A warning, A rant, A little magic

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Sometimes it seems as though the onslaught of hacking attempts and malware never lets up. Recently I became aware of the latest bit of travel related hacking. The accommodation booking site Booking.com has been drawing serious criticism from consumers over the past months for its lack of security measures to protect users from scams. Thousands of people have been alleging that dodgy emails and messages from the site’s official portal are swindling people out of hundreds of dollars, and it’s becoming increasingly common to fall prey to them.

Booking.com insists that it has not been hacked, but hackers are targeting individual hotels that use the portal. Booking.com warns its hotel partners that criminals are using phishing techniques to gain access to guest data.

“Fraudsters may attempt to mimic our emails in order to phish your username and password for the purposes of taking over your account. These phishing emails can lead to a webpage that looks very similar to the Booking.com Extranet login page–but if you look at the URL address bar, you’ll notice differences,” Booking.com explains in its warning.

I’ve been getting lots of these phony emails that attempt to get me to click on a Booking.com link for a verification code. Since I haven’t used the hotel website for more than four years, I never fell for it, but it’s annoying.

So here’s my little rant for the day. As a bookseller, I subscribe to business related newsletters and blogs. Lately I have been getting almost daily requests linking to crowdfunding campaigns for bookstores. Many of these funding requests come from small bookshops that have fallen on hard times for a variety of reasons. In some cases it’s owner illness and in many others it’s due to a natural disaster. For awhile the financial needs were due to business dropping during the pandemic. In the past I’ve supported crowdfunding efforts to provide seed money for neighborhood bookstores in underserved areas. In fact, I’ve promoted some right here on TBTP.

My issue now is the frequent requests for funding from people who are launching a bookstore and simply are asking for booklovers to underwrite their business plan. In one recent instance, two partners who appear to have flourishing careers in non-bookselling areas made an appeal for an enormous sum of cash to fully stock books for their enterprise. To be clear, this is for a bookstore in a major metropolitan area that has many existing shops. I’m all for folks starting new bookstores, and I’m fine with competition for established shops, but why should potential book buyers be funding the stock for a for-profit business.

That’s it for the rant and now here’s the magic:

 

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Regret Nothing

Posted on February 26, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

ANTILAMENTATION
by Dorianne Laux

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the living room couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

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Once Upon a Time in L.A.

Posted on February 25, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Film director Quentin Tarantino has opened a coffee shop thematically based on the 1973 movie “Coffy” staring Pam Grier. True fans certainly remember that Grier played the lead role in the Tarantino movie Jackie Brown. The coffeeshop is attached to the Quentin Tarantino-owned Vista Theater. Named after Jack Hill’s 1973 film Coffy starring Pam Grier, the cafe opened on February 14.

The cafe was initially going to be called just Coffy, but after Tarantino connected with Grier he decided to personalize the name. Pam’s Coffy is part of a larger revival of the historic 400-seat theater by Tarantino, who purchased it in 2021. The theater originally opened in 1923 before shuttering in 2020; it officially reopened with a screening of True Romance in November 2023.

Pam Grier’s image is emblazoned on the windows, coffee cups, merch, and walls. The  space features 70s-influenced design. Vintage oversized posters adorn the interior walls featuring art from Coffy and Goliath and the Vampires. Inside the cafe, there is an assortment of old-school TVs playing videos mostly from the 70s, plus a special movie nook hidden behind a bead curtain. “The whole vision was let’s make it funky,” says Mayra Garcia, who works at the Vista Theater and Pam’s Coffy. “Let’s make it like two high school kids are putting together a little coffee shop.”

I’m hoping that a Pulp Fiction diner is Tarantino’s next project.

 

 

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NYC Postcard

Posted on February 24, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

‘New York Postcard’. A pocket sized film shot during a few days in NYC. Directed by the Mc Gloughlin Brothers.

 

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Mainly Miscellany

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Who knew that Edward Gorey designed the sets for the U.S. revival of the 1924 stage play Dracula ? I certainly did not, but this fascinating article on the terrific CrimeReads blog does a deep dive into the story.

Andy Weir’s The Martian was released in bookstores ten years ago. To celebrate, he wrote a new “lost” chapter of the book.

Like many readers, I know of M.R. James for his famous book The Collected Ghost Stories. What I didn’t know was that James was a medieval scholar and an esteemed expert on the history of libraries and medieval manuscripts. This very interesting story at the Medieval Manuscripts Blog tells the story.

The Clachan Sound, in western Scotland, connects at both ends to the Atlantic Ocean.

So the Clachan Bridge, which crosses it, is known as the Bridge Over the Atlantic.

I was intrigued by this photo when I stumbled upon it not long ago. There was something compelling in the expressions on the faces of both the child and the cat. I found the story behind the image at the Smithsonian Institution website.

This photograph was taken when Constance Stuart was on assignment for Harper’s Bazaar, an American magazine. Her task was to create a portfolio inspired by the seminal book “Cry, The Beloved Country,” which had brought the conditions in South Africa to the attention of the world. The author of the book was the South African writer Alan Paton (1903-1988). It was published in the United States in 1948. Alan Paton accompanied her on the assignment. In June 1949, Harper’s Bazaar published an essay by Alan Paton entitled “A Letter from South Africa in which Alan Paton Guides you to his Corner of the ‘Beloved Country’.” Six photographs by Constance Stuart accompany the essay.

Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black winner of the Pulitzer Prize and remains one of the most popular and widely-read poets of her generation. Brooks has influenced countless writers, readers, and activists since publishing her first poem at the age of 13. Brooks was a community poet who left major publishing houses in order to work and publish with smaller Black-led presses, including Chicago’s Third World Press and Broadside Press. We shouldn’t wait until Black Month to enjoy her reading of the wonderful poem We Real Cool.

Watch the official video for The Beatles’ “I’m Only Sleeping,” directed by Em Cooper. Beautiful harmonies, experimental recording methods and avant-garde composition combine to create this dreamlike song, evocative of The Beatles’ pioneering approach to the music of Revolver. Artist and director Em Cooper explored the space between dreaming and wakefulness, working on an animation rostrum on sheets of celluloid. She painted every frame individually in oil-paint, a laborious process which took many months.

The city of Paris was going to close the bouquinistes (booksellers) along the Seine for the Olympics but Macron nixed that plan. In their defense, the booksellers quoted Camus: “Everything that degrades culture shortens the paths that lead to servitude.” [nytimes.com]

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Breakfast At Tiffany’s

Posted on February 22, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

If you were so inclined, you could pick up a signed first edition of Truman Capote’s novel Breakfast at Tiffany’s for $5000 or less. But why not spring for the artfully rebound version for $1.5 million.

The new version sports more than 1,000 white diamonds that have been set into a custom fine binding of a first edition of Breakfast at Tiffany’s signed by Truman Capote. The pricey volume has been produced to celebrate the centenary of the writer’s birth.

A crack squad of British craftspeople, in collaboration with US-based Dragon Rebound, have completed the book which features diamonds in a platinum setting. It is displayed on a cast glass plinth in an wooden birdcage, housed in a custom-made vintage case, and is accompanied by a portfolio of photomontages by David Attie. It is completely unique, never to be repeated, limited to a single copy, and currently valued at around $1.5m.

The signed, first-edition text has been bound by award-winning bookbinder Kate Holland. The novel is bound in full black goatskin with a design of a 1950s New York street map. The main streets are platinum set with more than 1,000 white diamonds – totaling nearly 30 carats – by London jewelers Bentley & Skinner.

 

The Manhattan cross streets are blind-tooled and the location of Tiffany’s flagship store at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street is marked by a single 1ct  sapphire. The doublures are black goatskin with images of Cat and a bird in flight hand-tooled in platinum and signed by the binder. The title is hand-tooled on the spine in platinum and the endpapers are photographic prints from David Attie’s original series of photomontages.

The book is displayed in a birdcage, designed and made by master cabinetmaker Dom Parish of Wardour Workshops and inspired by the recurring motif of the vintage birdcage in the book. It sits on a cast glass plinth made by glassmaker Jade Pinnell. The entire piece is housed in a custom-made vintage trunk, based on a classic Louis Vuitton grey Trianon canvas wardrobe trunk.

The book includes a portfolio of the full set of photomontages by photographer David Attie, who was commissioned to illustrate Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Harper’s Bazaar. The full set of images have never been published in full in print until now.

 

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Pangur Bán

Posted on February 21, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Over the years, I have seen a few different translations of this ninth century poem written by an unknown monk in Old Irish at or near Reichenau Abbey in what is now Germany. This version was translated by the Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

.

The Scholar & His Cat, Pangur Bán

.
Pangur Bán and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.
.
More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thought, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Bán
Child-plays round some mouse’s den.
.
Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.
.
Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.
.
All the while, his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.
.
With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.
.
So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.
.
Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Bán has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.
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Protect Your Local Library

Posted on February 20, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

 

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Strip Atlas

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

British cartographer John Ogilby created an amazing project in 1675: a road atlas of 17th-century Britain, featuring strip maps of most of the major routes in England and Wales. He wrote to Charles II:

I have Attempted to Improve Our Commerce and Correspondency at Home, by Registring and Illustrating Your Majesty’s High-Ways, Directly and Transversely, as from Shoare to Shoare, so to the Prescrib’d Limts of the Circumambient Ocean, from the Great Emporium and Prime Center of the Kingdom, Your Royal Metropolis.

It used a consistent scale of one inch per mile, with each mile comprising 1760 yards, a standard that later mapmakers would follow. You can see the whole atlas here.

 

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art too bad to be ignored

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Over the years I have visited hundreds of art museums. Most of those institutions made sincere efforts to curate collections of quality art works. Sometimes there were fails and truly bad art was exhibited. But nothing compares to the extraordinary Museum of Bad Art in Boston, Massachusetts.

In its third decade, and now in a new home, the Museum of Bad Art is dedicated to the celebration of bad art in all of its forms and styles. The awe-inspiring collection was initially inspired by a single painting titled Lucy in the Fields with Flowers. The brilliant collection now incorporates more than 900 works of art that range from pieces created by inspired amateurs with dubious skills to talented artists who temporarily lost the thread.

Boston is a great city for art museums. When you visit, there are some don’t miss institutions such as the Museum of Fine Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, and the exquisite Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but now the Museum of Bad Art has to be added to your itinerary.

 

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