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The World Was Too Much With Them All
I just finished reading Susan Orlean‘s Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. Aside from the heart (and I mean heart) of the main story itself, after something like ten years of borderline-obsessive research Orlean managed to weave into the book dozens of little stray details about the lives and personalities of the many [...]
Intersections Close By, Milestones Passed
[Image: the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 and the New York City skyline at night (January, 2011)] From whiskey river: Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range [...]
What L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries Saw Out His Window (Three-Minute Version)
A time-lapse film of the view outside James Stewart’s rear window, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film of that name: Very, very cool! (See the creator’s own site for additional details. And if you don’t know the film at all, you could do worse than to start with Roger Ebert’s looking-back review from 2000. Of course you [...]
Midweek Music Break Playlist: Windows to the Soul
[Image: girl, dancing, in giant eye costume. Note the hands: one giving "thumbs-up!" sign, one holding a cocktail. I have no idea if this is an advertising image or what; found it at a couple of places, never with any explanation.] (Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little [...]
Better Fictions, Lesser Truths
[Image: one of various digital collages in the "Fictions" series by Flemish photographer/artist Filip Dujardin. (Click to enlarge.) These buildings and landscapes do not actually exist (although he starts with images of buildings in and around Ghent, Belgium).] From whiskey river: While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera [...]
Conversations, Sacred and Profane
[Image: photograph of a massive (115" x 53") jigsaw puzzle, by Clementoni, of Titian's Sacred and Profane Love (also known as Venus and the Bride, but subject to various other interpretations as well). The puzzle contains over 13,000 pieces. I almost used this image instead, for no other reason than (a) the title and (b) its depiction, [...]
More Than Enough Room
[Image: postcard, "The Big Shot" (the Big Room, Carlsbad Caverns, NM). For more information, see the note at the bottom of this post.] From whiskey river: Freedom means being able to choose how we respond to things. When wisdom is not well developed, it can be easily obscured by the provocations of others. In such [...]
Life by a Thousand Cuts
[Image: "Webster's New Inner Diction" (2007), by Brian Dettmer] From Neil Gaiman’s Twitter feed, I learned of the artwork of Brian Dettmer. Dettmer uses surgical tools — scalpel, tweezers, and such — to dig down into books and other media (such as cassette tapes), revealing deep layers of what might or might not be meaning in [...]
The Propagational Library (Introduction): The Librarian
[Image: The Beginning of Everything: Remembering Distance (oil on linen, 90 x 180 cm, 2010), by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox] That’s what it said (on what would have been the little placard on what would have been his desk — if he had required a desk in the first place): The Librarian.
The Kindness of Every Split-Second
[Image: display window of "mini-prints" taken with the Fujifilm Instax camera (originally from the Photojojo store). See note at bottom of post for more.] From whiskey river: You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class, this really great math class taught by this tiny old woman. She was [...]
