M.J. Rose

This makes us think how fun it would be to make snow globes with scenes from our favorite novels. Any creatives out there up to the task?

Snow globes filled with sinister scenes of people in peril

(Dangerous Minds)

Artists Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz have been collaborating for the past 22 years. During half of that time, between the years 2001 and 2013, they created a series of snow globes called “Travelers.”

Martin and Muñoz’s snow globes feature unusual and rather sinister scenes of tiny people in peril amid a snowy environment. Instead of the standard corny images of local attractions inside globes that you find at the airport, the contents of Martin and Muñoz’s snow globes are reminiscent of nightmares that were conjured up by an overactive, anxiety-riddled mind. Martin and Muñoz only made 250 of their terrifying snow globes which when they were made available for sale, sold for $750 a piece. Much of Martin and Muñoz incredible work is featured in a book they published back in 2008 called, “Travelers.” When it comes to the snow globes themselves, after a rather exhaustive search of various auction sites, I was unable to locate any available for purchase. To remedy that, I’ve included images of the more sinister snow globes from the “Travelers” series for your enjoyment. Sweet dreams!…”

For the entire gallery, click here.

Neil Gaiman spoke about stories recently in San Francisco. Enjoy!

Neil Gaiman on How Stories Last
by Maria Popova (Brain Pickings)

“Stories … are genuinely symbiotic organisms that we live with, that allow human beings to advance.”

“Stories have shapes, as Vonnegut believed, and they in turn give shape to our lives. But how do stories like the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm or Alice in Wonderland continue to enchant the popular imagination generation after generation — what is it that makes certain stories last?

That’s what the wise and wonderful Neil Gaiman explores in a fantastic lecture two and a half years in the making, part of the Long Now Foundation’s nourishing and necessary seminars on long-term thinking.

Nearly half a century after French molecular biologist Jacques Monod proposed what he called the “abstract kingdom” — a conceptual parallel to the biosphere, populated by ideas that propagate like organisms do in the natural world — and after Richard Dawkins built upon this concept to coin the word “meme,” Gaiman suggests stories are a life-form obeying the same rules of genesis, reproduction, and propagation that organic matter does…”

The audio for the talk is here, or click the image below.

See the rest, as well as transcribed highlights here.

Here’s the place to build brick by brick and book by book in your mind’s eye for those moments when you need to curl up in the most magical library on earth…Or you could hop on a plane!

6 Reasons to Add the Bodleian Library to Your Book Bucket List
Posted by Hayley Igarashi (Goodreads)

“If “books are a uniquely portable magic,” then libraries must be one of the most magical places on earth (and librarians must be magicians). Oxford University’s Bodleian Library certainly looks the part. This historical institution—and part-time Hogwarts stand-in—is a must-see for any traveling book worm. If it isn’t on your book bucket list already, we think we can change your mind.

Reason #1: It has over 11 million printed items.

Not to shame your local library, but we’re betting your usual book haunts can’t quite compare to Bodleian’s veritable army of tomes. Among the 11 million items to browse are a rare copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio, unbound and unrestored, along with the largest collection of pre-1500 printed books in any university library in the world….”

For the rest, click here.