Category Archives: Film

Doing it old school

Posted on May 26, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I’ve shared stories about the beloved Arion Press, including a visit to their San Francisco home by Anthony Bourdain in 2015 for a online series called Raw Craft . I recently spotted  a video from Business Insider’s Still Standing series … Continue reading →

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Bookstore Tourism

Posted on May 24, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Bookstar in San Diego, California is no ordinary bookshop. The 1945 Point Loma Theater was rescued from the wrecking ball by the Barnes & Noble chain. The theaters adaptive reuse capitalized on the existing theaters circulation path including the recreation … Continue reading →

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Ein Meisterstück Inspires Writing

Posted on May 10, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The always quirky and entertaining director and screenwriter Wes Anderson has brought his trademark stylized aesthetic and offbeat storytelling to the Montblanc’s new ad campaign. Released to celebrate the centennial of the brand’s Meisterstück pen, the campaign film features Anderson … Continue reading →

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Literary Leviathan

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I was saddened to read about the death of the great American writer Paul Auster, who succumbed due to complications arising from lung cancer, aged 77. Auster, who has been celebrated as one of the most important American authors of … Continue reading →

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When in Rome

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

When I visited Rome for the first time more than four decades ago, I quite randomly chose to pop in at the Museo della Civiltà Romana to see the massive model of the ancient city. The archaeologist and architect Italo Gismondi … Continue reading →

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Many years later, as he faced the firing squad…

Posted on April 25, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude during my first year at university when I … Continue reading →

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New York City is the best movie set in the world

Posted on April 17, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Texas-born filmmaker Jordan Studdard grew up with dreams of living in New York City. Now that he’s been there for seven years, he created an homage to his adopted hometown with a wall-sized map of the city, dotted with tiny … Continue reading →

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Go To A Happy Place

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

One Minute Park: I really, really enjoy this pure dead simple website.  One Minute Park couldn’t be more basic – click the link and you get transported to a  full-screen video, in landscape, which lasts for exactly 60 seconds and … Continue reading →

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Maps, Art and AI

Posted on April 13, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The very clever guys behind the website Brilliant Maps have utilized artificial intelligence programming to conjure up some quite interesting maps based on the painting styles of some great artists. You can see the results on their website and on YouTube in … Continue reading →

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Smoke Signals

Posted on April 11, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 Mt.Etna‘s Southeast Crater has begun emitting countless graceful vapor rings (“volcanic vortex rings”), a phenomenon never seen like this before. Someone said “maybe because we receive so much bad news lately, Etna has decided to do something simply beautiful”.  

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