's a delight allaround.

Hobbies: So many crafts, for example resin pouring, crocheting, polymer clay stuff. But also reading. Playing video games (always Sims, but also DA, BG3, Planet Zoo...But I'm only good at Dorfromantik).

Fun facts about you: I'm a traditional bookbinder and love my job to bits, but I really despise doing paper crafts like origami or window decorations

[nellasbookplanet]

Progress is happening!

[thatfoolsophie]

Hello! Do you have book recs?

hello!!! it took me a hot sec to respond bc when i saw this i was like wait DO i have any book recs??? i just finished reading the his dark materials trilogy and i’m an emotional wreck, so jot that down. i also read the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater and six of crows by leigh bardugo recently and enjoyed them both a lot! (i, uh, initially thought they were the same series. i just remembered they were named after black birds! but they are Not The Same). raven cycle is modern magic + friends all in various intense kinds of love with each other + BEAUTIFUL prose, specific phrases from these books are engraved in my brain. six of crows is freaking cool worldbuilding + fantasy heist + group dynamics i would die for. the lord of the rings and the chronicles of narnia are longtime favorites and hold very special places in my heart! they’re fantasy classics but i can’t NOT mention them. and artemis fowl by eoin colfer, the bartimaeus sequence and lockwood and co. (both by jonathan stroud), and the inkheart trilogy by cornelia funke are also so fun & good! artemis fowl is fairies+crime+modern technology, bartimaeus is about a world where magician elite rule by summoning djinn, narrated by an annoyed djinn who is possibly the funniest narrator i’ve read, lockwood & co. follows a freelance ghost-hunting agency in an alternate, ghost-infested london. inkheart is......beautiful. it follows the daughter of a bookbinder who can read things in and out of books, and the writing and the world is just so lovely!

[microcomets]

2019 books in review

hello!! i’ve started to do this every year now because i love books lol. here were some of my favorites from this year!! starred are my faves.

fiction

station eleven by emily st. john mandel***

about the world following the end of the world and a traveling shakespearean troupe

the secret history by donna tartt*

[shane madej voice] we’re here for the cult stuff

gathering of waters by bernie l. mcfadden* (southern gothic)

southern gothic/magical realism narrated by the town of money, mississippi about the lynching of emmett till 

sing, unburied, sing by jesmyn ward* (southern gothic)

a family from mississippi struggles to heal from the ghosts of their past & present

fruit of the drunken tree by ingrid rojas contreras

an author’s recollections of growing up in a war-torn colombia

cat’s cradle by kurt vonnegut

not even totally sure how to summarize this one tbh but i did love it

big little lies by liane moriarty (mystery)

PTO mom drama and also someone’s dead

the witch elm by tana french (mystery/thriller)

after being dealt a traumatic brain injury, a man attempts to solve the mystery of a body discovered in the tree of his family home’s backyard

death on the nile by agatha christie (mystery)

yer classic whodunit

dark places by gillian flynn (mystery/thriller)

the protagonist digs into her past and the unsolved murder of her family, and ends up on the run from a killer

house of broken angels by luis alberto urrea

a large mexican family comes to terms with the imminent death of their patriarch

fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury

what if reading was punishable by death? and other fun questions that are still terrifyingly relevant

eleanor oliphant is completely fine by gail honeyman

a very lonely and traumatized woman learns to make human connections

to the lighthouse by virginia woolf

some people go to a lighthouse. whether or not they get there is the burning metaphorical question of the novel

the girl on the train by paula hawkins (mystery/thriller)

a woman whose life is falling apart sees something that she’s not supposed to on her morning train ride, and gets sucked into the center of a murder mystery

the bedlam stacks by natasha pulley

fantasy/historical fiction set in the 1800s wilderness of peru

sula by toni morrison

the story of two black women who go from best friends to enemies, both outcast by their community

practical magic by alice hoffman

two witchy sisters and their family try to break an old curse and also keep a body hidden

the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle by stuart turton (mystery/thriller)

a man with no identity or memory has to solve the murder of the titular character, but in the bodies of eight different people where the same day repeats eight times

where the crawdads sing by delia owens

the protagonist is an orphan who raises herself in the isolated wilderness of the north carolina marshes; plus a love triangle and a murder mystery

she would be king by wayétu moore

historical fiction/magical realism about the history of liberia and america; the three protagonists have supernatural powers that bring them together across africa and north america

