haptalaon | And on the bookshelf

I read 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Johnathan Crary & I think it's going to single handedly turn out to be the most important Disconnection book I've ever read. It is a political critique of the pace of living, using themes like sleep, digital connection, technology and consumption to illustrate some problems of our age. I'm not doing it justice. It's not just a rant, and the focus is less on internet bad than capitalism bad with the web as a lens onto it.

I also found Lalla Ward's Embroidery Book at a second hand store and it's the fastest £1 I will ever spend in my life. The book has 12 tutorials for embroidery pictures using stumpwork. I lost my heart to stumpwork at the Avebury Manor museum - it's an Elizabethan embroidery technique where you pad under the embroidery so the picture has bumps, lumps and dimensionality. In the Snooker Room of the Avebury Manor is an A3 piece done by Leonora Jenner and I just lost 20 minute staring at it, and I pay for a ticket to go round the house again as often as possible just to see it.

The book can be borrowed at the internet archive, and anyone who wants a permanent pdf copy can message me, for I have Means and Tricks - or they are under £10 second hand.

From the book:

Restoration-era stumpwork:

Jenner's mirror from the museum:

And on the bookshelf

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