We're all trying to be careful with our language, so as not to offend, or not to lose federal funding for talking about paragraph transitions. To help you out, here's a worksheet to guide you in swapping out troublesome phrases for real, historical eel expressions. 🗃️🧪

Special collections is up on the top floor of our building, which means great views….and occasionally seeing a peregrine falcon snatch a pigeon and take it up to the roof to feast, with the Feathers of the Slain drifting down past our office windows like snow.

This Natsume is insanely gorgeous and I having such a hard time not buying it.

I picked up some quail from the farmer‘s market on a bit of a whim and cooked it up for dinner last night. They are small enough that the most effective way to eat them is to really just pick up the whole bird and gnaw away. It made me feel like a medieval king.

So, today a caller called me uncharitable and demanded to speak to my supervisor because I would not give them a duplicate book that we have listed for sale as a freebie. It was quite a conversation.

Okay, my “no new fountain pens” goal lasted about a year. Sailor got me again. But how could I resist the seasonal waka line?

I slipped an AirTag into my travel backpack on this last trip, and it fell out somewhere in IST. It lives there now. I don’t want to deactivate it because I am curious to see if it goes on adventures.

Customs Agents: What do you mean you’re bringing sheep bones back? Me: Oh yeah, it’s this traditional Mongolian form of fortune telling that uses the ankle bones of sheep and I so I picked up a set. Agents: Um, okay.

Did I deliberately opt for a super long layover in Istanbul just so I could go to a hamami? Maaaaaaybe.

Our final morning in the Gobi.

Some scenes from the Ten Thousand Camels Festival in Mongolia. They honestly are gorgeous animals.

Yes, it is often cold AF, but Mongolia in winter is beautiful.

We saw the Takhi in Mongolia’s Hustei National Park. They are the only true wild horses.

Arrived safely in Ulaanbaatar, ready to experience some Mongolian winter!

All right, we’re in for a 30 hour travel day, how many books can I finish.

Today I learned from a talk by Lydia Kang that we have Sylvester Stallone’s mother to thank for rumpology.

Caught the Anselm Kiefer show at the art museum before it closes, and while I wasn’t really blown away, I desperately wanted to touch all the globs of paint.

Me: Makes New Year’s resolutions to get healthier. How it’s going:

First time using this shelf for a tea procedure. We love a fancy shelf. :)

Everything is bleak, so have a cat playing around at a tea ceremony lesson for a moment of levity.

Annual Display of Rare Anatomical Texts! Vesalius’s time to shine!

Curious how the devastation of WWII is fading from living memory even as the state of education and historical literacy in the US continues to get worse and worse. Having an understating of history doesn’t prevent awful acts, of course, but do we have to repeat all the awful parts of the 20th c?

Oh, so it’s the early 00s again except this admin isn’t even going to bother with peddling lies about WMDs as justification for their regime change/occupation goals.

Sometimes you have to be improvisational at your hatsugama.

The North Point Lighthouse in Milwaukee was a new to me experience, and it was A Delight.

I’m not sure the whole “hot sauna followed by plunge into Lake Michigan” routine is for me, but it was fun to try it out.

Now I know I am a cantankerous old person: since I could sit silently through Wagner’s Götterdämmerung at age 11, I expect children to be silent for the Nutcracker (and parents to teach this).

Takeaway from the latest Avatar movie: when it comes to being a parent, Jake Sully is

I wouldn’t consider myself a “holiday spirit” lover, but after being at the European Christmas markets I’m feeling decidedly gloomy and down and wishing I felt a bit more festive.

My heart still yearns for Alsace. I want to buy a rambling old Fachwerk house there and become a winemaker. Surely this is feasible.

I can go months without a single call to my work number, but whenever I am out for longer than two days, I will return to a barrage of voice messages.

Okay, so what program will let me live in Basel for a year so I can write the Paracelsus historical fiction novel?

All the fiction I write ends up being set in Alsace.

The Isenheim altarpiece is truly a masterpiece.

This bible printed by Johann Mentelin in 1466 in Strasbourg is stunning. A gorgeous example of manuscript and print artistry coming together. It’s part of the Dominican Library in Colmar, France - the Christmas Markets aren’t the only magical thing to see there!

800 year old architectural drawings for the Strasbourg Cathedral held at the Museum of Notre Dame in Strasbourg. None of our electronic records will ever last this long.

Spotted two printer’s marks in Basel: Holbein’s painting of the Froben mark in the Kunstmuseum, and a woodblock of Oporinus’s mark in the paper museum (sadly the mark used in the 1555 Fabrica, which is ugly compared to the one in the 1543 edition).

Basel is getting into the Christmas spirit with nativity scenes.

Found the Paracelsus birthplace.

@drkarrschmidt.bsky.social caught the ivory anatomical mannikin in the new Frankenstein, and there are more shoutouts for fans of #medhist! I was delighted that the wooden anatomy tables Harlander shows Frankenstein are clearly based on the Evelyn tables:

Today was our last tea practice with our teacher until spring, as she always spends the winter in Japan. We used the kotodana shelf, always a fun procedure.

Fun discovery @theulspeccoll.bsky.social today: wonderful 1820s imagery depicting the 11th-century samurai warrior Minamoto no Yoshiie, changing into his armour. CUL FJ.973.50.

A 400-Year-Old Ring that Unfolds to Track the Movements of the Heavens www.openculture.com/2025/11/a-40...

Yeah, NYC!!!!

Academic press catalogs are my Achilles Heel; I browse through them and end up buying a bunch of books for personal reference that then join my personal book forest.

Today was my tea group’s last time using the Nagano-an tea house for the year. It’s always so nice to drink tea there - a nice quiet oasis.

In honor of Josh Hawley’s op-ed in the NYT today:

I suppose it turned out all right (our other Rare Book Librarian has awesome design skills).

This is coming from a place of deep frustration, so I am aware that this is a massive generalization and not universally applicable, but right now: I Hate Faculty.