Category Archives: History

Where Dickens Lived

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

Next week marks the official Charles Dickens Bicentennial, but commemorations have been taking place around the world for months. Now a new book by Cambridge University Professor Ruth Richardson has uncovered the real-life people who inspired Dickens’ iconic characters. Dickens … Continue reading →

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Would You Visit Napoleonland

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

In a baffling bid to increase tourism to France, Yves Jégo, Mayor of Montereau and Deputy from the Parti Radical, has announced plans to raise funding for a new French theme park dedicated entirely to Napoleon Bonaparte. Mayor Jégo suggests … Continue reading →

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Eye of America

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

For his audacious new project, Vanishing Cultures, Chicago photographer Dennis Manarchy is traveling around the United States creating astonishing, one-of-a-kind portraits of Americans who represent the vanishing cultures of the nation. Manarchy has created an amazing 35-foot-long camera called “Eye … Continue reading →

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Save Christiania (and own a piece of history)

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

It’s been forty years since a rag-tag coalition of Copenhagen residents and backpackers from around the world tore down the fence and occupied an unused military complex in the heart of the Danish capital, giving birth to the Freetown of … Continue reading →

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Brando Blanked Kerouac

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

In 1957, Jack Kerouac wrote to Marlon Brando begging him to buy the film rights to his novel On the Road and to turn it into a movie. Kerouac pitched the idea that Brando could play Dean Moriarty and that … Continue reading →

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Painting by Numbers

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

The always enjoyable London Transport Museum at Covent Garden is debuting a very cool new exhibition in its main gallery today called “Painting by Numbers”. The show features vintage versions of the au courant interweb fad—infographics. The historic versions of … Continue reading →

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The Art of Travel

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Brian D. Butler

The Boston Public Library Print Department is home to a marvelous, though little visited, collection of more than 350 vintage travel posters from the “Golden Age of Travel”, the 1920s through 1940s. Rail travel had opened up all of North … Continue reading →

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Goodbye 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

“Don’t be trapped by dogma…Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own voice.”

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Winter Dreams

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

F. Scott Fitzgerald died 71 years ago yesterday of a massive heartattack. He was just 44 years old. This brilliant documentary, F. Scott Fitzgerald: Winter Dreams, was produced for the PBS series American Masters. The inventive film has no traditional … Continue reading →

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We Remember

Posted on December 21, 2011 by Brian D. Butler
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