William Landay's Tumblr

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything..."

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:35:53 -0400

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

- A. Bartlett Giamatti

August 7, 1956. 68 cents + 7 cents tax. Via Eephus League.

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:22:00 -0400

August 7, 1956. 68 cents + 7 cents tax. Via Eephus League.

Scott Belsky, “How To Avoid the Idea Generation...

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:16:33 -0400

Scott Belsky, “How To Avoid the Idea Generation Trap”: moving from the natural excitement of a new idea to the “doldrums” of execution.

From the Victory League series by Neuarmy (via Designspiration)

Tue, 22 May 2012 11:00:00 -0400

From the Victory League series by Neuarmy (via Designspiration)

“Ken Burns: On Story” by Redglass Pictures. (via)

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:58:00 -0400

“Ken Burns: On Story” by Redglass Pictures. (via)

Into the Woods

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:06:00 -0400

Into the Woods:

mysteryatbbd:

Honored to feature this powerful post by William Landay, author of Defending Jacob:

Does it help to see where a novel is set? Would you understand Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County any better if you actually visited his Mississippi? Is it even possible to understand Dickens if you have no idea what Victorian London looked like?…

Continue reading

Cool series of book covers designed by Jessica Hische for Barnes...

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:17:00 -0400

Cool series of book covers designed by Jessica Hische for Barnes & Noble classics series. More here. Via Explore.

Book trailer for The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game by...

Mon, 07 May 2012 21:50:00 -0400

Book trailer for The Ball: Discovering the Object of the Game by John Fox (on sale May 14). The footage shows the Kirkwell Ba’, an ancient “folk football” game played twice a year, on Christmas and New Years Day, in the streets of Kirkwall, a tiny coastal town in Orkney, northern Scotland.

The New Yorker

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:41:15 -0400

The New Yorker

The Manhattan bridge under construction, seen from Washington...

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:25:00 -0400

The Manhattan bridge under construction, seen from Washington Street, June 5, 1908. The bridge wouldn’t open for another 18 months and wouldn’t be completed for another four years. More newly released historical photos of New York here.

Graham Greene, 1964. Portrait by Yousuf Karsh.

Thu, 03 May 2012 17:28:27 -0400

Graham Greene, 1964. Portrait by Yousuf Karsh.

Vermeer – “The Art of Painting” (1666)

Tue, 01 May 2012 17:14:31 -0400

Vermeer – “The Art of Painting” (1666)

Simon Callow on Dickens’ London.

Tue, 01 May 2012 15:42:39 -0400

Simon Callow on Dickens’ London.

"There is only the trying"

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:34:59 -0400

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.
And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

— T. S. Eliot: “East Coker” from Four Quartets

“Carving” Others can carve outtheir spacein tombs...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:16:00 -0400

“Carving”

Others can carve out
their space
in tombs and pyramids.
Our time cannot be trapped
in cages.
Nor hope, nor laughter.
We let the moment rise
like birds and planes and angels
to the sky.

Eternity is this.
Your breath on the window pane,
living walls with shining eyes.
The surprise of spires,
uncompromising verticals. Knowing
we have been spared
to lift our faces up
for one more day,
into one more sunrise.

— by Imtiaz Dharker

Noticed this poem on the London Tube last week, on one of the “Poems on the Underground” posters. (Image source)

The official poster for the 65th Cannes Film Festival, featuring...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:49:16 -0400

The official poster for the 65th Cannes Film Festival, featuring Marilyn Monroe.

Alexis Madrigal: “our collective memory of the past is...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:34:00 -0400

Alexis Madrigal: “our collective memory of the past is astoundingly inaccurate. Not only has the number of people reading not declined precipitously, it’s actually gone up since the perceived golden age of American letters.”

An early sign of spring in Boston: the pond in the Public Garden...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:00:10 -0400

An early sign of spring in Boston: the pond in the Public Garden has been refilled. No swan boats yet.

Bookplate designed by Rockwell Kent (via)

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:31:16 -0400

Bookplate designed by Rockwell Kent (via)

Picasso, “Don Quixote” (1955) (Wikipedia)

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 20:11:29 -0400

Picasso, “Don Quixote” (1955) (Wikipedia)