This week's links. Enjoy.
Daily Drop Cap
Each day typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische posts a new, hand-crafted decorative initial cap both for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere. Gorgeous work.
Best Second Hand Bookshops in Britain
Looking at this slide show of great second hand bookshops makes me yearn to spend a Saturday afternoon or two browsing the stacks of one of these fantastic places — or even better, visiting each one of them in turn.
Gourmet Cartoons
The sad news of Gourmet magazine's closure brings an era of elegant food writing to an end. Before it disappears for good, head over and have a look at their slideshow of cartoons that ran in the magazine each month during the 1940s and 1950s. Via Print.
A Goodbye to Gourmet
And while we're on the subject, here's a heartfelt goodbye to Gourmet by Diana Abu-Jaber, who wrote for it. A lovely quote from her tribute: "Gourmet showed us the real possibilities of food: It wasn't just to nourish the body or excite the palate, but to engage the mind and imagination, to magnify our experience, bringing us more fully into our senses, allowing us to be more completely alive."
Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus
A project by Julius von Bismarck & Benjamin Maushe, the Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story, which it does by converting the words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents — linked by over 22 million references — form the vocabulary. Fascinating idea. Via @Theispot.
My Parents Were Awesome
"Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome." So says the site My Parents Were Awesome, which showcases reader-submitted photos of parents when they were young and hip. Via things magazine.
How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect
Really interesting new insights into how the brain works — and emerging new theories about how indulging in nonsense (such as reading Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll) can make us more nimble thinkers.
Recycled Gasoline Stations
Slide show of images from the book Twentysix Recycled Gasoline Stations by Japanese-Danish photographer Eric Tabuchi, which looks at abandoned gasoline stations that have been transformed into everything from bakeries to a funeral parlor. Via Good.
(photograph from my archive of Domino Deco Files)