11 September 2011
Remembering 9/11 again (or What you won't be reading on your Kindle, part 3)
Image © Gaylord Schanilec
The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is being marked by a steady stream of newspaper features, documentaries on TV, and an ever growing number of books on the subject. In my blog on last year’s anniversary I mentioned Michael Katakis’s Troubled Land series of photographs. Michael’s response to 9/11 was to set out on a trip across America, taking the photos which now make up the aforementioned series.*
A recent issue of The New York Times carried an article on another type of response. New Yorker Richard Goodman rode his bicycle from the Upper West Side down to Ground Zero nearly every day for three months. His experiences during those cycling trips through Manhattan now make up the book The Bicycle Diaries: one New Yorker’s Journey Through 9/11, which is published in a limited edition by Midnight Paper Sales, the press of poet, wood engraver and printer Gaylord Schanilec. The book is illustrated by Gaylord’s distinctive coloured wood engravings and represents the answer to the question he asked himself on the morning of the 9/11 attacks, ‘what can I do?’ Last autumn he accompanied Richard Goodman on a bike ride, re-visiting the same Manhattan streets of Goodman's earlier cycling expeditions down to the One World Trade Center construction site. The engravings in the book are based on the photographs that Gaylord took during that ride. Text and image combine to provide a view of past and present, referencing both the horrors of the original events, and the hope arising from restoration and renewal in the city.
The blending of word and image has always been an important aspect of Gaylord’s work, as has a strong sense of place, so The Bicycle Diaries seems a perfect project for Midnight Paper Sales. To some it might appear anachronistic in these digital days to produce a limited edition fine press book, using traditional letter press printing and laborious multi-colour wood engraving processes, but books can be so much more than just carriers of information. As e-books become increasingly popular, paradoxically, the number and variety of fine press and artists' books that are appearing also seem to be on the rise. Great, we can have the best of both worlds. I'm looking forward to the arrival of the BL’s copy of The Bicycle Diaries and to holding it in my hands. I have no doubt that, to quote from the NYTimes article, ‘It has the weight of a small thing done with great care to honor a huge loss.’
[C.H.]
*We’ll be displaying a few of these photographs in the forthcoming Folio Gallery exhibition which opens on 10 October. The exhibition ties in with the publication of Michael’s new book Photographs and Words, which will appear under the British Library imprint later this month.
20 July 2011
Guest posts on Out of this World
My colleagues have been moonlighting on the Science Fiction exhibition blog. First, up, it's Aquiles on SF in Latin America:
The narrative of alternative, fantastic worlds is a hallmark of Latin American literature. Many novels written in Latin America, especially in the second half of the 20th century such as The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier or A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez became worldwide famous under the label 'magic realism', a narrative of alternative lives, beings and landscapes that challenge our concept of reality. What many readers do not realise is that the fantastic world as ascribed to contemporary Latin American literature can in fact be identified much earlier in the SF narratives that were published in the continent – a literary genre which has been and continues to be widely published in Latin America.
Dos Partidos en lucha: Fantasía científica by Eduardo Holmberg (Buenos Aires: El Arjentino, 1875) [Two Fighting Parties – Science Fantasy – BL holds it at shelfmark 7006.b.1] is considered to be one of the first Latin American novels written in the genre. This novel does not, in fact, make projections on how a future world would look but, instead, is based on a historic event that happened in Argentina: Charles Darwin’s visit to the country in 1872 during a scientific expedition. The novel narrates how Darwin captured some specimens from Argentina, including what he believed to be some monkeys who turned out to be human beings. The interesting aspect of this work (Holmberg wrote other SF novels dealing with space travel, aliens, etc) is that it brings forward the discussion about how science, working on a system of classification, is but a fantasy (or fiction) since it does not grasp reality as it is but rather projects the scientist’s own values and beliefs onto worlds which are completely alien to him. [read more]
20 May 2011
Out of this World Rapture
It was an ordinary evening, but then, disaster struck: halfway home, I realised that I'd left my phone on the desk, so I turned my bike around and headed back to the Library, planning on popping back via the main entrance.
Leaving my bike in the piazza, I noticed that something out of the ordinary was up. Why all these people heading towards the entrace with a certain eagerness and intensity? Was that the author of The Unconsoled? And didn't she write that book about xyz? Was that something odd overhead, something strange in the air? As I had a bag with me, I presented my pass at the door to skip the usual search and then noticed that the Front Hall was full of people. The security guard then reminded me that it was the opening for the Library's Science Fiction exhibition - Out of This World: science fiction but not as you know it.
