Franz Kafka, born on this day in 1883.
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Ali Fitzgerald, an artist and a writer. Her most recent book is “Drawn to Berlin: Comic Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe.”
I have been an enormous fan of the work of novelist/poet/essayist Ursula K. Le Guin for many decades. Recently, I stumbled on this quote from her titled “Staying Awake”.
“Besides, readers aren’t viewers; they recognize their pleasure as different from that of being entertained. Once you’ve pressed the on button, the TV goes on, and on, and on, and all you have to do is sit and stare. But reading is active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness—not all that different from hunting, in fact, or from gathering. In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can’t lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won’t move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won’t move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it. It won’t do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it, in fact. Reading is not “interactive” with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind. No wonder not everybody is up to it.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin, “Staying Awake”
This short New Yorker documentary about a Bulgarian tradition of dancing evil spirits away reminds us of the traditional rituals that are slowly disappearing, of the ways people develop coping mechanisms and lasting community. It’s a moving portrayal and a reminder that humans are capable of coming together to confront collective fears.
I try to avoid checking baggage when I fly, but some times it’s necessary to take that leap of faith and hope that luggage actually arrives. In the video below Sam Denby of Half as Interesting explains what goes on behind the scenes when luggage is checked in by an airline using two animated bags. The purple bag belonging to Carrie was carried onto the plane, while the yellow bag belonging to Chad made its way through the checked luggage system.
In 1960, five years before her death, Shirley Jackson recorded readings of “The Lottery” and “The Daemon Lover” for an outfit called Folkways Records—the only time we know of that she ever recorded performances of her own work.”
Set on a beautiful Summer day in a rural farming community as villagers gather to observe an annual ritual in the town square, The Lottery portrays most townsfolk as demonstrating a mob mentality who abandon all reason. Written immediately after World War II, Shirley Jackson’s story is a cautionary tale, depicting the dangers of following traditions without thinking of the consequences, and the dark side of human nature.
Upon its publication, The New Yorker received more mail over Jackson’s chilling tale than any work of fiction they had ever published. Readers cancelled their subscriptions, citing the story as too “gruesome,” “perverted,” and “outrageous.”
The simple creativity in the new video below for VisitOslo is rare in tourism ads these days, most of which blend into each other. This is different, a typical understated Norse dry sense of humor.
Regular visitors to Travel Between The Pages are aware that I am both a Sci-Fi and space exploration geek. So it will come as no surprise that I am sharing the marvelous short film below. Wanderers is made even better by its narration by the great philosopher/scientist Carl Sagan. Here’s what the filmmaker Erik Wernquist had to say about his project:
Wanderers is a vision of humanity’s expansion into the Solar System, based on scientific ideas and concepts of what our future in space might look like, if it ever happens. The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available. Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea of the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds – and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there. As some may notice I have borrowed ideas and concepts from science fiction authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson and Arthur C. Clarke, just to name a few. And visually, I of course owe many tips of my hat to painter Chesley Bonestell – the legendary master of space art. More directly, with kind permission from Ann Druyan I have also borrowed the voice of astronomer and author Carl Sagan to narrate the film. The audio I used are excerpts from his own reading of his book ‘Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space’ (1994, Random House, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/boo…) – needless to say, a huge inspiration for this film.
CLOSE is a very neat visualization project that shows where to locate in city neighborhoods essential amenities within a short distance of travel. “Proximity governs how we live, work, and socialize. Close is an interactive travel time map for people who want to be near the amenities that matter most to them.”
This can be a very handy tool for travelers who often have no clue how to access local sites when visiting a new city. Currently only focused on U.S. cities, but hopefully, the creators will be expanding to Europe and beyond really soon.
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