On Libraries
Something a little different this time: a meditation on a single subject. A few years ago I gave a talk at Vassar College and got to spend some time in...
A Prisoner, a Museum, a Man Getting Old
When Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he passed the time by making a map of Egypt. I wrote about how Le Corbusier’s idea of a Musée...
The Thingery and the Church
I love the idea of a library of things or Thingery — where you can borrow rather than buy or rent — but here’s a thought experiment for you: What sorts of...
Return Visit to the Academical Village
Last week I got to spend a couple of days in Charlottesville, Virginia and environs. I did my graduate work at UVA, and while that was not the happiest...
Notebooks, A Monk, and the Death of a Poet
A notebook of Leonardo da Vinci, at the British Library’s Writing: Making Your Mark exhibition. Would love to see that, but I don’t think I’ll be in London...
Texas Sunsets and Irish Fathers
Sunset over Benedict Farms Thanks so much to all who replied to my query, in my last edition, about how I might defray the costs of this newsletter, and...
Enough about Me
I rarely read, or even look at, a book of mine after it’s published. When the box arrives with my author copies I have a brief glance at the cover and the...
The Texas Edition
Wildflower season is always nice here in central Texas, but this one was especially lovely. Interestingly, last fall was unusually colorful as well: The...
Images Humble, Quirky, and Grand
Melanie Titmuss Bracelli’s Bizzarie di Varie Figure (1624) Emma Taylor, book sculptures A few years ago, when I was giving a talk at Vassar, I met a...
Of Printers and Patriarchs
This one is coming a little more quickly than usual, but Cool Things are backing up in my Cool Things Queue. Philadelphia, 1797. Via Lucretia Baskin, and...
In Which I Keep Going
Eric Ravilious For over twenty years, the National Security Agency had a technical journal for its employees called Cryptologs. The journal covered a wide...
On Non-Ephemeral Ephemera
I have long loved the small oddities of the publishing world: posters for books, pamphlets, broadsides — ephemera, mostly, though to the collector something...
Poems by Mail and a Man of Sorrows
In the 1950s the English publisher Faber & Faber had a wonderful little initiative: They offered poems in the mail by subscription. If you subscribed, you’d...
A Cat, an Eagle, and the Great Entail
Sterling Hundley’s sketchbook Sixty-some years ago a man gave a metal sculpture of an eagle to Boston College, because they’re the Eagles, right? So BC...
House, Home, Friends
Casa Sperimentale Visiting Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania last week to speak at the — very beautiful! — Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, I had the opportunity to...
A Line, a Grave, Voices
F13 (1926) by Wacław Szpakowski, via Miguel Abreu Gallery and BLDGBLOG. That shape is made from a single line. Julia Blackburn’s new book Time Song:...
Angels in the Architecture
I don't suppose there’s another architectural ornamentation that gives me the delight I receive from watching the angels ascending and descending on the West...
A Cartoon, a Library, a Deadly Credit Card
Some works of art are so famous and celebrated that you might wonder how it could be possible ever to see them again, but each time I’m in London I make a...
Brick Dust and Iron Birds
Jorge Otero-Pailos, The Ethics of Dust Thanks to my friend David Michael I learned about the work of Ajene Williams, who’s an artist-in residence at the...
Stars, Cops, and a Status Board
Katie Paterson’s work at the Turner Contemporary, Margate. See a brief video of the exhibition here. A powerful photo essay on black cops in Atlanta When we...