No improper books have come my way

“Have you read anything interesting lately, Gregory?” said Geraldine.

“No. No improper books have come my way. And I am too young to read anything suitable for me. If I don’t have to hide my books from my mother, I can’t take any interest in them.”

—Ivy Compton-Burnett, Men and Wives

what's up

1. I used to spend maybe 8-12 hours per week on a sideblog on Tumblr for images from the history of the decorative arts. Then I succumbed to the idea of talking to the followers directly (it has around 8000 which is waaaaaay more than my normal Tumblr or my pet photo blog) and got some asks that threw me into social confusion and then shame and avoidance and I just didn't update it for like three years. In retrospect, also, the amount of time I was spending on it shortly before I stopped was not practical and sustainable. But I got into a discussion about rococo, and started looking some things up in curiosity, and I had never posted very much about rococo before. And now I started posting there again a bit! (It's called designobjectory.) It started a week ago with curiosity about the early output of KPM porcelain (the royal porcelain manufactory of Prussia originally, iconic) and has led to the discovery of Weimar classicism in the form of Goethe's house.

2. I inked my two 1.1-mm stub nib fountain pens — well, actually, a Lamy Safari 1.1-mm stub and a vintage Pelikan 400 (mine is brown tortoiseshell, a holiday present a few years ago) with a (pre-existing) custom oblique stub that is about 1.1. — and have been practicing calligraphy a bit, which I haven't done in a while because I haven't had any of my italic pens inked. I spent some time on Gothic capitals, because I want to do more Rotunda, and then Carolingian, which I haven't bothered practicing in the longest time.