Category Archives: USA

Censorship Is A Dead End

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. Typically held during the last … Continue reading →

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Brooklyn: Word on the Street

Posted on September 22, 2020 by Brian D. Butler
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New York City is going to the dogs

Posted on September 21, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Doggy Bags, is a new public art installation on Broadway  NYC’s Manhattan Garment District. The sculptures by New York-based artist Will Kurtz are entitled Doggy Bags and are all create from  recycled materials. The works on display are diverse breeds … Continue reading →

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Pulp Fiction Fictions

Posted on September 19, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Screenwriter Todd Alcott, creates these wonderful digital mashups  that combine the language of pop music and the visual language of 20th century pulp fiction paperbacks. While Alcott finds many of his vintage book covers online, he still discovers a few … Continue reading →

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A Little Roadside Poetry

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

From Maine to New Mexico and from Alabama to Minnesota a series of roadside poetry signs have been popping up across the United States. The often philosophical works are all based on Japanese Senryū  style a sister poem to the … Continue reading →

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Dune, Now and Then

Posted on September 14, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Science Fiction fans around the world—myself included—were excited to see the first trailer for the new Dune film last week. (see below)Although I enjoyed the first cinematic interpretation of Frank Herbert’s interstellar saga, like many I found David Lynch’s version lacking in … Continue reading →

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Recreate Responsibly

Posted on September 12, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Who knew that the National Park Service had a sense of humor. You can check-out some more clever posters on the official website.  

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Dear Book People

Posted on September 10, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

  Sincerely Erik, is a moving short film written and directed by Naz Riahi about one bookseller struggling in these plague times. Although it is fictional, it poignantly reflects the reality that many folks in the book trade are experiencing all over … Continue reading →

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The Parable of the Author

Posted on September 7, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

I am not a big re-reader of books, but at the start of the pandemic I picked-up a copy of Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower. If you are not familiar with the novel, it was published in 1993, but was … Continue reading →

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We wear the mask

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

The Mask by Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr,, one of the leading letterpress printers, book artists, and papermakers working in the United States today, was printed at Bloomington, Indiana, in 2000. Nearly all of his work has an Afrocentric focus. Mask features the use … Continue reading →

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