The always inventive urban transit cartographer Jug Cerovic has teamed up with graphic designer Andrea Rohner and software engineer David Goldwich to create a new travel website featuring metropolitan transit maps labeled with popular Instagram hashtags rather than subway stations. The plans for London, Paris, Berlin, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area were created based on analyses of tags within a 1,000 foot radius of underground stations. If you’re a traveler who suffers unduly from FOMO, check out the website Tags and the Citybefore your next trip.
Many years ago, I chose to cut short my visit to the Terezín Concentration Camp in the Czech Republic due to the obnoxious behavior of groups of adolescents who laughed, joked, and generally clowned around with total disregard for the solemnity of the setting and the feelings of others. Artist and satirist Shahak Shapira has had a similar visceral reaction at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, but he’s done something about it. His Yolocaustwebsite documents the loathsome activities of moronic tourists with screenshots from their own social media accounts and a side-by-side photoshopped image from the Holocaust. So far, only one of the featured flakes has contacted Shapira to apologize for their actions.
Beginning tonight and running through the early hours of Monday morning, the Institut Français will be hosting a series of all-night marathon “intellectual raves” in dozens of cities around the world. The 2017 La Nuit des Idées or Night of Philosophy and Ideas is an annual festival of intellectual debate, culture, philosophy, and art presented by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which promotes French culture abroad via the Institut Français.
Tackling weighty philosophical issues, as well as popular culture, politics, technology, religion, economics, psychology,art, and language, the festival of ideas attracts heavy hitters, such as Thomas Piketty, Laurie Anderson, Richard Sennett, and Frédéric Lordon.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK–OCT. 3, 2010–Performance artist Laurie Anderson will perform her multimedia work “Delusion” at UCLA on Oct 21, 2010. One of the pieces she performs is about her dog Lolabele. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Here in the U.S., La Nuit des Idées events will be held in New York City at the Brooklyn Public Library and in Los Angeles. For a comprehensive listing of activities worldwide, check out the website.
This week the Netherlands celebrated their annual Nationale Tulpendag, or Tulip Day. Every year, flower growers set up temporary gardens around the country and invite everyone to come and pick bags of tulips. The Tulpenpluktuin in Amsterdam’s Damrak Square offered a rainbow of blooms, which come with bulbs intact so that they can be replanted. We could all use our own version of tulip day about now.
Most tourists who visit Paris take some sort of souvenir home. Many choose the cliché mini Eiffel Tower or even spring for some gourmet treats from Fauchon. Now travelers truly smitten with France’s capital can own an actual piece of the city. An online store has launched to sell recycled granite cobblestones that were actually removed from Paris streets. Mon Pavé Parisien offers three versions of the authentic pavers: a simple stone with a red, white and blue logo; a cobblestone commemorating the 1968 student rebellion; and a stone with 22 carat gold gilding.
Margaux Sainte-Lagüe, the savvy entrepreneur behind the project, noticed city workers removing and replacing cobblestones last year and decided to purchase some of the 8,000 tons of stones recycled annually. With city streets paved with cobblestones since the 12th century, the supply is huge. If you crave a personalized chunk of Paris history, Sainte-Lagüe can customize a cobblestone just for you. I’m thinking about a pair for bookends, with the address of the last apartment that I rented in the Marais.
By the way, the May ’68 commemorative stones are a reference to the protest graffiti “sous les pavè, la plage” or under the stone, the beach, referring to the sand base of the roadways. During the revolt, students and workers tore up Paris streets to use the cobblestones for barricades and missiles.
In this new bizarro world of “alternative facts” John Lennon is more relevant than ever.
I’m sick and tired of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope
No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope
I’m sick to death of seeing things from
Tight-lipped condescending mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of watching scenes from
Schizophrenic egocentric paranoiac primadonnas
All I want is the truth just give me some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
Son of tricky dicky’s
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
It’s money for dope, money for rope
I’m sick to death of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
As millions of enraged U.S. citizens and supporters around the world take to the streets today—including me—to protest the ascension to the Presidency of the illegitimately elected tumefied, orange klepocrat, we are also ironically noting the anniversary of the death of Eric Arthur Blair (aka George Orwell) on this date in 1950. Today, more than any time in the past, the prophetic neologisms that Orwell create resonate with thoughtful people . The witless cretins who voted for the great tangerine carbuncle seem all to comfortable with the doublethink required of imbeciles willing to support this vulgar, loutish demagogue. It bears restating the obvious, but we will hold the accomplices to this madness accountable in the future. At the moment, it may appear that ignorance is strength, but truth and fact will eventually prevail. Down with Big Blubber !
Illustrator Robert Sikoryak has been trying to cope with our national tragedy by transforming Donald Trump quotes into cartoons in the style of famous comic books and graphic novels on his blog Unquotable Trump. The rest of us are just wallowing in our disgust at the thought of that bloated, tangerine-colored pissoir becoming President of the United States. On behalf of all sane U.S. citizens I apologize in advance.
The notion of traveling around Europe on $5 a day seems preposterous in 2017, but back in 1957 it was a reality for frugal savvy travelers. This year the guidebook, which came before Let’s Go Europe, Lonely Planet, or Rick Steves Guides, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its first edition. At 87,the legendary travel guru Arthur Frommer is still involved in promoting affordable travel.
The original iconic guidebook, Europe on $5 a Day, evolved from Frommer’s experiences while traveling around the Continent during his time stationed in Europe with the U.S. Army. Frommer’s first effort at travel writing was a self-published little book called The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe, which became an underground classic. After returning to the United States, Frommer began returning to Europe on vacation trips to research the original $5 a Day guidebook. More than any other travel writer, Frommer helped to promote the idea that European travel wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for just the wealthy. His books demonstrated that inexpensive, independent travel was accessible to all.
These days, there are more than 100 Frommer guidebooks titles for destinations around the world and the Frommer brand is run by daughter Pauline, but the legendary travel writer is still encouraging Americans to travel abroad.
Travel Between The Pages 