Art + Architecture + Design
Literature
Bibliochaise for the Ultimate Reading List
Mar 29th
You’ve finally settled on your ultimate reading list after culling through thousands of combinations and now you just need the time and place to read.
We can’t help you with finding the time, but we’ve found the perfect place. The Bibliochaise by Nobody & Co. holds up to 5 linear meters of your favorite books. Just fill it up with the books on your list and start reading. When the shelves/chair are/is empty, repeat.
seen at http://www.rossanaorlandi.com/
Alice in a Russan Wonderland: How Lewis Caroll’s Obsessions Played in Moscow
Mar 19th
"Earlier this year, the world celebrated the 175th anniversary of the birth of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known under his pen name, Lewis Carroll. Virtually anyone who loves books can tell you that Carroll is the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a masterpiece of children’s literature that has been translated into more than 100 languages, including Russian.
But few people know the story of how Alice appeared in Russia — a fantastic tale with several twists and turns that are almost as absurd as the book itself.
Alice first came out in Russian nearly 130 years ago, but back then, it seemed the book would not fare well here. The anonymously translated version of 1879 was met with confusion and bewilderment. ‘Tiring, most boring, most confused sick delusions of a little girl’; ‘absurd dreams may be recounted in a family circle for fun, but they are not published, illustrated and presented to the general public’; ‘one can hardly imagine anything less sensible and more absurd than this fairy tale; all mothers are urged to disregard this worthless fantasy’– such was the critical consensus in Russia at the time…"
http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/174970/
the very soft-core picture essay by Rom Devisig HERE
via Wit
True Beloveds: Truman Capote
Mar 13th
"The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory."
–Truman Capote, "Other Voices, Other Rooms"
No one Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
Mar 12th
Miranda July’s new book, No one Belongs Here More Than You gets some celebrity kudos from David Byrne:
I had recently read her book of collected short stories which is due out in about a month — No one Belongs Here More Than You — which are so good I was both inspired and jealous. Why jealous, I don’t know, I don’t aspire to write fiction. They are sweet, tender, innovative and sexy in a sometimes slightly disturbing way. It’s almost shocking to read or see — as in the case of the performance — something that is contemporary, post-modern, whatever, but also full of tenderness and appreciation for the subtle, funny and delicate connections between people.
At the Same Time by Susan Sontag
Mar 12th
"The amplified note of despair and loss in “At the Same Time” makes Sontag resemble one of the European “last” intellectuals she often wrote about, “that Saturnine hero of modern culture” standing alone in the ruins of history. This anguish may seem exaggerated, part of her frequently noted self-regard. But, in her later weariness with modern civilization, Sontag fulfilled a particularly American destiny. Gertrude Stein once claimed that America was the oldest country in the world, since it was the “mother of the 20th-century civilization.” Sontag, who had a tragic sense of history rarely found among her peers, never failed to absorb the lessons of her country’s old age and accumulated experience of modernity. It is why the melancholy and occasional bitter wisdom of her last writings appear to be of a mature and passionately engaged American rather than of a marginal and jaded European sensibility — one that has not only learned from the past but, by grappling vigorously with the present, can also divine, if gloomily, the future."
via NYT
Lost, Oh Lost; Evelyn Waugh’s Misplaced Cane
Mar 5th
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"Literature is either the essential or nothing." — Georges Bataille
via Design Observer |
Gulag Nationalism: Solzhenitsyn Weighs-in @ Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Feb 27th
In tomorrow’s Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Alexander Solzhenitsyn will once again publish writing critical of his native Russia. Though he has recently supported Putin’s international policy, Solzhenitsyn still finds much to criticize in Putin’s Russia.
Personally, I find it tragic that this icon of resistance has had to align himself with Putin’s nationalistic agenda, though I suppose it should come as no surprise. It is a truism that with age comes conservatism.
