Tesla’s Controversial Articles, a Meme Phenomena

July 6, 2023
Thumbnail image for Tesla’s Controversial Articles, a Meme Phenomena

  In one study, scientists at McGill University in Canada used eye-tracking technology to study which news articles volunteers paid most attention to. They found that people often chose stories about negative criticism in preference to positive or neutral stories. They concluded that people in general are more interested in inappropriate, offensive, or controversial news, […]

Read the full article →

The Fictional Mystery Dartmouth College Wished Away

March 5, 2023
Thumbnail image for The Fictional Mystery Dartmouth College Wished Away

In June 1920, a few minutes after a dispute at a Dartmouth College dorm room, Bob Meads, a sophomore, who sold bootlegged whiskey he sourced from Canada, fatally shot senior, Hank Maroney of the Theta Delta Fraternity. Another Dartmouth College sophomore at the time, Clifford “Kip” Orr, deeply affected by the murder of his classmate, […]

Read the full article →

Cyberpunks among us

January 28, 2023
Thumbnail image for Cyberpunks among us

We have entered the cyberpunk age. Many of the things that were predicted in cyberpunk literature are here now. The global cyber threat continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with a rising number of data breaches each year. Viruses, trojans, spyware, ransomware, adware, botnets, SQL injections, phishing cyberattacks developed by malicious programmers, threaten individuals, […]

Read the full article →

Helen Frankenthaler’s Valentine Art

January 11, 2023
Thumbnail image for Helen Frankenthaler’s Valentine Art

Helen Frankenthaler, a dominant figure in the abstract art world watered my plants when I went away for the weekend.  She lived diagonally across the street from me on a point of land surrounded on three sides by Long Island Sound.  We were neighbors sharing the same street address.  I don’t remember how we started […]

Read the full article →

Rare Book Sale Monitor update – End of 2022 Edition

December 11, 2022
Thumbnail image for Rare Book Sale Monitor update – End of 2022 Edition

Back to Boston for the first time since the pandemic, the in-person format had an impact on the performance of the 3rd ABAA Virtual Book Fair: Boston. This year the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) decided to combine the convenience of online commerce with the community of in-person book fairs. The 44th Boston Book […]

Read the full article →

Ballets Russes: a gift to Modernism

November 9, 2022
Thumbnail image for Ballets Russes: a gift to Modernism

The arrival in Europe of the Ballets Russes led by impresario Sergei Diaghilev on the eve of the First World War, revived interest in the ballet and launched the modern era in performance dance. Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century as well as an important promoter […]

Read the full article →

Our Nobel Prize Nominations of the Literature Laureates

September 19, 2022
Thumbnail image for Our Nobel Prize Nominations of the Literature Laureates

Historical data shows that demand for the works of the Nobel laureates tend to increase in the weeks immediately following the Swedish Academy’s announcement. That is because there are many aspiring Nobel laureate collectors who rush to add some of the latest winner’s offerings to their collections. On a broader scale, readers are generally interested […]

Read the full article →

Father of the American Hard-boiled Detective Stories

August 29, 2022

Famous authors, whose writings are colored by fictional portrayals of their own real life experiences, are plentiful. Often, authors turn themselves into characters in their fictional novels because they have unique, interesting life stories to write about.  Kurt Vonnegut, for example, who appears as a character in his novel Breakfast of Champions, interacts with several […]

Read the full article →

NFT Usage in the World of Rare Books

June 29, 2022

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are digital proofs of a purchase for goods like art, digital music and other valuable collectibles. When auction house Christie’s sold the NFT “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” a collage by the artist Beeple, for $69.3 million in March of 2021, it signaled the dawn of a potential virtual fad. Data […]

Read the full article →

Horticulture Preserved on a Changing Planet

June 6, 2022

Ahh spring, with its new life, warm weather, and flowers and trees coming into leaf and blossom. In literature, it is perhaps the most popular of the four seasons. Authors, poets and artists find inspiration in the season’s delightful, blooming fruit trees, native plants, edible annuals and perennials, and plethora of culinary and medicinal herbs. […]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →