Kittens and Twitterature

The results of last Friday’s adorable cats poll are in, and it’s looking like a landslide for Professor Spraggles, Futurecat, who took a whopping 47% of the vote. Truly, that cat is the future of cuteness. Of course, we might have tipped the odds in the Professor’s favor by singling him out with a still photo (and an amazing name), but what choice did we have? He was unavailable for filming at the time of the video shoot. Second place was Lo with a respectable 21% of the vote, and last place, with a heartrending 0%, was Mia. Will no one love you, little Mia? We think you’re adorable. Yes we do. Thanks to everyone who voted; the next poll will have a movie theme in honor of our 80 Years of the Oscar volume—and a contest to go along with it!

One final Friday note: we are now officially on Twitter, having realized that just about the entire publishing community (and much of the general reading community) was there already. To be honest, we find the entire concept of “microblogging” slightly absurd, and the word itself teeth-grindingly annoying. The real answer to Twitter’s famous prompt, “What are you doing right now?” is always the same—”Sitting at my computer, posting on Twitter”—forcing the Twitterer to ask serious questions about his or her life that one might otherwise wish to avoid. Still, there’s no arguing with popularity in this business, and our Twitterary offerings will at least keep our readers exceedingly well informed about upcoming Abbeville events, noteworthy posts on this site, and so on. Now if you’ll excuse us, having finished blogging about Twitter, we are about to go Twitter about blogging. And then go stare in the mirror and sigh.

Poll: Adorable Cats

Well, we did give you fair warning: our last poll, about dead architects, didn’t exactly rake in the votes, so we vowed to make the next one a crowd-pleaser. Besides, we can’t write about highfalutin art and literary stuff all the time. Besides that, it’s Friday. Besides that, GalleyCat recently spent a whole week showing cat photos. And on top of everything, this gives us a golden excuse to replay our Cats Up Close video from last year.

Now that you’ve heard our self-justification, please watch the following footage of cats belonging to Briana, Michaelann, and associated roommates…

And consider the following photo, of Austin’s roommate’s former cat…

Professor Spraggles, Futurecat

…And then answer the following question:

Thank you for your time.

VOTE! On Abbeville Architects

Today is Election Day, and since you’ve already voted…wait, you have voted, haven’t you? If not, stop reading this and go to your local polling place now. Shoo. Git.

You’re back? Terrific. Now, since you’ve already voted but haven’t gotten all that democratic participation out of your system just yet, we are pleased to announce a new Abbeville Manual of Style Poll. Today’s poll lets you step into the role of Arbiter of Style by passing incontrovertible aesthetic judgement with blinding speed and stirring conviction. The issue? Five modern architects who have been the subject of Abbeville books: Antonio Gaudí, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, and Philip Johnson.

Once you are finished casting your ballot, we encourage you to head over to abbeville.com to vote, on the same subject, with a book order. And then go take a nap: you’ve earned it, citizen.

Poll Results; FAQ Page

The results of last week’s poll are in, and it is our knock-down drag-out mano a mano battles with the Chicago Manual of Style that have emerged as our readers’ favorite feature. Apparently all of you like to see that big orange palooka take a hit almost as much as we do. Fair enough; we will be treating you to another Abbeville vs. Chicago bout later this week. Less popular features included our “witty, civilized discussions of art” (see if we ever fish for a compliment again) and our interviews with noted art and publishing figures (we’re hoping the next interview subject we’ve got lined up will change some minds on that one). The people have spoken—or at least, resoundingly clicked—and we will be incorporating this feedback into our future content. Thanks to everyone who voted, and even though we know it’ll be anticlimactic after the excitement of an Abbeville poll, don’t forget to vote on November 4 also.

One last Monday tidbit: as you can see, site redesign is underway, and we are playing with fonts and color schemes like a fifth-grader jazzing up a book report. Apologies if the result is a bit unattractive at times, but we’re confident everything will look stylish in the end. Among the new features we’ve added is a FAQ section (see tab at top of page), so that you may quench the thirst for Abbeville Manual of  Style knowledge that has so long parched your soul.

Abbeville Manual of Style Poll!

Anyone using WordPress will have noticed that they’ve just teamed up with PollDaddy to create a convenient new Poll feature. Nifty! We’d like to take this as an excuse to do a little navel-gazing—and solicit some feedback from You, dear reader—with our very first Abbeville Manual of Style Poll:

If you have some other answer—if what you really love is our website reviews, or our original photography, or the way we get cold when it’s seventy-one degrees out—feel free to leave it in the Comments section. Future polls will be a little bit different, and will allow you to step into the role of Arbiter of Style by passing swift, brazen judgement on books, works of art, and the like. Start working yourself into an opinionated lather and enjoy!