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Inferno, Canto X: Many artists have attempted to illustrate Dante Alighieri’s epic poem the Divine Comedy, but none have made such an indelible stamp on our collective imagination as the Frenchman Gustave Doré. Doré was 23 years old in 1855, when he first decided to create a series of engravings for a deluxe edition of […]
No pop music can have inspired more scrutiny than that of the Beatles. Of course, intense and sustained attention has been paid to every aspect of the band’s existence — and, in the case of Paul McCartney, his purported non-existence as well. The theory that he actually died in the nineteen-sixties and was thereafter secretly […]
There isn’t much place for dodecahedra in modern life, at least in those modern lives with tabletop role-playing. In the ancient Roman Empire, however, those shapes seem to have been practically household objects — not that we know what the household would have done with them. Thus far, well over 100 similarly designed copper-alloy second-to-fourth-century […]
In 1942, John Cage composed a short piece of music adapted from the text of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Titled “The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs,” the piece was originally commissioned and performed by amateur soprano and socialite Justine Fairbank, and while we don’t have a recording of her performance, we do have Cage’s sheet […]
Browse the ever-vaster selection of self-help books, videos, podcasts, and social-media accounts on offer today, and you’ll find no shortage of prescriptions for how to live. Much of what the gurus of the twenty-twenties have to say sounds awfully similar, and almost as much may seem contradictory. As in so many fields of human endeavor, […]
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Canada was built by men and women of mixed ancestry, men and women who were métis, that is, of “mixed heritage.” However, not all métis (lowercase) can be considered Métis (spelled with the uppercase “M”). Today it is widely accepted that only individuals with Cree and French-Canadian origins and a direct family connection to […]
Last Call to Join Our Journey Through Ancient Egypt — Before It Opens to All
This is the start of the fourth part of our series (I, II, IIIa, IIIb) discussing the structures of life for pre-modern peasants, who made up the majority of all humans who have ever lived. In the last few sections, we’ve looked broadly at how mortality, marriage and childbearing patterns shape the households these folks … Continue reading Collections: Life, Work, Death and the Peasant, Part IVa: Subsistence and a Little More →
Jeremiah is the “weeping prophet” who suffered much anguish because of his people’s sins. He saw first-hand how a good king who worked toward reforming his nation was followed by sons opposed to God’s warnings. He dedicated his life to ministering to the people of Judah and warning them about the impending doom of […]
“I feel that a people’s past, including their accomplishments, aspirations and failures, are reflected less in the faces of those who live in these neighborhoods than in the material, built environment in which they move and modify over time. ” – Camilo José Vergara Since 1980, Chilean-born photographer Camilo José Vergara has been marking … Continue reading "The Evolution of 178th St at Vyse Ave, South Bronx, NYC – 1980-2022" The post The Evolution of 178th St at Vyse Ave, South Bronx, NYC – 1980-2022 appeared first on Flashbak.
