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.

 

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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.)

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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.

 

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“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.

 

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Rare Book Discovery

Posted on July 31, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I have a hazy recollection of a brief visit to Canterbury’s  The Beaney House of Art & Knowledge many decades ago on one of my first trips to England, but I was intrigued by a story about its current special exhibition. A rare first edition 1688 copy of Aphra Behn’s novel Oroonoko has gone on display Its inclusion in the exhibition came after the book’s owner, Anna Astin, brought in a copy of the rare book to be evaluated by the museum. She has owned the book for more than 50 years after finding it in her father’s London antique shop.

Only 13 copies of the seminal novella are known to exist and all of these are housed in libraries and universities in the UK and America, including the British Library, Oxford University and Yale University Library.

Oroonoko is a novel about the sufferings of an enslaved African prince in 17th century Surinam.  In recent years, the groundbreaking book has been recognized as an important inspiration for the British abolitionist movement. It is also considered one of the first novels written in the English language by a professional woman author.

Aphra Behn was an extraordinary character. Born into a working class family in Canterbury, She rose to prominence as a playwright, poet, translator, and even a spy for the British crown on the Continent. Sadly, she died just months after the blockbuster book’s publication.

 

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To leave the world a little better than you found it

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Paul Auster // “That’s all I’ve ever dreamed of… To make the world a better place. To bring some beauty to the drab humdrum corners of the soul. You can do it with a toaster, you can do it with a poem, you can do it by reaching out your hand to a stranger. It doesn’t matter what form it takes. To leave the world a little better than you found it. That’s the best a man can ever do.”

Toni Morrison // “I think freedom, ideally, is being able to choose your responsibilities. Not not having any responsibilities, but being able to choose which things you want to be responsible for.”

Jack Kerouac // “Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream.”

Charles Bukowski // “And remember this: the page you are looking at now, I once typed the words with care with you in mind under a yellow light with the radio on.”

Ernest Hemingway // “When people talk, listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Try that for practice.”

Lina Kostenko // “The main thing is to look into the eyes of the beast and simply to remain human.”

 

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Ma maison à Paris

Posted on July 29, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Whenever I am in Paris for more than a few days, I prefer to rent an apartment in my favorite district of the city. It may not be the in the hippest arrondissement, but I have always loved the vibe and the mix of cultures. Not to mention, the best falafel in town. Filmmaker Thomas Guerrin followed an (unnamed) boarder through the streets of Le Marais in Paris (using a glidecam + 5D III) for this short, sweet film.

 

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To Be Hopeful

Posted on July 28, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

                          To Be Hopeful

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn

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