the round house by louise erdrich

a native american boy attempts to solve and seek justice for his mother’s unsolved rape on his reservation (rape cw)

queer lit

call down the hawk by maggie stiefvater*

first book of “the dreamer trilogy” following “the raven cycle”

in other lands by sarah rees brennan*

a boy named elliot discovers there’s another world beyond ours, and that it has cute boys and mermaids

the binding by bridget collins**

a bookbinding apprentice learns the magical craft of memory-binding, which is more sinister and powerful than he ever would’ve imagined

on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong*

a vietnamese man writes an open letter to his mother about his childhood, trauma, memory, queerness, transnational identity

the second two books of the captive prince trilogy by c.s. pacat (prince’s gambit* and kings rising) (non-con cw for the first book)

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid*

an aging hollywood superstar spills her entire life story to an up and coming journalist, which includes her seven marriages and the secret love of her life

the wolf in the whale by jordanna max brodsky

historical fiction about the ancestors of the inuit tribe and the vikings; the protagonist journeys to save the gods of her people (rape cw)

red white and royal blue by casey mcquiston

enemies-to-lovers with the president’s son and the prince of england

everything under by daisy johnson

a completely unique queer retelling of a classic, tragic myth that involves water monsters

birthday by meredith russo (ya romance)

eric and morgan are tied by fate when they’re born on the same day in the same hospital; morgan, who’s trans, struggles to transition and tell her lifelong best friend who she really is

wayward son by rainbow rowell

sequel to carry on

once & future by amy rose capetta and cori mccarthy

campy queer arthurian retelling....in space?

sci-fi/fantasy

the long way to a small, angry planet by becky chambers** (also queer lit)

found family in space!!!!

a closed and common orbit by becky chambers* (also queer lit)

standalone sequal to tlwtasap where non-humans learn to become humans and belong

spinning silver by naomi novik*

miryem, the keen and no-nonsense daughter of a moneylender, has an uncanny knack for profit that draws the attention of fey winter creatures from the wood

strange the dreamer by laini taylor

involving a lost city, dream-worlds and half-gods

muse of nightmares by laini taylor*

sequel to strange the dreamer (wouldn’t classify as queer lit but does have great queer characters)

king of scars by leigh bardugo

first of a series following both the grisha trilogy and the six of crows duology

ninth house by leigh bardugo

dark academia, secret societies, a murder mystery, and a girl who can see ghosts (observe the warnings for this one!! it’s very grimdark so there are quite a few.)

the deep by rivers solomon (also queer lit)

a race of merfolk, who are the descendants of pregnant african slaves thrown overboard on the middle passage, relive their traumatic histories

the bear and the nightingale by katherine arden

medieval russian folklore/fairy tale woven into the story of a girl who protects her village from evil

the amber spyglass by philip pullman

third book in “his dark materials” trilogy

the ocean at the end of the lane by neil gaiman

a man returns to his childhood home for a funeral and childhood memories of events there come rushing back—memories that are far too strange and terrifying to be real

the descendant of the crane by joan he

fantasy novel set in historical china; the protagonist is a princess dealing with the death of her father as she tries to protect magical folk from getting killed and prevent a war

young adult

on the come up by angie thomas

a young woman pursues a rap career in the face of family struggles

tunnel of bones by victoria schwab

the sequel to city of ghosts about a girl who can see beyond the veil into the world of the dead; this time she’s being haunted in the catacombs of paris

darius the great is not okay by adib khorram

darius, who feels unremarkable about everything, takes a family trip to iran and meets his first true friend

horror

wilder girls by rory power (also queer lit)

all-girls high school trying to survive in the apocalyptic wilderness of the northeast (body horror cw)

the hunger by alma katsu

a horrific reimagining of the famed donner party’s doomed 1847 trek across the u.s. west

misery by stephen king

a famous author gets trapped and tortured by a psychopath who forces him to write more of her favorite novels

ghost wall by sarah moss (also queer lit)

things go south when a girl and her abusive, history-obsessed father attempt to live as ancient britons once did as part of an anthropology course 

the woman in black by susan hill

a man sent to collect a dead woman’s belongings from a spooky house steps into a hateful haunting

nonfiction

i’ll be gone in the dark by michelle mcnamara*

about one woman’s obsessive and meticulous hunt for the golden state killer

bad blood by john carreyrou*

an investigative journalist details one of the most ambitious startup scams in silicon valley history

gentleman jack: the real anne lister by anne choma 

a companion novel to the show about the uk’s first lesbian marriage from the insanely detailed diaries of anne lister

becoming by michelle obama

michelle recounts her childhood, her marriage, and her years as first lady

poetry/short stories

devotions by mary oliver***

song for the unraveling of the world by brian evenson

the lottery and other stories by shirley jackson

the heart and other viscera by felix j. palma

for last year’s rec, click here! for more of these insightful reviews, message me to ask for my goodreads. :)

