Beautiful book porn from Antwerp(en)

Antwerp: my favorite city in Belgium.

The Platin-Moretus museum was a printing press during the Dutch Golden Age... a big one. An axis, in fact, for humanist learning...

Mmm, humanism. One of my favoritest things in the world. Hell, I like revivals of all kinds. Better than revivals, though, are those rare beautiful things that have remained essentially the same.

Behind bars, behind glass... good thing too, or else I would been all up in there with my greedy, grimy fingers. Other than the employees, I had that entire museum to myself!

More girls reading letters

Girl Reading a Letter in an Interior by Peter Vilhelm Ilsted (1908)

God, that's lovely. I could sit and read letters in a room like that... forever. That's what my heaven would look like.

"The Seven Year Itch" (1955)

No club is complete without its idiosyncratic rites and rituals. And my favorite B.L.L.B.C. tradition? -- "Classic Old Movie Night."

Hmm. It's descriptive, but we could use a better name for this, I think.

Bang bang!

 
Luckily for me, we always seem to be screening movies I ought to have seen, but for whatever stupid reason never have. A culturally deprived childhood, perhaps? Oh well; it's never too late, I say, to address such grievous dearths in one's cinematic experience!

Lino-block print based on Vermeer's "Lady in a Blue Dress Reading a Letter"

So, about this picture. I thought I should provide a little background...

I wanted a unique graphic for the exclusive use of the B.L.L.B.C., something like an official seal or self-contained logo we could slap onto, say, tote bags, shirts, bookmarks, notebooks, a website, the cover of our handbook, etc.

The composition, you'll notice, is essentially lifted whole cloth from Vermeer, a reference to one of the book clubs' many shared passions (art history).

Originally she was a 1950s-looking girl, with a ponytail and big bangs, wearing a fashionable cape. And why not? It seemed fitting enough.

Somewhere along the way, though, she morphed into a Jane Austen-style heroine. Which, I realize now, was entirely necessary. You see, before, the image suggested a sleuthing, detective-novel situation -- she was snooping. On the other hand, was the first draft of Pride and Prejudice itself not in epistolary form? I think it was. This works better.

"Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window"

It isn't Woman in Blue Reading a Letter (which resides at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which is my personal, absolute, No. 1 Favorite Museum in the World, I think)... but I only had that in black and white. Black and white will not do. So, here is a variation on the theme, scanned and added to my collection of high-resolution digital images, which in the future I will have developed on 35mm slides.

Vermeer makes me want to throw richly patterned carpets and tapestries onto my kitchen table, and leave them there, rumpled, just because.

Oh, and hey: Merry Christmas.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men," Luke 2:14.

Art museum love

Gah, I'm such a hoarder. Looks like I'm starting to grow a little collection of museum maps... I like that since they're sister museums, their stuff all matches, though. Kinda justifies the obsessiveness, doesn't it?

One on the left was from ages ago, one on the right was from the BLLBC's most recent visit (which was this Tuesday, 12/11/12). Yes, San Francisco was too cold for my foolish little skirt, but it was terrific fun, and we looked hot, which is what really matters.

Coming soon: The B.L.L.B.C. Official Handbook!

You can expect to see this in PDF form and available for download on the site by next week. The only things it won't include that appear in the hard copy edition is the member directory -- first names and pictures in this version, maybe, but no contact information.

Oh, and also redacted will be all members-only club matters that are, by necessity, guarded in strictest secrecy... secret handshake, secret password (for admittance into the clubhouse -- which doesn't yet exist, technically -- but this would change every month or so anyway, I suppose).

"Lost in Austen" film (2008)

The other day, I went on Hulu and squealed like a little girl. They've begun showing a TV mini-series called "Lost in Austen"! At first I thought it was this (a choose-your-own-adventure version of Pride & Prejudice, which I love), but really it's this (a UK movie from 2008).

So of course, I gleefully snuggled in to watch the first episode. I made a point of asking my boyfriend if he cared to join me, but he said, very skeptically, "Jane Austen? I've never read any of his books."

That's not a typo. I wish it was.

Another engraved image I've run across recently: the cover of a lovely book

I find the block-print look used on all the Number One Ladies Detective Agency series really charming. It so perfectly embodies the homey and nostalgic feeling you get from McCall's novels... especially his Botswana books... they're so deceptively simple and straightforward. Mma Ramotswe, Mma Makutsi... all the characters... even if they rub you the wrong way, they're good people.  Warms the heart, really.

I've transcribed my favorite scene below... it was so damn adorable I had to put down the book and rush off to visit my boyfriend, who was busily playing a video game. But I didn't care, I had to tell him about this romantic thing I'd just read. I don't know if he was really listening or only half-listening... I'll quiz him later.

Woodcuts: the artist-designer is also the craftsman/craftswoman

Today I climbed up to the fifth floor of the library... selected a small armload of books... took them back down a few flights, located a table and chair...