Beijing-based graphics studio 39 degrees north created this animated version of author Neil Gaiman’s dark Christmas poem Nicholas Was. I never was that into the holiday any way. Ho.Ho.Ho.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is one of my favorite go to places in the city. In fact, I’ve been visiting the Met since before I could walk. The museum’s grand entrance hall never fails to awe. This month, the space has been enhanced by an extraordinary addition of a pair of large murals by the Canadian First Nations artist Kent Monkman.
Monkman’s twin paintings, Mistikôsiwak , uses images, motifs, and techniques from art history to explore the experiences and histories of North America’s Indigenous people. The murals subvert typical Eurocentric narratives of history, while confronting contemporary cultural and political issues.
The paintings’ title derives from a Cree word meaning “wooden boat people” that was originally applied to Europeans who colonized North America. Each of the related murals features the large figure of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, Monkman’s shape-shifting, time-traveling alter ego, who pays tribute to the tradition in Indigenous cultures of the “Two Spirit,” a third gender and non-binary sexuality. Miss Chief, whose name plays on the words mischief and egotistical, also refers to the Cree trickster figure, who challenges conventional beliefs and wisdom in traditional stories.
The paintings will be on display at the Met until April 2020.
On November 30th, the legendary author George R.R. Martin officially launched his own bricks and mortar bookshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Beastly Books—named for Beauty and the Beast—is located nextdoor to the cinema that Martin purchased and rehabilitated in 2013. A major motivation for the project was to create a space for readings, book launches, and signings.
This captivating 11-minute film by Michelle and Uri Kranot is a mysterious, melancholy animation in which a diverse group of people slowly gather in a snow-laden field in Denmark. Nothing really happens in Nothing Happens and that’s kind of refreshing.
Europeans seem to be taking the lead in the creation of new travel paradigms. In Germany, DB, the German Railway Operator, has taken advantage of new attitudes towards responsible travel by promoting their discounted train tickets. Still, 72% of Germans prefer to fly to foreign lands during their holidays. Partnering with advertising agency Ogilvy, DB was able to offer comparable tourist trips in Germany as inexpensively as €19 and offering an alternative to flying.
Because of cheap flights, globalization, and the demand for instagrammable moments, tourism is becoming increasingly unsustainable. Compared to air travel, taking the train is the more sustainable mode of transportation . Comparison ads were created with an algorithm that searched for images with similar locations around Germany. It also personalized the search by adding real-time data such as the closest airport and flight price.
Originally begun as a ticket-promotion campaign, DB has demonstrated that discovering Germany by train can be fun for Germans and better for the environment. As well as showcasing local travel, the rail company is also doing their part in offsetting large carbon emissions caused by air travel by incentivizing train travel.
In 1617. William Hakewill commissioned a traveling library to give as a gift to a friend. The Jacobean miniature mobile library consisted of fifty gold-tooled vellum-bound miniature books contained in a wooden case that resembled a large folio.
Inside there were three shelves for the books. The interior cover had an illuminated table of contents. The diverse subject matter covered history, poetry, theology and philosophy and included works by Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, Horace and Julius Caesar.
The mobile library was the perfect gift for readers on the go, and must of been a success for over the next five years Hakewill had three others made for friends.
The rare miniature travelling library is part of the Brotherton Collection of rare manuscripts, photographs and books housed at Leeds University.The three other known copies live at the British Library, the Huntington Library and the Toledo Museum of Art Ohio.
I just discovered that the artist and Beat poet John Giorno died in October. You can be forgiven if you are not familiar with him, but in the 60s and 70s he was a prominent figure in the New York City art, film, and poetry scene. Here’s the wonderful poem “Thanx 4 Nothing” that he wrote for his 70th birthday 12 years ago.
I want to give my thanks to everyone for everything,
and as a token of my appreciation,
I want to offer back to you all my good and bad habits
as magnificent priceless jewels,
wish-fulfilling gems satisfying everything you need and want,
thank you, thank you, thank you,
thanks.
