Plus: Stories Inspired By Thorne Miniatures & Broken Windows
1. Sharks Are Sublime.
“Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and other authors of the Romantic era saw a special emotion in our recognition of nature’s terrifying side, the paradoxical pull of the imagery of pain and danger they called the sublime,” Edward Tenner writes for the Atlantic. “And no creature evokes this sense more vividly than the shark.
“Despite our fears, sharks are among the most negligible threats to human life. As the dust jacket of the award-winning National Geographic contributing photographer Thomas P. Peschak’s new book, Sharks & People: Exploring Our Relationship With the Most Feared Fish in the Sea, points out, fewer than a half dozen humans are killed each year by sharks, while we have been slaughtering 38 million of them annually.”
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“In Sharks and People acclaimed wildlife photographer Thomas Peschak presents stunning photographs that capture the relationship between people and sharks around the globe,” says his publisher, the University of Chicago Press.
“A contributing photographer to National Geographic, Peschak is best known for his unusual photographs of sharks – his iconic image of a great white shark following a researcher in a small yellow kayak is one of the most recognizable shark photographs in the world.”
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Back to the Atlantic:
“Thomas Peschak makes an eloquent visual case for the sublimity of sharks–and also for their conservation. He notes that the media still devotes far more attention to rare shark attacks than to the urgent need to protect them from human depredation, especially the shark fin trade. He might have noted that Peter Benchley, who became wealthy through the 1970s novel and film Jaws, regretted the fear he had sown and became a shark advocate. In the long run, though, China’s removal of Mao Tse-Tung’s ban on shark fin soup as bourgeois decadence in 1987 may have resulted in more shark slaughter than all the horror books, films, and news items together. Great conservation photography like Peschak’s, one must hope, will have the power to change attitudes globally.”
Click through to see some of the book’s photography.
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Peschak set to Lana Del Rey.
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2. Northlake Is Hulk Country.
“The Northlake Public Library in suburban Chicago unveiled its Hulk statue earlier this month to a crowd of more than 300,” Michael May writes for Comic Book Resources.
“Trustee Tom Mukite, who joined the [library] board specifically to spearhead the statue campaign, called the event the ‘largest turnout at the library ever.'”
@ronmarz A photo from last night. Over 300 people came to see the Hulk. Largest turn out at the library ever. pic.twitter.com/2nlkqzDGP6
— Tom M (@tmnhulk) September 14, 2013
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“It started when Tom Mukite joined the Library Board in October 2012, with the aim of buying The Hulk, comic making equipment and more graphic novels,” the American Library Association says. “In April, Mukite and several librarians started a campaign to raise $30,000 using website Indiegogo.
“Ultimately the campaign only raised $5,000. But Steve Williams, the owner of L.A. Boxing in Orange City, Calif., had a fiberglass statue of The Hulk outside his business. A new landlord didn’t care for it. In May, Williams went to Google to seek a buyer for the statue and instead found the Northlake Library.”
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Restoring Hulk.
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Installing Hulk.
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Tribune report.
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3. Small Is Beautiful.
“The Thorne Miniature Rooms are one of the Art Institute of Chicago’s most beloved exhibits: 68 miniature detailed representations of rooms that might have existed in Europe and America over some six centuries.
“Chicago resident Marianne Malone tells Here & Now that she’s loved the rooms ever since her mother brought her to the museum in a stroller.
“They inspired her to write a series of children’s books, beginning with The Sixty-Eight Rooms. The most recent book is The Pirate’s Coin.”
Click through for audio, an excerpt and to hear Malone read from her latest book.
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The Thorne Rooms.
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4. Broken Windows.
In June we previewed the Applied Words reading series, which continues through October.
We just noticed that the first of those readings, “Broken Windows,” is online thanks to CAN TV:
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5. What Is It Like To Go Blind?
Chicago author Beth Finke, who lost her sight at age 26, fills us in.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on September 26, 2013