This morning Maria Popova congratulated fifth birthday to TED Talks with a list of her five favorite TED talks. She adds Brene Brown as a bonus. I enjoyed all 20 minutes of it.
Jun 282011
Jun 272011
Have you always wanted a penguin drawing lesson from Oliver Jeffers? Guardian has it for you!
Jun 242011
Rainy morning. I moved some books from prime spot to our reduced corner. Mostly some supplier’s mistakes (I order Frued and they ship Harry Potter), some of my mistakes (once paperback is out I reduce leftover hardcovers) and some misunderstandings, long forgotten special orders (bad karma). Once all the dusty work was over I took three pictures and hanged them on Flickr, so you can easily check what’s new. I hope the resolution is good enough to read the titles. Price inquires and reservations welcomed.
Wim Wender’s Pina
books
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Jun 202011
This trailer, I suppose, is old news. The film has already been shown in Germany but still awaits world-wide release. To me, the trailer itself is a poetic wonder. Stuff of stars rendered liquid for the dry summer days. It’s beautiful. The celebration of a true genius that was Pina. Enjoy!
Jun 172011
This picture was taken in February by Joseph Vasta. It is the window display of Paris bookshop Un Regard Moderne. One of the best, the weirdest, the coolest, the smallest, the strangest bookshops on the old continent. Simply one of those real places. Wonderful mind at work. Piles of books. Silent mind revolutions. Castles fall apart. Bookselling at its best.
Last night in NYC
music
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Jun 152011
John Berger
books, visual arts
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Jun 152011
John Berger discusses his new book Bento’s Sketchbook with Gavin Esler for BBC Newsnight.
The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza carried with him a sketchbook. After his death, his friends rescued letters, manuscripts, notes.. but no drawings. For years, John Berger has imagined finding Bento’s sketchbook. When one day a friend gave Berger a beautiful, virgin sketchbook, John said “This is Bento’s!” and he began to draw, taking his inspiration from the philosopher’s vision. The result is Bento’s Sketchbook.
A Dance with Dragons
books
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Jun 142011
Dear readers, we have decided to celebrate the approaching Summer with the special reduced price for the newest, soon to be published George R. R. Martin’s book A Dance with Dragons.
This is the fifth volume of A Song of Ice and Fire. It is a thousand pages hardback and it is due to be published on the 12th of July. We offer it for 19.90 eur.
We expect it to arrive within five to eight working days after the publication date. Of course we’ll let everyone know as soon as we open the box. (And we’ll post on Facebook and Flickr, yap!)
If you would like to reserve your copy, please let us know. You may get in touch with us whenever you want for whatever reason you want, including placing your orders. We’ll be very glad. And here is a bit from George R. R. Martin’s blog (called Not a blog). (Wow, he really uses WordStar)
I for Imagine
books
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Jun 122011
Recently published by independent Indian publisher Tara Books, I for Imagine is perhaps the most striking alphabet book around.
It journeys into the gaze of Marc Riboud, a contemporary French photographer best known for his extensive photographic reports on the East, as well as for being the author of one of the most celebrated anti-war pictures.
We learn the letters of the alphabet as children. We discover the technicalities of their mechanism. But we never cease to learn about the sounds of their clockwork, the action of words, their ways of shaping the world. We continually explore the world anew through the acquisition of fresh – I will borrow this word from Baudelaire – correspodences.
Jun 112011
A satellite ride with legendary set designer Gerry Judah will take you over devastated landscapes of post-apocalyptic narratives.
This very short documentary is a couple of years old but it still works like a strange lullaby. Accept the empty architecture. Fill it with dreams.
Kali
visual arts
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Jun 102011
This in my opinion is a good piece of art. It has connotations to Duchamp’s Large Glass and it relates to Joseph Kosuth’s One and Three Chairs. It employs the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And it surely did require a laborious documentary approach in order to collect, organize and reassamble all the broken pieces.
Somewhere to Disappear
books
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Jun 072011
Somewhere to disappear documents one photographer’s attempt at capturing the solitudinous landscapes of people who have decided to retreat from society. It was created in the span of over four years (2006-2010) in which the photographer Alec Soth investigated the places of refuge – or is it the places of disappearance – of these modern-day hermits. Portraits of their homes and of their minds have been gathered in Broken Manual.
What were those lines that Byron wrote and that my mind wanders back to? There is a pleasure in the pathless woods? There is a rapture on the lonely shore? There is society where none intrudes? By the deep sea, and music in its roar? I love not man the less, but Nature more? Ah, yes …
