Monthly Archives: December 2021

The Perfect Holiday Gift For Someone On Your List

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Miller High Life’s Gingerbread Dive Bar Kit brings the best of the holiday season together : arts & crafts, gingerbread, dive bars and beer. Almost everyone loves a good gingerbread house and building one is a wonderful seasonal activity. But maybe it’s … Continue reading →

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It’s only in my dreams that I am so sinister

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

(Friday, June 11, 1920) It’s only in my dreams that I am so sinister. Recently I had another dream about you, it was a big dream, but I hardly remember a thing. I was in Vienna, I don’t recall anything … Continue reading →

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Oddest Book of the Year

Posted on December 9, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Is Superman Circumcised? faced some stiff competion but it won the 2021 Diagram Prize for Oddest Book of the Year after garnering a 51% share of the public vote. The book—an academic study on the Jewish origins of the iconic DC … Continue reading →

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Lost and Found

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

“Last Stop For Lost Property” (below) is a short film by Peruvian filmmaker Vincente Cueto that offers a sentimental look at items that were lost in the New York City subway  and bus system and found at a later time. … Continue reading →

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The house was quiet and the world was calm.

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

If you are looking for a holiday gift for the bibliophiles in your life the Everyman’s Library recently published a splendid new volume in its Pocket Poets series, Books and Libraries: Poems. The 272-page anthology, with gorgeous jacket art, includes … Continue reading →

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Love, Desire, Death

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

In the fascinating video below, Peter Schade, the Head of the Framing department at Britain’s National Gallery, shows the process of creating six huge matching frames for the Titian: Love Desire Death exhibition. Matthias Wivel, Curator of 16th-century Italian paintings, … Continue reading →

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Literary Selfies

Posted on December 5, 2021 by Brian D. Butler
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The Driver Is Red

Posted on December 4, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

The moving animated documentary below is about how Israeli Mossad agent Zvi Aharoni tracked down and captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Argentina 15 years after WWII ended. It is a powerful piece of art and history. The rare … Continue reading →

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beneath the stains of time

Posted on December 3, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

There is often a very real chain linking American literature and music. Sometimes it can be heavyhanded and intrusive, at other times it is truly organic and compelling. I was recently reading Louise Erdrich’s new novel The Sentence which, among other things, … Continue reading →

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The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents

Posted on December 2, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

English author  and naturalist Edward Topsell (1572-1625) first published his book The History of Four-footed Beasts in 1607, followed by The History of Serpents in 1608. Topsell borrowed extensively from Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner’s Historia animalium (“History of Animals”), a five-volume set … Continue reading →

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