Rebecca
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jeybecques.bsky.social
Rebecca
@jeybecques.bsky.social
2.1K followers 2.5K following 1.4K posts
Current librarian, former classicist, perpetual nerd. Expect special collections, book history, yarn.
“Is there anything you aren’t interested in??”
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jeybecques.bsky.social
well that’s one way to wake up on a friday
meme image of a gilded reliquary skull; the first panel is a wide view with text “what is this post you have shared with me my child” the second is a closeup where you can appreciate the horror in its sapphire-filled eyesockets, and says “oh no my face eyes”
November 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
Oh, that’s interesting - but unfortunately this is the only full gathering! We only have two chapters of the text. It’s also mostly unopened, so this is my current draft model, with checkmarks on the things that are unambiguously attached (and not deep in a weirdly glued gutter)
Annotated model of a gathering, question mark indicates a messy tear that looks like it matches
November 12, 2025 at 11:09 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
how. how do you manage to do this to a perfectly nice gathering.
Swedish book, open to pages 42 and 35, side by side in that order blue cover of the same book, beside three folded sheets of scrap paper on which I have attempted to reconstruct the process
November 12, 2025 at 8:52 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
I felt really bad laughing at this but it has amused me on and off for like a month so I’m sharing it anyhow. This poor person.
Leather bound series of the Botanische Zeitung, but something seems a little weird about the spine label Closeup to demonstrate that the Z in Zeitung is not flush with the rest of the leather spine label, but appears glued on top Extreme closeup of two volumes, one with the Z slightly battered and the other having completely lost its Z, only to betray the fact that our poor bookbinder accidentally tooled the whole 20+ volume set as “Botanische Beitung” and then had to go back and stick Zs on top of every single label
November 11, 2025 at 1:22 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
the realistic plant illustrator made a few startling and lovely appearances too
Sasaki’s Catalogue of the Government Herbarium, with a really fancy swirly serifed S and a lovely slightly abstract dot-petal flower and leaves Brandis’ Indian Trees, nice serifs on the name, evocative tiny landscape of a single deciduous tree with a stream or path winding beside it
November 11, 2025 at 1:15 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
A pair of extreme swoopy Rs (from two different people!)

seriously, someone had to have been pushing this; there are at minimum 4 different people who swooped their Rs here
Birmingham Botanical and Horticultural Society Annual Report, black handwriting on a somewhat unfortunate greenish yellow buckram, but seriously the tail of the R goes all the way past the M in Birm! Red buckram with white letters, Museum d’Histoire Naturelle. Once again the swoops are fully another letter wide, but this person serifs their Ts and Ls
November 11, 2025 at 12:55 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
starting with some solid simple design work
Narrow white lettering on a blue buckram spine; Murbeck’s contributions to the Flora of northwest Africa. Some nice ascenders on the Ns and of course a swoopy R 3 volume set of Ridley’s Materials for a flora of the Malayan Peninsula; simple clean white lettering on dark grey buckram. 5 volume set of Miquel’s Flora von Nederlandsch Indie - nice solid white lettering on green buckram, with that sort of art deco lowering of the middle bars of E and A. Also nicely proportioned on varying spine widths! another lovely simple one - Lecomte’s Flore Generale de l’Indo-Chine. I particularly like the nice rounded numbers and the superscript volume notation here
November 11, 2025 at 12:44 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
for reference, on a 1554 commentary on dioscorides, which definitely spent some time in Stuttgart and has a manuscript waste (+ alum tawed pigskin iirc) binding
fore-edge of a book with a simple footed cross branded deeply Also lovely metal clasps, one of which is broken
November 10, 2025 at 5:37 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
I wouldn’t have expected this guy to be so snarky but it just goes to show you can’t judge a book by its cover

(particularly when the cover was added a hundred years after the fact)
Spine of Richard Walker’s 1833 Flora of Oxfordshire, in a lovely pale blue buckram binding with attractively serifed handwritten title and cute floral star ornaments drawn on "To those, whom genius, or inclination prompts to devote time and attention to these minute and curious, and by no means, despicable investigations, in the scale of knowledge, we abandon the Natural System, (italics) by itself (end italics), without artificial aids. But, so long as the study of Botany is allowed to remain, as an elegant recreation for the leisure hours of nearly all classes of society, so long must the Linnaean, or some other system equally manageable, continue in use.”
November 3, 2025 at 10:01 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
To preface this: I am a huge fan of public art! Love cool murals and weird sculptures!!

