Paris For Free

Posted on March 30, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Every time that I visit Paris, I go to the Louvre. In fact, on some trips I have gone twice in a week. It doesn’t look as though I’ll be popping in to France’s most iconic museum for quite a while. However, like everyone else around the world, I can now view the Louve’s artworks online, and not just the ones currently on display: through the new portal collections.louvre.fr, we can all now have digital access to every single one of the museum’s artworks online.

According to the museum’s press release, “For the first time ever, the entire Louvre collection is available online, whether works are on display in the museum, on long-term loan in other French institutions, or in storage.” This includes not just the “more than 480,000 works of art that are part of the national collections,” but the “so-called ‘MNR’ works (Musées Nationaux Récupération, or National Museums Recovery), recovered after WWII,” and “works on long-term loan from other French or foreign institutions such as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Petit Palais, the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, the British Museum and the archaeological museum of Heraklion.”

Check it out, but beware you may go down the art rabbit hole.

 

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Time Travel Is Possible

Posted on March 29, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Although I hide it well, I have been a little obsessed with London for decades. I don’t know why, maybe it was my love for British Invasion music from the 60s or a childhood crush on Marianne Faithfull . Who knows, but it all culminated in a travel guidebook that I wrote way back in the early 80s called London for Free. Sadly, the book is long out of print, however my fascination with all things London continues. So, it will come as no surprise that I love the animated video below. Ollie Bye has created the animated time lapse of the growth of London from a small Roman town in 47 ACE to the largest city in the world (during the Victorian era) to the massive, sprawling city it is today. Trust me, it’s neat.

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A Strange Case

Posted on March 28, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

New York City’s amazing Morgan Library has scanned the entire handwritten manuscript to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde  and it’s now available for paging through and reading online. The manuscript of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is the original copy sent to the publisher Charles Longman in late October 1885, about six weeks after Stevenson first conceived of the idea.


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The manuscript has been marked up, primarily in pencil, either by the compositors who set the type or by someone else (perhaps a managing editor) at the publishing house, Longmans, Green & Co., that published the first edition of the book on January 9, 1886.

Even if you have never read the spooky novella, it’s likely that you have seen one of the umpteen film or television productions based on Stevenson’s book.

Read the entire manuscript.

 

Posted in Books, Europe, Film, History, Libraries, USA, Writing | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Hotel Book Club

Posted on March 27, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Hotel lending libraries are not a novel idea, but the project from Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants in conjunction with Literary Hub puts a new spin on the concept. This month they launched the Kimpton X Literary Hub Book Club. Lit Hub’s editorial team will curate seasonal, themed reading lists, and guests staying at selected Kimpton hotels will be able to check out the recommended books through an on-property lending program. Each season will also feature virtual q&as, readings and other events, which anyone will be able to attend.

The inaugural Kimpton X Lit Hub reading list coincides with Women’s History Month and is called “Women Write Now.” The featured titles are How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood and Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener. On Monday, Lit Hub and Kimpton hosted a virtual discussion with Imbolo Mbue and Patricia Lockwood.

Twenty-nine Kimpton Hotels across the country are participating in the program. In addition to the book club, the companies are also partnering to share city-specific guides with readers and guests, including lists of local bookstores to visit.

I don’t have much experience with the Kimpton brand, although I have stayed at their Washington D.C. Hotel George and give it a big thumbs up for style, location, staff, and general boutique-y ambience.

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Certainement pas The New Yorker

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Over the years, I’ve seen quite a few attempts to pay homage to the brilliant cover art of the iconic The New Yorker magazine. None compares to the creativity of the project called The Brusseler  from Belgium’s Maison de L’Image which brings together more than 100 Belgian and international artists and illustrators from all styles and techniques to offer their personal takes on both the Belgian capital and the incomparable covers of  The New Yorker .

The just opened exhibition presents a tribute from the Maison de l’Image de Bruxelles incorporating fictitious covers all on the theme of Brussels the reluctant capital of Europe. The traveling exhibition The Brusseler is modeled on predecessors such as : The Parisianer, Le Montréaler, The Tokyoiter, The Shanghairen, The Milaneser.

 

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Kubrick for Kids

Posted on March 25, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

One of the strangest episodes of film and book crossovers that I have every run across has to be this multimedia children’s book of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey for kids that came with an accompanying record or cassette tape. Released by Kid Stuff publishing, a short lived Florida-based children’s book publisher, the book was meant to explain the enigmatic film to kids.

If you have ever seen the movie—and who hasn’t—it seems to be an unlikely choice for a kid’s book tie-in. Kid Stuff previously focused on children’s television shows, films, and video game releases. It’s hard to fathom why they thought that a 2001 explainer for children would have much sales appeal. Possibly the movie was being shown on TV in the mid-80s and the publisher imagined that parents were tired of trying to explain Kubrick’s masterpiece to their kids. We’ll never know, but you can check out the entire publication right here.

 

Posted in Books, Film, movies, USA, Writing | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Walk This Way

Posted on March 24, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Most of us have not had the option to travel during the past year, so we have to make do with any virtual alternative that comes along. Until it’s safe again, you can almost satisfy those travel urges with City Walks. The site offers a wide range of virtual video walks through metropolitan areas around the world, all without narration, allowing you experience them for yourself.

City Walks was created by Aristomenis Georgiopoulos and Artemis Stiga as a way for everyone to “explore the world from your screen” during COVID-19. The project features relaxing  videos of rambles through cities such as Amsterdam, Madrid, Seville, Istanbul, and Vancouver. New videos and cities are added every day.

Posted in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, Film, Middle East, South America, Tourism, USA | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Travel Fever

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Like many of us the German street artist known as Lapiz has been mourning the ongoing travel restrictions due to Covid-19 limitations. He has translated his frustrations into a graphic mural titled, “Reisefieber.”  I can certainly related to the sentiment of “travel fever.” After more than a year secluded at home, I’m ready for a trip to just about anywhere. The poorly organized vaccine roll-out has been taking its toll on the peripatetic Germans in particular. After regular Facetiming with my German friends over the last year, I can feel their Reisefieber.

 

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Year of the Mask

Posted on March 22, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

“Beyond Noh” by Patrick Smith is a mesmerizing trip through thousands of mask from around the world, including the now ubiquitous Covid-19 protective devices.  The vivid images span dozens of cultures and time periods and shift from one to the next with the beat of a drum.

A life-long mask enthusiast, Smith photographed a majority of the works from museum archives, galleries, and his own collection, with the remaining segment submitted by people around the world.

“Beyond Noh” is screening at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Stuttgart Animation Festival, Florida Film Festival, and Mecal Barcelona Animation Festival. Watch an excerpt below, and stream the full film on Smith’s YouTube channel .

 

Posted in Africa, Animation, Art, Asia, Europe, Film, Museums, South America | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Biblio-archeology

Posted on March 21, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

 

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