[maraine]

getting to know you !!

BASIC INFO

name: marin elisabeth fitzgerald

pronunciation: mare-inn ee-liz-uh-beth fits-jerald

nickname(s): mare, moron, missy ( only by her parents, and occasionally her siblings )

age: twenty-six

date and place of birth: march 3, 1994 ; boston, ma ( grew up in gorham village, me –– born in boston because of hospital size/resources )

astrological sign: pisces ( natal chart here )

gender: cis female

pronouns: she/her/hers

nationality: american

ethnicity: caucasian

occupation: innkeeper at the bookbinder inn

education: ba in general studies from the university of michigan

religious beliefs: agnostic ( she would probably say ‘spritual,’ she likes the thought of being guided by something )

THE PHYSICAL

height: 5′4′ ( 162.5 cm )

weight: 129 lbs ( 59 kg )

body type: mesomorph ?

hair: blonde ( previously: red ; naturally: brown )

eyes: hazel

clothing preferences: softer the better, occasionally frilly girl-y old fashioned type things

defining features: strong cheek bones, wide jaw

voice tone: slight new england accent, occasional vocal fry

blood-type: O positive

allergies: soy, mild lactose intolerance

ROMANCE

sexual orientation: bisexual

romantic orientation: biromantic ( though has only dated men, because she’s afraid of women )

do they have a type: people who read, though not exclusively

pet peeves: people who are rude to customer service workers ( and inconsiderateness more generally ), chewing with mouth open

PERSONALITY

likes: small groups of friends, tequila, cigarettes, maggie rogers music, libraries, bookstores, lots of coffee, reusable tote bags, nice silverware, red sox baseball, spending time with her family

dislikes: large crowds, uncomfortable conversation, being cold, yankees baseball, rugby, the beach, anything ‘gummy,’ the study of economics

ambivert, introvert or extrovert?: introvert ( personality type INFP, myers briggs results here )

FAMILY ( family template here )

siblings: four –– elena, harrison, edgar, sofia

birth order: marin is the middle child

parents: william fitzgerald jr. (†) and julia harrison fitzgerald

children: n/a

do they want kids: unsure

SKILLS  

what language(s) do they speak: english, some french

what are they talented at: marin is a pretty decent home baker and amateur photographer

what is a hidden talent no one knows of: marin can sing and play guitar pretty decently, and she likes to write.

what are they worst at: besides making decisions? probably being bold

A DEEPER LOOK

WHAT IS THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR FAMILY LIKE?:

marin and her family are particularly close, and are in contact a lot of the time. there were some rifts after the death of her father, but those have mostly been cleared up in the years since.

DESCRIBE THEIR PERSONALITY:

marin’s goal is life is probably to make sure that other people feel seen. she’s an idealist, and tends to romanticize things unnecessarily. because of her awareness of this, she doesn’t give much of her true self, preferring instead others to share with her. as the middle child, marin spent a lot of her time growing up sowing peace between her siblings, and she continues to value harmony over all else, even if that comes with sacrifice. she has a tendency to set herself up for disappointment, take things too personally, and to be somewhat impractical.

ARE THEY HAPPY WHERE THEY ARE IN LIFE:

more or less. marin is not really decisive or motivated enough to push beyond where she is now, so she would probably consider happy, or at least contented.

WHAT IS THEIR DREAM:

again, because of her indecision, marin isn’t one to commit herself to a ‘dream.’ really, her dream would be for no one in her life to ever get hurt ( or for herself to get hurt, though that does come second ), and to be happy and comfortable. and maybe to have other people make decisions for her.

