curiosities & clockwork

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 17 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 10 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 5 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 19 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 14 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 8 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 2 of 2))

Sat, 16th Apr — 1 note

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 4 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 10 notes

(via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 13 notes

“Now I held in my hands a vast methodical fragment of an unknown planet’s entire history,” the speaker writes of the encyclopedia, “with its architecture and its playing cards, with the dread of its mythologies and the murmur of its languages, with its emperors and its seas, with its minerals and its birds and its fish, with its algebra and its fire, with its theological and metaphysical controversy.” (via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 8 notes

Other than The Voynich Manuscript, the Codex’s closest relative is the encyclopedia of a world so imaginary that the encyclopedia itself doesn’t exist. At least, it doesn’t exist in the way that The Voynich Manuscript sits in the rare book library of Yale University, or copies of The Codex Seraphinianus can be ordered from Italian publishers for $1,165. This encyclopedia is A First Encylcopedia of Tlön, a book discovered by a character in the Luis Borges’s story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.” (via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 8 notes

the Codex remains as impenetrable as before. The book’s creator has remained silent on the topic since its publication in 1981. Attempts at using cryptography to decipher the script have failed. The only American edition, from 1983, has little to offer beyond a literal description of the contents. (via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 5 notes

Like The Voynich Manuscript, the Codex is an artifact, a solid, object reminder of the power of books and paper. The entire book was drawn by hand. Copies are difficult to find, especially in the United States, and often prohibitively expensive. The rarity of the book both in its creation and for viewers to obtain makes the content all the more precious. (via a billion tastes and tunes: the Codex Seraphinianus (post 1 of 2))

Fri, 15th Apr — 10 notes

Mon, 10th Aug — 19 notes