May every drug I ever took
come back and get you high,
may every glass of vodka and wine I’ve drunk
come back and make you feel really good,
numbing your nerve ends
allowing the natural clarity of your mind to flow free,
may all the suicides be songs of aspiration,
thanks that bad news is always true,
may all the chocolate I ever eaten
come back rushing through your bloodstream
and make you feel happy,
thanks for allowing me to be a poet
a noble effort, doomed, but the only choice.
I want to thank you for your kindness and praise,
thanks for celebrating me,
thanks for the resounding applause,
I want to thank you for taking everything for yourself
and giving nothing back,
you were always only self-serving,
thanks for exploiting my big ego
and making me a star for your own benefit,
thanks that you never paid me,
thanks for all the sleaze,
thanks for being mean and rude
and smiling at my face,
I am happy that you robbed me,
I am happy that you lied
I am happy that you helped me,
thanks, grazie, merci beaucoup.
May you smoke a joint with William,
and spend intimate time with his mind,
more profound than any book he wrote,
I give enormous thanks to all my lovers,
beautiful men with brilliant minds,
great artists,
Bob, Jasper, Ugo,
may they come here now
and make love to you,
and may my many other lovers
of totally great sex,
countless lovers
of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless
fabulous sex
in the golden age
of promiscuity
may they all come here now,
and make love to you,
if you want,
may each of them
hold each of you in their arms
balling
to your hearts
delight.
balling to your hearts
delight
balling to
your hearts delight
balling to your hearts delight.
May all the people who are dead
Allen, Brion, Lita, Jack,
and I do not miss any of you
I don’t miss any of them,
no nostalgia,
it was wonderful we loved each other
but I don’t want any of them back,
now, if any of you
are attracted to any of them,
may they come back from the dead,
and do whatever is your pleasure,
may they multiply,
and be the slaves
of whomever wants them,
fulfilling your every wish and desire,
(but you won’t want them as masters,
as they’re demons),
may Andy come here
fall in love with you
and make each of you a superstar,
everyone can have
Andy.
everyone can
have Andy.
everyone can have Andy,
everyone can have an Andy.
Huge hugs to the friends who betrayed me,
every friend became an enemy,
sooner or later,
I am delighted you are vacuum cleaners
sucking everything into your dirt bags,
you are none other than a reflection of my mind.
Thanks for the depression problem
and feeling like suicide
everyday of my life,
and now that I’m seventy,
I am happily almost there.
Twenty billion years ago,
in the primordial wisdom soup
beyond comprehension and indescribable,
something without substance moved slightly,
and became something imperceptible,
moved again and became something invisible,
moved again and produced a particle and particles,
moved again and became a quark,
again and became quarks,
moved again and again and became protons and neutrons,
and the twelve dimensions of space,
tiny fire balls of primordial energy
bits tossed back and forth
in a game of catch between particles,
transmitting electromagnetic light
and going fast, 40 million times a second,
where the pebble hits the water,
that is where the trouble began,
something without substance became something with substance,
why did it happen?
because something substance less
had a feeling of missing out on something,
not
getting it
was not getting it
not getting it,
not getting it,
imperceptibly not having something
when there was nothing to have,
clinging to a notion of reality;
from the primordially endless potential,
to modern day reality,
twenty billion years later,
has produced me,
gave birth to me and my stupid grasping mind,
made me and you and my grasping mind.
May Rinpoche and all the great Tibetan teachers who loved me,
come back and love you more,
hold you in their wisdom hearts,
bathe you in all-pervasive compassion,
give you pith instructions,
and may you with the diligence of Olympic athletes
do meditation practice,
and may you with direct confidence
realize the true nature of mind.
America, thanks for the neglect,
I did it without you,
let us celebrate poetic justice,
you and I never were,
never tried to do anything,
and never succeeded,
I want to thank you for introducing me to
the face of the naked mind,
thanx 4 nothing.
Travel Between The Pages 