[authoraptaber]

The Little Bookshop of MURDER by Maggie Blackburn

The Little Bookshop of MURDER by Maggie Blackburn

Summer Merriweather’s career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder’s thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper’s pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an…

[uicb]

As the show was just deinstalled from its display in UIowa Special Collections, we wanted to offer our congratulations to Leslie Smith for receiving the Handy Books exhibit purchase prize for her book "Inner Rooms." Also recognized with honorable mentions by our jurors were Maggie Heineman, Colleen Lawrence, and Lisa Miles. In her work "Inner Rooms," Smith combines the contemplative and the surprising, wherein the serenity of the individual mind at work—its grasp of and grasping after memory and place—opens itself to unexpected directions. "Gamete•Zygote•Embryo•Fetus•Neonate:" Synthesizing disparate sources and using the book format to imagine anew ideas about fetal existence, Heineman animates the entire piece with intelligent whimsy. In "Toward a Natural History of the Corallines," Colleen Lawrence worries the history and devolution of coral by overturning the book aesthetic of eighteenth-century print, employing white ink and hand lettering against translucent handmade paper mixing gray and indigo coloring. In “An Exploration of Friends; Taking into Consideration that I Love My Friends & I Don’t Eat My Friends; A Brief Internal Inquiry of the Pig: A Sentient Animal Which Possesses Mental Capabilities on Par With a Three-Year-Old Human Child,” Miles produces a homespun keepsake that is by turns edgy, sentimental, and funny, petitioning its audience through a witty use of crafty books that never loses it sharp critique. #bookarts #exhibition #awards #bookbinding #artistbooks #handbound #art #show #craft #uiowa #uicb #uispecialcollections #handybooks #cognition

[singbox13-blog]

Philly Used to Be a Cat Town. Now It’s Gone to the Dogs.

Crankcase

Screw you, New Philly, and your schnauzer too.

Philly dogs have taken over our once cat-loving town. Photograph by Colin Lenton

When I moved to this city fresh out of college in 1978, I brought with me my cat, Julio, who’d been living (illicitly) in my dorm room. I rented a ground-floor apartment at 21st and Walnut — it cost $145 a month — and Julio and I settled in. The married couple in the apartment next door, Geoff and Danielle, had a couple of cats. Jimmy, the gay guy who lived above them, had a Persian, and Liz, the girl who lived above me, had a loud Siamese. This was a city of cats then; you’d walk down the block and see them sitting in windows, dozing or eyeing pigeons dubiously.

We had cats because cats were suited to the way we lived. We were homebodies; there were so few reasons not to be. The city had hardly any good restaurants — Steve Poses had opened Frög, the sword-tip of the renaissance vanguard, five years earlier. There was Bookbinder’s — well, there were two of them — where no one could afford to eat, and there were joints like Little Pete’s, where anybody could. A few years earlier, Chestnut Street had been closed to private vehicles to create a “transitway” for pedestrians and buses. The result was a bleak, empty canyon slicing through the city. Muggings were rampant. There wasn’t any nightlife except for a bunch of cheap bars — McGlinchey’s, McGillen’s, Dirty Franks — whose surly, sullen bartenders (cheers, Ruthie!) would have laughed in your face if you’d asked about the cocktail du jour.

Sounds awful, doesn’t it?

It was great. Did I mention the $145 rent? There wasn’t any traffic, because nobody could afford cars. It was so safe to bike in the streets that I was a bike messenger for a few years. There was no such thing as social media, so no one cared that there was no place to go. You’d have the neighbors over for beers, then cook up some burgers or chicken while cats wrapped around your ankles. Why go out? Where to?

None of us had dogs. Dogs were for suburban tract houses, out where there were fences and kids. It wouldn’t be right to have a dog here. It would be heartless to leave it cooped up in a tiny apartment all day.

But you could leave a cat with a litter box and a big bowl of dry food while you went to the Shore or the Poconos for a weekend. And you would go to the Shore or the Poconos on weekends, because the city was old and bleak and gray. You kept your head down when you walked those mean streets. You got where you were going. You didn’t linger. There weren’t marathons or pop-up bars or Restaurant Weeks or Roots Picnics. We weren’t sharers. We kept cats, and we kept to ourselves.

