The “Nonsense” Botanical Illustrations of Victorian Artist-Poet Edward Lear (1871–77)

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Since the Vic­to­ri­an era, Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” has been, for gen­er­a­tion upon gen­er­a­tion in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world, the kind of poem that one sim­ply knows, whether one remem­bers actu­al­ly hav­ing read it or not. As with most such works that seep so per­ma­nent­ly into the cul­ture, it does­n’t…

Simone de Beauvoir Explains “Why I’m a Feminist” in a Rare TV Interview (1975)

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In Simone de Beau­voir’s 1945 nov­el The Blood of Oth­ers, the nar­ra­tor, Jean Blo­mart, reports on his child­hood friend Marcel’s reac­tion to the word “rev­o­lu­tion”:

It was sense­less to try to change any­thing in the world or in life; things were bad enough even if one did not med­dle with them. Every­thing that…

How Rome Began: The History As Told by Ancient Historians

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Much atten­tion has been paid to the fall of the Roman Empire, by every­one from august his­to­ri­ans like Edward Gib­bon to mod­ern-day observers wring­ing their hands over the fate of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. But as every Rome enthu­si­ast knows, that long col­lapse con­sti­tutes just one chap­ter — or rather, a series…

Martin Scorsese Plays Vincent Van Gogh in a Short, Surreal Film by Akira Kurosawa

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The idea of the auteur direc­tor has been a con­tro­ver­sial one at times giv­en the sheer num­ber of peo­ple required at every stage to pro­duce a film. But it hangs togeth­er for me when you look at the films of say, Mar­tin Scors­ese or Aki­ra Kuro­sawa, both direc­tors with very dis­tinc­tive…

Oscar-Winning Director Frank Capra Made an Educational Science Film Warning of Climate Change in 1958

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In 2015, we high­light­ed for you The Strange Case of the Cos­mic Rays, a large­ly-for­got­ten 1957 edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence film. The pro­duc­tion is notable part­ly because it was shot by Frank Capra, the influ­en­tial direc­tor who had won not one, not two, but three Oscars for best direc­tor. And also because the film fea­tured pup­pets of Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky,…