It’s been a very stressful time for most folks in the U.S., but our neighbors to the north in Canada might have a timely gift. Destination Canada, the nation’s tourism board, is offering the chance to experience the joy and beauty of winter in the frozen north by giving away 50 prizes of two economy round-trip tickets each on Air Canada.
The new promotion, which launched on Cyber Monday, is called “SnOOOw Days” (the three capital “O”s being a play on “out of office”).
“Canadian winter is a time for joy, trying new things, and reconnecting with our inner child,” Gloria Loree, senior vice president of marketing strategy and chief marketing officer at Destination Canada, said in a press release. “The ‘SnOOOw Day Giveaway’ is our way of encouraging Americans to step away from their busy lives and immerse themselves in the wonder of Canada’s winter landscapes.”
To enter, travelers need to visit www.snowdaycanada.com between now and December 20, 2024, and fill out the online entry form with their name, zip code, email address, and phone number. The only stipulations are that entrants need to be a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia and be at least 21 years of age.
Winners will be notified via email sometime in January 2025 and will have three days to claim their prize before another winner will be randomly chosen. They will have until March 2026 to use their free airline tickets, with the only blackout dates being between January 3 and 6, 2025; December 20 and 23, 2025; and January 3 and 6, 2026.
It’s that wonderful time of the year when we anticipate all of the amazing works of art and literature that will lose their copyright protections. So, if you’ve been hankering to write that sequel to A Farewell to Arms or paint your own version of Hopper’s Clop Suey, get ready for January 1st.
Examples of important literary works entering the public domain include Ernest Hemingway‘s novel A Farewell to Arms, William Seabrook‘s novel The Magic Island (the first book to introduce the concept of a zombie). Ellery Queen‘s detective novel The Roman Hat Mystery, Margery Allingham detective novel The Crime at Black Dudley, the first English translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, Alfred Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz in its original German, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Pather Panchali in its original Bengali, Lynd Ward‘s wordless novel Gods’ Man, William Faulkner‘s novel The Sound and the Fury, Dashiell Hammett‘s novel Red Harvest, Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s novel Tarzan and the Lost Empire, Ruth Plumly Thompson‘s novel Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, Bertrand Russell‘s book Marriage and Morals, Patrick Hamilton‘s play Rope, A. A. Milne‘s play Toad of Toad Hall, Virginia Woolf‘s essay A Room of One’s Own, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s essay Some Remarks on Logical Form and the first part of the 14th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (full in public domain by 2029).
Important artworks entering the public domain include René Magritte‘s painting The Treachery of Images, Salvador Dali‘s paintings The Great Masturbator and The Accommodations of Desire, Wassily Kandinsky‘s painting Upward, Edward Hopper‘s painting Chop Suey, Kawamura Kiyoo‘s painting Founding of the Nation, Julio Romero de Torres‘ painting La Fuensanta, M. C. Escher‘s print Strada di Scanno, the first design of the Barcelona chair and August Sander‘s photograph Berlin Coal Carrier and other photographs from his 1929 photobook Face of our Time.
PENTATINA FOR FIVE VOWELS
Campbell McGrath
Now that we have officially entered the Christmas season in the U.S.A., what could be more festive than a claymation special starring Gollum and the Hobbit gang. Christmas in Middle-Earth is the wickedly charming musical brainchild of actor/musicians Brendan Dalton. Dalton used his free time during the lonely days of pandemic life to compose an album’s worth of Tolkien-inspired Christmas jams. As he explains on his website:
Christmas in Middle-Earth, the brainchild of 8 years worth of Tolkien fanaticism, was the result of a drunken joke that just never ended. “What if they celebrated Christmas in the Shire and sang drinking songs about it in the Green Dragon? What if we wrote one? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?” It wasn’t, but we did it anyway. And thus, an unhinged bit was born that went on for way too long. 8 years to be exact.
It began as a sporadic release of demos – because who needs regular album drops anyway? Then came an epic plot twist: 2020’s quarantine united our fictional band to ‘fix, remix, and remaster’ the entire album. It’s like ‘The Two Towers,’ but with mixing boards instead of towers! …too far?
If you have traveled in Italy during this century, it’s likely that you have enjoyed an invigorating little cup of espresso at the bargain price of €1. Sadly, Italy’s beloved inexpensive espresso, a cultural icon served at bars across the country for as little as €1, is poised to undergo a radical change. Coffee prices in Italy are expected to rise significantly, according to industry reports. This unprecedented increase threatens to end the tradition that has long placed affordability at the heart of Italian coffee culture.
Italians enjoy some of the cheapest coffee in Western Europe, with espresso averaging €1.20 and cappuccinos €1.50 in the country’s coffee bars and cafés. This affordability fuels a massive coffee culture, with 6 billion cups consumed annually, generating €7 billion in revenue.
Climate-related disruptions to global coffee supply could push espresso prices up by 66% – up to €2 . The basis for this price hike lies in rising global coffee costs, driven by climate-induced production challenges in major coffee-growing regions such as Brazil and Vietnam.
This is a significant moment for Italy, where regulations and social norms have historically kept espresso prices artificially low. Baristas, keenly aware of the espresso’s cultural significance, have long resisted price hikes to maintain accessibility for all. But as input costs spiral out of control, even the most stoic defenders of the €1 espresso are finding the model unsustainable.
Espresso is more than just a drink in Italy; it is a ritual that defines daily life. Italians visit coffee bars multiple times a day, enjoying the social interaction and the momentary respite provided by a quick shot of coffee. The €1 espresso has been a cornerstone of this practice, offering an affordable luxury even during tough economic times.
Charles Fort’s Book of the Damned: “For every five people who read this book“, wrote novelist/playwright Ben Hecht, “four will go insane”. If you are feeling courageous, the book is available for free right here.
In 2020, Stéphanie Colaux discovered an album of photos of Nazi-occupied Paris at a French flea market.
“As I flipped through the pages I realized, my God, it’s all scenes of [Nazi] occupied Paris. And I knew I’d found a treasure,” she says. “And then I read the little note in the front. ‘If you find this album,’ it said, ‘take care of it and have the courage to look at it.’ I thought, someone sent a message in a bottle and I just found it.”
The discovery set off a hunt for the unknown photographer, who took the photos at the risk of their own life — the unauthorized taking of such photos was “punishable by imprisonment or death”. The story of the search is very much worth reading. via NPR
A life-sized Lego tram has been created to celebrate 137 years of public transportation in Budapest. The brick-built tram has an actual tram undercarriage and can be pulled on a fixed track. Human-sized Lego minifigures peer out from the windows.
Built using 1.8 million LEGO bricks, the six-ton, 11.5-meter-long tram was constructed by 90 builders in over 6,800 hours. Designed by master builder Balázs Dóczi, the tram is a remarkable feat of craftsmanship. Although the tramway will not carry passengers, it was towed by two shunting engines to its place of exhibition where visitors can admire it and even place their own LEGO cubes on the base plates beneath the tram.
Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology has an advent calendar. On Day 1 behind the first door you’ll discover Yūhi Hill and Drum Bridge at Meguro 1857 by Utagawa Hiroshige.
Situated near Amsterdam’s New West , Corendon Amsterdam New-West, a Tribute Portfolio Hotel has 680 guest rooms and two decommissioned Boeing passenger planes. One is available for special events, while the other is attached to the one-of-a-kind 737 Suite .
An aviation lover’s dream, the 1291-square-foot suite has a king-sized bed, kitchen, living room, and a bathroom plus two half-baths. Overnighters can access the jet’s cockpit and first two rows to snoop inside compartments, push buttons, ignore “fasten your seatbelts” signs, and eat tasty room service food.
The hotel’s other stationary plane is a Boeing 747-400 — the former KLM aircraft called “City of Bangkok” — which first flew in 1989 and retired after 30 years of service. During daily tours at 10 a.m., visitors can sit in the cockpit and passenger seats and see where flight crews used to sleep.
The video below is an excerpt from the 11th episode of Carl Sagan’s iconic 1980s Cosmos series, titled “The Persistence of Memory.”
What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.
Travel Between The Pages 