notanotherbookreview

What is a Chapbook? I always thought of it as poetry, printed on vellum with letterpress and largely undistributed beyond poetry community. According to Wikipedia:   " A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature." These prose chapbooks by BAMBOO DART PRESS may be a 2021 version of "street literature".  Attractive to hold in your hand, around 45 pages, they offer a meaningful, even inspiring read. But can these books be long enough to deliver that experience?  In these disconnected days of isolation, I enjoyed the humor and wonder in these books.    Books and Tapes and Art and a series of chapbooks, a collaboration between Pelekinesis and Shrimper Records and Tapes.     John Brantingham  is a poet, novelist, essayist and foremost in this book, a man who remembers being a kid and profound moments, like peeling an orang...

I am a lover of landscapes. I have painted them in oils, watercolors, pastels, colored pencils, ink, even collage and the results vary with mood and the weather--often the same.  I have spent many hours in the same place at the same time. Losing myself in a scene is essential, whether finished from a photo later or not. I've been told that losing awareness of time and self, while completely focused on an external scene is outward meditation. Whatever you call it. Landscape artists often exchange knowing looks about how good it feels to paint nature, especially outside. When a friend told me she had a photograph in Las Laguna Gallery's landscape show, I was curious about the work. Here were landscapes, seascapes, dreamscapes in paint, acrylic, wax, pastel, gauche, prints, pottery, photographs, (digital prints, silverpoint and images mixed with paint.). Whether literal or abstract, engineered or imagined ,work seemed to glory less in human perception than the unknowable mystery ...