(Via Libraryland.)
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Top Hurricane Tracking Sites for 2011 [Ranked]
gCaptain is a website dedicated to building an interactive community of maritime professionals, a goal accomplished through social media tools that promote user interaction, discussion and the sharing of both ideas and information. Toward that end they have identified and ranked the best hurricane tracking sites on the web. I live in Florida and the 2011 hurricane outlooks suggest the Atlantic 2011 season will see between 13 and 17 named storms, 7-9 hurricanes and 4-5 major hurricanes. The average season has about 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes and 2 intense hurricanes – all reason enough to stay informed. Here they are:
Mayday 4 Person Deluxe Emergency Honey Bucket Kit at Amazon.com
Google Books adds 40 million pages from the British Library
The British Library has given Google access to a quarter of a million out-of-copyright books for its Google Books digital library project. The effort will involve scanning as many as 40 million pages from books published between 1700 and 1870, from the French Revolution to the end of slavery, and will include material in several major European languages. The effort will focus on books that aren't yet freely available online.
Once digitised, they'll be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books or the library’s website.
Details in the press release.
Treasures of the British Library at Amazon.com
Once digitised, they'll be available for full text search, download and reading through Google Books or the library’s website.
Details in the press release.
Treasures of the British Library at Amazon.com
Monday, June 20, 2011
The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History
Here are the top 5 and the rest are here.
5. Evelyn Waugh on Marcel Proust (1948)
“I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.”
4. Mark Twain on Jane Austen (1898)
“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”
3. Virginia Woolf on James Joyce
“[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”
2. William Faulkner on Mark Twain (1922)
“A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”
1. D.H. Lawrence on James Joyce (1928)
“My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness.”
A Little Death In Dixie
5. Evelyn Waugh on Marcel Proust (1948)
“I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.”
4. Mark Twain on Jane Austen (1898)
“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”
3. Virginia Woolf on James Joyce
“[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”
2. William Faulkner on Mark Twain (1922)
“A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”
1. D.H. Lawrence on James Joyce (1928)
“My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness.”
A Little Death In Dixie
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Knowledge Taxis of Cairo
Egyptians on the whole are not big readers. So what's a bookstore to do to try and help shift the cultural attitudes toward books and get people reading?
Last year the ALEF Bookstores in Cairo came up with a brilliant idea. Since the streets of Cairo are in an almost continuous state of gridlock why not put books in the back of taxis so people can pass the time reading.
The initiative, called “Taxi of Knowledge,” launched with 50 cabs, each carrying 5 books.
Here's how it works:
All the books for the program have been donated.
The bookstore lends each taxi driver 5 books which they choose and can exchange at any time."Alef has tried to keep the books short so as not to intimidate readers. Books range from women’s health, to philosophy and comedy books. Some books are even about the revolution – whatever best suits the taxi driver and his passengers’ taste."
Aleph places review cards in each taxi that allows the passengers to comment on the book selection and the driver's knowledge of them. People can also comment on the taxi's cleanliness and other non-book related taxi issues. Each month the bookstore awards two drivers a prize based on the reviews.
The program has been an astounding success. The fleet of cabs driving around Cairo with books is now up to around 200. By the end of the year the program hopes to have 2000 cabs in the mix. There is also been some interest in creating a similar program for the city's buses.
Hopefully, now that the Arab Spring is in full bloom, it won't be long for all 30,000 or so private taxis on the streets of Cairo to be book enabled.
Story at Almasry Alyoum, Taxi of Knowledge: Reading on the road
Dec 2010 piece from gulfnews.com, Cairo taxi libraries a boon for clients in traffic jams
Al Arabiya News Nov 2010, Egypt bookstore launches 'Taxi of Knowledge'
and for our Arabic speaking friends here is a link to a 3+ minute documentary on the project
(Reposted from Book Patrol.)
Joyce the Librarian (with apologies)
Joyce The Librarian
Joyce the librarian
Strict vegetarian
Forty and living with mum.
Wears sandals and glasses
Attends evening classes
And wonders if romance will come.
Though she'd never been kissed
It's not something she'd missed
Until some weeks before;
When George, a rotarian,
Handsome lotharian,
Walked through the library door.
George was unmarried
And the torch that Joyce carried
Was burning a hole in her heart
She wanted to show him
But didn't yet know him
She didn't know where to start
So with growing abhorrance
She read D.H. Lawrence
To glean a few ideas . . .
Which she turned down flat
She couldn't do that
Not in a million years!!
Joyce the librarian
Strict vegetarian
Was burning with animal lust
Alarming sensations
Strange palpatations
A mix of delight and disgust
So she busied herself
Rearranging the shelf
To try to control her dreams.
Joyce the librarian
The disciplinarian
Was falling apart at the seams.
The very next day
She kept out of the way
When George returned his books
But with growing conviction
She wandered through "Fiction"
And threw him some longing looks.
And when George joined the queue
She knew just what to do,
She smiled and removed her specs . .
Then looked in horror
'Cause he'd come to borrow "
The Further Joy of Sex".
Perhaps because latterly
She'd read "Lady Chatterley"
Something just snapped in her head;
She gave herself gladly,
Wildly, madly,
To George that night in his bed.
But then just as she'd feared
George disappeared
Some other librarian to woo.
Now there's a sob in her voice
As both book and Joyce
Are a fortnight over due.
Music and lyric by: Richard Stilgoe & Peter Skellern
You're A Lady
Stuxnet: Anatomy of a Computer Virus
A short film that explores the nature and ramifications of Stuxnet, the first weapon made entirely out of code. This was produced for Australian TV program HungryBeast on Australia's ABC1.
Astounding! Video mapping the astrological tower clock situated at Old Town Square in center of Prague.
Video mapping in celebration of the 600 years anniversary of the
astrological tower clock situated at Old Town Square in center of Prague.
The Macula project explores the relationship between image, sound
and viewer. It fights the established limits and pushes the boundaries
in search of alternative approaches. The goal is to achieve perfect
symbiosis and satisfy audio-visual nihilism. Video mapping is a new
visual style based on VJing. When the standard 2D projection screen
was becoming too ordinary, efforts to find something new led to the
discovery of open space projection on any surface.
Video mapping uses common entertainment technology in a new,
innovative way. The main objective is to use projections tailored to the
selected surface or object to shatter the viewer’s perception of
perspective. The projector allows bending and highlighting any shape,
line or space. A suggestive play of light on a physical object creates
a new dimension and changes the perception of a seemingly
ordinary object.
Everything becomes an illusion.
Rick Steves' Prague & The Czech Republic
How to drink like your favorite authors
For Faulkner it was a mint julep - a true southern tradition. As he said, “There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn’t fool with booze until he’s fifty; then he’s a damn fool if he doesn’t.”
Ten more here.
Found via Coudal Partners
The Ultimate Bar Book: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,000 Cocktails
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
The book's author Allison Bartlett talks about John Charles Gilkey, a rare book thief who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of books, and the rare book dealer who tracked him down and brought him to justice. She spoke at The Booksmith in San Francisco. (I wanted to embed the video, but it is disabled for this item.)
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession
Time Enough at Last from Rod Serling
I caught one of my favorite episodes from The Twilight Zone last night. It was Time Enough to Last with Burgess Meredith as avid bookworm Henry Bemis. Bemis is a bank teller and reads on the job causing him to one day short-change a customer. He is threatened with dismissal by his boss and the next day takes his lunch break in the bank's vault, where his reading will not be disturbed. While interred inside the vault a nuclear holocaust occurs outside. Henry emerges from the vault to find the bank demolished and everyone in it dead. Leaving the bank, he sees that the entire city has also been destroyed, and realizes that a nuclear war has devastated the Earth, but that his being in the vault has saved him.
At last he has all the time on Earth to read. But....
At last he has all the time on Earth to read. But....
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Yi-peng Northern Lantern Festival
Offered just because....
Click to enlarge
In the Northern Thai provinces that were once part of the ancient Lanna Thai kingdom, the Yi-peng Northern Lantern Festival is still being celebrated. Tubular lanterns, resembling hot air balloons, are lit and released into the night sky as an offering the Lord Buddha. As hundreds of illuminated lanterns drift into infinity, this conjures the same sense of wistful closure as the krathong float downstream.
Photo by Sanchai Loongroong . Many more wonderful photos at the link.
The Digital Photography Book
In the Northern Thai provinces that were once part of the ancient Lanna Thai kingdom, the Yi-peng Northern Lantern Festival is still being celebrated. Tubular lanterns, resembling hot air balloons, are lit and released into the night sky as an offering the Lord Buddha. As hundreds of illuminated lanterns drift into infinity, this conjures the same sense of wistful closure as the krathong float downstream.
Photo by Sanchai Loongroong . Many more wonderful photos at the link.
