Library Bench
Life-Size 18" and Life-Size
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Another Two Bite the Dust
Murder by the Glass
The first book: Murder Uncorked was much better. The main character for a portion of the book did not sound like the Nikki Sands I had previously become familiar with. Meaning there were far too many comments like "Gag me with a spoon", "Where's the barf bag", "It's going to be hard to hold down my lunch", and "Oh, vomit." She came across like more of the sort of person I would try an avoid much conversation with.
There was also significantly less wine education to be gleaned. The previous book makes plenty of mention about viticulture where the only real mention in this book was about the legs of wine which many people find to be a bogus thing to judge a wine by anyhow.
As a murder mystery it was alright but fell short of my expectations. This ended up reading a bit more like a romance than something to sooth the soul of any oenophile or lover of a mystery junkie.
Antigone
Dear Lord - I loved this book. If you haven't read this - GO! READ IT NOW!
The first book: Murder Uncorked was much better. The main character for a portion of the book did not sound like the Nikki Sands I had previously become familiar with. Meaning there were far too many comments like "Gag me with a spoon", "Where's the barf bag", "It's going to be hard to hold down my lunch", and "Oh, vomit." She came across like more of the sort of person I would try an avoid much conversation with.
There was also significantly less wine education to be gleaned. The previous book makes plenty of mention about viticulture where the only real mention in this book was about the legs of wine which many people find to be a bogus thing to judge a wine by anyhow.
As a murder mystery it was alright but fell short of my expectations. This ended up reading a bit more like a romance than something to sooth the soul of any oenophile or lover of a mystery junkie.
Antigone
Dear Lord - I loved this book. If you haven't read this - GO! READ IT NOW!
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Two More Down
Survivor
The Holy Piby
I'd heard the Holy Piby along with the Kebra Negast were considered bibles to the Rastafarian community. Finally, I have read the Piby and I have this to say. If you should elect to read this as well, I would suggest you begin looking at it as a pure work of fiction. No holy text should contain the words "Newark, New Jersey."
The Holy Piby
I'd heard the Holy Piby along with the Kebra Negast were considered bibles to the Rastafarian community. Finally, I have read the Piby and I have this to say. If you should elect to read this as well, I would suggest you begin looking at it as a pure work of fiction. No holy text should contain the words "Newark, New Jersey."
The Bookworm
 |
| The Bookworm |
| Carl Spitzweg, 1850 |
| Oil-on-canvas |
| 49.5 × 26.8 cm, 19½ × 10½ in |
| Museum Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt, Germany |
The Bookworm (German: Der Bücherwurm) is an 1850 oil-on canvas painting by the German painter and poet Carl Spitzweg. The picture is typical of Biedermeier art, encapsulating the introspective and conservative mood in Europe during the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1848, but at the same time poking fun at those attitudes by embodying them in the fusty old scholar unconcerned with the affairs of the wider world.
The picture shows an untidily dressed elderly bibliophile teetering on top of a library ladder with several large volumes jammed under his arms and between his legs as he peers short-sightedly at a book. Unaware of his apparently princely or abbatial Baroque surroundings, he is totally absorbed in his researches. A handkerchief, carelessly replaced, trails from his pocket. His black knee-breeches suggest a courtly status.[1] The intensity with which he stares at his book in the dusty old once-glorious library with its frescoed ceiling mirrors the inward-looking attitudes and return to conservative values that affected Europe during the period; the painting was executed two years after the revolutions of 1848 provided a shock to the stable world embodied in the dusty solitude of the library. In the lower left corner of the painting an old faded globe can be seen; the bookworm is not interested in the outside world, but in the knowledge of the past. He is illuminated with the soft golden light that is a hallmark of Spitzweg's work,[2] but the scholar's interest in the light streaming from the unseen window extends only so far as it allows him to see the words on the pages of his old books. The height of the library ladder can only be estimated: the globe suggests a possible floor height, but none of the floor is visible, heightening the sense of precariousness of the oblivious scholar's position. Equally the size of the library is unknown; the old man is consulting books from the section of "Metaphysics" (Metaphysik) — indicated by the plaque on the highly ornamented bookcase — which both suggests a vast library and underlines the otherworldliness of the book lover.
While obviously political or polemical art was discouraged by the conservative attitudes that pervaded Central Europe, and more parochial themes were chosen by the artists of the Biedermeier period than had been the vogue in the Romantic period that proceeded it, there was still room for subtle allusions and light satire.[3] Spitzweg's paintings poke gentle fun at the figures he saw around him. He was almost entirely self-taught and although his techniques were developed by copying the Dutch Masters, his portrayal of his subjects is believed to have been influenced by the works of William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier. Although The Bookworm is among the most obviously satirical of his works and though none of his paintings show the cruel wit of Hogarth, there are parallels between the characters of Hogarth and those depicted by Spitzweg; the bookworm — carefully observed and knowingly detailed — would not look out of place in a scene from Marriage à-la-mode; indeed, Spitzweg is sometimes referred to as a "German Hogarth".[2]
How Deep Is Your Love for Books?
Bibliophilia is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile loves books, but especially "for qualities of format". A bookworm loves books for their content, or otherwise loves reading in general. Bibliophilia is generally considered to be incorrect, but some would say it is a new, recent, usage. The practice of loving or collecting books is dubbed bibliophilism, and the adjective form of the term is bibliophilic. Also, a bibliophile may be a book collector.
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often nurturing a large and specialised collection. Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they love; an alternative would be to admire them in old libraries. However, the bibliophile is usually an avid book collector, sometimes pursuing scholarship in the collection, sometimes putting form above content with an emphasis on old, rare, and expensive books, first editions, books with special or unusual bindings, autographed copies, etc.
