Lisel Mueller
1924-2020
1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea. 2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of course I do not remember this. 3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws. 4) A cornucopia filled with treats took me into a building with bells. A wide-bosomed teacher took me in. 5) At home the bookshelves connected heaven and earth. 6) On Sundays the city child waded through pinecones and primrose marshes, a short train ride away. 7) My country was struck by history more deadly than earthquakes or hurricanes. 8) My father was busy eluding the monsters. My mother told me the walls had ears. I learned the burden of secrets. 9) I moved into the too bright days, the too dark nights of adolescence. 10) Two parents, two daughters, we followed the sun and the moon across the ocean. My grandparents stayed behind in darkness. 11) In the new language everyone spoke too fast. Eventually I caught up with them. 12) When I met you, the new language became the language of love. 13) The death of the mother hurt the daughter into poetry. The daughter became a mother of daughters. 14) Ordinary life: the plenty and thick of it. Knots tying threads to everywhere. The past pushed away, the future left unimagined for the sake of the glorious, difficult, passionate present. 15) Years and years of this. 16) The children no longer children. An old man's pain, an old man's loneliness. 17) And then my father too disappeared. 18) I tried to go home again. I stood at the door to my childhood, but it was closed to the public. 19) One day, on a crowded elevator, everyone's face was younger than mine. 20) So far, so good. The brilliant days and nights are breathless in their hurry. We follow, you and I.
Book Club is a new bookstore and wine bar in the infamous Alphabet City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan’s East Village. While I will grant that the East Village is not the bizzaro-crazy place of my feckless youth, its demise is exaggerated. The funky shops, bars, and hangouts of the gritty glory days are mostly gone, but cozy local bookstores like the Book Club take the sting out of the loss.
The bookshop stocks a general-interest inventory of some 3,000 titles, from children’s and YA to fiction, history and sci-fi and fantasy. There is also a locally focused section featuring books about New York and the East Village, as well as a variety of gifts and non-book items such as greeting cards, games and candles.
Like most denizens of the area, proprietors Erin Neary and Nat Esten are relative newcomers to the Village, but they are committed to making the Book Club a community hub at 197 East 3rd Street.
Winter Landscape with Skaters or Winterlandschap met Ijsvermaak is a c.1608 oil on oak painting by the Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.The painting shows ice skaters of all sorts enjoying a day on a frozen river. People dressed up stand among villagers going about their daily chores. A dog chews on a dead carcass in the lower left corner. A boat sails away on a sled in the background as a group of fishermen make efforts to free a frozen sailboat in the foreground. A bird trap is seen to the left among other farm implements and the whole scene is overshadowed by a church to the left.
Winter Landscape with Skaters is considered one of Avercamp’s earliest works, and is painted in a style strongly reminiscent of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1565 painting Winter Landscape with Ice skaters and Bird trap. Some aspects of this picture are taken directly from Bruegel’s works, such as the “bird trap” which also appears in other works by Avercamp. He was influenced in his subject by the Little Ice Age, particularly the cold winter of 1607–08, and was the first of the Dutch painters to specialize in snow scenes.
French artist Francine Leclercq has given the 17th century work a 21st century update with gif animation.
Regular visitors to TBTP are likely aware of my slight obsession with coffee. When I travel, the first thing that I look for anywhere are good coffee spots. My preference is always in-house roasters, but I will settle for someplace with a connection with a specialty coffee roastery. In recent years, I’ve started roasting my own coffee with a small machine that will do batches of 250 grams at a time, but when I’m away from home I’m all about sourcing local coffee.
TBTP habitués may also be aware that one of the many places that I have lived over the decades is the state of Georgia. Although I didn’t live in Atlanta, I did spend lots of quality time there. So when I’m in the Peach State finding coffee destinations is a priority. The newest, and most interesting, coffeehouse in Atlanta is Refuge Coffee in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood near downtown.
The nonprofit specialty coffee company promotes the organization’s goal of providing a friendly, safe and agenda-free space where the refugee community can find jobs, training and opportunities, and where consumers find solid specialty coffees and light bites.
Opened on Monday, Feb. 3, the Refuge cafe fills a neighborhood coffee void left by the December closure of a Condesa Coffee. Coincidentally, one hundred years ago the old building housed one of the city’s best coffeehouse
The Refuge training program, which ideally runs for one full year, continues to be a full-time commitment for participants, who also earn a living wage during training. They have already employed refugees from 12 countries.
If you’re in Atlanta, be sure to check them out.
Happy birthday, George Washington! To celebrate the actual anniversary, check out this Atlas created in 1932 by the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission. It is a collection of 85 maps that are associated with Washington including many maps he personally drew (he was a land surveyor throughout his life) or annotated. Also included in the atlas are maps that show Washington’s travels and legacy.
THE PEOPLE OF THE OTHER VILLAGE
Thomas Lux
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.
Helsinki’s Oodi Central Library has reinvented the idea of the traditional municipal library to create a new kind of community space. With the range of resources and specialist equipment available at Oodi Central Library, Helsinki residents and visitors can learn handy skills, see a film, edit video, create music, or access a 3D printer at the local library. Opened in 2018, Oodi offers more than your average public library creating a community meeting place with regular events and workshops, music rehearsal and performance spaces, play areas, a cinema, and even a sauna.
Each story is designed to create a unique atmosphere. The first floor offers an open-plan hall, event spaces, and a cinema. The second floor is home to designated work areas including photography, music and recording studios, games rooms, and meeting rooms. The third floor combines relaxation, learning, research, and play with a vast book collection, reading areas and a children’s play area. Oodi also has specially designed robots to facilitate the transportation of books in the library, freeing professional staff free to assist visitors.
Oodi reimagines what is expected of libraries by offering a modern and inclusive space that opens up new opportunities for its users. From the citizen’s advice services to access to new hobbies, Oodi is both a cultural hub and a practical space where locals can find accessible resources. It combines the space of the library with a socializing space, event space and leisure center where users can learn and explore in a public space.
Here at TBTP World Headquarters we spend way too much time reminiscing about books bought, sold, and collected over the years. This inevitably leads to uncomfortable regrets about the items passed over at book sales, sold below the actual value, or not sequestered for the personal library or collection. Occasionally, a book buyer, or in this case a TBTP follower, brings up a sore topic.
So, first a big thanks to reader Sandy R. who remembered my map geek interest in transit maps and shared copies of the very early London transit maps pictured above and below discovered online. However, this is where the regret comes in. Some years ago, I sold my copies of very similar late 19th and early 20th century London maps along with a group of London travel guide books to a UK collector. In retrospect, not only did I under price the maps at the time, but would really like to have them in my own collection now.
Travel Between The Pages 