Emily Dickinson, “The Bee is not afraid of me”
I recently read the impassioned defense of literature and reading (below) which was excerpted in the Washington Post from a commencement address by the American author Nicole Krauss.
I recently stumbled on Matt Dorfman’s annual Ten Best list in the New York Times Book Review and was impressed by the terrific book covers. Here’s how Dorfman introduced the article:
If most book cover designs are conceived as quick-to-metabolize marketing tools, a great one can make the reader do a double take in slow motion. A good first impression is, of course, the goal: to elicit curiosity and excitement before you’ve even picked the book off a shelf. But a great cover can fortify itself in our consciousness, resonating more deeply as we absorb the text within, ideally prompting a second impression after we finish reading.
“But most urgent on my list of appreciation are those of you who have welcomed my tunes into your lives, into your kitchens when you’re doing the dishes, in your bedrooms, in your courting and conceiving, into those nights of loss and bewilderment, and into those aimless places of the heart, which only a song seems to be able to enter. It is before this sudden and strange and mysterious intimacy that has developed between us that I bow my head with real gratitude. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
-Leonard Cohen
It’s been a horribly depressing July here in the former colonies, but there was one story that lifted my spirits and gave me a moment of joy.
Just ahead of the August fortieth anniversary of the release of the 1985 film, the Alamo has acquired the iconic, custom Schwinn DX Cruiser that appeared on screen in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Directed by Tim Burton and cowritten by Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, Herman travels cross country in search of his stolen bicycle hitchhiking to Texas after being told by a fake psychic that his beloved bike is in the basement of the San Antonio mission. The film prop will go on display in the visitors’ center and museum of the Alamo, in the sublevel that famously did not exist at the time of the shooting, a space below the gift shop also used as a reception hall. This accession was undertaken by a private trust that maintains the monument’s collections.
If you are a regular visitor to Travel Between The Pages, you will be well aware that I am enamored with books. I have been a bibliophile since I picked up my first book. By this I mean that I am fascinated by all things book related including the printing and publishing of physical books. The wonderful video below profiles the creation of a new edition of the beautiful volume Kissa By Kissa: How to Walk Japan by Craig Mod.
Here’s how the author describes the book:
Kissa by Kissa: How to Walk Japan (Book One) is a book about walking 1,000+km of the countryside of Japan along the ancient Nakasendō highway, the culture of toast (toast!), and mid-twentieth century Japanese cafés called kissaten.
The walk of this book begins in the city of Kamakura, just south of Tokyo. From there we head to Tokyo, and then from Tokyo all the way to Kyoto via the old Nakasendō highway, snaking through Saitama, over to Nagano, down through the bucolic Kiso Valley along the Kiso-ji road, into the plains of Gifu, alongside Lake Biwa, and to Kyoto. Along the way we meet farmers, gardeners, and a host of incredible and inspiring café owners.
Kissa by Kissa is not a guide. It sits somewhere between travelogue, photo book, and bizarro ethnographic field study of old café — kissaten — culture.
Those kissaten — or kissa — served up toast. I ate that toast. So. Much. Toast. Much of it pizza toast. If you buy this book, you’ll learn more than you ever dared to know about this variety of toast available all across Japan. It’s a classic post-war food staple. Kissa by kissa, and slice by thick slice of beautiful, white toast, I took a heckuva affecting and long walk. This book is my sharing with you, of that walk, the people I met along the way, and the food I ate.
NB: If the video doesn’t open in your browser click here.
If you’d like to learn more about the book or Craig Mod’s many projects, you can check out his newsletter right here.
In 1904, Elizabeth Magie patented “The Landlord’s Game” the original version of what we now know as Monopoly. Her goal wasn’t entertainment. It was education. Magie designed the game to highlight the dangers of wealth inequality and unchecked capitalism, showing how landlords could bankrupt tenants while enriching themselves.
She pitched the game to Parker Brothers but was told it was too complex. Decades later, Charles Darrow discovered her idea, made a few changes, and sold it to Parker Brothers as his own invention.
He became the first millionaire game designer. Magie, despite holding the original patent, received just $500 and no credit.