The Digital Photography Book
Historical Anatomies on the Web is a digital project designed to give Internet users access to high quality images from important anatomical atlases in the National Library of Medicine's collection. The project offers selected images from NLM's atlas collection, not the entire books, with an emphasis on images and not texts. Atlases and images are selected primarily for their historical and artistic significance, with priority placed upon the earliest and/or the best edition of a work in NLM's possession.
Anatomy and Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function
Ulysses as a cartoon
In case that previously posted summary is still too much for you, here you go....
Click to enlarge
Ulysses summarized into a 3 minute read by the BBC
It has also outraged censors with its choice language and graphic descriptions of basic bodily functions.
However, for all its renown and notoriety, it is a book that few have read and even fewer comprehend.
To rectify this, BBC News Online presents an irreverent simple chapter-by-chapter guide to the key events, characters and Homeric parallels.
CHAPTERS 1-3
The first three chapters introduce would-be writer Stephen Dedalus, familiar to Joyce readers from his earlier novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
On the morning of 16 June 1904, Stephen leaves the disused watchtower he shares with "stately, plump Buck Mulligan", vowing never to return.
After teaching at a nearby school he talks to an ageing master who gives him a letter to deliver to the offices of a Dublin newspaper.
He then goes for a long walk on the beach that gives him plenty of time to ponder his literary aspirations and dead mother fixation.
CHAPTERS 4-5
Jewish advertising salesman Leopold Bloom buys a kidney, then returns home to 7 Eccles Street and has it for breakfast. He then defecates. Upstairs Molly, his unfaithful opera singer wife, waits for him to leave so she can entertain her lover.
Jewish advertising salesman Leopold Bloom buys a kidney, then returns home to 7 Eccles Street and has it for breakfast. He then defecates. Upstairs Molly, his unfaithful opera singer wife, waits for him to leave so she can entertain her lover.
CHAPTER 6
Bloom attends a funeral at Glasnevin Cemetery, his symbolic encounter with death mirroring Odysseus's descent into Hades. It's a real barrel of laughs.
CHAPTER 7
NEAR MISS AT NEWSPAPER OFFICE
Bloom and Stephen almost meet in a chapter peppered with tabloid-style headlines.
Bloom and Stephen almost meet in a chapter peppered with tabloid-style headlines.
CHAPTERS 8-9
It's lunchtime, so Bloom stops at Davy Byrne's "moral pub" for a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy. He then pays a call to the National Library where he overhears Stephen sounding off about Shakespeare.
CHAPTER 10
Lots of short episodes. Lots of different characters. All connected by a Vice-Regal parade from one side of town to the other.
CHAPTER 11
In a chapter full of song - Joyce's allusion to Homer's deadly Sirens - Bloom narrowly avoids meeting Molly's lover, concert promoter Blazes Boylan.
CHAPTER 12
Bloom has an argument with a pub bore whose blinkered anti-Semitism mirrors Homer's one-eyed Cyclops. He exits, closely followed by a cake tin.
CHAPTER 13
As evening falls, Bloom sees two young girls on the beach and masturbates in a chapter written in the florid style of a romantic penny-dreadful.
CHAPTER 14
Stephen and Bloom meet at last in a maternity hospital in a chapter whose structure is meant to represent both the nine months of pregnancy and the birth of the English language. And they say this book is hard.
CHAPTER 15READER
(horrorstruck) Blimey, this looks like heavy going.
STEPHEN'S DEAD MOTHER(horrorstruck) Blimey, this looks like heavy going.
No kidding! There's over 100 pages of this stuff, all written in the style of a play script. But all you need to know is that Bloom follows Stephen to a brothel where they have lots of freaky hallucinations.
CHAPTER 16
A weary Bloom takes Stephen to a cabman's shelter where they listen to the ramblings of a tattooed sailor who makes little or no senzzzzzzz
CHAPTER 17Q. What happens next?
A. Bloom and Stephen walk back to Eccles Street. Bloom offers Stephen a bed for the night but Stephen refuses and leaves. Bloom goes to bed. The section is written in a question-and-answer format like a religious catechism.CHAPTER 18
yes Molly Bloom sits awake in bed yes and remembers her youth in Gibraltar yes and her many sexual partners yes in one unbroken stream of consciousness yes and recalls the day she yes gave herself to Bloom while munching some heavily symbolic seed cake yes
(The 35-page chapter consists of just seven sentences. The final words are: "...and yes I said yes I will Yes.")From BBC News
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)