Not being one of the elect, I duly headed (as I should have done all along) to the staff entrance. But it was good timing, given that a US preacher has declared tomorrow as the beginning of the end of the world: the Rapture, no less. Those inside would have been able to prepare themselves by studying one of the sections, which looks at this very topic. From an American Studies point of view, the phenonomen of 'End Days' literature, such as the bestselling 'Left Behind' series, has begun to attact a range of academic study, ranging from literary criticism and theology to military strategy, as well as comment pieces like this one in the Guardianand an online host of satire. It is, after all, very American form of Millennialism.
The exhibition is free, and is now open for visits at the Library's St Pancras building, assuming we are all still here. There are also plenty of events, as well, including many sponsored by the Eccles Centre with an American twist. You can also keep an eye on things via the exhibition blog.
[Update: 23 May] We are still here, which gives me the opportunity to add a link to UEA's Thomas Rus Smith's post on 'Apocalypse on the Mississippi!'): 'There is a long history of prophesying Armageddon, particularly along or in relation to the Mississippi. Indeed, the current interest in the possibility of imminent rapture is as nothing compared to events in the nineteenth century...'
[MJS]
28 March 2011
Last week of Evolving English
Guerrila: the free newspaper of the streets [cup.653.a.20]
I popped into the Library on Sunday for a last proper look at the Evolving English exhibition (which closes at the end of the week). As well as Beowulf, the King James Bible, and Viz, there are also a selection of US items. I've mentioned the Milk and Honey Route before, but there's also a Strunk and White, and, strikingly, Guerilla: the free newspaper of the streets (there are others, if you want to make a game of it). I was particularly pleased to see the latter, as it was one of the first things that I acquired for our collections when I moved to this post. Not so much a call for evolution, as revolution, there's a bit more about this radical publication on the learning team's site, 'Dreamers and Dissenters'.
You can also 'Map your Voice' on the website. I think that they are still after American voices.
[MJS]
25 March 2011
Friday
More battles with the CMS for the online gallery for most of today (but we're getting there, thanks to the ever-helpful web services team), and a short outing to the music team's open day.
I pop over to the Foyle Room with Jamie (from English and Performance), and we are both made to feel old by looking at recent re-releases of 90s indie records. There is also a smorgasbord of formats, from Kylie Minogue USB 'dolls', via eight tracks, mini-discs, and what looks to be a recent revival of vinyl. On the next table are the earliest known manuscripts of Tallis's Spem in Alium (again, I'm reminded of Janet Cardiff's installation at MOMA a couple of years ago) and compositions connected to Henry VIII. We are intrigued by Kenny Everett's Capital FM scripts (all highligher pens, notes to self, and doodles); they would make a great facsimile for BL publications. We spend a bit of time looking at the Vaughan Williams collections, and then Nicolas points out the origins of the melody for the 'Star Spangled Banner'; he offers to bring it along to a show and tell on Monday.
Now back to working on the Civil War Exhibition; the text is getting there, so it's now a matter of finding the best images. So far, the Penny Illustrated News is proving to be the most useful. And it's online via the 19th Century British Newspapers site.
[MJS]
25 February 2011
High Society at the Wellcome Collection
Yesterday, Jerry and I took a trip down Euston Road, along with some of our colleagues in Social Sciences, to visit the High Society exhibition at the Wellcome Collection and to take a peek around the stacks and conservation studios in the company of some of the Wellcome staff. The exhibition is only on until 27 February, so I suspect this weekend will be busy (it was pretty packed yesterday).
For Americanists, peyote and Prohibition were present, and I was reminded of our strong collections of psychoactive and counter-cultural material held at St Pancras, as well as a huge range of sources for the study of Prohibition. Recent acquisitionsfor the study of the role of psychoactive substances in society include Alice Lee Marriott, Peyote (New York, 1971) [YA.2003.a.33710] and Thomas Constantine Maroukis, The Peyote Road: religious freedom and the Native American Church (Norman, 2010) [YD.2010.a.12982]. I suspect some sort of guide is in order.
Finally, the Wellcome Collections Library has an excellent blog, which comes recommended.
[M.S.]
Americas and Oceania Collections blog recent posts
- Outernational: Researching Black music and its transatlantic connections
- Sculptures, time machines and vampires: items from the Americas collections on display in Leeds
- Beyond the Exhibition: Unfinished Business – Curators' Lunchtime Session
- Paradise in London: the Paraíso School of Samba and the beginnings of urban Brazilian carnival in Rio de Janeiro
- Mrs. America: Still Unfinished Business
- Mrs. America: Unfinished Business
- Online Access to United States Government Printing Office Publications
- Women and Buddhism in the United States
- Cats from the stacks: The Cat in the Hat
- Spring news from the Eccles Centre
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