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The story of Vincent van Gogh’s life tends to be defined by his psychological condition and the not-unrelated manner of his death. (It does if we set aside the episode with the mutilated ear and the brothel, anyway.) The figure of the impoverished, neglected artist whose work would revolutionize his medium, and whose descent into…
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In 1957, Salvador Dalí created a tableware set consisting of 1) a four-tooth fork with a fish handle, 2) an elephant fork with three teeth, 3) a snail knife with tears, 4) a leaf knife, 5) a small artichoke spoon, and 6) an artichoke spoon. When the set went on auction in 2012,…
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The protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is a “fireman” tasked with incinerating what few books remain in a domestic-screen-dominated future society forced into illiteracy. Late in life, Ray Bradbury declared that he wrote the novel because he was “worried about people being turned into morons by TV.” This tinges with…
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Construction on the Tower of Pisa first began in the year 1173. By 1178, the architects knew they had a problem on their hands. Built on an unsteady foundation, the tower began to sink under its own weight and soon started to lean. Medieval architects tried to address the tilt. However, it persisted and…
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Above, actor Benedict Cumberbatch reads the final letter written by Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who died in a Siberian prison on February 16th. The letter gets at a question many have asked, even from afar. Why, after being poisoned with Novichok in 2020, did Navalny return to Russia, knowing he would…
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