Soviet Inventor Léon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Early Electronic Instrument That Could Be Played Without Being Touched (1954)

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You know the sound of the theremin, that weird, war­bly whine that sig­nals mys­tery, dan­ger, and oth­er­world­ly por­tent in many clas­sic sci-fi films. It has the dis­tinc­tion of being not only the very first elec­tron­ic instru­ment but also the only instru­ment in his­to­ry one plays with­out ever touch­ing any part of it. Instead, the theremin…

The Alphabet Explained: The Origin of Every Letter

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Think back, if you will, to the cli­mac­tic scenes of Indi­ana Jones and the Last Cru­sade, which take place in the hid­den tem­ple that con­tains the Holy Grail. His father hav­ing been shot by the das­tard­ly Nazi-sym­pa­thiz­ing immor­tal­i­ty-seek­er Wal­ter Dono­van, Indy has no choice but to retrieve the leg­endary cup to make use of its…

Jack Kerouac’s Hand-Drawn Cover for On the Road (1952)

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This falls under the cat­e­go­ry, “If you want it done right, you have to do it your­self.”

In 1950, when Jack Ker­ouac released his first nov­el, The Town and the City, he was less than impressed by the book cov­er pro­duced by his pub­lish­er, Har­court Brace. (Click here to see why.) So,…

An Architect Breaks Down the 5 Most Common Styles of College Campus

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Every now and again on social media, the obser­va­tion cir­cu­lates that Amer­i­cans look back so fond­ly on their col­lege years because nev­er again do they get to live in a well-designed walk­a­ble com­mu­ni­ty. The orga­ni­za­tion of col­lege cam­pus­es does much to shape that expe­ri­ence, but so do the build­ings them­selves. “Peo­ple often say that col­lege…

How Editing Saved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off & Made It a Classic

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“In our sal­ad days, we are ripe for a par­tic­u­lar movie that will linger, death­less­ly, long after the green­ness has gone,” writes the New York­er’s Antho­ny Lane in a recent piece on movies in the eight­ies. “When a friend turned to me after the first twen­ty min­utes of Fer­ris Bueller’s Day Off, in 1986,…