The impending end of Putin’s term in 2008, and his ‘required’ resignation, provides a glimmer of hope that new leadership will be able to lead the Russian Bear safely into the 21st Century–a faint glimmer. From the Independent:
"Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn warns in the preface to a newly republished article that Russia is still struggling with challenges similar to those of the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 that led to the demise of the czarist empire.
"The article – which will appear tomorrow in the influential government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta – analyzes the roots of the February revolution 90 years ago that forced the abdication of the last czar, Nicholas II, and helped pave the way for the Bolsheviks.
"It’s all the more bitter that a quarter of a century later, some of these conclusions are still applicable to the alarming disorder of today," Solzhenitsyn wrote in a preface to the article first written in the early 1980s.
"Solzhenitsyn’s wife, Natalya, said it should serve as a reminder to Russia’s political class about the dangers stemming from the huge gap between the rich and the poor, and the stark contrast in lifestyle and moral attitudes in the glitzy Russian capital compared to the far less prosperous provinces.
"Alexander Isayevich is deeply worried by this gap," Natalya Solzhenitsyn told a news conference Monday. "It’s necessary to pay attention to that. If the government fails to do that, consequences would be grave."
for the rest, click HERE.
The Way We Are by David Sedaris
Feb 26th
In case you did not get a chance to read the article by David Sedaris in last weeks New Yorker, here is a taste. Follow the jump for the rest:
"In Paris they warn you before cutting off the water, but out in Normandy you’re just supposed to know. You’re also supposed to be prepared, and it’s this last part that gets me every time. Still, though, I try to make do. A saucepan of chicken broth will do for shaving, and in a pinch I can always find something to pour into the toilet tank: orange juice, milk, a lesser champagne. If I really got hard up, I suppose I could hike through the woods and bathe in the river, though it’s never quite come to that.
Most often, our water is shut off because of some reconstruction project, either in our village or in the next one over. A hole is dug, a pipe is replaced, and within a few hours things are back to normal. The mystery is that it’s so perfectly timed to my schedule. This is to say that the tap dries up at the exact moment I roll out of bed, which is usually between ten and ten-thirty. For me this is early, but for Hugh and most of our neighbors it’s something closer to midday. What they do at 6 A.M. is anyone’s guess. I only know that they’re incredibly self-righteous about it, and talk about the dawn as if it’s a personal reward, bestowed on account of their great virtue.
The last time our water went off, it was early summer. I got up at my regular hour, and saw that Hugh was off somewhere, doing whatever it is he does. This left me alone to solve the coffee problem—a sort of Catch-22, as in order to think straight I needed caffeine, and in order to make that happen I needed to think straight. Once, in a half-sleep, I made it with Perrier, which sounds plausible but really isn’t. On another occasion, I heated up some leftover tea and poured that over the grounds. Had the tea been black rather than green, the coffee might have worked out, but, as it was, the result was vile. It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d try more than once, so this time I skipped the teapot and headed straight for a vase of wildflowers sitting by the phone on one of the living-room tables."
read the rest HERE
Modern Letters Bad Boy goes for Tenure: Martin Amis to Teach!
Feb 16th
If you have not already heard:
"I may be acerbic in how I write but I’m not how I live. And I would find it very difficult to say cruel things to people in such a vulnerable position. I imagine I’ll be surprisingly sweet and gentle with them. One of the things I’ve learned about fiction – you really do lay yourself open in a way that no other so-called creative artist does. Most other art you’re just exhibiting a particular talent, even poetry up to a point, but by writing fiction you expose not only your talent but your whole being, your social, sexual and psychological being and you’re never more vulnerable than when you do that, and I’m well aware of that fact and will take it into account."
Castle in the Forest Reviewed
Feb 13th
I’m still working my way through Norman Mailer’s latest tome, so I will not be sharing a full review here [though I am enjoying certain sections quite a bit] But if you’re interested in an opinion from LIttle England, The Guardian reviews Castle in the Forest here:
"I am a megalomaniac author in my 80s who can write any old crap – I use that word in its nugatory sense – and know that my craven people will take it seriously."
In case you’re interested in the rest, click here:
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