Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour

Bokassa's coronation modelled on Napoleon's, with Olivier Brice's throne and Paris's support

In 1977 the self-proclaimed Emperor of Central Africa, the dictator Bokassa I, presented the guests of honour at his coronation with gilded replicas of his own throne. Paris supported the ruler of the former French colony, who in the tenth year of his rule had decided to turn from

NB! · Archive · Books · Education · Paris · People

Borges at the Sorbonne in 1978

NB! · Observations · Nature

Kernels of maize that look like precious stones

Art · Monarchies · Observations · Society

Arthur Drummond's Allegory of the British Empire, 1901

Arthur Drummond's allegory of the British Empire, 1901. Queen Victoria, already dead by the time the picture was painted, is seated on a heavenly throne, surrounded by aristocrats, bureaucracy and native subjects from the colonies. On earth are Edward VII, the Prince of Wales, and other members of

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

And in literature this is called a romantic attachment

NB! · Archive · Art · Pop Culture

Elizabeth Taylor through the Lens of Helmut Newton, 1985

Geography · Science · Nature

Paratethys as the largest lake on Earth and the three seas that appeared after its disappearance

Millions of years ago, Paratethys was the largest lake on Earth, covering 2.8 million square kilometres and stretching from present-day France to the Altai. The water level in the lake stood 80 metres above that of today's World Ocean. Paratethys, often called an ocean, existed some

NB! · Archive · Cinema

On the set of Sergei Eisenstein's film "Alexander Nevsky", 1938

Books · Observations

Yuri Levitansky on the transience of life and a role that is played only once

Everything passes in this world, snow gives way to rain, Everything passes, everything passes, we came, and we shall go. Everything comes and goes into nowhere out of nothing. Everything passes, but nothing passes without trace. And, taking part in the plot, I watch from the side How my moments

Archive · Books · Observations

Dmitri Shostakovich in a 1955 letter to Isaak Glikman on the performance of Bach's music

Fine music will sound well however it is played. Any Bach prelude and fugue can be played at any tempo, with any dynamic shading or none at all, and it will still be beautiful. That is how music ought to be written, so that not a single scoundrel can spoil

Painting of Christ in a crown of thorns carrying a wooden cross, with a grey-bearded old man behind his shoulder.

Faith · Books

Leonid Andreyev on the cross at the neck and the cross on the back

- But you have no cross round your neck - A cross? We carry ours on our backs Leonid Andreyev

NB! · Archive · Geography · Maps · London

Latest