This is an old edition of Meanwhile from an inferior, more simian newsletter platform that has unhelpfully severed all the hyperlinks. It’s included here in the archive simply for sake of completion.
Happiness is a dog ear
The Happy Reader editor Seb Emina talks to Its Nice That about making the magazine, and the importance of creating something usable: "Print can easily become a fetish, like the hipster romance novels in a cafe that no one looks at, but everyone loves to consider. We really wanted The Happy Reader to be interacted with, and that’s an instance where print just is better. It gets battered, you can read it whilst walking, fold it over, hold it in one hand like a book and have your coffee in the other. You don’t feel like you can’t use it."
A Burglar’s Guide to the City
Long-time readers will know that barely a week goes past without me linking to (or stealing a link from) BLDG BLOG's Geoff Manaugh, who has a canny knack for scrutinising the intersection of architecture and … pretty much anything. His new book examines the complex connection between architecture and crime, and of course looks utterly fascinating. The Wall Street Journal and LA Times reviews are worth a read.
Pelican Shakespeare
I'm loving the new look Pelican Shakespeares, with illustrations by Manuja Waldia. Odd that they have Penguins on the covers though, and not Pelicans. Kind of makes the ornithological distinctions redundant. Or were they actually written by a pelican called Shakespeare? You know what they say – if you give a thousand monkeys a thousand typewriters, one of them will turn out to be pelican Shakespeare.
1,000
A text editor that only allows the 1,000 most used words in English (inspired by Randall Munroe's excellent Thing Explainer). I shared this on Twitter the other day, and was surprised by just how much derision it received. Seems like a potentially valuable tool to me. There's a big difference between dumbing down and simplifying.
Mooncop
Tom Gauld's new book is available to preorder, which is jolly good news. It may not be the comicisation of Duncan Jones' Moon that I was holding out for, but it'll do for now. (Please note: I can't be held responsible for the consequences of confusion between Mooncop and Mooncup. You clean that up yourself, young lady.)
That is all.