Not your usual guidebook for NYC

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Filmmaker and social media maven Nicolas Heller, also known as New York Nico, boasts more than a million people followers on his eponymous Instagram account where he chronicles the characters of New York City. Heller platforms ordinary New Yorkers along with a wild mix of the city’s wonderful eccentrics.

After years of handing out free advice about what to do and where to go in NYC, Heller has written a 226-page book to answer those questions. New York Nico’s Guide to NYC explores the five boroughs with recommendations from the Manhattan-born and raised expert himself.

The guidebook’s pages are packed with maps, illustrations, photos, tips, and a checklist called “The Nico 100.” For his new book, Heller worked with Jeremy Cohen on the photography; Chris Wilson for illustration; and collaborated with Jason Diamond for writing.

“A lot of people have been asking me, what sets this guide apart from other guides? And the best answer I can give them is: It’s my guidebook. It’s not like the spots you need to go to, these are my favorite spots. … If you enjoy my POV on New York, then you’ll enjoy this book.”

New York Nico’s Guide to New York City. is a guidebook, but not in the traditional sense of the word – you won’t find fancy restaurants within its pages or tourist traps, the book centers more on the people and the places that make NYC hum.

 

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Not creepy at all

Posted on November 27, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Young, blonde and available to chat in 20 languages “Emma”  is the new brand ambassador “Emma” for the travel in Germany — and she is AI-generated. On Instagram and in a chat function, she is designed to offer the international target audience on a journey around​​ the country for the German National Tourist Board and answer potential travelers’ questions.

The goal of the new campaign by the German National Tourist Board (DZT) is to make tourism seem more accessible for a young, foreign target market. The virtual influencer “Emma” represents a “modern, cosmopolitan Berliner,” according to the press release . She shares her travel experiences on the Instagram channel @EmmaTravelsGermany  . In the future, she will also “act as a personal travel companion and create personalized travel routes tailored to the individual interests of users.” In chat format, she can already answer questions in over 20 languages ​​by accessing the information on germany.travel and real-time data from the DZT Knowledge Graph.

Personally, I find it all a bit creepy, but check it out for yourself:

 

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“Now a narrative is a story, not logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy.”

Posted on November 26, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

“Now a narrative is a story, not logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whether you realize it or not. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming your story. And in these stories you wear two faces. You are simultaneously subject and object. You are the whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. ‘Storyteller’ and at the same time ‘character.’ It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world.” (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)

If like me you are a Murakami cultist, check out this excellent Esquire article about the author.

 

 

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Just another marbled Monday

Posted on November 25, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The wavy patterns on the edges, covers, and endpapers on this tooled and blind-stamped, half-bound book are from Carew’s Survey of Cornwall printed in London by Thomas Bensley for J. Faulder and Rees and Curtis in 1811. The marbled-paper pattern is what the University of Washington’s site on Patterned Papers identifies as Serpentine.

The pattern begins with a Turkish base. “A comb with one set of teeth is drawn through the bath twice vertically, once in either direction with the second pass halving the first. This step is repeated horizontally. Then the final step is to draw a comb, with one set of teeth set at slightly wider intervals, through the bath once vertically in wavy lines reminiscent of the way in which a snake moves.“ As we’ve noted before, when marbling the edges of a book, the text block is clamped tightly shut, and once dipped, the excess fluid is blown or shaken off quickly to prevent it from running into the book. Once dry, the marbled edges are burnished.

The Cornish antiquary Richard Carew (1555–1620) first published his survey of Cornwall in 1602. This 1811 edition includes Carew’s Survey with additional notes by the Cornish historian Thomas Tonkin (1678–1742), published here from Tonkin’s original manuscripts by Francis Basset, 1st Baron de Dunstanville (1757-1835), who dedicates the publication to Carew’s descendant, the British politician Reginald Pole Carew (1753-1835).

The frontispiece is a portrait of Richard Carew from 1586, rendered here as a stipple engraving by English engraver William Evans (active 1797-1856). Carew is depicted holding a book with the Latin inscription Invita Morte Vita (In spite of life and death), and in the background there is an allegorical hammer and anvil with the Italian inscription Chi’verace durerà (Who is true will last).

