Alt Shift Archives

A CONVERSATION ABOUT LIBRARIES... . . . we indeed become producers, inventors and adventurers of living stories through the multiplicity and vastness of environments we encounter in our everyday life! So indeed this then is the story we live through weaving and being stirred/moved between library spaces and the rest of the Universe. Hence our experiences of life can be enriched through libraries in the ways a library space can mirror the world. In this sense, I feel how we experience libraries can be synonymous to who we are as people; as a society and an individual, who can journey within surrounding landscapes and find wonderful adventures to live and love life to its fullest. And so the story begins . . . Living libraries are about spaces into which we, in the course of our every...

Being able to criss-cross the globe on the strength of the Internet has made it possible to engage with creative ideas, conversations, and experiences which otherwise would be beyond our reach—and at times, even beyond our imagination.  On The Same Page will bring to the reader of Torchlight, a combination of textual-audio-visual curated content, about and around libraries and bookish love. Throughout history, libraries have been venerated—but also destroyed. If on the one hand these repositories of knowledge and wisdom have freed the shackles of the mind, on the other hand they have been feared for the very same reason. From ancient to modern times, about a dozen grand libraries spanning at least 3 continents, have been destroyed by human intent and action. We know nothing, though, ...

A few years back, in the most unusual place, I found a bookseller who did not just ​sell books. He shared stories from books ​that ​he sold with so much passion that I always ended up buying those​ books​. This video is my little gift to this Book Friend, who’s given me the joy of reading some of the best books ever written.

Magic Read this to yourself. Read it silently. Don’t move your lips. Don’t make a sound? Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything. What a wonderfully weird thing, huh? NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD! SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND! DROWN EVERYTHING OUT. Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper. Now, read this next line in your best crotchety old man voice: “Hello there sonny, does this town have a post office?” Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that? Certainly not yours. How do you do that? How!? Must be magic!! Photo courtesy: http://www.biography.com/people/shel-silverstein-9483912