In my writing I am acting as a mapmaker

Posted on August 10, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

In my writing I am acting as a map maker, an explorer of psychic areas… a cosmonaut of inner space, and I see no point in exploring areas that have already been thoroughly surveyed.

William S. Burroughs

Posted in Books, USA, Writing | Tagged | 2 Comments

there really is nothing left to write about

Posted on August 9, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

LATE ECHO

John Ashbery

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.
Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.
Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day.
Posted in Writing | Tagged , | Leave a comment

in Vienna

Posted on August 8, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Now in Vienna there’s ten pretty women
There’s a shoulder where death comes to cry
There’s a lobby with nine hundred windows
There’s a tree where the doves go to die
There’s a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in theGallery of Frost

 

Aey, aey, aey, aey
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

 

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallway where love’s never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

 

Aey, aey, aey, aey
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and death
Dragging its tail in the sea

 

There’s a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There’s a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They’ve been sentenced to death by the blues
But who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?

 

Aey, aey, aey, aey
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz it’s been dying for years

 

There’s an attic where children are playing
Where I’ve got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I’ll see what you’ve chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow

 

Aey, aey, aey, aey
Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its, I’ll never forget you, you know
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and death
Dragging its tail in the sea

 

And I’ll dance with you in Vienna
I’ll be wearing a river’s disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you’ll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It’s yours now, it’s all that there is
Aey, aey, aey, aey

 

Posted in Europe, Film, Music | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Too Literary

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 

Posted in Art, Books | Tagged | 1 Comment

Oldest Map in the World

Posted on August 6, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

If you stop by TBTP on a regular basis, you are likely aware that I am a bit of a map geek. It all began with a small globe on my childhood nightstand. I don’t discriminate when it comes to cartography and maps. Give me an old fashioned gas station folding paper map or a handy Waze map to drive by; I like them all. So it will come as no surprise that I loved the video below from the British Museum’s best social media resource Irving Finkel.

The Babylonian map of the world is the oldest map of the world, in the world. Written and inscribed on clay in Mesopotamia around 2,900-years-ago, it is, like so many cuneiform tablets, incomplete. However, Irving Finkel and a particularly gifted student of his – Edith Horsley – managed to locate a missing piece of the map, slot it back into the cuneiform tablet, and from there set us all on journey through the somewhat mythical landscape of Mesopotamia to find the final resting place of the ark. And yes we mean that ark, as in Noah’s ark. Although in the earlier Mesopotamian version of the flood story, the ark is built by Ziusudra, not Noah.

H/T to TBTP’s most loyal subscriber, Bonnie B.

 

Posted in Europe, Film, History, Maps, Middle East, Museums | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Beautiful Bruges

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I count my self lucky to have seen the beautiful Belgian town of Bruges nearly five decades ago before it became overtouristed and Disneyfied. Still, when I have return over the years, I still am enchanted. This charming tilt-shift video below almost captures the magic of the city.

 

Posted in Architecture, Europe, History, Tourism | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Books Can Set Us Free

Posted on August 4, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

American Booksellers for Free Expression has launched a campaign for Banned Books Week 2024 centered on the theme Liberate Banned Books (#SetBooksFree).

“Resisting book bans is about liberation,” ABFE noted. “It’s about liberation for schools and libraries from the rash of book challenges that has exploded since 2021. It means liberating the more than 4,240 titles that have been challenged since 2021. It entails liberation for literary institutions who carry books that represent marginalized groups, especially books by people of color and LGBTQ+ people that have been disproportionately censored by book bans. And of course, it’s about liberation for independent bookstores, who offer their communities access to diverse literature and for that have been targeted in book ban legislation. Literature and liberation are inseparable.”

Banned Books Week 2024 will take place September 22-28. A member of the Banned Books Week Coalition, ABFE has offered education, programming, and resources for booksellers and their customers since 1990, when it began as the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. (ABFFE was folded into the ABA and renamed 10 years ago.)

Posted in Books, Bookstore Tourism, ebooks, Libraries, USA, Writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Omnimappus Europeus

Posted on August 3, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I’m always tickled when the wonderfully cheeky cartoon pops up on the net. The comic website about travel and language by filmmaker Malachi Rempen is still offering witty takes on modern life.

 

Posted in Architecture, Art, Europe, Tourism | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Every morning a new arrival.

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

       The Guest House by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“other peoples’ joy can be annoying”

Posted on August 1, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I stumbled upon the moody short film below and can’t quite articulate why it resonated so much with me. So, as usual I thought that I’d share it here to see if it hit home with any of you. Daniel Jaffe made this little film of  his summer 2023 trip around Ireland and Scotland while thinking about two unnamed friends.

 

Posted in Architecture, Europe, Film, Tourism | Tagged , | Leave a comment