This is a curious commissioned portrait of Martha-Ann Alito by Igor Babailov.

Only one book can be identified on the shelf. Note the miniature of the Lion of Saint Mark, the stained glass image of Saint Martha, and the symbolic lillies and irises.

A rabbit hole🧵1/9 Somewhat difficult to discern above Martha-Ann Alito’s head is a quotation from Luke 10:40-42: “Une seule chose est nécessaire.”

Do we infer that Martha may be “troubled about many things”…?

Disturbing yard signs?

The neighbors?

Critics? 2/9

Some prominent literary titles of the 1970s by DeLillo, Stone and Pynchon on Steven Levy’s shelf during a recent discussion about chatbots with @WalterIsaacson. @StevenLevy

#ModernFirsts
1/2 Spotted:

RATNER’S STAR; Don DeLillo (1976), next to MAO II (1991)

DOG SOLDIERS; Robert Stone (1974)

GRAVITY’S RAINBOW; Thomas Pynchon (1973)

(I won’t be surprised to see an AI chatbot eventually master this skill.)

@StevenLevy 2/2

Some esoteric book publishing history trivia promoted by the recent death of Gerard Van Der Leun, a book editor at Houghton Mifflin in the early 1980s.

Earlier this week @xPamelaPainterx recalled how GVDL got in a bit of corporate hot water in 1982.

A #BookHistory 🧵
1/5 For decades the Houghton Mifflin colophon depicted variations on the image of a piper later joined with a dolphin, the Cetacean being traditionally used as a publisher’s logo since it was the trademark of printer Aldus Manutius in 1502.

2/5