The glorious interior of El Ateneo book store in Buenos Aires.In 1919, Max Glucksman, a recent immigrant to Buenos Aires, Argentina, had a vision to build the grandest, most splendid theater in all of South America. He succeeded. There, Argentinians could enjoy performances across the full spectrum of the arts, and see and hear local favorites. The legendary composer, singer and instrumentalist Carlos Gardel, the King of Tango, was a frequent artist in residence.In 1924, Glucksman began to broadcast Radio Splendid from the building’s fourth floor. In 1929, he converted the venue into a movie palace, and premiered the first...
Gender-Bending Chickens and the Bookbirder Report
Grrl Scientist at rest.GrrlScientist is the pseudonym of a colorful parrot who writes by typing with her beak. A science/nature/bird blogger in flight, at roost she's an evolutionary biologist//ornithologist and freelance science and nature writer from Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Her Ph.D. is in ornithology, and she spent her two-year postdoc reconstructing the molecular phylogeny of parrots of the South Pacific Islands; somebody had to. Devorah Bennu is strictly for the birds. Based upon her profile pic, she appears to be a Yellow-Bibbed Lory (Lorius chlorocerus).As such, she writes with a brush-tongue full of nectar. I used to keep a...
The Largest Vintage Paperback Book Fair in the World
Yesterday, I catalogued the Macclesfield copy of the important and highly significant third edition (1617) of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, published in the Dutch Republic, a Protestant country, a year after papal censors had added the book to the Index Prohibitorum. This edition brought Copernicus’ heliocentric model of the heavens to a broad readership. It's a very rare book.It’s tough to catalog while in the midst of a swoon.Next Sunday, March 21, 2010, I’ll be swooning all day at the 31st Annual Paperback Collectors Show and Sale here in Southern California.Tom Lesser is an attorney and one of the...
The Mother of Pictorial Satire, or Why Did Yankee Doodle Call His Hat Macaroni?
Despite their wide popularity and broad distribution, and their importance in the history of British caricature, the color-plate books and albums of Mary Darly are now quite rare.Who was Mary Darly?"Although most well-known cartoonists have been men, one of the most influential early figures in the field was a woman, Mary Darly. Though often overlooked in histories of the subject, women have played a significant part in the development of cartoons and caricature in Britain from its beginnings in the days of Hogarth almost 300 years ago right up to the present… However, the mother of them all, perhaps, was the...
The Hands (and Notebooks and Little Black Book) of Henry Miller
Handprint of Henry Miller's right palm....A man of good taste, intellectual quality of mind, and the ability to translate his ideas into words and action...he has a broad-minded attitude toward people and situations...He has a quick wit, he likes being with people who have alert minds so there can be a stimulating exchange of ideas...In 1957, novelist Henry Miller made handprints of his right and left palms. In 1966, Miller sent the handprints, with instructions, to graphologist Dorothy Sara for analysis, the above quotation an excerpt from her report.The left hand of god.The prints are amongst 120 Miller-related items from...