•

I don’t know when the changeover began. I’m not sure when I started to see them — the dog people — out on the sidewalks and in the parks, strutting and smiling and greeting people they didn’t even know. Oh, maybe there had been a poodle or two in Rittenhouse Square in the old days, walked by a butler or prim Chanel-suited matron. But the two veterinarians closest to my apartment were cats-only. I don’t remember any pooper-scooper laws; instead, there were occasional polite signs suggesting that you PLEASE CURB YOUR DOG, which, for the uninitiated, means have it defecate in the gutter instead of on the sidewalk. No one was asking you to pick up that poop. There literally weren’t enough dogs for anybody to care.

Maybe the switch dates from 1980, when the first Broad Street Run was held. That same year, the Phillies won the World Series and then the Eagles went to the Super Bowl, startling us all. Or maybe it was in 1984, when developer Willard Rouse III announced that he was raising One Liberty Place, busting through the longstanding “gentleman’s agreement” that no building in Center City would be taller than City Hall. (Such a rebel!) Or 1991, when Ed Rendell was elected mayor of a city on the brink of bankruptcy and vowed to turn it around.

Rendell was big and gruff and loud, a transplant from New York, where they’ve always had dogs, because New Yorkers don’t care about anybody else’s quality of life. He had dogs — a succession of golden retrievers (what else?), Mandy and Maggie and Ginger and Royal. When Maggie died, Rendell penned a tribute that read, in part: “I lived on this earth for over 73 years and as a trained lawyer, the most persuasive empirical evidence I have found about the existence of God is that someone must have done something to create that special bond between dog and human. It exists for us with virtually no other animal and I can’t believe it was just an accident.”

If you’re touched by that, you must be new around here. Philadelphians are cat people — private people — and private people don’t emote this way. We might whisper in Kitty’s ear while cuddling her in our lap, but we don’t shout it from rooftops. We’re tidy as a litter box. We don’t slobber. We don’t wag our tails. We have dignity.

You have to stay a little removed, after all, in a city of rowhomes. You have to pretend you don’t overhear the couple next door arguing in bed, or notice the booze bottles in their trash can, or see the underwear hung out to dry in their backyard. You have to remain aloof — like a cat, you know? You mind your own business, addressing a paw with your tongue while the bill collector knocks just across the street. That’s the way our moms and dads were. That’s how we were, back before Ed Rendell.

•

Once, this was a city of suspicious nocturnal predators. Today, it’s home to cheerful tail-waggers, and the difference is as startling as Dorothy’s transition from Kansas to Technicolor Oz. There are now dozens of dog parks in Philly. There are bakeries that will make your dog a custom birthday cake, and doggie haberdashers where you can get Sparky suited up for your wedding or a holiday. There’s puppy yoga at breweries and Yappy Hours at bars. As I head into work along South Street, I pass two doggie daycares as well as an Unleashed by Petco (which has a self-serve dog wash so you can scrub the city grime off Rocky) and an outpost of the chic local chain Doggie Style Pets. There are Philly folks who’ll perform acupuncture on your dogs, and tattoo artists who adorn human arms and legs with canine faces. It’s a rare cafe that doesn’t have a doggy water bowl beside the outdoor tables. You can even bring your pup with you to work, if your employer is Urban Outfitters HQ or Neff Associates or Petplan, the Philly-based pet insurance company started by two Wharton students. There are dog walkers galore, along with trainers and groomers and therapists and psychics and programs where kids read to dogs. I and my kitty kin sit at home and marvel at this canine industrial complex. According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent $72.13 billion on Fluffy and Squeaky and Tug last year, with the annual cost of cat ownership two-thirds that of a dog, at $988 vs. $1,549. That cat cost is wildly inflated, btw, since it budgets $30 annually for toys. You only buy toys for your cat the first few months you have her, until you figure out she doesn’t give a damn about toys; she just wants to chew your houseplants.

Dogs, if I can be frank, are the spawn of success and gentrification. The Inquirer said so two years ago in an article called “If It Seems As If Dogs Are Everywhere in Philly’s Gentrifying Neighborhoods, They Are.” It quoted a Villanova economics prof, David Fiorenza, who says millennials are having dogs before they have children. A third — a third! — of American millennials who buy houses cite wanting more space for their dogs — a motivating factor that outranks marriage or the birth of a child. A WHYY report last year on gentrification in Grays Ferry quoted a longtime resident, 83-year-old Theodore Jackson, on the subject of his new neighbors: “They love them dogs.” Hey, that wasn’t a cat mask Chris Long put on.

