Art · Books · London · Society · People
Ai Weiwei, one of the best-known and most politically inconvenient artists of our time, has published a book about censorship. His father, the poet Ai Qing, cleaned latrines in a labour camp. Ai Weiwei himself was detained in 2011 for 81 days without charge. His studio was demolished, his
Art · Cinema · People · Pop Culture
Bonhams announces the sale of 550 lots from the personal effects of Diane Keaton, who died six months ago. Among the lots are the original script of "Annie Hall" with no title on the cover (estimate $2,000-3,000), a Ralph Lauren Purple Label houndstooth jacket ($200-
Faith · Cinema · Society · Rome
Martin Scorsese has made a film about Pope Francis, "Aldeas, Pope Francis's Last Dream". The premiere took place in the Vatican itself, some time after the pontiff's death. The promotional materials describe the project as "a powerful fusion of the visions of Scorsese
NB! · London · Society · Nature · Humour
Archaeology · Geography · Heritage · Ethnography
In Mexico, during construction of the $8 billion Mexico City–Querétaro high-speed railway, 16 rock paintings and petroglyphs were discovered along its route. It was then decided to move the route, so as to save the site of the rock images from destruction. The finds belong to two eras.
NB! · Mores · Pop Culture · Rome · Humour
Syncretism imperceptibly shades into idiocy: Katy Perry tossed a credit card into the Trevi Fountain because she couldn't find any small change. She might as well have gone for bitcoin
Archaeology · The East · Books · Science
At Egyptian Oxyrhynchus, the Hispano-Egyptian expedition of the University of Barcelona has concluded another season of excavation and returned with something genuinely strange. Among the Roman-period mummies was one inside which lay a papyrus bearing a fragment of the second book of the Iliad, the famous "Catalogue
Listings · Moscow · Coming Up · Art · Museums
🌆On 21 April the Art Moscow fair opens, in case anyone still has money left for art. 🧱From 21 April the Shchusev Museum of Architecture is showing the paintings of Nadezhda Krestinina 👑From 21 April to 5 July the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts continues its 25-year tradition
Archive · Books · Mores · Society
People stand outside banks with faces that bear the stamp of dull despair. This is not the fury of 1991; it is the weariness of people who have been cheated once again. A question hangs in the air: can it really be starting all over again? Marietta Chudakova on the
Art · Books · People · Pop Culture
Unpublished Illustrations for "Harry Potter" by the Now-Legendary Artist Mary GrandPré. Mary GrandPré was offered the illustration of the first Harry Potter book in the late 1990s by an editor at Scholastic, and at first she declined: her schedule simply would not allow so large a project.
Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Society
When it opened in 1962, the MKAD (the Moscow Ring Road) was considered a cutting-edge highway by Soviet standards. It had two lanes in each direction and a broad grass strip down the middle as a divider, and 33 cloverleaf interchanges were built along its length. It was said
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