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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 [...]
Swept Away by (and for) Books
My Old Kentucky Blog recently highlighted two of the films nominated for this year’s Oscar in the short-animations category. One of them really struck me, and I think it will really strike you as well — if you are someone who’s ever had a little jolt of excitement at opening a new book… or dreamt of adding [...]
Writerly Distractions and Neuroses: Fiction and Word Counts
[Image: "Doodle with Measuring Tape," by Bryan Reyna] I came across an interesting site this morning, called Renaissance Learning (subtitle: “Advanced Technology for Data-Driven Schools.” In general, Renaissance Learning is a resource for (as you might guess) teachers and other educators. One area of the site, the Quiz Store, peddles quizzes about specific books. What interests me today [...]
A Love Story Between (vs. Within) Book Covers
Spike Jonze’s short film Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side): Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com. Read about it — and watch a brief making-of film — at Brain Pickings. (And I should probably add, “…of course.”)
Making an Illuminated Manuscript
In the category of “Things Our Ancestors Did to Humble Us,” this mini-documentary [UPDATE: a little over six minutes long] from the J. Paul Getty Museum: (If you go to the page at the ArtBabble site where I found this, you might also like some of the “related videos” in the right sidebar there.)
A Conspiracy of Pages
[Etching: "The Hall of Planets," by Erik Desmazières, #5 in a series of eleven illustrating an edition of "The Library of Babel," by Jorges Luis Borges; click to enlarge] From whiskey river: The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust in them; it was [...]
Books Beyond Books
The whole e-books vs. traditional books debate spins crazily about one question: What is a book, anyhow? Let’s pursue that question a step further: What is a reader? Science-fiction (etc.) author Cory Doctorow tackles both questions in a very interesting project of his, called With a Little Help. It’s a self-published “book” — an anthology [...]
Unbanning Books Month
Miriam Forster, of the charmingly monikered Dancing with Dragons is Hard on Your Shoes blog, has issued a challenge to writers (and readers!). It springs from an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association, called Banned Books Week. From the ALA site: Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the [...]
I’ll Take a Used Copy, Please
[Partial amazon.com screen capture, July 9, 2010] Funny thing is, for some books — not all of them “great” ones, either — I might actually hesitate before deciding to go the cheap route, even with a price spread as broad as this. (I’m talking about you, you thick-page, large-format “children’s” book on natural history whose [...]
Buh-Bye, Book-Buying Guilt!
The Missus has a refrigerator magnet which features a head-and-shoulders hand-tinted photo of a wealthy, hoity-toity society-matron sort of woman; the text alongside says, “‘Frugal’ is such an ugly word.” (Ha!) Like many people, I suppose, I have great ambivalence about acquiring ever more Stuff. Examined closely, expressions like Wow, that would be so cool! [...]
