Human Hotel

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

The Human Hotel project was created last year by the folks behind WOOLOO.ORG — an online community for professional artists. The concept is an AirBnB-like service for artistic types who like to travel and meet like-minded people. Visiting creatives get to live in a real community with local hosts who work in the arts. Human Hotel acts as a matchmaker in cities from Amsterdam to Santiago.

Although profit isn’t its goal, the hosts can share their space for free or charge a “reasonable” nightly fee. The guest also has to pay a one-time €25 connection fee to the Human Hotel organization. I haven’t used the service yet, but surfing through the website I discovered many places that I would happily choose over an AirBnB or hotel, including a houseboat in the heart of Amsterdam, an attic room in Lisbon, and a fantastic apartment in central Paris.

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Berlin: Museum Goes Mobile

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Berlin’s Museum of Now (MON) along with Yes,And…Productions(YAP) have come up with an ingenious way to bring art to city residents during the corona virus lockdown. Loading a projector and speakers onto a truck, they make nightly visits to neighborhoods bringing a sound and light show to people in their homes. Their first project is a collaboration with light artist Multiscalar and Michelangelo.

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Blue Mondays

Posted on April 13, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Time Enough For Subtlety

Posted on April 12, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

The artist Javier Jensen has reimagined some of the most iconic covers in literary history and added clever GIFs. The effect is subtle so you have to take your time with each image. But most of us have lots of time on our hands these days. From the sneaky whale flicking its tail across the cover of Moby Dick to the moving flowers on Le Petit Prince, the effect is subtle and soothing.

 

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A lawsuit waiting to happen

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

Swedish artist Daniel Björk is behind these horrifically funny visions of classic horror films reimagined as Disney’s Wonderful World of Reading vintage children’s books. Enjoy before the lawyers make them disappear.

 

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In April

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

In April

Rainer Maria Rilke

Again the woods are odorous, the lark
Lifts on upsoaring wings the heaven gray
That hung above the tree-tops, veiled and dark,
Where branches bare disclosed the empty day.

After long rainy afternoons an hour
Comes with its shafts of golden light and flings
Them at the windows in a radiant shower,
And rain drops beat the panes like timorous wings.

Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep
By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;
And cradled in the branches, hidden deep
In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.

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Oh, but it’s weird and wonderful

Posted on April 9, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

I generally avoid making many reading recommendations as people’s tastes and interests are so varied. However, in these strange days with some much time on our hands, many folks are clamoring for book suggestions. Fortuitously, I stumbled on an endorsement for a weird and wonderful trilogy that I first read decades ago at the insistence of my old friend Robb Huxley.

Mervyn Peake’s masterful Gormenghast books are a rollicking blend of Dickensian characters and George R.R. Martin plots. They are worth reading simply for Peake’s love of the English language. Packed with wit and intrigue, the trilogy will transport into a realm  surreal, but coherent in its inventiveness.

The first book, Titus Groan is a bizarre but fun romp inspirited by the Machiavellian villain Steerpike, It can be read as a philosophical critique of the hierarchy and ritual, or read just for the sheer love of language.

In book two, Gormenghast, we get to really know poor Titus, who is just a babe in the first installment and join him in his struggles with Steerpike and the system. The volume is a surprising blend of fantasy, psychological drama, and surrealism.

Titus Alone completes the trilogy with our hero escaping the confines of his life for adventure and new challenges. I won’t spoil your chance to explore with Titus a whole world beyond Gormenghast.

 

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Word on the Street

Posted on April 8, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

In an example of the aphorism everything old is new again, the Pandemic has inspired a resurgence in the publication of local zines. It appears that a number of them have embraced the clever title “Quaranzine” . This one has been surfacing around Chicago on benches, utility poles, and dumpsters.

 

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Plague Tales

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio follows ten young people–seven women and three men–who take shelter from the Black Plague outside of medieval Florence. Each day, over the course of ten days, members of the group must entertain the others with a tale, for a total of one hundred stories throughout their quarantine. Boccaccio (1313–1375) uses this rural escape as a framing device for tragic, comedic, even erotic stories from a widely diverse sources. Through long chains of translations, Boccaccio was exposed to ancient Indian and Middle Eastern narratives, which he added to or altered for his own purposes. Some tales borrow from Italian oral tradition or other local sources, including a French one shared with Geoffrey Chaucer (which became the “The Reeve’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales). Even if you didn’t read the book during your university days, now is the perfect time for The Decameron.

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Yoga for Book Lovers

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

 

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