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We begin our screening of "Little Buddha" with Karo.Art at the October Cinema Centre
We begin our screening of "Little Buddha" with Karo.Art at the October Cinema Centre. As usual, I have prepared extracts from ancient tomes for discussion after the film. We shall be talking with the artist Mikhail Rubankov. And a little later I shall invite everyone to my
Archive · Faith · Books
Claude Debussy in a 1903 letter on asceticism and cosmogonic pantheism
Naturally, I am aware of how well-founded are such aspirations and apostolic enthusiasms. Nothing is so exciting as playing at being a little Buddha: living on one egg and two glasses of water a day and giving the leavings to the poor, chewing over the endless ravings of cosmogonic
Books · Observations · Science
Instant photography since 1923, from bulky apparatus to Agfa and Polaroid
Instant photography appeared in 1923, but books of 1927 already give the word "shapshot" in the sense of "taking instant snapshots". What a swift entry of a neologism into everyday speech. Though originally this required a most cumbersome contraption, in effect a portable photographic laboratory combined
Faith · Art · Books · People
Pavel Florensky's reflection on the nature of the icon
Imagine that you are in a closed room, but there is a dimly lit window through which you begin to guess at the existence of another world. Pavel Florensky, reflecting on what an icon is
Observations · Nature
On 30 May 1977 the tree was struck by lightning; the plant survived and lives on
The plaque by the Roxburgh pine in the Sukhumi Botanical Garden
NB! · Cinema · Pop Culture
Poster for the film “Star Wars: Episode I”, 1999
NB! · Faith · The East · Art · Ethnography
Kalmyk lama in an 1870 painting by Vasily Vereshchagin
Kalmyk Lama. Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin, 1870
Cinema · Paris · People · Pop Culture
Catherine Deneuve and her elder sister Françoise Dorléac on the Place Vendôme, 1965
Catherine Deneuve and her elder sister Françoise Dorléac on the Place Vendôme, 1965. Françoise Dorléac appeared alongside Deneuve in Jacques Demy's musical The Young Girls of Rochefort and in the film Where the Spies Are. Françoise was 18 months older than Catherine. Françoise Dorléac was a very well-
Cinema · Observations · Pop Culture · Saint Petersburg
I watched the new Major Grom: what is the film actually about?
In the first film, the protagonist, Igor Grom, an officer of the Saint Petersburg police, appears as a veritable Russian superman without any evident weaknesses or, as critics noted, motivation. One is left with the impression that people endowed by nature with incredible willpower and a sense of justice invariably
Geography · Observations · Science · Nature
The history of Canis Major and Sirius, from bow and arrow to the hound Lelaps
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, but in fact it can be seen in the daytime sky too, if you know where to look. It is also known as the Dog Star, or Alpha Canis Majoris, for its reliability, constancy and unrivalled ability to help people find
Observations · Science · People
Kurt Gödel on his conviction in life after death and a rationally constructed world
I am convinced of an afterlife, independently of theology. If the world is constructed rationally, there must be an afterlife. The Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1978)