Keith Miller's Blog, page 11

Bookshelves

Tom Stoppard's portable bookshelf (via NYTimes)



















This is how I want to get my exercise! (via dvice)















Nice! (via odee)










The Bibliochaise (via Switched On Set)

Tahir Bushra

I met Tahir Bushra in Asmara in 1994. He was a Sudanese Nuban, and had moved to Asmara to be able to create his art in relative freedom. When I met him, he was making the most beautiful paintings I'd ever seen. Most were on wood. Some were the size of doors; others were barely a foot square. His materials were sand, shoe polish, white house paint, oil pastel, and ballpoint pen. Some of the symbols in his paintings are derived from Nuban body painting, scarification, and house decoration (se...

Egyptian Paperbacks

I love Egyptian paperbacks. Even classics by Naguib Mahfouz and Taha Hussein get this romantic, film-poster treatment. Most have a woman in the foreground and a handsome chap or two (often in cool colors, and often wielding a weapon) in the background. Some are quite risque. The interiors often contain excellent black-and-white line drawings or prints.



















Abnaa Abi Bakr al-Saddiq




















from Karnak Cafe by Naguib Mahfouz














Al-Ustaaz (The Teacher)



















Al-Zela al-Ula (The First Lapse)

On the Radio!

You can hear me mumbling about The Book on Fire on NPR's To the Best of Our Knowledge, hosted by the handsome Jim Fleming (in the photo above). I'm part of a show called "Writers on Writing," together with Nicholson Baker, Jane Hamilton, Daniyal Mueenuddin, and Nick Cave. Show times are here. I'm in the first hour. The show will be available for streaming or podcast from April 5.

Remedios Varo

Creacion de los Aves, Remedios Varo

Remedios Varo, whose painting Magic Flight is the cover image of The Book of Flying, was born in Spain in 1908. She fled to Paris during the Spanish Civil War, and then to Mexico City following the Nazi occupation of France. In Mexico, she met Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and honed her unsettling, dreamlike style. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in her work, and several major retrospectives have been held. More of her paintings can be see...

Durrell's Tower

This tower is on the roof of the Ambron Villa in Alexandria. Aldo and Amelia Amb ron were wealthy patrons of the arts. When they heard that Lawrence Durrell was looking for an apartment, they invited him to stay at the villa. He claimed this tower as his writing chamber. At that time, there were no apartment buildings surrounding the tower, and he could see Pompey's Pillar and Lake Mareotis from his perch. Here he wrote the sublime Prospero's Cell, his travelogue about Corfu, and made the firs...

Abushariaa

"Untitled"


















"The Door"














"The Birth of the Light"


I first met Abushariaa in Khartoum in 1993. He was working from a tiny room, most of which was filled with a desk. Abushariaa worked on one side; his friend worked on the other. On the floor beside him was a waist-high stack of papers, and he was adding to the stack at the rate of four or five paintings a day.

Khartoum under the authoritarian Bashir regime was not the most receptive environment for artists, and Abushariaa, with a number of other youn...

al-Atlal

Some Comments on Narnia

Lucy first enters the wardrobe because "she likes nothing more than the touch of fur." Later, when she and Susan are walking beside Aslan as he goes to his death, he allows them to do what they'd always wanted: place their hands in his mane.

Prince Caspian is the worst of the seven books. One theme running through it is that of belief: the Narnians have forgotten about their heritage; Trumpkin doesn't believe in Aslan (or the Pevensies); only Lucy sees Aslan at first when he appears. It's as i...

David Ho

I've recently become obsessed with the art of David Ho. The image above is from a series called "Candice the Ghost." Check out his immaculate website.