Reading Room

Posted on July 13, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The British Museum in London has reopened its famous circular Reading Room for visitors with free tours .The historic Reading Room was built between 1854 and 1857 to a design by Sydney Smirke using cast iron, concrete, and glass. Much of its renown rests on its impressive dome, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, with a ceiling made out of papier-mâché. Famous users of the Reading Room have included Karl Marx, Lenin, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1997 the books were moved to the new British Library building in St Pancras.

The Reading Room has since been restored and reopened to house a modern information center and a collection of 25,000 books, catalogues and other printed material. It was used for special exhibitions from 2007 until 2013 and currently houses the Museum’s archive which is available for students and researchers to access.

The general public can now visit without requiring tickets when the museum is open. There are also free 20-minute tours every Tuesday at 11am and 12 noon. Each tour has a capacity of 20 people with places on a first-come, first-served basis. Photography will not be permitted in the Reading Room.

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secret from the river

Posted on July 12, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

Hermann Hesse, from Siddhartha (New Directions, 1951, first published in 1922)

 

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Alien Picnic

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I recently ran across a reference to the fantastic Russian Sci-Fi classic Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky that included a link to a free online version of the novel. You can read or download the book here.

The Strugatsky brothers were strongly influence by Stanisław Lem but later they went on to develop their own, unique style of science fiction writing that emerged from the period of Soviet rationalism in Soviet literature and evolved into novels interpreted as works of social criticism. Their best-known novel, Piknik na obochine, has been translated into English as Roadside Picnic.

“Roadside Picnic is a “first contact” story with a difference. Aliens have visited the Earth and gone away again, leaving behind them several landing areas (now called the Zones) littered with their refuse. The picnickers have
gone; the pack rats, wary but curious, approach the crumpled bits of cellophane, the glittering pull tabs from beer cans, and try to carry them the glittering pull tabs from beer cans, and try to carry them home to their holes.
Most of the mystifying debris is extremely dangerous. Some proves useful—eternal batteries that power automobiles—but the scientists never know if they are using the devices for their proper purposes or employing (as it were) Geiger counters as hand axes and electronic components as nose rings. They cannot figure out the principles of the artifacts, the science
behind them. An international Institute sponsors research. A black market flourishes; “stalkers” enter the forbidden Zones and, at risk of various kinds of ghastly disfigurement and death, steal bits of alien litter, bring the stuff out, and sell it, sometimes to the Institute itself.” from Ursula K. Le Guin’s forward to the 1977 U.S. edition.

All in all, a great read for a hot summer day.

 

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That Girl

Posted on July 10, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Like many art lovers, I am a sucker for Vermeer’s wonderful paintings. And, of course, I am fascinated by the mysterious “Girl with the Pearl Earring.” Whenever I am in the Netherlands, I make time to visit the underappreciated Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague.  I recently stumbled upon the museum’s post on its website exploring the results of an in depth study of that girl.

Was the Girl a complete mystery? No, certainly not. The painting had already been examined in 1994. But over the last 25 years, the technical possibilities have improved significantly, so now we can investigate more deeply than in the previous century. Because this painting appeals so much to the imagination, there were questions we still wanted to answer.

How did Vermeer create this wonderful painting? What lies beneath the visible composition? What kind of pigments did he use? Where did they come from? How has the painting changed since it left Vermeer’s studio?

“One of the most surprising findings was that the background is not simply an empty dark space; Vermeer painted the Girl in front of a green curtain. Imaging techniques visualised diagonal lines and colour variations that suggest folded fabric in the upper right-hand corner of the painting. The curtain has disappeared over the course of the centuries as a result of physical and chemical changes in the translucent green paint.”

 

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Welcome to the city of love

Posted on July 9, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

The BBC has released a new promotional video to gin-up some excitement for the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Titled ‘Welcome to the City of Love,’ the short weaves a heartwarming narrative that blends Parisian romance with the passion of Olympic athletes.

 

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Yes, you can judge these books by their covers

Posted on July 8, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Penguin Books has revealed the winners of its 2024  Cover Design Award, where participants were tasked with reimagining three Penguin titles:  City of Stolen Magic by Nazneen Ahmed Pathak, Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Cadi Rhind won the top Adult Fiction award for her retro-inspired design for Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six. The cover is a nod to the ’70s rock aesthetic, Rhind’s typography intertwines nostalgia with contemporary flair.

“Growing up, car journeys were soundtracked by my father’s love for 1970s Californian music. This influenced my love for that era and its creative world of album artworks and gig posters,” explains the artist. “This, paired with my love for vintage typography and design are my inspirations. The magic in Taylor Jenkins Reid’s  book is in how it sparked the same electric feel I had in discovering my musical influences of this era.”

George Griffiths won the Adult Nonfiction award for his thought-provoking handmade cover of Atomic Habits by James Clear, comprising a collage that envisions the stacking of small habits but integral habits.

