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Fifty years ago this month, Lou Reed nearly destroyed his own career with one double album. Metal Machine Music sold 100,000 copies during the three weeks of summer 1975 between its release and its removal from the market. More than a few of the many buyers who promptly returned it would have been expecting something […]
Though now in his seventies, Jackie Chan continues to appear on the big screen with regularity. For most world-famous actors, that’s hardly notable, but it’s not as if Sir John Gielgud, say, had spent decades filming scenes of hand-to-hand combat and sustaining severe injuries in the performance of elaborate stunts. Viewers of New Police Story […]
In histories of early photography, Louis Daguerre faithfully appears as one of the fathers of the medium. His patented process, the daguerreotype, in wide use for nearly twenty years in the early 19th century, produced so many of the images we associate with the period, including famous photographs of Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily […]
They say that history is written by the victors, but that isn’t always true: sometimes it’s embroidered by the victors. Such was the case with the Bayeux Tapestry, which commemorates the build-up to and successful execution of the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Created not long after the events it depicts in what we […]
Back in 2008, Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered) and NPR music critic Stephen Thompson attended a noisy concert where they struggled to hear Laura Gibson perform. Jokingly, Thompson suggested that Gibson perform at Boilen’s office desk instead. She did. And, with that, the NPR Tiny Desk Concert was born. Since then, more than […]
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Happy Moon Day! This is the last of this batch of My Weekly Readers. I hope you haven't gotten too tired of this summer break. In this issue we celebrate the USA in Space. This March 12th issue celebrates John Glenn's success and looking forward to the next set of missions getting ready for a visit to The Moon. This issue also celebrates the creation of the Everglades National Park in 1934 and its success in saving bald eagles.
The Celtic Revival, which began in 19th-century Ireland, was a resurgence of popular interest in a variety of Celtic and medieval Irish traditions, including art, language, and mythology. The movement held great significance for Irish art history and archaeology, as well as for the preservation of the Gaelic language. Renewed interest in Ireland’s past […]
The Sengoku Jidai was by far the most turbulent period in Japanese history. The country was split into dozens of separate domains. Various daimyo had their own ideas on how to rule the country and were willing to wage war for it. Some, like Hattori Hanzo Masanari, would be in command of shinobi and […]
“The Eye, that most amazing, that stupendous, that comprehending, that incomprehensible, that miraculous Organ, the Eye, is the Proteus of the Passions, the Herald of the Mind, The Interpreter of the Heart, and the Window of the Soul. The Eye has Dominion over all Things. The World was made for the Eye and the Eye … Continue reading "The Life and Extraordinary History of the Chevalier John Taylor: The Eye Surgeon Who Robbed You Blind" The post The Life and Extraordinary History of the Chevalier John Taylor: The Eye Surgeon Who Robbed You Blind appeared first on Flashbak.