HOWEVER

no thank you please
real weird ominous looking underpass with people shaped sculptures with their faces pressed into concrete pillars that are meant to look like trees
November 3, 2025 at 5:20 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
locally harvested eyeballs
Two people in witch hats and black outfits; one whose face is entirely long red hair and the other with googly (gummy) eyeballs
November 1, 2025 at 1:53 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
Indiana Jones at our door: I got an eyeball?
Indiana Jones halfway to the next house: DUDE I GOT AN EYEBALL!!!
poorly lit but atmospheric photo of candy bowl with various chocolates and large gummy eyeballs
November 1, 2025 at 1:39 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
my absolutely most niche airplanes game experience (probably) is that every single time I look at how many little planes are flying around England, I think of Puffin Cigarettes and the Importance of Air-Mindedness for British Boys
Screenshot of airplanes game, showing (actually fewer than is often the case) about a zillion little airplanes all over England That gentleman was closeted with Mr. Armstrong when the call came through. Whifflets were causing trouble. The sales of Whifflets had been considerably affected by the publicity methods of a rival brand, Puffin Cigarettes. The manufacturers of Puffins had had a brain-wave. They were giving away aeroplanes. In every packet of Puffins they enclosed a coupon, bearing the name of a component part of a popular little touring 'plane, suitable for amateur use. When you had collected your complete set of parts (numbering one hundred) you sent up your coupons, together with a brief essay on the importance of air-mindedness for British boys. The writer of the best essay each day became the recipient of a private 'plane, and a course of free instruction enabling him or her to take out an air-pilot's certificate. This happy scheme was supported by heavy advertising of a modern and stimulating kind: "The Future is with the Air-Minded"- "The Highest Flight in Modern Cigarette Manufacture"-"Puff Puffins, and Reach the Height of your Ambition" —and so forth. If you were incapacitated, by reason of age or infirmity, from enjoying the ownership of an aeroplane, you received instead a number of shares in the new issue of the Aeroplane Company involved. The scheme had the support of several notable airmen, whose faces, adorned with flying helmets, stared and grinned from every page of the press in conjunction with their considered opinions that Puffins were doing a valuable work in helping to establish British Supremacy in the Air. Whifflets were upset. They demanded, with some annoyance, why Pym's had not had this brilliant idea first. They clamoured for an aeroplane scheme of their own, with a larger plane and a hangar to keep it in. Mr. Armstrong pointed out to them that the sole result of this would be to confuse the public mind between Whifflets and Puffins, which were already quite sufficiently similar in quality and appearance to confuse anybody.
October 29, 2025 at 2:36 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
We turned on the magic hot water device today

All hail the magic hot water device
Self in oversized blanket hoodie with cat pattern, overlaid with vintage sign text saying Winter Is Coming
October 26, 2025 at 1:56 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
Oh no, I’ve just found the circulating library one! Spiritually akin to some of JJ Grandville and Giuseppe Arcimboldo?
A woman, but she’s made up of books
October 22, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
you don’t even have to be able to get air to air photos!!! we the people just want cool airplane photos!!!!!!
same meme but with three small piper comanche planes, one with its bonnet pulled down over its eyes, one taxiing with a perfectly nice background, and one in cream and brown on tarmac juxtaposed with a cool rock formation behind it
October 22, 2025 at 9:07 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
airplane game discord continues not to appreciate my memes

take the nightcaps off your airplanes for their glamor shots people!!!!!!!
the Winnie the Pooh sophistication meme, only I have photoshopped Pooh in his nightshirt into the first place, with a lovely t-28 Trojan only it has a dust cover over top, then standard sleepy Pooh opposite another Trojan, this one posed on the ground and looking shiny, then sophisticated Pooh in his bow tie opposite a beautiful aerial photo of a different Trojan
October 22, 2025 at 8:59 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
hemlock lady not here for any nonsense
moderately terrifying hemlock woman mixing up some poisons, with a Socratic rabbit drinking some to her side and a frog who has already succumbed adding to the ominous mood
October 21, 2025 at 9:06 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
sweet pea here to remind you to drink your water
Victorian woman / pea hybrid chugging from a watering can, with tragic wilting pea lady in the background
October 21, 2025 at 8:46 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
who needs real life when you can be a boozy grape lady with bird friend
Victorian illustration of a tipsy looking lady in a grape leaf dress with vines growing all over. She has a small bird companion and holds a bunch of grapes
October 21, 2025 at 8:43 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
so thanks to the airplane game that ate my brain, I learned about the aviat eagle, an aerobatic biplane

and now i desperately need an aviat Igel

because puns
badass looking little biplane with heavily stylized eagle paint job model of same airplane, only with very similar paint job that looks like a hedgehog instead
October 10, 2025 at 12:30 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
my most favorite stickers feel just a tiny bit too far beyond the line of professionally appropriate and I was so looking forward to using the sad shark
a sad poop emoji under a rain cloud a happy poop emoji with a party hat and confetti
October 8, 2025 at 1:50 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
very excited to find that the medium size rare books are not devoid of #pottani
Copperplate title page ornament with cherubs collecting plants and displaying them to an older and significantly more clothed artist
September 18, 2025 at 10:16 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
visited different library, found different cherubs!!
#puttiofscience
Closeup of copperplate engraving of three putti looking with great interest at a skull and a flensed arm woodblock ornament of two putti doing something probably unwholesome with a flask Full view of the copperplate title page of William Cowper’s 1698 Anatomy, with all sorts of allegorical shit I do not quite understand happening
September 18, 2025 at 10:14 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
747 my beloved
Blurry distance photo of 747 with sunset yellow clouds
September 14, 2025 at 12:22 AM