reading notes & textual adventures

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Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:31:23 +1030

"For the Internet screen has always been like the palantír in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’—the..."

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:29:56 +1030

“For the Internet screen has always been like the palantír in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’—the ‘seeing stone’ that let’s the wizard see the entire world. Its gift is great; the wizard can see it all. Its risk is real: evil things will register more vividly than the great mass of dull good. The peril isn’t that the users lose their knowledge of the world. It’s that they can lose all sense of proportion. You can come to think that the armies of Mordor are not just vast and scary, which they are, but limitless and undefeatable, which they aren’t.”

- Adam Gopnik - “The Information” from The New Yorker (Feb. 14 & 21, 2011 issue)

"[David Foster Wallace] struggled for years to get to grips with the work and, says Franzen, who was..."

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:28:59 +1030

“[David Foster Wallace] struggled for years to get to grips with the work and, says Franzen, who was a close friend, “If he’d finished it, I think he’d be alive today. Boredom is a tough subject to tackle in a novel and, arguably, Dave died of boredom.””

- Breaking: Franzen still a huge asshole. From “The Rich Literary Afterlife of David Foster Wallace.” (via michellelegro)

"The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it."

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:25:22 +1030

“The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.”

- James Bryce (via libraryland)

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Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:51:31 +1030

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Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:41:10 +1030

I love that I Am Legend, Farenheit 451, and A Clockwork Orange...

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 11:35:40 +1030

I love that I Am Legend, Farenheit 451, and A Clockwork Orange made the cover of this book. In fact, it’s the art throughout that really makes this book

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Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:55:43 +1030

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Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:53:07 +1030

Underwood St near circular quay in Sydney has several giant...

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:10:57 +1030

Underwood St near circular quay in Sydney has several giant underwood typewriters adorning buildings

Canberra has Book Tourism

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 19:48:02 +0930

Canberra has Book Tourism

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Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:00:47 +0930

Movable Books: An Illustrated History by Peter Haining looks at...

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:15:00 +0930

Movable Books: An Illustrated History by Peter Haining looks at “Pages & Pictures of Folding, Revolving, Dissolving, Mechanical, Scenic, Panoramic, Dimensional, Changing, Pop-Up and other Novelty Books”

Watch as the student desperately tries to cling to the notion of...

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:04:00 +0930

Watch as the student desperately tries to cling to the notion of truth.

Mr Eternity's graffiti

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:10:51 +0930

Between his conversion to Christianity in 1930 and his death in 1967, Arthur Stace was compelled to inscribe the word ‘Eternity’ in chalk or crayon more than half a million times on various public surfaces around the city of Sydney. He was dubbed Mr Eternity. See his entry in Wikipedia for more.

books as bar code

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 12:12:24 +0930

Arrived at the bookshop, Alice browsed without pleasure. The books conveyed both intimidation and overabundant presence. They lined up like the immense bar code of some key to all mythologies.

Gail Jones, Dreams of Speaking (2006), p. 80.

Women and Books in Art

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:22:45 +0930

Forbidden Fruit: A History of Women and Books in Art by Christiane Inmann looks at the way women with or near books have been depicted in art. For example, this one ‘Laus Veneris’, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

Maria Bantjes's book of wonders

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:22:45 +0930

Maria Bantjes spoke at Ted earlier this year about design arguing that ”truly imaginative visual work is extremely important in society” and sees herself as “seeding the imagination of the populous” … “inspiration is cross-pollinating”.

Her book I Wonder is out in a month or so. It looks gorgeous and very textual.

visual carbon footprint

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:21:44 +0930

Adelaide graffiti artist uses skills for political change

political graffiti part two

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 14:24:57 +0930

A little more digging found some good Australian repositories of political graffiti.

For example, Melbourne Graffiti contains an interesting repository of street art found all over the city.

Including this piece: