Sit-a-while
on swinging porch
where tin-dippers and
sweet water
in cool touches
meet lips
from hand dug wells.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy? ~ Albert Einstein

Good morning good people,

"It sounds like something from Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind and his The Cemetery of Forgotten Books: a huge volume containing thousands of summaries of books from 500 years ago, many of which no longer exist. But the real deal has been found in Copenhagen, where it has lain untouched for more than 350 years.

"The Libro de los Epítomes manuscript, which is more than a foot thick, contains more than 2,000 pages and summaries from the library of Hernando Colón, the illegitimate son of
Christopher Columbus who made it his life’s work to create the biggest library the world had ever known in the early part of the 16th century. Running to around 15,000 volumes, the library was put together during Colón’s extensive travels. Today, only around a quarter of the books in the collection survive and have been housed in Seville Cathedral since 1552.

"The discovery in the Arnamagnæan Collection in Copenhagen is “extraordinary”, and a window into a “lost world of 16th-century books”, said Cambridge academic Dr Edward Wilson-Lee, author of the recent biography of Colón, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books.

“It’s a discovery of immense importance, not only because it contains so much information about how people read 500 years ago, but also, because it contains summaries of books that no longer exist, lost in every other form than these summaries,” said Wilson-Lee. “The idea that this object which was so central to this extraordinary early 16th-century project and which one always thought of with this great sense of loss, of what could have been if this had been preserved, for it then to just show up in Copenhagen perfectly preserved, at least 350 years after its last mention in Spain …” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/10/extraordinary-500-year-old...

"To the relief of cinephiles still suffering from withdrawal after FilmStruck’s untimely demise last fall, the Criterion Channel launched today, meaning the majority of the Criterion Collection’s catalogue of classic art-house cinema (over 1,000 films) is now available for streaming. So, where should you start? In the interests of relative brevity, we chose one masterpiece each from 50 illustrious directors. And then, to encourage completists, we listed all the other films by each director that are also on the channel. Consider these as starting points, cinematic gateway drugs to the work of the most important filmmakers of all time. You could get lost for days." https://www.vulture.com/article/criterion-channel-best-movies-streaming....

The ultimate smiley face:

After a long night swimming
In the dry dark of a book
I heard outside my window
A sound that changed my window.

Each of the planets unseen sang
As though in the grooves
Of a record I loved.
Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mars,

A scratch where the Earth
Where the Earth should be
Where the Earth should be
And is.

I stared out into the darkness
For some sign of the cold consoler,
That perched spinning
Night nurse who tends

To the sleeping sun
Destined to rise irresponsibly
Over the counties
Of Kings and Queens.

What are we during these
Archaic moments
Of mind-made Shangri-la
But bees trapped in amber,

Storyless and beheld,
By the amber god
Who makes it so
And the living god

Who undoes it?

~ Rowan Ricardo Phillips