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often nurturing a large and specialised collection. Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they love; an alternative would be to admire them in old libraries. However, the bibliophile is usually an avid book collector, sometimes pursuing scholarship in the collection, sometimes putting form above content with an emphasis on old, rare, and expensive books, first editions, books with special or unusual bindings, autographed copies, etc.
Bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved. Most bibliomaniacs, then, are compulsive hoarders, identifiable by the fact that the number of unread books in their possession is continually increasing relative to the total number of books they possess and read. Extreme bibliophilia may amount to a diagnosed psychological condition.
Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily" and in fact, the Library of Congress does not use the term "bibliophily", but rather refers its readers to either book collecting or bibliomania. The New York Public Library follows the same practice.According to Arthur H. Minters [3] the "private collecting of books was a fashion indulged in by many Romans, including Cicero and Atticus."
The term entered the English language in 1824, according to the Merriam-Webster's reference below. It is to be distinguished from the much older notion of a bookman (which dates back to 1583), which is one who loves books, and especially reading; more generally, a bookman is one who participates in writing, publishing, or selling books.
Bibliomania is an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting or hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged. One of several psychological disorders associated with books, bibliomania is characterized by the collecting of books which have no use to the collector nor any great intrinsic value to a genuine book collector. The purchase of multiple copies of the same book and edition and the accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use or enjoyment are frequent symptoms of bibliomania.
Bibliomania is not to be confused with bibliophily, which is the usual love of books and is not considered a clinical psychological disorder.
Other abnormal behaviours involving books include book-eating (bibliophagy), compulsive book-stealing (bibliokleptomania), book-burying (bibliotaphy), book burning (bibliocaust), etc.
People with bibliomania
- Stephen Blumberg
- Thomas Phillipps[1] (1792-1872) suffered from severe bibliomania. His collection, which at his death contained over 160,000 books and manuscripts, was still being auctioned off over 100 years after his death.
Fictional characters with bibliomania
- Mel Gibson's character in the movie Conspiracy Theory suffers from triggered bibliomania, a form of mind-control that prompts him to buy a copy of J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye every time he goes outside his apartment. (cf. MK-ULTRA papers, National Security Archives.)
- Yomiko Readman codename "The Paper" is a character in the anime Read or Die. She is a "paper user" who works for the British Library. She is also a bibliomane, whose apartment is literally stacked floor to ceiling with books. It is stated at one point in R.O.D the TV that she has read "thousands of books in her lifetime" which makes her unusual among bibliomanes, as most collect books because of a psychological problem, and do not actually read any of them.
The term was popularized by the cult cyberpunk anime series Serial Experiments Lain (1998), which used the word as the title of episode eleven; see Infornography (Serial Experiments Lain episode).
According to Science and Technology Studies scholar Lawrence Eng, the main idea behind the concept of infornography is that, in modern society, "information is being considered not just a valuable commodity from a practical point of view, but something that generates an almost sexual thrill, something that we lust after and enjoy hunting because it is special and gives us power."[1]
The definition (without explicitly using the term itself) is also greatly applied in most cyberpunk settings, where information can almost be considered a currency of its own, in a sense facilitating the development of an alternate world for 'escapism'. Megacorps, hackers and other kinds of people use information to strive. They can subtly be called "infornographers".
On the other hand, receiving much apparently trivial information may be educational and form useful intellectual compulsions/habits for obtaining more knowledge. Wikipedia may be regarded as having the potential of providing much infornography should someone use it compulsively. It is very much debatable where a healthy thirst for knowledge ends and infornography begins.
Bookworm (insect)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bookworm is a popular generalization for any insect which supposedly bores through books.
Actual book-borers are uncommon. Both the larvae of the death watch beetle (Xestobium rufovillosum) and the common furniture beetle (Anobium punctatum) will tunnel through wood and if paper is nearby they will pass into that.
A major book-feeding insect is the booklouse (or book louse). A tiny (under 1 mm), soft-bodied wingless psocoptera (usually Trogium pulsatorium), that actually feeds on molds and other organic matter found in ill-maintained works, although they will also attack bindings and other parts. It is not actually a true louse.
Many other insects, like the silverfish (Lepisma saccharina) or cockroach (various Blattodea), will consume these molds and also degraded paper or the starch-based binding pastes – warmth and moisture or high humidity are prerequisites, so damage is more common in the tropics. Modern glues and paper are less attractive to insects.
Tineola bisselliella and Hofmannophila pseudospretella will attack cloth bindings. Leather bound books attract various consumers, such as Dermestes lardarius and the larvae of Attagenus unicolor and Stegobium paniceum.
The bookworm moth (Heliothis zea or H. virescens) and its larvae are not interested in books. The larvae are pests for cotton or tobacco growers as the cotton bollworm or tobacco budworm.
For those of you who wouldn't mind a plush version of yourself to cuddle up to. Places like www.thinkgeek.com sell them.
Friday, February 1, 2008
A Bookworm By Any Other Name
Translations for: Bibliophile
Dansk (Danish)
n. - bibliofil, bogelsker, bogsamler
Nederlands (Dutch)
bibliofiel, boekenverzamelaar
Français (French)
n. - bibliophile
Deutsch (German)
n. - Bibliophiler, Bücherliebhaber
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βιβλιόφιλος
Português (Portuguese)
n. - bibliófilo (m)
Español (Spanish)
n. - bibliófilo
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - bokälskare, bibliofil
中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
爱书者, 藏书家
中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 愛書者, 藏書家
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مولع بالكتب
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - חובב ספרים
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