This is the week of receiving gifts, it seems.

When Kirsten Marie visited, she offered to make me some bling out of materials we bought at The Bead Company. I don't wear much jewellery, but I do appreciate handmade things. And so a few weeks later these earrings arrived by post and I think they are very, very pretty. I'm not a Slytherin but I am  a sucker for all things green and/or silvery. Thank you, Kirsten Marie!

And then Other Half gave me an abecedarium (of sorts) because he knows I love typography and lettering above most other things in life. And he got me a pop-up abecedarium! It's amazing. You can see how Marion Bataille's ABC3D works in this little YouTube video:

.. our new nephew (three weeks old!)..

.. the "Eye of Grampian" ferris wheel..

.. and Aberdeen beach where I found lava rocks.

(Thank you so much for your helpful and insightful comments. I'll reply to each and everyone of you once I've had some much needed sleep. We've been on quite a bus journey today.)

I have long been interested in and worked on the shift from (handwritten) manuscripts to the (printed) books. The shift is not as abrupt and clear as many people assume; post-Gutenberg handwritten manuscripts were still produced and printers arguably sought to make their product look as much like handwritten manuscripts as possible. Although The Scottish National Library do not hold any incunabula (as far as I know), I was pleased to see some early 16th century books which still displayed evidence of this urge to mimic handwritten manuscripts: typefaces designed to resemble handwriting, woodcuts trying to look like hand-drawn illustrations and rubrication (emphasising parts of the text using red ink). Gorgeous, fascinating stuff.

And Edinburgh was her usual, gloomy, beautiful, fantastical self.

I like visiting the city but I couldn't live there, I think.

Not Danish? Here's an explanation of why it is hilarious.

How badly do I want this uppercase scarf? Pretty badly, I tell you. The scarf led me on a typographic journey of the net which yielded new interesting sites: the & Blog, Bembo's Zoo which is seriously cool, FontStruct which lets you design your own (very basic) typefaces, and, er, The Swedish Furniture Name Generator.

Hey, I can't be all arty and intellectual all the time!

How about A.S. Byatt on textiles, textures and texts, then? It marries all my loves: books, texts, literary theory and, ahem, yarn.

Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on a spindle, the Lady of Shalott is entwined in thread, Silas Marner is enclosed in his loom - why have spinning and sewing so often been associated with danger and isolation? (..) We think of our lives - and of stories - as spun threads, extended and knitted or interwoven with others into the fabric of communities, or history, or texts.

Somebody at BBC is my new friend. Stephen Fry & the Gutenberg Press is showing on BBC4 tonight so whoever greenlighted that show gets to be my friend. Yes I'll sit there with popcorn shouting at the telly whenever they say something vaguely incorrect (or get too carried away with the entire 'cultural revolution' - too Eisenstein and not enough Johns for my taste. I just know they'll fly on the wings of the "printing press as agent for change" thing and there are so many problems with that idea..). Oh, my heart be still.

Related-ish: two ways of debasing/defacing/recycling books (delete as appropriate):
+ Nicholas Jones - Book Sculptor
+ How to make a handbag out of a book

I'm not sure I approve.

Saturday linkage:
Not All Men of the Future Wear Polyester Jumpsuits: "In The Antineutral Suit: Futurist Manifesto (1914), Balla railed against "neutral, 'nice,' [and] faded" colors, not to mention "stripes, checks, and diplomatic little dots." Instead, Futurist attire would be "Dynamic, with textiles of dynamic patterns and colors (triangles, cones, spirals . . .) that inspire the love of danger, speed, and assault, and loathing of peace and immobility.""

Speaking of fashion, do you have $8,901 to spare? If so, you might want to bid on an Elsa Schiraparelli item designed for and worn by Marlene Dietrich. I like the idea of a Schiraparelli gown - particularly one associated with Dietrich - it cannot get more arty decadence circa 1930 than that, surely?

Via my Other Half: Neil Gaiman on why books have genders. I could take or leave Gaiman, but it is an interesting idea. I might revisit that in a later entry.

Finally, Pictures of Walls. This site feeds into my preoccupation with public lettering/writing, of course. And funnily enough you also get pictures of walls there - which in turn have pictures on them. Gosh.

Right, let's move on to something a bit more interesting:
+ Fun Facts about the QWERTY Keyboard
+ The QWERTY keyboard and how it was adapted in Russia/The Soviet Union
+ Why the QWERTY keyboard got its layout
+ The QWERTY Myth

One of my favourite examples stem from my erstwhile hometown of Copenhagen, Denmark. I was walking along a wall when I noticed the street name elaborately carved into the bricks. Above the carved brick you had the traditional blue-white street sign with the same name. Two centuries of labelling streets in one go. I was excited by the juxtapositions: permanence vs. easily replaced and serif vs sans-serif. I was also excited by how the contemporary street sign had been placed higher than the carved brick as if to exercise its dominance, its importance.

One of my Scottish friends, Fi, works as a curator and we recently spoke about the concept of public lettering and writing. Fi mentioned that the first thing was sprung to her mind was the Scottish Parliament's Canongate Wall. It is absolutely fascinating: various stones with quotes on Scottish identity and history are inserted into an outer wall, so anybody walking along the street will be asked to reflect upon Scotland, art and identity. Even the pavement has slates engraved with sentences. And, as I agreed with Fi, that is really a great example of public space and writing being combined to great effect.

And then you have non-commissioned stuff like graffiti and posters and random notes put up in windows..