Though water is traditionally one of the greatest enemies of books these three fountains show us that water and books can live in harmony.Outside the Cincinnati Public LibraryPublic water fountain in RomeModel for proposed Fountain of Knowledge to be placed outside the University of Idaho Library. I am not sure if it was ever built.
The Grolier Club: An Early American Book Club
The Grolier Club is arguably the most famous book club in our country.Founded in 1884 by book lovers for "the literary study and promotion of the arts pertaining to the production of the book." The club got its name from Jean Grolier de Servières, a bibliophile of the highest order who lived during the Renaissance.The Grolier Club's history is rich. It has always exhibited books from the finest collections and has published over 200 books and exhibition catalogs each produced by the finest bookmakers and typographers of the day. It's renowned library contains almost 100,000 books.The other major contribution from...
Mid-Century Library To Be Demolished
In 1953 Hungarian architect and furniture designer Marcel Breuer designed the Grosse Pointe Central Library in Detroit. From the Detroit Free Press article:Getting Breuer to design the library in the Pointes was considered a coup. He crafted a small but elegant structure, two stories tall, with a front façade that was partly unadorned brick to echo the traditions of Grosse Pointe building materials, and partly a series of tall windows that created a transparency inside and out.In 2007 the" community's library board plans to demolish the Grosse Pointe Central Library and replace it with a newer, bigger structure"No renovation, no...
Picturing Independents
Opening today in The Cooley Gallery at Reed College in Portland, Oregon is the U.S. debut of "New and Used" an exhibit of photographs by Marc Joseph. Joseph traveled across America photographing "the spaces and objects of independent book and record stores". Steidl has recently published these photos in the book version of "New and Used". The book is accompanied by "a set of essays, short, fiction, and poetry by contemporary writers and musicians" who relate their own " used and new experience". Contributors include Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth fame, Eileen Myles, Jonathan Lethem, Shelley Jackson and Stephanie Snyder,...
Buck Mulligan on Broadway
Imagine this:It is the late sixties and your in New York. The world around you is a changing, the chimes of freedom are a ringing. Peace, Love and lots of mind altering chemicals are in the air. You head over to Broadway to catch a show. You choose the wildly popular musical Fantasticks. As the official website for the production states "Before the mud of Woodstock there were the love songs of the Fantasticks". You find your seat start reading the program and then you see this!“Stately plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead bearing a bowl of lather on...