Signs Precedeing the End of the Word

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A week ago I wrote about Herrera Land:

Their book Signs Preceding the End of the World begins with a woman walking down the street.


I’m dead, Makina said to herself when everything lurched: a man with a cane was crossing the street, a dull groan suddenly surged through the asphalt, the man stood still as if waiting for someone to repeat the question and then the earth opened up beneath his feet: it swallowed the man, and with him a car and a dog, all the oxygen around and even the screams of passers-by.
Opening sentence of Signs Preceding the End of the World


Could you stop reading there? I couldn’t. So I continued.


Three cheers for Lisa Dillman! She is the translator of the work and several others. Translators have a difficult craft to practice. Ms. Dillman does so well.

Self, in Herrera Land

I’m happy report that the book continues to tell the tale of Makina’s journey to the United States to find her brother. She’s street wise and winds her way past men.

It is great. I give it an unqualified recommendation.

Wandering in Print

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You have read it here. My blog posts. They’re now in print. Well, sorta. I’m learning a bit about book making. One of my first efforts was this collection of what I wrote here in August.

Wanderings in Print

I took in a couple of copies to Bobby Amrahamson’s monthly Photo Salon. We meet, we talk mostly about photographs. It is a good thing to belong to, I’m grateful to Bobby for asking me to participate. I also took in another couple of booklets I’ve made, as examples.

Aside from the very nice comments by people the ending question was “what’s next?” I replied with my plan to keep making books. Lots of them. On a to be determined group of topics. I am a wander, a Saunter-er.

Anyone Can Open A Restaurant

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It was Restaurant Day in Helsinki, where on the third Saturday of February, May, August, and November, anyone can open a restaurant, anywhere.

Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere

Better make your plans for one of those four weekends. Everyone, anyone, can open a restaurant with no reviews, no health department inspections, no nothing besides their own initiative.

One couple, from Spain, opened a ceviche stand. A schoolgirl sold muffins. This started in 2011 when”Timo Santala wanted to start a mobile bicycle bar, selling drinks and tapas.” I can get behind this big time. When it started,

In May 2011, they launched their first event. Participants opened restaurants in lingerie shops, on unused railroad tracks, in people’s kitchens and attics, and in bus stops. There was a restaurant for babies. Cooks got creative, serving everything from crayfish soup on their boats to entrees made with grasshoppers. A Michelin-starred chef grilled hamburgers and gave them out for free.

Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere

This lead to a social movement. “It helps that there have been no known instances of food poisoning stemming from Restaurant Day, according to Elisabeth Rundlöf, a marketing manager for the City of Helsinki.” And while this movement has spread to other countries where authorities can make it difficult, they tent to turn a blind eye on the extremely popular event.

You can read more about it. International events occur in Nicaragua. That’s close enough for us.

From Painters, When They Talk

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“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.”
~ Vincent van Gogh

“I am not sick. I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
~ Frida Kahlo

“Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never learn how to paint.”
~ Pablo Picasso

“When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.”
~ Pablo Picasso

“I want to paint the way a bird sings.”
~ Claude Monet

“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.”
~ Edgar Degas

“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
~ Claude Monet

“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” 
~ Plutarch

“I want to be famous but unknown!”
~ Edgar Degas

All from 26 Painting Quotes By The Masters To Inspire You