Memories of Tomorrow

Posted on May 16, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

I’ve long been a fan of vintage travel posters and I especially enjoy the historic posters created to promote the U.S. National Parks. In 1934, the park service began to encourage  state and national park tourism by designing their own promotional posters to be displayed at local railroad and bus stations and hotels. In one of its 1934 Park Bulletin newsletters, the organization explained: “With the aid of State Park Emergency Conservation Work Funds, it has been possible for the Service to have printed for distribution to tour bureaus, railroads, schools, travel clubs, etc., a set of six colorful posters depicting national park scenes. Miss Dorothy Waugh, a New York artist, sketched the posters and they were printed by the Burland Printing Company of New York City under contract let by the Government Printing Office. United States citizens for many years have seen the Swiss Alps, the Italian Lake country, and other beauty spots of foreign lands depicted in beautiful posters on display throughout the land and it is time that Americans should be acquainted with their own beauty spots through the same medium.”

Over the course of two years, from 1934 to 1936, artist Dorothy Waugh designed 17 posters for the federal government agency. Waugh’s bright and bold designs proved the perfect visual match for capturing interest in the great outdoors. From 1933 to 1937, Waugh worked as a landscape architect and artist in the Branch of Planning for the park service, at first developing and designing technical manuals for the but eventually turning to the creation of posters promoting state and national parks that would become her hallmark.

I recently stumbled upon this set of posters that Waugh created for the park service. You can read more about her diverse career in a profile of the artist featured on the park service website.

 

 

 

 

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Amsterdam

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Amsterdam

                                                               Sofia Elhillo

Concentric ripple of the canals, little apartment 
at the center point. All June I’ve been in Amsterdam, 
vowels softening to liquid in my mouth. Long walks 
over the cobblestones in the warmest part 
of the afternoon, narrow houses along the water arranged 
like crooked teeth. My steps lead me over a ballet 
of bridges, precarious choreography of bicycles 
and other bodies, the rare car vulgar and roaring 
along the too-small street. I count the faces around 
that could be my faces, features and shades 
from a much older world than this. City I may never 
see again, and still my old need to belong. To daughter
the possibly Sudanese man at the Chipsy King, 
his kind assurance that the dish contains no pork. 
My nails soften and split in the cool dry air. An ashen 
gray patch on my calf and I am ashamed for hours after, 
wetting a finger with saliva to correct it.

About the poem:

“I wrote this poem during a month-long residency in Amsterdam during which I attempted a 30/30 (thirty poems in thirty days) with my friend Hala Alyan. It’s written after Jenny Xie’s poem ‘Corfu,’ which is one of my all-time favorite travel poems. So much of my writing practice during that month involved going on long walks and describing to myself what I was noticing, what I was feeling, retraining my poet’s eye to the present day after a long obsession with history, with all my life’s great ruptures. In this poem, the worst thing that happens is that I was, briefly, ashy. And that was as deserving of poetry as anything else that’s happened.”
—Safia Elhillo

 

 

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There are no kangaroos in Austria

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Award-winning photographer Kirill Neiezhmakov has created a brilliant hyperlapse tour of Vienna, Austria that plays on the popular longstanding joke that there are no kangaroos in Austria. The very entertaining timelapse video of Vienna explores many of the historic  city’s most visited landmarks and attractions.

I have been hyping Vienna as a travel destination for decades, maybe this clever video will encourage tourists to give the city a try.

homepage link.

 

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If you build it, they will come

Posted on May 13, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

A 57 year old poet named Jiang Libo in China has spent $116,000 building a bookshop in a remote village on top of a mountain. The Milestone Bookstore is located in a rural area of Zhejiang province in eastern China, surrounded by farmland and woodland atop a mountain. The bookstore is built in the shape of the number seven and has a collection of 7,000 mostly literary books.

The self-published poet built the remote bookstore over the past three years to encourage literacy and to improve book access for young readers. “Before my bookshop was built, the closest bookshop or library to this village was in a town about 30km away,” Jiang said. “I found fewer and fewer people read books, and bookstores generally are struggling. However, I acted in contravention of this by opening a bookstore in a place with very few readers,” he said. “My thought is: when villagers are idle, or kids are on holiday, they can come to read books. Isn’t that wonderful?”

 

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Frivolous Friday

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Last month, a small sailboat in distress was rescued by a massive 18th-century sailing ship. “This moment was very strange, and we wondered if we were dreaming. Where were we? What time period was it?”

