The American Book Review is an award-winning publication that specializes in reviews of often neglected or under-rated novels, poetry and literary criticism from small, regional and university presses. Not long ago they published a marvelous list of the “100 Best First Lines from Novels”. Of course, “Call me Ishmael” was number one, but some of the rest may surprise you. Take a look here.
There are lots of travel magazines devoted to individual countries, and of course a myriad of city-specific periodicals, but now there’s a magazine that devotes each issue to a single street. The brainchild of Berliner Ricarda Meissner, Flaneur launched last month with an entire issue devoted to Kantstraβe in West Berlin.
Equal parts travel guide and arts magazine, Flaneur offers portraits of shopkeepers, café owners, local artists/writers/designers/architects, and the lives of residents over generations. All inspired by the 19th century flaneur lifestyle.
I look forward to see what streets that they choose to profile in coming issues.
Walking and using public transit are usually the best ways to get around most cities, but getting one’s bearings can be frustrating—especially in a new city. The New York City Department of Transportation really gets this and recently unveiled a new series of pedestrian-friendly map kiosks in select areas of the city. Aimed at helping walkers to easily orient themselves, the new maps cannily use the viewer’s perspective instead of the traditional north as up design in most maps.
Both sides of the 8-foot tall information/map kiosks displays a map of the streets within a 5-minute walking distance and another map showing the area in relation to a larger slice of NYC. This new line of street maps will be a boon for tourists, as well as residents of the city who can be just as disoriented as visitors when they leave their neighborhood or borough.
The project utilizes a terrific new version of Helvetica—called Neue Helvetica DOT—developed by Monotype for the maps. There’s also a great set of new helpful icons for the maps.
A newly hatched UK thinktank plan to turn historic, old prisons into high-end boutique hotels may be taking hotel security a bit too far. The project would reinvent famous slammers such as London’s Wormwood Scrubs, Petonville, Dartmoor and the 400 year-old Shepton Mallet hoosegow.
This prison/hotel conversion model is not so unconventional. Last year we reported on the very stylish renovation of Het Arresthuis Hotel in Roermond, Netherlands. And six years ago, the Malmaison Hotel Group in the UK transformed an Oxford jail into a modern boutique property. While here in the U.S., The Liberty in Boston is a great example of jail to hotel conversion.
This little film transcends its original purpose as a lowly commercial for skateboard footwear with a charming rolling tour of La Serinissima . In the video tale, directed by Federico Vitetta, pro-skateboarder Guy Mariano daydreams his way from the waterways of Venice Beach, California to the canals of the original Venice.
Old-school travelers may still document their trips with maps and pushpins, but you can now track your journeys with your very own scratch-off maps. Produced by Luckies (UK) the fun Scratch Map series features maps of the World, Europe, the UK and the US, each layered with foil just like a lottery ticket. Doesn’t that sound like more fun than journaling?
Here’s how it works:
Heineken Brewery recently launched a fun travel promotion campaign based on a game they call “Departure Roulette” at New York City’s JFK International Airport. The game dares flyers to drop their scheduled travel plans for a chance to travel to an unknown exotic location with the condition that they leave immediately. The players receive airfare, $2,000 and hotel stays.
“Departure Roulette” was inspired by Heineken’s ongoing marketing campaign called “Dropped” in which travelers are sent to a remote location where their adventures are filmed.
If you are interested in street art, then you’ll want to see this neat infographic created by the folks at Canvas Elite, an online “art” seller. The graphic highlights the career of the elusive banksy from 2001 until 2012, with notes on original geographic placement and commentary on important paintings. But it doesn’t answer the question: Who is Banksy
Forget about pickpockets, muggers, or football hooligans, visitors to London have a scarier prospect to look out for: exploding pavements. The UK Health and Safety Executive has revealed that 12 “under-pavement” explosions have occurred during the first half of 2013 alone. The video below shows an eruption that blew-up on Pimlico Road near Victoria Station on April 26th. It may be safer for pedestrians to just walk in the road.
New York City-based artist Ourit Ben-Haim travels the city’s subway system snapping candid photos of readers and then posting them with the book titles on her wonderful blog The Underground New York Public Library. I don’t know what’s so compelling about the images, maybe it’s just heartwarming to see so many average folks reading real books.
Ben-Haim’s blog is reminiscent of Walker Evans‘ Passengers series, where he surreptitiously photographed subway riders over a three year period (1938-41) with a disguised and hidden camera.