One consequence of the influx of pups has been an influx of poop. Those “Curb your dog” signs are gone, replaced by ones warning of $300 fines for not picking up after your pet. (By “pet,” we don’t mean cat. And by “picking up,” we don’t mean putting that shit in a plastic bag and depositing it on someone else’s stoop.) If you want to get Old Philadelphia going, start a conversation on this subject. Beneath our (cattily) inscrutable expressions, many of us are seething with resentment toward doggy doo. “I see it everywhere,” one co-worker who lives in Rittenhouse hisses. “I stepped in some this morning,” another bitches. Neighborhood blogs froth at the mouth about the excrement situation. In 2018, Beth Ann Dombkowski, a resident of Passyunk Square, mounted a gallery exhibit of photos she took of dogs as they were pooping. In 2012, a Tacony man was shot to death by the guy two doors down for not picking up after his Chihuahua. Which reminds me: Earlier this year, a South Philly dog owner died after being punched, allegedly by another dog owner whom he’d asked to leash his pet.

Cat people don’t kill each other. We have no reason to.

•

Last April, the City of Philadelphia’s verified Twitter account tweeted out:

ANNOUNCEMENT: After noticing that our top audience interest is DOGS, we have decided to become a dog and cat rating account. Reply with your dog and cat pictures and we’ll rate them.

The “and cat” was a sop; felines were nowhere on the accompanying chart, which showed the account’s audience interest in dogs at a staggering 100 percent, ahead of “weather,” tech news” and even politics. Granted, the tweet went out on April 1st. But even on April Fools’ Day, the joke worked because it rang true: Who doesn’t love dogs?

Once upon a time, Philadelphians didn’t. Back in the day, this city’s sports heroes were cat-like loners like Allen Iverson and Mike Schmidt. Now, New Philadelphia has rallied to goofy Cameroonian wolfhound Joel Embiid and bulldog Bryce Harper. The favored writers in my salad days were embittered sourpusses — Stu Bykofsky, Christine Flowers, Buzz Bissinger. In March, the Inquirer — the city’s newspaper of record — started a new Sunday section, “The UpSide,” that prints only good news. Yippee, puppies and rainbows all around!

This city you kids are making is a foreign place to us — bright and happy and colorful and buzzing with life. It has parklets and bike lanes and hammocks you can hang in. It’s got more City Council candidates than you can throw a stick for. It wins all kinds of awards — for new architecture, new recreational venues, new chefs. It’s been declared best place to visit and City of the Year. Its sports teams are in ascendance. Clearly, you newcomers think this relentless assault of excellence will pound down our native gloom and let the sun shine in. Haven’t we ever heard of cats’ bad habits — that they hang out with witches and suck the breath from babies? Don’t we want our faces licked?

Um, no. No, we don’t, thank you. We’re into pain; isn’t that obvious from the public officials we elect? We’re proud that Slate recently labeled cats “the world’s most uncooperative research subject,” and that a study in the journal Animal Cognition concluded that “the behavioral aspects of cats that cause their owners to become attached to them are still undetermined.” You dumb kids, we loved this place when it was a pit.

So go ahead and encourage us to adopt our very own bowwow buddies. Keep telling us how comforting a dog would be in our dotage. Go on saying: “You think you love that cat. Wait till you try a pup.” Sashay past us with that dachshund dolled up in a Rhys Hoskins jersey, or your chow chow with the lion cut, or that terrier with the tie-dyed hair. Woo us with research on how people who share their homes with canines are healthier, happier, and less likely to be visited by thieves. We’re Philadelphians. We know exactly what you’re up to. A new study from Penn Med says the number of olds who suffered bone fractures from walking their dogs more than doubled from 2004 to 2017. A full 17 percent of the total injuries were hip fractures, which just happen to give us a 30 percent chance of dying within a year. You kids may be yanking at the leash to take over this town. But Kitty and I will just wave from the window, thanks.

