Spent the last few days arranging all the year's work, turning everything into pdfs to prevent platform rot, putting everything in the proper. Toted up the 2014 work:

Strib: 313 pieces (including online)

Magazine articles : 28

Novel: 1

Book contribution: 1

Blog entries: 260

Website additions: approx. 600 pages (!)

Podcasts: 60

Misc: 15

Videos for work: 23 (I think.)

Compared to last year, that's . . . almost identical. I'm in a rut. But it's a productive rut.

End of the week, end of the 2014 folder. Everything must go!

I've seen this on the shelves for years, but never really noticed how the lion is dead, and surrounded by an infestation of flies:

Their website explains. "Lyle had strong religious beliefs, which is why the tin’s famous logo depicts strongman Samson’s ‘lion and bees’ from the Bible’s Old Testament, registered as Lyle’s trademark. ‘Out of the strong came forth sweetness’, as the quote goes; where bees produce honey inside the lion’s carcass, rich syrup pours from the well-loved tin."

Not a mental image I'd want to promote, but there you have it.

Wonder if they make a sugar-free version.

In the hallway of the newspaper, brought out for the recent open house: an old ATEX terminal, the clunky clackety black machine on which we wrote our deathless prose. Gaze if you will on this keyboard:

Oh so many function keys. If you're in the business, you know what H & J meant. You may want to take a crack at it in the comments.

As the cliche says: you had one job.

And because it's Friday, a rather judgmental Pupdate.

If he wondered why I wasn't happy with him and was giving me doubt in an equal measure, it's possibly because he ate all the lefse. All of it. About two pounds. After which he did not stir for seven hours.

I never quite understand why everything on the web doesn’t look different in January. It’s the perfect time to redesign everything. You are perhaps noting that this site is the same as it’s been for all of 2014; who am I to carp and cavil? Someone who has been tweaking the 2015 Bleat for the last month, that’s who.

The result is my favorite design of them all. You may of course disagree. But a design is nothing without content, and perhaps you’d like to know what’s coming up. When I said "everything must go" above I did not mean that everything had gone. Ho no. At least 200 items slated for the 1930s site didn't make it. Scans of a 1920s Typography book. (20 pages.) Eight separate sites in Miscellany. Two old New York Hotel updates. Lots of stuff in the 20s site; a site on 1940s and 50s bathrooms. For starters. I'd like to get to half of it this year.

As for the Bleat, a lot of the same: B&YW World, Product, and Serial return, with few changes. LISTEN will have a much wider selection fo clips, and a weekly obscure tune from thrift-store / antique-shop visits. Main Street continues, but will occasionally alternate with something else:

Pictures from the big cities. The accidental art of Google Street View.

That’s the stuff that runs on the Bleat. The updates to various sites continues in the usual pattern; Motel Postcards returns in the summer. Matchbooks on Monday; Comic Sins on Tuesday - although the first part of the year will be devoted to Classics Illustrated, five per week, and that’s some grim business. It’ll be followed in a few months by . . . this fellow.

Found these in Usenet newsgroup, and have been cleaning them up for general release. It's the late 19th Century Tom Swift, and it's absolutely fascinating.

On Wednesdays, five pages a week of . . .

Sci-fi covers from the 50s to the 80s. Again, something I found on the Usenet, but instead of just dumping it out and saying here are some covers whatev enjoy I've tried to repair them as best as possible and add some investigation and commentary. Even if you don't like sci-fi, these will be interesting. Really!

Really! On Fridays, no more Patriotica; the 40s site is taking a breather, and a new one has been prepared for your enjoyment: The Sixties. But not the "Sixties" of the popular narrative. Not the counter-culture Sixties. The Culture Sixties. The L-7 World, Herbert. The culture of the Squares.

That's just a taste. Lots more to come. Last year I spent a lot of behind-the-scenes time redoing the entire site, and this year I spent a lot of time preparing new sites and big additions to old ones. Hope you enjoy it, and I thank you for your patronage! See you Monday at the all-new Bleat.