Travel Between The Pages

I have had the good fortune to have visited Iceland many times over the years, but I still get flummoxed sometimes by the country’s strict naming system.  The Mystery of the Icelandic Naming Committee.

The Amsterdam-based artist Frankey brings a playful twist to street art by interacting with existing objects in a fun, often ironic way. (via)

I don’t know about you, but I spent way too much time during my childhood reading comic books. Looking back, I never really appreciated the importance of the artwork or lettering in comics, but it’s never too late to learn. The Art and History of Lettering Comics is available free on letterer Todd Klein’s blog. Originally planned as a print book, he’s posted the whole thing online. From the early 1900s to today, Todd covers the evolution of word balloons, special effects lettering and comic book and newspaper comic letterers known and unknown and much more.

Who could have predicted that in 2024 Jane Austen would be the center of so many controversies. The Dean of Winchester Cathedral has responded to criticism of plans to erect a bronze statue of Jane Austen in the building’s Inner Close.

Plans for the £100,000 statue to commemorate the author’s 250th birthday next year have received a mixed reception in the city, with some suggesting it represents a ‘Disneyfication’ of the cathedral while others applaud the celebration of the local literary star. The statue would be one of only around three per cent in the UK that are of non-royal women including a recent one of Virginia Woolf. Plans for a statue of the playwright Aphra Behn in Canterbury are ongoing.

Now, in a letter to the local newspaper the Hampshire Chronicle, The Very Reverend Catherine Ogle, dean of Winchester Cathedral has defended plans for the life-sized 5ft 7in statue of Austen who died in the city in 1817, saying it would be a fitting tribute to the writer who lived locally.

“The proposed location of the statue in the Inner Close is close to the route she would have taken when visiting her nephews at the nearby Winchester College and her friends at No 12 The Close,” she wrote. “This route also became her final journey from her College Street lodgings adjacent to Winchester College, the funeral procession to her place of rest in the Cathedral. The Cathedral has hoped to give Jane Austen a fitting tribute as a sculpture for some years.”

The commission has been awarded to leading sculptor Martin Jennings whose previous literary works include the statues of former Poet Laureate John Betjeman at St Pancras railway station in London, poet Philip Larkin in Hull, and George Orwell at BBC Broadcasting House in London . It will show Austen in her characteristic ringlets and cap, standing by her writing table. Jennings says he has represented her rising from her table at Chawton as someone arrives at the door, moving in front of her work as if to disguise it. “It is important for me that she should be accompanied by the tools of her trade, so that she is indissolubly associated with her working life,” he said.

Austen is buried in the north nave aisle of Winchester Cathedral and has a memorial gravestone at the cathedral. Two other statues of her in Hampshire have been erected in recent years at Basingstoke, near her birthplace in Steventon, and her home in Chawton.

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of spending some quality time on the Portuguese island of Sao Miguel. I managed to catch a few spectacular sunrises and lots of colorful sunsets. The beautiful timelapse video below is from Tenerife, not Sao Miguel, but it captures the same vibe.

A Weak Man going down-hill met a Strong Man going up, and said:

‘I take this direction because it requires less exertion, not from choice. I pray you, sir, assist me to regain the summit.’

‘Gladly,’ said the Strong Man, his face illuminated with the glory of his thought. ‘I have always considered my strength a sacred gift in trust for my fellow-men. I will take you up with me. Go behind me and push.’

— Ambrose Bierce, Fantastic Fables, 1899