 

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Book Club

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

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Odd doesn’t begin to cover these titles

Posted on November 23, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The shortlist has been unveiled for the 2024 Bookseller‘s Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. The annual prize was conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford and Bruce Robertson, co-founders of publishing solutions firm the Diagram Group, as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The winning title is chosen by members of the public via an online vote, and a winner announced December 6.

This year’s shortlisted titles are:

Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail by John Turner
Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them by Joseph M. Bagley
The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire by Rick Carey
How to Dungeon Master Parenting by Shelly Mazzanoble
Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western, edited by Kerry Fine, Michael K. Johnson, Rebecca M. Lush, & Sara L. Spurgeon
Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement by Judith Houck

There is no prize for the winning author or publisher, but traditionally a “passable bottle of claret” is given to the nominator of the winning entry.

In contention: The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year 2024

Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them
In this updated edition of Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, the city’s archaeologist takes you on a whirlwind tour of Beantown, including the delights of the Lemuel Clap House. 

Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western
The mass media discussed in Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western includes “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “BioShock Infinite” and A A Carr’s erotic vampire/monster slayer western Eye Killers.

How to Dungeon Master Parenting
Shelly Mazzanoble invites mums and dads to “level up” their child-rearing in How to Dungeon Master Parenting, arguing lessons learned from “Dungeons & Dragons” can help them “win at their most challenging role yet”.

Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail
John Turner wrestles with the elements, self-doubt and ageing while he hikes the nearly 2,200-mile path from Georgia to Maine in Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail.

Looking through the Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement
Judith Houck’s Looking through the Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement is an “eye-opening” examination of the struggles and successes of “bringing feminist dreams into clinical spaces”.

The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire
“A wild upstream adventure”, raved the New York Post about The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire—a “high-stakes cocktail of business, crime… and the dilemmas of conservation”. 

 

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Meanwhile, back in soulless America

Posted on November 22, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

YOU WOULD HAVE THOUGHT

John Ashbery

Meanwhile, back in
soulless America, people are having fun
as usual.

A bird visits a birdbath.
A young girl takes a refresher course
in polyhistory. My mega-units are straining
at the leash of spring.
The annual race is on –

white flowers in someone’s hair.
He comes in waltzing on empty airs,

mulling the blue notes of your case.
The leash is elastic and receptive
but I fear I am too wrapped up in cloudlets
of my own making this time.

In the other time is was rain dripping
from a tree to a house to the ground –
each thing helping itself and another thing
along a little. That would be inconceivable
these days of receptive answers and aggressive querying.

The routine is all too familiar,

the stone path wearying

 

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It’s Not Even Close

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Europe on 5 Dollars a Day

Posted on November 20, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

US travel writer Arthur Frommer, known for the guidebook Europe on 5 Dollars a Day and other titles on budget travel, has died aged 95. Frommer began his journalism career while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army during the 1950s.

“Throughout his remarkable life, Arthur Frommer democratized travel, showing average Americans how anyone can afford to travel widely and better understand the world,” his daughter and co-author Pauline wrote in her statement on the Frommer’s website.

Frommer was the founder of Frommer’s guidebooks – a series of travel books that included planning and travel tips to destinations around the globe. The series began with Europe on 5 Dollars a Day – one of his first publications, which came out in 1957 and sold millions of copies.

The book described how average Americans could afford to take trips that many thought were only accessible to the wealthy.

“This is a book for American tourists who a) own no oil wells in Texas, b) are unrelated to the Aga Khan, c) have never struck it rich in Las Vegas and who still want to enjoy a wonderful European vacation,” he wrote in the original guidebook.

Frommer was drafted during the Korean War. He was sent to Europe and served in Germany because of his language skills. While deployed, he wrote what would be his first travel guidebook for his fellow service members, The GI’s Guide to Travelling in Europe.

As well as a writer, Frommer was a TV and radio host whose work helped shape others’ approach to travel.

In one essay, Frommer wrote that travel “broadens our lives”.

“Travel has taught me that despite all the exotic differences in dress and language, of political and religious beliefs, that all the world’s people are essentially alike,” he wrote. “We all have the same urges and concerns, we all yearn for the same goals.”

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Autumn

Posted on November 19, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

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