Atomic Habits focuses on the combination of small decisions and behaviors that combine to create a better life,” Griffiths points out. “My  book concept is based upon this combination of small, different habits, building and layering together to have a larger effect than they would on their own. I created my design by taking small rips of cardboard, paper and other physical materials, and piecing them together to form the words ‘Atomic Habits’—just as small habits piece together to transform your life.”

Charlotte Jennings grabbed the prize for her charming redesign of  City of Stolen Magic by Nazneen Ahmed Pathak. Balancing color, magic, secrets, and colonial history, Jennings weaves a visual tapestry that resonates with young readers.

“I focused on using color and shape language to convey the essence of [the protagonist] Chompa’s journey from beginning to end, using a spiral composition to guide the viewer’s eye around the cover,” Pathak shares. “I used orange hues to depict the warmth and familiarity of India along with its connection to Chompa’s fiery magic. All is silhouetted by the complementary blue color of the sea and the date palm, pointing directly at the mysterious, cooler-toned city of London. At the center of it all is Chompa, wrapped up in this chaotic adventure full of intrigue and magic.”

 

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How we live now

Posted on July 7, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 

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You Are Here

Posted on July 6, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón kicks off her signature project, “You Are Here: Poetry in Parks,” with the unveiling of a poetry installation at Cape Cod National Seashore, June 14, 2024. The project, in partnership with the National Park Service and Poetry Society of America, features picnic tables in national parks decorated with poems and writing prompts for visitors.

Poetry in Parks is an initiative to install poetry on picnic tables in seven national parks. As public works of art, the picnic tables will each feature a historic American poem selected by the 24th U.S. National Poet Laureate, Ada Limón. Limón selected the poems to encourage visitors to pay deeper attention to their surroundings. Limón will travel to each of the parks in the summer and fall of 2024 to unveil the new installations.

“I want to champion the ways reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world. Never has it been more urgent to feel a sense of reciprocity with our environment, and poetry’s alchemical mix of attention, silence, and rhythm gives us a reciprocal way of experiencing nature—of communing with the natural world through breath and presence.”
-U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

Can You Imagine?

by Mary Oliver

 

For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer’s night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now – whenever
we’re not looking. Surely you can’t imagine
they don’t dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade – surely you can’t imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can’t imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.

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“Ricordare è rivivere” (“to remember is to relive”)

Posted on July 5, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Sigmund Freud returned again and again to the problem of memory as he formulated his theories of psychoanalysis during the 1890s.

“What is essentially new about my theory,” Freud wrote in this letter to fellow physician and confidante Wilhelm Fliess, “is the thesis that memory is present not once but several times over, that it is laid down in various kinds of indications.” The second page of this letter sketches the progression of memory from perception (“W”) to the unconscious (“Ub (II)”) and eventually to consciousness (“Bew”).

Freud refined his theories over time in significant ways but remained committed to the notion that the past exerts a powerful influence over the present as memories embedded in the unconscious break through into consciousness through selective, altered and fluid remembering and forgetting.

Slipped into a pocket and kept close to the body, pocket notebooks are intimate, hidden and always accessible.

Freud purchased this small leather-bound notebook while vacationing in Florence in the waning summer of 1907. Its cover bears the Italian words “Ricordare è rivivere” (“to remember is to relive”). Freud owned many similar notebooks, filling them sequentially through the decades with jottings of names, addresses, expenses, ideas and observations.

via LOC.gov

 

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Souvenir for writers

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Over the years I have been both the giver and recipient of some quite silly travel souvenirs, so it’s heartening to find that even the ancient Romans weren’t above bringing home the occasional humorous gift.

The Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) reports in a blog post, a joke-inscribed iron stylus unearthed during excavations in the English capital is now on view for the first time. The tool, dated to around 70 A.D., bears a message that roughly equates to the Latin version of “I went to Rome and all I got you was this stylus.”

A more accurate translation by classicist and epigrapher Roger Tomlin actually reads: “I have come from the City. I bring you a welcome gift with a sharp point that you may remember me. I ask, if fortune allowed, that I might be able [to give] as generously as the way is long [and] as my purse is empty”—in other words, the gift is cheap, but it is all the giver can (or wants to) buy on such a slim budget.

According to the Guardian archaeologists found the stylus while conducting excavations for Bloomberg’s London headquarters between 2010 and 2014. The writing implement was one of some 14,000 artifacts discovered during the dig; other finds include 400 wax tablets documenting legal and business affairs, 200 uninscribed styluses, the first written reference to Londinium’s name, and thousands of pottery shards.

The stylus was uncovered during an excavation effort centered on a now-lost tributary of the Thames known as the river Walbrook. This area once housed part of Londinium, a Roman settlement that became an important center of commerce and governance following its establishment around 43 A.D.

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