Wednesday, April 29, 2009

East O' The Sun


This old and beautiful book was sitting in a pile of childhood relics at my friend D.V.'s house. It's a collection of Norwegian folktales published in the 1950s. I am so in love with the cover!

And the inside leaf paper:


The yellow spine is marvelous:

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Jaunā Gaita


Jaunā Gaita is a literary magazine that expatriate Latvian writers have been putting together for the last fifty-odd years. Its covers have been lovely and wild. The black and whites are the witchiest, most magical ones.


But also they did some lovely things with trees:




This one is special, too:


I found out about J.G. via Grain Edit. You can find all of the covers at the Jaunā Gaita archives. (It's all in Latvian, but it's easy enough to find the pictures-- just scroll down.)

P.S.––Apparently many of these covers were designed by a man called Ilmars Rumpeters. Google doesn't know much about him, but I think he was quite brilliant. Also he has a terribly fantastic name.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Night of the Radishes


Noche de Rábanos
December 23rd
Oaxaca, Mexico

In the 16th century, after radishes were brought to the Americas, vegetable sellers used to make sculptures of radishes to advertise in the markets. Since 1897 the custom has been celebrated with an annual festival, with the best sculptors awarded cash prizes.

via The Telegraph.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009