Tag Archives: nice things

More Art: Walid Al-Jafari.

Another nice painting – this from a MidEast painter.

Palestinian artist - Walid Jafari..

Short bio:

Walid is a self-taught artist who launched his ‘career’ in 2002 with a hugely successful solo exhibition in Dubai.

Through constant experimentation, Walid developed a unique painting technique, which is now seen as his trademark.

Based on a mixture of acrylic, oils, and inks, the texture and surface of his paintings appear quasi-ceramic, and have an intriguing three-dimensional effect.

Four main, but not exclusive themes, run through Walid’s work: figures and portraits, ruins and towns, oriental patterns and abstract Nature.

His delightfully dry sense of humor, combined with an impressive list of academic credits, ensures that all conversations with Walid are always sharp, interesting and full of laughter.

How things have changed.. re-visiting Florence from the couch..

Google Street View… the possibilities are endless…

Palazzo Pitti... and beyond...

While reading an ebook – and listening to jazz radio webstyle, we did a little checkup on the geography of Florence, and walked around the city blocks at full-screen with google maps..

And old memories are refreshed and new.. and some adjusted a bit.. with some years in between – the architecture clearly looks a bit different than remembered, and even more beautiful than last visit..

Thanks Google!

Book Industry: Print declines, e-books pirated.

More bad news for books and book-lovers.. Second biggest US bookchain about to fold..

From the NyTimes:

News that Borders, the nation’s second-largest book chain after Barnes & Noble, is teetering on the brink of a bankruptcy filing has made book publishers even more nervous about their online future.

The recording industry, which preceded books’ move online by about a decade, sold $7.7 billion worth of music in 2009, down from $14.3 billion in 2000. Electronic books are much easier to pirate than songs and movies — a fact made clear when Dan Brown’s blockbuster “The Lost Symbol” was downloaded illicitly more than 100,000 times within days of hitting stores in 2009.

At the same time.. quality content and reading online is such a fantastic new invention in the last twenty years.. that even as a former book-lover i consider the web to be, after all, huge progress. And a little bookshelf with old treasures is still a part of many homes..

And for the atmosphere.. we still have libraries..

More..