Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Open Culture
At a 1998 conference on technology and life, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams once proposed the notion of a sentient puddle. Imagine it “waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, […]
The expression “YOLO” may now be just passé enough to require explanation. It stands, as only some of us would try to deny remembering, for “You only live once,” a sentiment that reflects an eternal truth. Some bodies of religious belief don’t strictly agree with it, of course, but that was also true 24 centuries […]
It’s a sad fact that the vast majority of silent movies in Japan have been lost thanks to human carelessness, earthquakes and the grim efficiency of the United States Air Force. The first films of hugely important figures like Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, and Hiroshi Shimizu have simply vanished. So we should consider ourselves fortunate […]
This Is Spinal Tap came out more than 40 years ago. At the time, says director Rob Reiner in a recent interview at San Diego Comic-Con, “nobody got it. I mean, they thought I’d made a movie about a real band that wasn’t very good, and why wouldn’t I make a movie about the Beatles […]
It seems not to be documented whether the Santa Ana winds were blowing when Maya Deren and Alexander Hackenschmied shot Meshes of the Afternoon. But everything about the film itself suggests that they must have been, so vivid does its atmosphere of luxuriantly arid paranoia remain these 62 years later. Despite its runtime of less […]
More in history
The Black Plague, also referred to as the Black Death, stands as one of the deadliest pandemics ever recorded in history. It started to spread in Europe and Asia in the mid-14th century and killed millions of people before it finally subsided. Because medieval records are incomplete, exact figures are impossible to find. However, […]
A review of Normal Ohler’s "Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany"
As for old flames and lovers they’re none left. And since Milesians went against us, I’ve not seen a decent eight-inch dildo. Yes, it’s just leather, but it helps us out. So would you be willing, if I found a way, to work with me to make this fighting end? – Lysistrata prepares to organise … Continue reading "Rampant Women On Sex Strike: Aubrey Beardsley’s 8 Erotic Illustrations For Lysistrata, 1896" The post Rampant Women On Sex Strike: Aubrey Beardsley’s 8 Erotic Illustrations For Lysistrata, 1896 appeared first on Flashbak.
Beginning with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, literature and architecture began to develop a unique relationship in Great Britain. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, British authors wrote poetry, novels, and short stories that evoked the mystery and drama of the Gothic Revival architecture that had risen to prominence. Famous authors […]
“Through his eyes Penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point” – Issey Miyake on Irving Penn From 1986 til 1999, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake (22 April 1938 – 5 August 2022) and American photographer Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, … Continue reading "Irving Penn and Missy Miyake’s Creative Matchup, 1986-1999" The post Irving Penn and Missy Miyake’s Creative Matchup, 1986-1999 appeared first on Flashbak.
