This week marked the 100th anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s birth. To celebrate the occasion graphic designer Alicia Raitt has re-imagined 14 of Vonnegut’s book covers. Inspired by 1960s bookcover design, Raitt utilizes the Marber grid, leaving the illustrations to set the scene. While each of the designs aims to capture the iconic author’s dark humor.
Retired Montana schoolteacher Rita has been spreading her love of reading across the U.S. for the last eight years by traveling coast-to-coast in her van-turned-mobile bookstore! Rita shares what inspired her to make a mobile bookstore, and explains how she is using the business to encourage kids to read.
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Utilizing a network of illuminated drones, Dutch artist duo DRIFT (aka Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta) completes or restores famous international architectural landmarks such as Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia and Rome’s Colosseum.
A large building can change the landscape of a city dramatically. We can help visualize how a new structure can enrich a cityscape. It can help to show a local community how their city will look. These human achievements, built over generations with forgotten crafts, deserve all the attention they can get. They teach us a patience we desperately need to rediscover as a society,” said Ralph Nauta, Founder of Studio DRIFT.
“These human achievements, built over generations with forgotten crafts, deserve all the attention they can get. They teach us a patience we desperately need to rediscover as a society,” Nauta said. “To finish them with light emphasizes the potential positive power of our hi-tech developments in relation to the slow but beautiful building methods of the past.”
For the past two years, DRIFT has worked with its team of 64 multi-disciplinary specialists, including those from Drone Stories and Nova Skystories, to develop sophisticated software capable of producing a series of impressive aerial sculptures, installations, and performances intended to be enjoyed in outdoor and public spaces.
Regular visitors to Travel Between The Pages know that I appreciate a well done tourism campaign. However, I was perplexed when my favorite blog follower shared the newest tourism video from the Vienna Tourist Board. I’ve been a huge fan of Austria’s grand capital since I first visited more than 40 years ago and have always been an ardent evangelist for Wien tourism, but this new campaign is a bit baffling. Take a look at the brief video below and let me know what you think about this unusually approach.
A six-book shortlist has been released for the Bookseller Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. The award was conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford and Bruce Robertson, co-founders of publishing solutions firm the Diagram Group, as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The winning title will be chosen by members of the public via an online vote, and a winner announced December 2. This year’s shortlisted titles are:
Frankenstein Was a Vegetarian: Essays on Food Choice, Identity and Symbolism by Michael Owen Jones
The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More by Ron Riekki
Jane Austen and the Buddha: Teachers of Enlightenment by Kathryn Duncan
RuPedagogies of Realness: Essays on Teaching and Learning With RuPaul’s Drag Race by Lindsay Bryde & Tommy Mayberry
Smuggling Jesus Back into the Church by Andrew Fellows
What Nudism Exposes: An Unconventional History of Postwar Canada by Mary-Ann Shantz
THE FALL OF VARIA
D. Nurkse
The tanks from the Past rolled in this morning.
Our neighbors crowded the curbs to cheer
though only yesterday, they were snitching:
A has prior tendencies, B has backward dreams…
Already the old flag flies over the armory,
the cathedral, the courthouse, Mercy,
Parliament, Beaux Arts, a kindergarten.
Already we tell ourselves, “The Past rules,
but if we hold our breath we’ll emerge
safe in the present, vindicated, knowing
we’re steadfast, we passed the test of our lives.”
Troops file by, numberless as ears of wheat,
gray with ash, so tired they give off light,
eyes locked, forward, forward, never a glance
for our linden-shaded side streets; and we watch,
we force ourselves to peek, or not peek,
we part the curtain a hand’s breadth, a thumbnail.
At nightfall, gunshots in a distant suburb,
dry, faint, adamant as a cat’s cough.
For every twelve firing squad volunteers,
rumor claims, one is issued blank ammo:
so even in the Past, there must be shame.
Nothing happens fast. Rain of decrees.
But you can still get salt and whiskey
if you pay with a necklace, a deed, or boots.
Butter is rationed, then shoelaces, then spoons.
Lice return, roaches and rats: raccoons
rummage unchecked in a brimming dumpster.
We tell ourselves, “Vermin: this story is familiar.”
When the snow falls in its own silence,
spilling forwards, like blood in bath water,
and there is no heating oil, we think “childhood.”
Alone in the privacy of our triple-bolted room
we open our fingers and peek: yes, yes, the soldiers,
still advancing, bowlegged mountain boys
bearing the insignia of the Interior, tranced in cadence:
sometimes one stumbles, careens, topples forward,
but the boots march over him, the drum never pauses.
When the knock comes, it will be long ago.
h/t Tom Gauld
Ada Limón’s poem “We Are Surprised”—
Now, we take the moon
into the middle of our brains
so we look like roadside stray cats
with bright flashlight-white eyes
in our faces, but no real ideas
of when or where to run.
We linger on the field’s green edge
and say, Someday, son, none of this
will be yours. Miracles are all around.
We’re not so much homeless
as we are home-free, penny-poor,
but plenty lucky for love and leaves
that keep breaking the fall. Here it is:
the new way of living with the world
inside of us so we cannot lose it,
and we cannot be lost. You and me,
are us and them, and it and sky.
It’s hard to believe we didn’t
know that before; it’s hard to believe
we were so hollowed out, so drained,
only so we could shine a little harder
when the light finally came.
(From Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2015). Copyright © 2015 by Ada Limón.
I am a huge fan of national parks. In my travels I have been fortunate to visit quite a few. While some of my favorites are here in North America, I have spent time in some spectacular parks as far afield as Norway and New Zealand. Recently I stumbled on the wonderful website Traveler Map, which was developed by Kacper and Oskar Golinski, where they locate national parks around the world. Here’s what they have to say about their project:
We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience all the world has to offer. That’s why we created Traveler Map – a website where you can find inspiration for your next adventure, no matter where in the world you are.
Our interactive maps allow you to explore natural and heritage wonders all over the world. And we’re planning to provide helpful and practical information about each place, so you can make the most of your visit.
So whether you’re looking for ideas for your next vacation or just want to learn more about some of the world’s most amazing places, Traveler Map is the website for you! We hope that our site will make it easier for you (and us) to create the perfect itinerary!
Felix Semper ‘s sculptures are made entirely of paper . He spends months creating such a work of art. Semper uses thousands of loose sheets for every sculpture. When he lost his company and went bankrupt in 2008, he decided to become an artist. Now his pieces sells for thousands of dollars and he exhibits all over the world. Check out his art on the video below.
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Travel Between The Pages 