Farrar, Straus founder dies
"Roger W. Straus Jr., a Guggenheim heir who co-founded one of the great publishing houses of the 20th century, has died. He was 87." From the obituary:Straus believed it necessary to be "an international publisher, at ease in the world of letters," and he had great success attracting authors from around the world. In 1971, for instance, he acquired American rights to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic novel "August 1914."
Contrast that with this NY Times piece from July 2003, which I discussed here, about the trend among publishers to shy away from translated fiction because they claim there's no market for it among American readers.Book cover designs at Fordham
Foreword gives word of an exhibit of book covers at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University. Unfortunately, a quick sweep with Google doesn't turn up any direct links for the exhibit or for the gallery that's housing it.
It sounds lovely, and I'll keep trying to learn more.
UPDATE (5/27, 10:33am): Foreword has posted the PDF that Chip Kidd sent them advertising the event. Here are the details, as listed on the PDF:
Against the Grain
Book cover and jacket designs by Alvin Lustig, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Chip Kidd, Barbara de Wilde
Curated by Abby Goldstein and Paul Shaw
June 3 - August 3, 2004
Monday through Saturday, 10am - 8pm
Opening reception Thursday, June 3, 6 to 8pm
Center Gallery Fordham University at Lincoln Center
113 W. 60th St.
New York 10023
212-636-6303
No word on entry fees or ticket prices for the reception, if any.
Interrotron
Errol Morris, on his interview style:"I put my face on the Teleprompter or, strictly speaking, my live video image. For the first time, I could be talking to someone, and they could be talking to me and at the same time looking directly into the lens of the camera. Now, there was no looking off slightly to the side. No more faux first person. This was the true first person."
Movienet [via Kottke]The ballad of Sonny Payne
You know, every time I see Sonny--or, more accurately, when I hear Sonny, since I almost never look up anymore when he enters a car--I always think how interesting his story must be, but I've never had the gumption to try to write it. Steven Kurutz, however, has the gumption. I've still never given him money.Photographers = terrorists?
I'm still working on this unfortunate story, but I wanted to get some headlines up. We're increasingly becoming a society where everyone is considered a potential criminal. Now please excuse me. I'm off to take pictures on the subway while I still can. Subway Officials Seek Ban on Picture Taking New York Daily News - Home - Subways get shutter bugged Photography Ban Sought in Subways Photo Finish: Subway Pix Face BanThis is...
I've seen This is New York around, but I didn't know it was part of an eighteen-book series that is now being reissued.
I Like has a reproduction of a charming image from the London release, showing the tube station at Piccadilly.
Beer in Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Historical Society has opened a new exhibit: 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, complete with weekly beer gardens, sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery. The Times has more. Mm, beer.Brooklyn cab
A lone taxicab drives through the quiet streets of Flatbush following a snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast. 2/18/03 – New York, New York via KottkeHow I became an asshole
I was at the corner of 7th and Garfield, waiting to cross 7th. The light changed and I had the walk signal. I started into the street. A woman was turning right from Garfield onto 7th and didn't want to stop for me. I saw her, threw up my arms, backed away, and went back onto the sidewalk. Impatiently, she motioned me to cross. I motioned her to keep moving. She rolled down her window and yelled at me. I told her to "just go, goddammit" and then I said she was a bitch. She stopped her car like she was going to get out, but then she kept going. I don't know--is that a big guy against a tiny woman, or a big guy against an even bigger automobile?Gmail swap
gmail swap, via Metafilter. Hmm... If an invite link ever shows up in my account, this could be lucrative. Also, I'm beginning to think I need a Gmail (or general Internet) category around here.Gmail invites
A couple of people have asked me for Gmail invitations. So far, I don't have a link in my profile that allows me to invite anyone. I'm reproducing the following page from the Gmail FAQ that I hope will help explain why I can't yet invite anyone [emphasis added]:How do I invite others to join Gmail?
Because we're currently only offering Gmail as part of a preview release and limited test, we don't have details on when Gmail will be made more widely available.
As we make way for more accounts, we may periodically allow you to invite others to join Gmail. When we do so, you will see an invitation link in your inbox.
To invite someone, click on the 'Invite a friend to join Gmail!' link in your inbox. You will then be asked to provide an email address and a personalized message to your invitee.
The person you invite will be sent a message that includes a link to join Gmail. That registration link will be valid for three weeks and can be used to create only one account.
Should your invitee have problems creating a Gmail account, please let us know by clicking on the 'contact us' link below.
Please note that the link may not always be available. When you are allowed to invite others to join Gmail, the number of invitations that you can send will be indicated at the top of the page after you click on the link. Once you have used all of those invitations, we will not be able to immediately issue more invitations.
We have also created a sign up list for those who are interested in receiving updates on Gmail, but have not been invited.
More on Gmail
David Pogue of the New York Times reviews Gmail, the new e-mail offering from Yahoo. Thanks to Rachel, I've been using Gmail for about a week now, and I think it's a great new service, for all the reasons Pogue mentions. However, I'd like to add a reason he sort of glosses over--search. Since Gmail provides a gigabyte of mail storage, you can archive virtually all of your messages for years without having to delete them. (Google estimates that the average user can go five years without deleting a single message.) This means that you can store mailing-list postings, e-mails from friends, your local paper's daily-headlines mailing, Daily Candy or Manhattan User's Guide reviews, or whatever you choose to store--and you can search all that material later. If, in five years, you want to find specific messages about a particular MoMA exhibit (say, a Times review, the plans you made with a friend to see that exhibit, and an article about a brazen theft of artworks from that exhibit), you should be able to find them all with just a couple words in the Gmail search box. I think it's damn cool. michael [dot] dietsch [at] gmail [dot] com Thanks to Jen for the review link.Archive templates
I finally tweaked the archive templates for this blog, something I've meant to do for months. I still don't know why, when you click some permalinks, the entry's text completely whites out, but I've noticed that on other MovableType blogs, so it's not just me. I have a couple other fixes to make to the archive templates, but those will have to wait.Archaeologists discover Alexandria
BBC News reports that a team of archaeologists believe they have uncovered the ancient Library of Alexandria. [via Boing Boing]MoCCA saves Road Runner
The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art helped rescue two Chuck Jones murals on Wednesday, reports the Daily News. Jones drew the murals in 1988 during a visit to the offices of New Visions, a nonprofit education group in Greenwich Village, which is moving offices. Until MoCCA and art preservationist Joseph Braby stepped in, the murals were headed for demolition.Patents
Here's a fun-looking book:Class envy, or I'm in the wrong line of work
Wired News reports that fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld owns 40 iPods. They're distributed through his several houses, located at various spots around the world.
Le sigh.
Library archives chart LES history
Annual reports from the Seward Park library, a 95-year-old branch on East Broadway, chart the many changes in the Lower East Side since the branch's opening. The branch has just reopened after a two-year renovation.Sony and the innovator's dilemma
Cory Doctorow writes that Sony's electronics division is being pummelled by its entertainment holdings. (Wired did a good article on this last year.) What strikes me from Doctorow's piece is how closely Sony Electronics is beginning to resemble the companies that Christensen discusses in Innovator's Dilemma. From Doctorow:Sony, who invented the walkman and made billions off of it, has now become an irrelevant player in the personal stereo market, with a market share that's barely a blip on the chart.
If I were still in school, this might make an interesting case study.