{"id":3838,"date":"2010-10-20T23:04:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-21T06:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=3838"},"modified":"2010-10-20T23:04:20","modified_gmt":"2010-10-21T06:04:20","slug":"a-different-kind-of-guide-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2010\/10\/20\/a-different-kind-of-guide-book\/","title":{"rendered":"A different kind of guide book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/benchbybench.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"border: 5px solid white\" src=\"http:\/\/rkc.ca\/wp-content\/images\/fc-benchesweb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"140\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>Yesterday afternoon I purchased <a href=\"http:\/\/rkc.ca\/\">Rebecca Kennel<\/a>&#8216;s new guidebook, <a href=\"http:\/\/benchbybench.com\/\">Victoria Bench by Bench<\/a>. This is a really great &#8220;little&#8221; book &#8211; not so little when you start unpacking it! From the backcover (and website):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In <em>Victoria\u2014Bench by Bench<\/em>, Rebecca Kennel takes you on her  journey of discovery in and around spectacular Victoria, British  Columbia. Visit historic sites and gardens; cemeteries and viewpoints;  shipyards and restored creeks. Using pieces of local history and  personal reflections, she introduces you to over 60 benches and inspires  curiosity and creativity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What you discover when you dive in is a different kind of guidebook. Yes, there are maps and historical facts and descriptions: all the traditional guidebook trappings. But Rebecca also added journal entries &#8211; thoughts on what she observed and thought as she <em>used<\/em> the benches she describes. Sitting in Market Square, she observed a feather falling down from overhead, and a sparrow snatching it in midair:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A treasure to line her nest. I have to keep my eyes open all the time to see the treasures. Maybe I&#8217;ll just sit here and wait for my treasure to fall from heaven. A gift to me that I will only receive if my eyes are wide open. Sitting. Waiting. Seeing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In other words, this guidebook gives you the &#8220;outer&#8221; (description, locale, historical facts), but also an &#8220;inner&#8221; (one particular person&#8217;s). There&#8217;s no attempt to fuse the two &#8211; they are simply juxtaposed. But in the juxtaposition, both gain impact. Really a lovely way to structure guidance&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday afternoon I purchased Rebecca Kennel&#8216;s new guidebook, Victoria Bench by Bench. This is a really great &#8220;little&#8221; book &#8211; not so little when you start unpacking it! From the backcover (and website): In Victoria\u2014Bench by Bench, Rebecca Kennel takes you on her journey of discovery in and around spectacular Victoria, British Columbia. Visit historic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-victoria"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3838"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3842,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions\/3842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}