While not really a map this simple tool does map affinity based on user’s literary tastes. It allows you to plug in any author you like and then it shows other writers whom readers of your literary choice also selected. Supposedly, the closer the names, the more readers of X tend to like readers of Y. The dataset is taken from Gnod. And if you can’t really on Gnod, what can you rely on ? Give it a spin. I had some fun with it, but found many proximity connections dubious at best.
NB: DO NOT click on embedded links.
The wonderful, eclectic webcomic site XKCD mapped the most observed plant and animal for all 50 US states as reported by iNaturalist users. I’m not surprised that bumble bees were such a popularly observed animal — the common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) is most-observed in Vermont, Wisconsin, Maine, Connecticut, Illinois, and Minnesota. Also popular: white-tailed deer, bison, milkweed, honeysuckle, and robins. In my neck of the woods, I’d have to report clover and squirrels, with dandelion and white-tailed deer a close second.
Most folks who grew up in the English-speaking know the fairy tale of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” In the story, an exasperating trespasser breaks into the home of three bears. The intruder eats their food and breaks furniture before being ejected. But, did you know that the housebreaker was originally an old woman, not a little girl named Goldilocks? Or, that the first Three Bears were friends instead of Mama Bear, Papa Bear and Baby Bear?
The Three Bears started as an oral tale and was first written down almost 200 years ago. Over the decades, the story has changed and grown into the tale we know today. The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books has materials which reveal the history of The Three Bears story.
Eleanor Mure wrote the first recorded version of The Three Bears story in 1831. Osborne Collection has Mure’s original manuscript, a handmade book created as a gift for her nephew Horace Broke. The story is set at Cecil Lodge, the Mure family estate in Hertfordshire, England. Mure’s The Story of Three Bears (1831) is told in verse and illustrated with original watercolors.
Instead of a little girl, the Bears’ house is invaded by an old woman. Mure’s old woman meets a bad end. As punishment for housebreaking, the Bears try to burn and drown the old woman. When nothing works, they “chuck her aloft on St. Paul’s church-yard steeple.”
In 1837, English poet Robert Southey released the first printed version of The Three Bears. The story appeared in Southey’s prose anthology The Doctor (1834-47). As with Mure’s family, The Three Bears was a popular story among Southey’s family. Southey likely heard The Three Bears from his uncle, William Tyler. Tyler was illiterate, but had a great memory for folktales.
Southey’s story is the first version to discuss the Bears’ size. He introduces the Three Bears as Little, Small, Wee Bear; Middle Bear; and Great, Huge Bear. The story has no illustrations, but the Bears’ size is represented by typography. Great, Huge Bear speaks in large gothic letters. Little, Small, Wee Bear speaks in tiny italics.
Unlike Mure’s telling, the Southey’s bears do not punish the intruding old woman. Instead she makes an escape through an open window. Southey speculates that she might be “sent to the House of Correction” for vagrancy, or perhaps “she broke her neck in the fall.”
Southey’s The Three Bears was an instant hit. Within months publisher George Nicol released his own version of The Story of the Three Bears (1837). Nicol’s story was in verse, but otherwise was a direct retelling of Southey’s version.
In early tellings of The Three Bears, the protagonist was an old woman. But, in 1850 Joseph Cundall wrote the first retelling featuring a little girl. Cundall called his character Silver-Hair and justified the switch by saying “there are so many other stories of old women.” Published in A Treasury of Pleasure Books for Young Children (1850), Cundall’s retelling otherwise closely followed Southey’s version of The Three Bears.
Following Cundall’s publication, little girl protagonists named Silver-Hair became a common feature of The Three Bears retellings. The character was sometimes called Silver-Locks, Golden Hair and other variant names.
The name Goldilocks was first used for the Bears’ nemesis in two 1904 fairy tale anthologies. Old Nursery Rhymes and Stories (1904) and Old Fairy Tales for Children (1904) both feature “Little Goldilocks” as The Three Bears’ intruder. It is possible that the name Goldilocks was inspired by an entirely different fairy tale. French fairy tale writer Madame d’Aulnoy’s story The Beauty with Golden Hair is sometimes translated as The Story of Pretty Goldilocks.
In the 20th century, Goldilocks became the character’s standard name. Popular fairy tale collections like Flora Annie Steel’s English Fairy Tales (1918) used the Goldilocks name. Now the story is sometimes simply titled Goldilocks without any mention of The Three Bears.
Travel Between The Pages 