A Brief History of Cat Art

July 15, 2019

...oot Simple reader Annie tracked down Burbank for me. She says, I believe “Burbank” is J. M. Burbank: “A Favourite Cat” “The Gourmand” There is a bit about “A Favourite Cat” here: And this book has a section on Burbank Thanks Annie! Beyond the cat-centricness of this post, if you’re looking for a few hours to kill I can’t recommend The Studio enough. You can find the whole shebang here. Notable is how seriously the editors considered the art of cas...

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A Manual of Needlework and Cutting Out

Mr. Homegrown

February 19, 2019

Domesticus

2 Comments

...Please enjoy this manual of the lost art of hand sewing by Agnes Walker published in 1907 and recommended by YouTube sewing sensation Bernadette Banner. What makes the book useful is that, unlike a lot of sewing resources, there’s not a lot of assumed knowledge. The book also shows the high level of craftsmanship expected of young children before the great crappening of the mid-20th century....

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Why I’m Growing Vegetables in a Straw Bale

Mr. Homegrown

May 29, 2019

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

10 Comments

...me grown vegetables we’ve tried the methods of every gardening guru with a book: biointensive, biodynamic, raised beds, pots, self-watering containers, straw bales and just plain old by-the-book science-based, extension service advice. Results have ranged from moderately successful to moderately tragic–mostly moderately tragic. Over the years, our vegetable garden has shrunk from ambitious proportions to a tiny 3-foot by 8-foot raised bed filled w...

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My Favorite Podcasts

Mr. Homegrown

March 2, 2015

Podcasts

16 Comments

...ole and Victorian children’s author Favell Lee Mortimer’s offensive travel book. In Our Time Host Melvyn Bragg corrals a posse of academics to discuss topics in history, religion and philosophy. When guests drop big words like “hermeneutics” and “teleology,” Bragg always brings them down to earth and makes them explain things in plain English. This show has filled in many gaps in my education and functions as a reminder that not all of the media i...

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GM and the Red Cars

Mr. Homegrown

April 8, 2019

Transportation

2 Comments

...ing those streetcars. It reminds me of Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism, a book that haunts me every day. In it Fisher describes describes how we all seem to be unable to imagine a future that’s not some dystopian, privatized nightmare of the sort imagined in the 2006 film Children of Men. When I see charts like the one above, taken from a Los Angeles Department of Transportation report, I can’t help but think of Fisher’s book and what Nic suggest...

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