A big h/t to the clever folks at Type Books in Toronto, Canada for this marvelous little video.
July 12th to August 20th are the official “Dog Days of Summer,” the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius, which in astrology is connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck.Here on the East coast of North America the heat is stifling and the humidity oppressive. This emblem from the enigmatic Atalanta Fugiens, (Michael Maier, Johann-Theodor de Bry Publisher, Germany, 1620) titled “Lupus ab Oriente & Canis ab Occidente se invicem momorderunt.” certainly captures the mood.
Icelanders have learned to cope with the scourge of overtourism with humor and aplomb. In the far northwestern town of Ísafjörður resident and museum curator Björg Elínar Sveinbjörnsdóttir recently capitalized on the nosiness of tourists who constantly peeked into the window of her house while visiting the Westfjords’s unofficial capital. With tongue in cheek, the entrepreneur installed curtains outside her window with a sign reading, “EVERYDAY LIFE PEEP SHOW!” For two euros, two dollars, or two pounds, tourists can now observe the first floor of an Icelandic apartment and see mundane things such as a cake cooling on a table next to a glass of milk or the dishes left from a meal. The Peep Show has no set schedule, but will be open whenever the town is busy.
You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t. There’re five or six kinds of black. Some silky, some woolly. Some just empty. Some like fingers. And it don’t stay still, it moves and changes from one kind of black to another. Saying something is pitch black is like saying something is green. What kind of green? Green like my bottles? Green like a grasshopper? Green like a cucumber, lettuce, or green like the sky is just before it breaks loose to storm? Well, night black is the same way. May as well be a rainbow.
Jean-Jacques Megel-Nuber wanted to open a bookshop, but he also wanted to be free to travel around France. Fortunately he discovered a way to accomplish both goals. Now he visits rural towns and villages in his itinerant bookshop that also doubles as his tiny house. Designed in conjunction with the clever folks at La Maison Qui Chemine (The Wandering House), Megel-Nuber’s Au Vrai Chic Littérère packs 3,000 carefully titles for sale along with space for a kitchen, office, and sleeping loft into this tiny, rolling bookshop. Looks like a great life to me.
When I travel, I usually pack way too much reading material. However, that never stops me from buying a book (or two) from an airport bookshop or newstand. Now there’s a program for compulsive book buyers like me that allows a purchase to be returned for a 50% refund. It’s more like renting a book than buying. The Read and Return program is offered by airport booksellers operated by Paradies Lagardere, which has hundreds of restaurants, bars, and stores at more than 100 North American locations.
Travel Between The Pages 