Oh, then maybe not so good for my dog. The last thing I need is a tripping corgi.

Chicken-foot leather is useful for inlays and onlays. It's also, by the way, frequently used for watch bands, because it's interestingly scaly, relatively tough, takes dye well, and is readily available.

The Evilrooster Bindery, of course, has plenty of chicken foot leather. Because I'm evil.

A spellbook, components included in the binding.

Chicken feet, perfect for binding "The Tale of Baba Yaga".

Serge #10: I'm more startled by the fishskins! (I", I know about eelskin, but tilapia?)

Soon Lee #13: (nice snag on the # :-) ) All she needs is some bat wings and eye skin of newt.

I had some salmon skin as well, but I used it. It was pretty garishly dyed.

My tilapia is undyed, kind of a grey color, with a grid-work of leather sticking up a little where the scales were.

A really nice printing of the Witches' Song from Macbeth would suit a toadskin binding.

Just Hamlet. Not a Complete Shakespeare or Collected Tragedies. And it's got to have cloth-covered boards.

(Why? I have a sewn copy of Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that I want to rebind using only a binding of Hamlet for materials*. I need to unweave the cloth and spin the strands into thread to sew the book with.)

* OK, that and adhesive.

Perfect for school books.
(BAM!)
Ow.
That frying pan hurt.

(<nudge> "That's "spark", Dave."
"Why? What difference does it make?"
<ZAP!>
"Ow... OK, 'spark' it is...")

Book Description: Cambridge Pocket Shakespeare, 1967. Cloth. Book Condition: Excellent. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+. D/j clipped. Nearly like new. Dispatched by established Cambridge UK bookseller. Bookseller Inventory # L92921

Price: US$ 4.07

Ah, research: ABE lists some fairly cheap copies, where people do seem to know the difference between cloth and hardbound, including an OUP edition from the late 1930s. Filter using "before 1950" and kill PoD copies.

Maybe a reference book so bound would be a Heckleopedia?

To the best of my knowledge, Australian cane toad secretions aren't actually psychedelic. They are however quite likely to send dogs who try to eat them or pick them up into convulsions, possibly fatal; that would probably apply to humans too. Nasty stuff, also a skin irritant; not recommended to touch them at all.

The "To Serve Humans" supplement is the Necronomnomnomicon.

Anyone remember which sf story has the bit about siblings from a very wealthy family giving each other the ugliest gifts they could find? The premise was that mere money can buy quality, but ugly takes time and thought. Either the author or the siblings didn't consider the possibility that people can be hired to find ugly.

Exotic leather shoes. I don't know if they've still got the alligator shoes with the little glass eyes, but you can get python sneakers marked down from $999 to $250.

I'd heard that was disinformation planted into the Anarchist's Cookbook, lo, these many years ago.

I find myself wondering how European history might have turned out differently if they'd had a decent hallucinogenic of their own along the way....

I am not sure if it is a good thing or bad thing that cane toad shoulder bags exist. It is certainly an interesting thing.

All hallucinogens have a fatal dose associated with them (as does water). The question is how great a difference there is between the fatal and the fascinating.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to look on the internet. I'm used to buying new virtually and used in person, I guess, and my used-book purchasing has been severely curtailed by living in a country whose language I do not read with ease.

I've now ordered a suitable copy, and picked up an edition of Thomas the Rhymer to replace one lent out and never retrieved.

The animation is described on this blog. The animation itself can be seen here on YouTube. You can even find the documentary which inspired them on YouTube as well.

Just to add insult to injury, they're also one of the species which appears to be benefiting from global climate change - their range is shifting southward (out of Queensland into New South Wales) and westward (they're trying to block 'em at the border in the Kimberley (north of Western Australia - the Northern Territory is already a lost cause). One of them was found in a suburban garden in Perth recently, and nobody was really certain how it had got there. They're a ruddy menace.

Abi, if you want cane toad leather, I'm sure there'd be at least half a dozen cheerful suppliers Down Under.

I doubt my wife would go for one of those cane toad purses though.

Psilocybin and mescaline (plus the weak hallucinogen cannabis) can all be harvested and used fresh from the wild, and even massive overdoses are not physically damaging. Amanita, in contrast, is a matter of "get it right or you die", which is the usual pattern for natural hallucinogenics.

*genteel applause*

Anyone remember which sf story has the bit about siblings from a very wealthy family giving each other the ugliest gifts they could find? The premise was that mere money can buy quality, but ugly takes time and thought.

Yeah, my brother did that one year. We all got "bath salts, or inexpensive scent/ or hideous tie so kindly meant".

I confess to finding ties a little mysterious. My husband has -one-, and wears it as seldom as possible. When are they classy, as opposed to merely boring? When are they edgy or assertive, and when do they cross the line and become hideous? My subconscious has been pondering this since Tuesday, after seeing a pink/purple/orange paisley number in a fairly posh shop window.

Coming back on topic, there are ties with cane toads. (Also ties made of cane toads. Don't google it.)

Some drugs have a high therapeutic index. Others have a low one.

You have to be very careful with the drugs that have a low therapeutic index.

Like one of these? It's common in Malaysia, and presumably surrounding countries?

❦ "Boiled for inclusion in a salad" -- was this usual custom at the time/place, as compared to fresh veggies?

I don't have anything else to contribute to the post, except to note that Falkiner's, on Southampton Row in London, stock cane toad skins (and whole ray hides, which are interesting to feel), or at least always used to—the recession has been hitting UK art supply shops very hard. I've only barely begun venturing into bookbinding myself (I go there for printmaking paper) but I have a one-third-assembled book on my worktable.

Their web catalog doesn't list anything more exotic than reindeer right now. I've only been by their new consolidated shop once, when I was in London on a trip. I love their curved bone folders, and they're the most reliable source of shellac-based glaire.

There's a guy in Den Haag who does exotic leathers; I met him at a Society of Bookbinders conference a few years ago, and order my eelskins, chicken feet, etc from him. I should ask if he does cane toad as well as manta ray (nubbly, but I bet it's a pain to pare...I would still bind any book Teresa did on moderation in it, as the closest thing to trollskin) and other oddities.

So tell me about the binding you're doing.

Although with a bit of Googling, one can find real sharkskin boots, purses, wallets and... huzzah!... tanned hides. So one could probably have a custom suit made from actual sharkskin.

(I am not planning to recycle this in a future book: it is dead and stinky.)

Also known as a Hellbenderbinding?

I feel that John Scalzi should be informed...

I have a pile of signatures sitting on my worktable, pressed cooperatively flat with one of those nice bone folders and by leaving it under a pile of books for a week, and I'm making a couple of painted panels for the cover using the same technique as the mountboard pendants I've been making.

Incidentally, I was a bit skeptical about the durability of what's basically lacquered cardboard, but then I accidentally put one of those through the wash and it survived just fine.

The book's now sitting at the "really must get around to sewing the signatures" stage, but that's an improvement over the "really must try making a book" stage it was at for a year or two.