How Did The World Get So Ugly?: Then Versus Now

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More than a few of us might be inter­est­ed in the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend a day in Vic­to­ri­an Lon­don. But very few of us indeed who’ve ever read, say, a Charles Dick­ens nov­el would ever elect to live there. “Lon­don’s lit­tle lanes are charm­ing now,” says Shee­han Quirke, the host of the video above,…

The 135 Movies You Must See to Understand Cinema

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If you wish to become a cinephile wor­thy of the title, you must first pledge nev­er to refuse to watch a film for any of the fol­low­ing rea­sons. First, that it is in a dif­fer­ent lan­guage and sub­ti­tled; sec­ond, that it is too old; third, that it is too slow; fourth, that it is too…

Alejandro Jodorowsky Explains How Tarot Cards Can Give You Creative Inspiration

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The prac­tice of car­toman­cy, or div­ina­tion with cards, dates back sev­er­al hun­dred years to at least 14th cen­tu­ry Europe, per­haps by way of Turkey. But the spe­cif­ic form we know of, the tarot, like­ly emerged in the 17th cen­tu­ry, and the deck we’re all most famil­iar with—the Rid­er-Waite Tarot—didn’t appear until 1909. Pop­u­lar…

When a Salvador Dalí Sketch Was Stolen from Rikers Island Prison (2003)

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In 2003, a Sal­vador Dalí draw­ing was stolen from Rik­ers Island, one of the most for­mi­da­ble pris­ons in the Unit­ed States. That the inci­dent has nev­er been used as the basis for a major motion pic­ture seems inex­plic­a­ble, at least until you learn the details. A screen­writer would have to adapt it as not a…

How Thieves Stole Priceless Jewels at the Louvre in 8 Minutes

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On Sun­day morn­ing, some auda­cious thieves stole price­less jew­els from the Lou­vre Muse­um. The heist took only eight min­utes from start to fin­ish.

At 9:30 a.m., the rob­bers parked a truck with a portable lad­der in front of the Parisian muse­um. They ascend­ed the lad­der, cut through a sec­ond-floor win­dow, entered the muse­um, smashed…