“So however surreal those cities, the invisible ones that he builds, they have their counterpart in the real. They always have their counterpart in visible cities.” Darran Anderson on Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

CATS OF MANY LANDS by Louis Wain (New York/Paris/London: Raphael Tuck, 1914).

A Saint of your Own Province

“To gain your own voice,
forget about having it heard.
Become a saint of
your own province
and your own consciousness.”
– Allen Ginsberg

You too can now take a virtual tour of the Pech Merle prehistoric cave paintings.

 

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Who the hell is Edgar ?

Posted on May 11, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Here in the former Colonies we rarely pay any attention to the annual Eurovision music contest. However, this year the spirit of the iconic 19th century American author Edgar Allan Poe appears to be the inspiration for Austria’s entry in the 67th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The Austrian duo Teya and Salena will be representing their nation in the second semi-final today with Who The Hell Is Edgar?, a song in which the writer plays a key role, as the lyrics to the first verse reveal:

There’s a ghost in my body and he is a lyricist.It is Edgar Allan Poe, and I think he can’t resist.Yeah, his brain is in my hand, and it’s moving really fast.
Don’t know how he possessed me, but I’m happy that he did.

Teya explains: “We wanted to put our personal experiences as female songwriters into the song. It often feels like you have to prove yourself over and over again to be taken seriously. By presenting Edgar Allan Poe as the actual writer of the song, we want to draw attention to this frustrating part of the music business. It’s satire.”

Salena added: “This song is a snapshot of the fun we had on the day we wrote it. It started with wanting to convey what it feels like when a good song is made. Sometimes creativity rushes through you as if you‘re getting possessed by a ghost.”

I will be rootung for the duo and Edgar Allan Poe to win. Here’s a video of the stomping tune:

NB: If the video fails to open, please click here.

 

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Picturing Maps

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

I have long been intrigued by old school pictoral maps. The exmples above and below are from the  University of Michigan’s Clark Library Maps collection, each shows the United States through a different cultural lens, covering everything from literary giants and music  to national parks and transportation. Some were created as part of marketing campaigns, while others are simply educational.

The map at the top  was “published in the interest of a better understanding and appreciation of the life and works of Mark Twain by Warner Bros. Pictures, producers of ‘The Adventures of Mark Twain.’” Published in 1944, it delivers on its promise, providing a wealth of information with both captioned photographs and illustrations.

The primary purpose of this pictoral map was to promote Greyhound bus routes in 1934, the year it was published. The bus company still operates throughout the United States, but with a less comprehensive set of routes.

This map of National Parks of the United States and Southern Canada was created by Maurice Freed and published in the 1950s by the Curtis Publishing Company. The map itself is composed entirely of images with an index of numbered National Park names.

The Folklore Music Map of the United States above was created by Dorothea Dix Lawrence, who was a very successful opera singer turned folklorist, and includes illustrations with an index of descriptions. It was printed around 1950.

Published in 1957,this literary map is based on The United States in Literature, an America Reads anthology.

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Libraries For The People

Posted on May 9, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Here at Travel Between The Pages World HQ we are huge fans of public libraries. We were chuffed to learn about a new organization of library workers, library users, and community advocates that wants to help folks become more involved with community libraries. Libraries For the People aims to engage supporters by providing information about how to participate with their public library, advocate on its behalf, and help to ensure these public institutions remain viable amid ongoing interest in defunding and delegitimizing their value. What sets For the People apart is their commitment to local action. There is no overhead and no administration; the goal is to connect with and exchange ideas with other library advocates and get to work in your own backyard.

 

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La Biblioteca del Mondo

Posted on May 8, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

Umberto Eco: A Library of the World is a wonderful new documentary about the bestselling Italian author with perhaps the greatest intellectual appetite of any writer of his time. Directed by Davide Ferrario, the documentary will launch in the U.S. beginning June 30 at Film Forum in New York City, followed by showings across the country. Umberto Eco: A Library of the World, which takes viewers inside Eco’s extraordinary personal library, premiered at the Rome Film Festival last October. Have a look at the documentary in the trailer below.

nb: if the video fails to open, please click here.

Posted in Books, Europe, Freedom of Speech, Libraries, Writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

the shape of what you lived

Posted on May 7, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

And you wait. You wait for the one thing
that will change your life,
make it more than it is—
something wonderful, exceptional,
stones awakening, depths opening to you.

In the dusky bookstalls
old books glimmer gold and brown.
You think of lands you journeyed through,
of paintings and a dress once worn
by a woman you never found again.

And suddenly you know: that was enough.
You rise and there appears before you
in all its longings and hesitations
the shape of what you lived.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, “Remembering,”

 

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