Published as “It’s a Dog-Eat-Cat World” in the June 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Source: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/06/15/philly-dogs-cats/

[todopapel]

Ok Maggie Holmes lovers! Knock yourselves out with this amazing book binder created by Jess @bitznpieces91 this is Carousel collection galore! It is a beaut! BIG #shoutout 🙌🏼 💗🎠 🎪 🎟 💗🎠🎪🎟💗🎠🎪🎟💗 @todopapeldotcom @todo.papel.inspiration . . . . . . . #maggieholmes #maggieholmescarousel #maggieholmesprojectshare #snailmailrevolution #happymailswap #happymailday #crafters #igcrafts #todopapeldotcom #happymailswap #happymailday #bookbinder #magical #igcrafts #craftersofinstagram #papercrafts (at Times Square, New York City) https://www.instagram.com/p/ByarNF_pR7P/?igshid=11ct5bu3tk4s3

[jenniferfaye34]

#Giveaway ~ Little Bookshop of Murder (A Beach Reads Mystery) by Maggie Blackburn... #books #CozyMystery #readers

Little Bookshop of Murder: A Beach Reads Mystery by Maggie Blackburn

About Little Bookshop of Murder

Little Bookshop of Murder: A Beach Reads Mystery Cozy Mystery 1st in Series Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (September 8, 2020) Hardcover ISBN-10: 1643854380 ISBN-13: 978-1643854380 Digital ASIN: B0818ZX2NY

A Shakespearean scholar inherits a beachside bookshop--and a murder mystery--in this delightful new cozy series for fans of Kate Carlisle and Ellery Adams.

Summer Merriweather's career as a Shakespeare professor hangs by a bookbinder's thread. Academic life at her Virginia university is a viper's pit, so Summer spends her summer in England, researching a scholarly paper that, with any luck, will finally get her published, impress the Dean, and save her job. But her English idyll ends when her mother, Hildy, shuffles off her mortal coil from an apparent heart attack.

Returning to Brigid's Island, NC, for the funeral, Summer is impatient to settle the estate, sell her mom's embarrassingly romance-themed bookstore, Beach Reads, and go home. But as she drops by Beach Reads, Summer finds threatening notes addressed to Hildy: "Sell the bookstore or die."

Clearly, something is rotten on Brigid's Island. What method is behind the madness? Was Hildy murdered? The police insist there's not enough evidence to launch a murder investigation. Instead, Summer and her Aunt Agatha screw their courage to the sticking place and start sleuthing, with the help of Hildy's beloved book club. But there are more suspects on Brigid's Island than are dreamt of in the Bard's darkest philosophizing. And if Summer can't find the villain, the town will be littered with a Shakespearean tragedy's worth of corpses--including her own.

About Maggie Blackburn

Maggie Blackburn is the author of the Cora Crafts mysteries and the Cumberland Creek mysteries under another pen name. Her books have been selected as finalists for an Agatha Award and a Daphne du Maurier Award and as a Top 10 Beach Reads by Woman's World. She has also been short-listed for the Virginia Library People's Choice Award. She is the mother of two young women who are off following their dreams in the music business. She currently lives in Waynesboro, VA, and works at the University of Virginia as a development associate.

Author Links

Website - http://www.molliecoxbryan.com     Twitter - @molliecoxbryan

Purchase Links:

Amazon - B&N - Kobo

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[wordsbetweenthelines]

hey there self

today was sunday

you slept in

had dreams about.................a hospital ice cream shop founded by woodrow wilson? and picking out a bunny for kayla?

well it made sense this morning

then dad set off the smoke alarm and maggie came to hide in bed with you

had clam chowder, with a tragic lack of hearty bread

took the dogs out, neighbor dogs came for a visit, it was a surprisingly warmish day, so rosy bullied you into resetting your worm bin, and you brought all pets, cat and all, out to enjoy the sun and fresh air while you dug for worms

they were surprisingly populous and surprisingly healthy! but several cold, darkening, achy hours later, you were only half way done sorting worms from castings, so you put three bins back in the garage to finish doing tomorrow

and went inside for dinners and warming up and bookbinding tutorials

tomorrow

wake up

breakfasts all around

SHOWER

teeth

clothes

walk keita

finish sorting worms

cat foodmonger?

help make dinner

[maggievalera]

I liked a @YouTube video https://t.co/4fMJRwDMWT Basic DIY Bookbinding Demonstration with Hot Glue Gun

I liked a @YouTube video https://t.co/4fMJRwDMWT Basic DIY Bookbinding Demonstration with Hot Glue Gun

— Maggie Valera (@MaggieValera) October 27, 2018

from Twitter https://twitter.com/MaggieValera October 27, 2018 at 01:18AM via IFTTT