The evening lamp

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Mina Fonda Ochtman (1862-1924): The evening lamp

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Young readers

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Lewis Hine: Boy studying, ca. 1924

Frans Oerder: Meisje wat lees (Girl reading).

Karl Mueller: Lesende junge Frau an einem Tisch
beim Licht der Petroleumlampe

It's what people do. They read and write. The Internet is just another way to do it.

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Gerard ter Borch

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Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681), The Reader

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In a Scottish bookshop

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William Fettes Douglas (1822-1891), The Bibliophilist's Haunt or Creech's Bookshop.

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Young Cicero

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Vincenzo Foppo: Young Cicero Reading

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On the road

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Edward Hopper, The Hotel Room

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Vermeer's laptop

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Jonathan Janson: Girl Writing an Email, 2008

Jonathan Janson runs an excellent website dedicated to the work of Jan Vermeer, and his own Vermeer-derived paintings can be seen at jonathanjanson.com.

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A favorite Vermeer

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Jan Vermeer: Lady writing a letter with maid

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Gandalf the Grey reads the midterm papers

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Ian McKellan, Lord of the Rings

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Forbidden books

Alexander Mark Rossi: Forbidden Books

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Street scene after 9/11

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Disclaimer.

One disturbance after another

Carl Spitzweg: A Visit, c. 1850

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In praise of non-electronic textuality

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A touch of Alexander in the night

Critics all but universally denounced Oliver Stone's 2004 "Alexander" movie. I must admit that the film was pretty strange in places, but it certainly sparked my own imagination and phantasy-life.

One scene I particularly enjoyed was Alexander, on campaign somewhere in Asia, sits down to his daily papyrus review, while the camera hovers over his shoulder.

The employment of Greeklish seems a bit odd, but I find this little touch of ancient literacy very appealing, and not out of keeping with Alexander's obviously formidable intellect, nourished in his youth by Aristotle personally.

Plutarch's Alexander biography has a marvelous scene where Hephaestion and Alexander, alone in their tent at night, are at work going over the daily correspondence. Hephaestion deletes the spam and passes the important mails on for Alexander to deliberate. A. unrolls a papyrus from his Mom, takes off his ring and blows upon it, an indication to H. that her words are to be classified top secret.

Scholars continue to debate about whatever romantic or sexual interests may have existed between the two of them, but for me this little story from Plutarch sums up their whole relationship. After all, how many husbands or wives or partners do you know who would want to examine their mate's emails every day, or who share the same userid or passwords? 

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Thanks eco-comics, and thank you too, Batman.

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Young Man Reading by Candlelight, Matthias Stromer (ca.1600-1650)

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Edmund C. Tarbell -- Three Girls Reading (1907)

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The Reader

The Reader is a 2008 film based on the 1995 German novel by Bernhard Schlink. Kate Winslet, here being read to in the bathtub, is secretly illiterate, and has this amazing look of stressed concern about it throughout the movie.