New Year Benediction

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

A New Year’s benediction from the amazing Neil Gaiman:

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously.

I hope you will make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now – I hope that you will, when you need to, be wise and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself.“

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Goodbye 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

“Don’t be trapped by dogma…Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own voice.”

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Do You Ever Wonder…

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Do you ever wonder what happens to your checked airline baggage once it disappears down the conveyor belt and behind those mysterious rubber flaps? Well, this eye-opening, time-lapse video, entitled “Behind- the- Scenes: Your Bag’s Journey on Delta”, follows a piece of luggage outfitted with six camera lens, on a trip from Atlanta, Georgia to New York City.

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Library In Winter

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

This endearing film by Sergey Stefanovich takes the viewer on a literary journey through novelist, travel writer and journalist Duncan Fallowell‘s enviable personal library. The author provides the narration for the video which traverses the marvelous library which has gradually spread throughout his London flat.

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Do You Miss the Routemaster ?

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

It’s been nearly half a century since London Transport commissioned the development of a completely new double-decker bus. The spiffy new hybrid double-decker, designed by Wrightbus and Thomas Heatherwick, has just hit the streets of London for the holidays. Clearly inspired by the iconic 1950s-era Routemaster, the new bus features an open rear platform, three doors and two staircases. It looks like a hit.

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City Sculpture

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Portland

If you check-in with Travel Between The Pages on a regular basis, then you are well aware of my life-long love of maps. So, it’s no surprise that I’m wowed by these amazing sculptural maps . London-born, Portland-based artist Matthew Picton creates fantastic paper sculpture maps of diverse cities  utilizing books and various textual materials relating to each city. For example, he built the Jerusalem map from Bibles and a Koran. And, the map of Dublin was created from the pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Dublin

Jerusalem

London

Las Vegas

Dresden

Florence

Manhattan

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Join the World

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

The Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen has been named  honorary national chairperson for World Book Night U.S., and the organization has named the 30 titles that will be given away on World Book Night, scheduled for April 23, 2012. The U.S. World Book Night organization has opened the registration process for those wishing to become volunteer book givers. Here’s the link

“The idea behind World Book Night is inspired, and as a writer and a reader I’m thrilled to be part of it,” said Quindlen. [full disclosure: I attended high school with Anna] While World Book Night is new to the U.S., it has been a huge success in the UK.

The 30 World Book Night U.S. titles for 2012, alphabetical by author, are:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (Ballantine)
Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger (Da Capo)
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (Beacon Press)
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (Tor)
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Blood Work by Michael Connelly (Grand Central)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Riverhead); a Spanish-language edition, La breve y maravillosa vida de Óscar Wao (Vintage Espanol), will also be made available.
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick)
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (Vintage)
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Grove Atlantic)
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin)
Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton (Berkley)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead)
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (Ballantine)
The Stand by Stephen King (Anchor)
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (Perennial)
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss (W.W. Norton)
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner)
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (Mariner)
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Perennial)
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult (Atria)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (Back Bay)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (Broadway)
Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (Scribner)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Knopf Books for Young Readers)

The goal of World Book Night is to give away one million books on one day. Be sure to register by Feb. 1, 2012 to participate. Visit the official website for details.

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Merry Christmas (from 1968)

Posted on December 25, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

In 1968, London-based American cartoonist Terry Gilliam was asked to create an animated video “Christmas card” for the popular, off-beat children’s television series Do Not Adjust Your Set, which featured future Monty Pythons Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. Gilliam sought inspiration for the film at London’s historic Tate Gallery and its enormous collection of Victorian Christmas cards. The resulting animated short was a terrific send-up of traditional, stuffy Christmas greeting cards.

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The War Against Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

California-based photographer Alan Sailer has been shooting-up colorful Christmas ornaments with a high-speed pellet gun and photographing the process utilizing a homemade air-gap microflash system. Sailer enhances the effects by filling the ornaments with jellos, beads, colored sands, Play-Doh and various liquids. The clever project has been titled “The War Against Christmas”.

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Winter Wonderland

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Brian D. Butler

Netherlands-based photographer Maria Netsounski travels the world capturing extraordinary shots of people, landscapes and urban scenes. In this exceptional series entitled, IR, she shoots everyday scenes and,using infrared technology distorts the colors with very dramatic and unusual effect. The resulting photographs are breathtaking, fantastical landscapes in icy blues and white.

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