“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
― Gustave Flaubert

I’m transcribing interviews, sending out pitches and editorial work applications, and trying to convince myself to man up and turn this blog into an actual site with absolutely no design skills under my belt. Kudos, encouragement, and stern talking-tos are welcome. Here are your links, tell me what you’re up to in the comments – and don’t forget to tune in Sunday night to judge Oscar frocks harshly!

The chocolate business – bad for the farmers, massive price increases along the way, consumed almost entirely by the wealthy. Food (literally) for thought.

For those of you with littles, my friend Lauren runs an adorable custom order and online Etsy shop. And she’s discovered leather work resulting in some obscenely cute baby moccasins.

Winnie-the-Pooh is a childhood favorite in the Small Dog household. This brief 1929 recording of A.A. Milne reading one of his stories is adorable, I wish they could post the whole thing.

For those of you who needed Christopher Nolan’s Inception turned into an 80’s style game to complete your happiness, good news!

I’ve made major efforts to reform my shopping habits over recent years. Reading Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion convinced me to completely overhaul my relationship to clothes, and a run in with tourists has altered my meat buying habits (you can read about that over here where I write a monthly post on author Deborah Niemann’s site). But I confess, I don’t know how to reduce my dependency on phones and other electronics, which is a relationship we seldom recognize the human cost of.

In case you were in the mood to do some fantasy house shopping.

Jane Austen’s most well known juvenile work, a satirical history of England, is available online to read through the British Library – along with a staggering amount of other work, by the way.

Lovely piece on punctuation!

Hilarious expat buddy, foodie, and former caterer, Andrea from This New View gives an excellent rundown of her top picks for the much-maligned-but-really-decent-if-you-know-where-to-look British cuisine.

Author and former co-editor of Gawker Emily Gould writes straight up about how much it cost her to write a novel, financially and otherwise.

Interesting guest post on The College Prepster on the problem of uptalk, especially with young women.

Good advice for creative professionals.

By and large my opinion on them is to quote The Incredibles Edna Mode, “No capes!” But for some reason, I’m finding Leslie Tessler’s line oddly appealing…weigh in, ducklings. Are capes attractive, or silly?

And speaking of fashion, it’s that time again! The night when all the minions-with-opinions come out to question each one another’s taste and/or sanity! When if you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit next to me. The night where at least four of my friends email me with a subject line reading, “You are SO wrong!” The Small Dog Annual Oscar Dress Review is going down this Sunday! In preparation, your homework is to read this (quite good and interesting) piece from Vanity Fair on the work of the modern Hollywood stylist.