Paperholm is the brilliant ongoing project by Edinburgh-based artist Charles Young. Each day, he creates a new building or component to add to his city of paper. He then uses stop-motion to animate the new addition to the community. You can follow Young’s progress on his website and even purchase your own paper buildings.
“Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.” Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse, the 1946 Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, worked as a bookseller in the J.J. Heckenhaurer Antiquariat in Tübingen, Germany from 1895 to 1899. That should give hope to aspiring writers toiling away in bookshops everywhere.
Animator Jack Sachs spent just three weeks creating this trippy little video tour of the Tate Britain Museum in London. Sachs’ surreal CG characters occupy the staid gallery while guiding us on an engaging tour of the art treasures. I guarantee that you’ll love Shhh! even if you’re not a fan of art museums.
In my experience adding an inexpensive (or free) stopover, or planning multi-city flights, is usually a time-consuming hassle, with mixed results. Now Air Wander’s just launched search engine promises to streamline the discovery and booking process.
To use Air Wander, you simply input your departure airport and end destination city. The site offers suggestions for reasonably priced stopover locations. it also allows users to choose multiple cities and then suggests optimal routing. If you want to get wild and crazy, the site’s “anywhere” option offers up recommendations for low priced trips.
Air Wander is funded through fees from airlines when users book flights via links. While they’re working on the mobile applications, you can give it a spin here.
For regular readers of TBTP, it’s no secret that Iceland and Norway are two of my favorite destinations. Filmmaker Dmitry Bubonet shares my enthusiasm for the breathtaking beauty of these Nordic nations. His gorgeous short film, called simply “Nord”, combines drone footage shot on road trips this past August to both countries.
I know that I’ve shared this before, but this year is the 25th anniversary for Chicago’s CTA Holiday Train. Every year since 1992 the Chicago Transit Authority has wrapped trains with thousands of lights and holiday decorations. They even have an open sleigh car for Santa and his reindeer. The carriage interiors are festively outfitted with multi-colored lights, garlands, and bows. The trains are running on all lines until Christmas Eve.
On his death in 1837, English architect and avid collector Sir John Soane bequeathed his stately London mansion and personal museum and library to the nation, with the stipulation that it would be preserved intact. He also required that the collection be accessible to the public for free. The amazing museum is still open and has recently completed a seven year restoration project. The extraordinary house and collection are often overlooked by visitors to London, but it’s well worth a visit to the Georgian townhouse at Lincoln’s Inn Fields just a short walk from the Holborn Tube Station.
If you can’t get to London to see the remarkable collections of Egyptian, Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance artifacts and artworks, the museum has begun sharing 3D scanned tours of the institution. They’ve just posted digitized virtual tours of Soane’s Model Room and the Egyptian Collection.
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10AM to 5PM, and the first Tuesday each month from 6 to 9PM for candlelight tours.
Artist Rafael Esquer first visited New York City 20 years ago as a student, but he never forgot the exhilarating feeling of Manhattan at night. Now as the director of a design studio, he has created a fabulous poster rendered in metallic foils and inks to celebrate the city’s appeal. The Klimt-inspired “Iconic New York Illuminated” poster is available for purchase on his Alfalfa Studio website.
Last year, I shared a story about Tokyo’s brilliant Book and Bed Hostel. Now the traveling bibliophile’s Eden has expanded with a new location in the heart of Kyoto. The 20 bed hostel, which officially opens tomorrow, features cozy sleeping nooks tucked away among shelves packed with more than 5,000 books. The sleeping pods are all equipped with reading lights, power points, and wifi. The hostel also provides storage lockers, communal spaces for socializing and reading, and a bar. At just 5,300 Yen per night, it’s a bargain. You can learn more and reserve at the website.
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