Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England, by Margaret Spufford (ISBN 0416741509):

The case of William Johnson of Lincoln, who was born in Scotland where his father died insolvent and became a pedlar in England, is an instructive one. He carried a pack of linen as a pedlar and by 1718 was able to take up a small shop in Lincoln where he at first sold hardware, caps, handkerchiefs and other ready-made wear in linen. He became a wholesale linen draper and a freeman of the city and eventually left a fortune of between 8000 and 9000 [pounds]. William Johnson’s successful career from pedlar to freeman and shopkeeper suggests that the nineteenth-century Scottish model of a successful chapman’s career may well hold true for earlier periods.

[meme via Words’ End]

“Hack your way out of writer’s block,” at 43 Folders. I think my favorite is “Talk to a monkey – Explain what youíre really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.” In general, I subscribe to the “Write for 10 minutes no matter what” technique. A good way to start the day with a strong cup of coffee.

Don’t read this autobiographically, dear reader, but I’ve been wondering (based on a number of conversations with others recently) if there might be a universal theory of calling it quits. How can you tell when it’s time to…

• …end a bad romantic relationship?
• …give up on a creative project?
• …toss an intellectual project in the dustbin?
• …stop taking your drunk relative’s calls?
• …leave an unsatisfying job?
• …cease trying to rehabilate an unproductive bunch of students?

Or do you take Winston Churchill’s words to heart and never give up?

I’m getting an odd couple of error messages on the latest version of MT-Blacklist as I work on setting up a new installation of MovableType as I work on the new version of Palimpsest. First, I notice that after a user posts a message, they get the regular “Thank you” notice and then this:

Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at plugins/Blacklist/lib/Blacklist/App.pm line 44.

Second, at the bottom of the main Blacklist admin page, I get this:

Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /home/gwilliams/public_html/cgi-bin/extlib/File/Spec/Unix.pm line 78.

Neither of these appears to affect negatively the function of MT or of Blacklist. Any thoughts on how to get rid of these?

Mugs, baseball caps, t-shirts, and stickers.