Jean-Pierre Lemonon , an eminent professor and expert of the history of the 1st century, examines archaeological, historical, and biblical sources to draw a portrait of this figure whose existence was definitely proven in 1961 with the excavation of the “Pilate Inscription“. This block of limestone, excavated from the Roman theater near Caesarea, bears a monumental inscription by “Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea” to Tiberius Caesar, emperor of Rome.

Link: Ponce Pilate on Wikipedia

Millenium Trigoly - Vol. 1

The “Millennium Trilogy” is a publishing sensation in France, UK and many other European countries (not to mention Sweden the country of the author). It is an epic tale of serial murder and corporate trickery spanning several continents, and addressing the themes of investigative journalism, the moral bankruptcy of big capital and the contemporary culture of corruption.

The first volume has been published in English under the title “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” and in French as “Les hommes qui n’aimaient pas les femmes“.

According to amazon.com, the book will be available in the US in September 2008.

The journalist and author Stieg Larsson died suddenly, shortly after delivering the three novels to his publisher. His website provides more biographical information as well as the announcement of a coming movie.

I added a favicon to this blog and website. A favicon is a small picture an icon) associated to a website. Browsers which support favicons, display them in the URL field:




next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks (Favorites on IE):

,and next to the page’s title in the tab of the interface.

A favicon is a quick and visual way to bookmark and see a web site. In fact, in my Firefox bookmark, I have deleted the title of most of the sites I added to my bookmark toolbar and kept the favicons only. This way, I can have much more bookmarks in the bar, they are easily recognizable and accessible. Here is a portion of my bookmark toolbar (try to recognize some favicons!!):

To create, install and validate my favicon, I followed the clear instructions given on chami.com website. (in section ” Favicon from Pics”)
Finally, Smashing Magazine has recently published a series of 5 articles on favicons, including galleries of beautiful and creative favicons.

Links:
• thefavicongallery.com
• “How to create a favicon” on chami.com
• Galleries on Smashing Magazine

As a writer, Perec explored the creative potential of formal rules, anagrams, palindromes, mathematical word games, and other puzzles.

A Void - By George Perec

In 1969 he produced one of the most remarkable illustrations of constrained-writing , “La Disparition”, a 300-page detective novel written without the letter E. This modern and fun story, full of plots and sub-plots is considered one the most impressive lipogrammatic novel of all times. But perhaps even more astounding is the English translation, again with no “e”, achieved by Gilbert Adair in “The Void”, which earned him the 1995 Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize.

The book opens with this paragraph:

“Incurably insomniac, Anton Vowl turns on a light. According to his watch it’s only 12:20. With a loud and languorous sign Vowl sits up, stuffs a pillow at his back, draws his quilt up around his chin, picks up his whodunit and idly scans a paragraph or two; but, judging its plot impossibly difficult to follow in his condition, its vocabulary too whimsically multisyllabic for comfort, throws it away in disgust.”

• Links: “A Void” — Amazon.com link
  A Void(Novel)– Wikipedia entry
  George Perec — Wikipedia entry
  “George Perec: A Life in Words” A biography by David Bellos. Amazon.com entry
  Lipogram — Wikipedia entry
  List of Prix Medicis

La Jument - Brittany (France) Copyright: Jean Guichard

The photographer Jean Guichard started his worldwide study of lighthouses more than 15 years ago. His work, well-known in Europe and North America, captures the sublime beauty and majestic strength of these monuments, and the magical landscapes they inhabit.

The image to the left is of the lighthouse “La Jument” whose picture is now world-famous and distributed on postcards , posters and calendars. Taken during a memorable storm in 1989, it depicts a wave about to engulf the lighthouse, as his keeper looks out the open door. The moment has also been captured in a Flash animation.

Hundreds of Jean Guichard’s photographies are presented on his bilingual website ( french/english). A nice search engine allows to browse the pictures per country, name (each lighthouse has a name), city and even per keyword (”wave”, “blue” ..etc.. )

Lighthouse: Le Four - Brittany (France) Copyright: Jean Guichard

Link: http://www.jean-guichard.com

Illustration inspired by Michael Schwab

Michael Schwab is an award-winning graphic artist who lives in Northern California . Over a 20-year career, almost solely in poster art, he has developed a distinctive style, simple and strong, characterized by its large, flat areas of color, its dramatic perspectives and shapes both simple and powerful.

His online portfolio does not display his most recent work but I bet the San Francisco National Park series or the posters for Amtrak will make you exclaim ” Oh yes , I have seen these!” ….

Link: Michael Schwab website