Kitchen Bull by Toro Legno
January 25, 2012
Kitchen Bull by Toro Legno
January 24, 2012
Designed by artist Lee Moyer and accidentally produced by nonprofit organization Worldbuilders, the calendar features one great novelist each month, with a pinup cleverly referencing each writer's work. Featured greats include Dickens, Twain, Melville, and Tolstoy.
Worldbuilders founder Patrick Rothfuss has a pretty great story about how he came to print Moyer's pinups — here's an excerpt:
“What are these for?” I asked.
“A calendar,” [Moyer] explained. “Literary pin-ups.”
“That’s something I’d hang on my wall,” I said. “Sexy but not smutty. Clever. Bookish. Where can I buy one?”
“I’m having trouble finding someone to print it,” he admitted. “I think people would love it, but the big calendar companies don’t seem interested.”
“You have twelve of these?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s pretty much all ready to go.”
I looked at the sexy chimney sweep. She smiled at me.
“Hell,” I said. “I’ll print it.”
Lee looked at me oddly. This is not a thing authors normally say to illustrators.
Worldbuilders is currently running a couple of specials on the calendars — when you buy three, you get free U.S. shipping or $8 off international shipping (just enter LITERACY at checkout); and when you buy anything else from Worldbuilder's online store, you get the calendar for half price with free U.S. shipping (enter NEWYEAR at checkout). You can browse more of Lee Moyer's fabulous work here and learn more about Worldbuilders and the awesome work it does here.
Literary pinup calendar from Worldbuilders: $20
Signed, numbered, limited-edition calendar: $75
January 23, 2012
From the Kansas City Star:
[BEAP] vice-president Tom Demetriou offered the pro bono work because he wanted to remind people of the sanctuary found at libraries, where the community is intrinsically bound by stories. "It's a quiet place, where you can have your thoughts to yourself," Demetriou said. "That is hard to find these days."
Such a fun idea! The rest of the trucks are below. You can check out the JOCO Library site here.
Such a fun idea! The rest of the trucks are below. You can check out the JOCO Library site here.
The London Review of Books is Britain's most esteemed literary magazine. Published fortnightly, it features essays, reviews and the most outrageous personal ads ever set in type. The following is a selection from the latest issue (only one this month, I'm afraid).
*Late 20s male, living north of London. Like all aspiring writers, would prefer Paris but have neither money nor mettle for relocation. Rather, have thus far settled for life of mundane pleasures and job stability. Less like Heathcliff, more Sancho Panza (sans corpulence). Seeking: female, close in age, willing to meet a man of no magnitude.
email: servuscallidus@gmail.com
email: servuscallidus@gmail.com
January 18, 2012
January 13, 2012
Due to a death in the family, I have to do some traveling over the next few days. I'll be back and posting on Wednesday, though — just in time for my favorite post of the week. In the meantime, check out the 16 books that will be part of this year's TMN Tournament of Books, a literary alternative to March Madness, and don't forget to vote for your favorite blogs in this year's edition of the Bloggies — nominations close this Sunday.
Dear Jeremy
I don't have a picture of myself, so please accept these few lines:
As you grow up, always tell the truth, do no harm to others, and don't think you are the most important being on earth. Rich or poor, you then can look anyone in the eye and say, "I'm probably no better than you, but I'm certainly your equal."
Harper Lee
Lovely. You can view the handwritten note itself at Letters of Note here.
January 12, 2012
Decal measurements:
9"x23.25"H
8.25"x2.5"H
8.5"x8.5"
9"x17"H
January 11, 2012
Here's something rather special for BW today. If this doesn't make you glow a little inside, you've a heart of book-hating stone.
January 10, 2012
The erosion of cultures – and of “culture” as a whole - is the theme that runs through the last 25 years of my artistic practice. Cultures arise, become obsolete, and are replaced by new ones. With the vanishing of cultures, some people are displaced and destroyed. We are currently told that the paper book is bound to die. The library, as a place, is finished. One might say: so what? Do we really believe that “new technologies” will change anything concerning our existential dilemma, our human condition? And even if we could change the content of all the books on earth, would this change anything in relation to the domination of analytical knowledge over intuitive knowledge? What is it in ourselves that insists on grabbing, on casting the flow of experience into concepts?
My work, in 3D as well as in painting, originates from the very idea that ultimate knowledge could very well be an erosion instead of an accumulation. The title of one of my pieces is “ All Ideas Look Alike”. Contemporary art seems to have forgotten that there is an exterior to the intellect. I want to examine thinking, not only “What” we think, but “That” we think.
So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.
My work, in 3D as well as in painting, originates from the very idea that ultimate knowledge could very well be an erosion instead of an accumulation. The title of one of my pieces is “ All Ideas Look Alike”. Contemporary art seems to have forgotten that there is an exterior to the intellect. I want to examine thinking, not only “What” we think, but “That” we think.
So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowledge return to what they really are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they flatten and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fogs and clouds erase everything we know, everything we think we are.
*I was trying to imagine an impressive subject and result that a kid could produce in class, and a quick Google search actually presented me with what I'd conjured up. Amazing. And disturbing.
January 06, 2012
Cork planter bookend set by Nicole Runde; $48 from Canoe
[via GrassrootsModern]
January 05, 2012
January 04, 2012
January 03, 2012
The chapters each have 10 lists, with categories ranging from animals to law and specific lists devoted to everything from successful people who survived bankruptcy to uses for poop. Somehow, in the age of the internet and Wikipedia, each list manages to contain a surprise or two for even the most diehard trivia veteran: George Washington bought leopard-skin coats for his horses; Handel almost died in a duel in the street; and somewhere in America, there was a high school whose mascot was the cornjerker (no, I don’t know what that means).
