Archive · Books · Humour
Temperance is a goddess who appears every night with her tools and winds the clocks forward, so that we sleep less
At least, if we are to believe one of the codices of Christine de Pizan
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NB! · Books · Observations · Education
Taking My MBA in the Library
Books · Observations · Mores · Humour
Dialogue of Clytemnestra and Electra about Orestes’s childhood, with a nod to Jung
Mothers in every age want obedience from their children and grandchildren from their obedience, and above all obedience in the matter of grandchildren. Forgive me for propping up my thesis with a quotation from Clytemnestra, that very mother, slain by her son Orestes at the instigation of his jealous sister
Archive · Books · Monarchies · People
The man after whom Franz Josef Land, now part of Russia, is named, one of the longest-reigning monarchs of Europe, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia and Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Franz Joseph I…
A photograph of 1910: the old man here is 80, and he will go on reigning for another 6 years and live to see the murder of his heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. If you remember the novel «The Man Without Qualities», the preparations for the coming seventieth anniversary of Franz
NB! · Coming Up · Cinema · Books · Observations
At last we have lived to see the day when the names of Xavier Dolan, Vincent Lacoste, Cécile de France and HONORÉ DE BALZAC share a single poster
At last we have lived to see the day when the names of Xavier Dolan, Vincent Lacoste, Cécile de France and HONORÉ DE BALZAC share a single poster. This year sees the release of the screen adaptation of one of Balzac's most touching novels, Lost Illusions. Farewell, Elio
Archive · Geography · Maps · Books · Observations
1912 Guidebook to the Loire Châteaux for Motorists, with Route Arrows on Photographs
Forerunner of Yandex Maps: a slim 1912 tourist guide to the châteaux of the Loire, designed for motoring tourists, has arrows showing the route and the right turning drawn directly over photographs of the landscape. Despite the plainness of the views and the rather poor quality of the offset printing,
Cinema · Books · Pop Culture
The cover of Bauhaus's debut single Bela Lugosi's Dead: a still from the 1926 film The Sorrows of Satan, an adaptation of the incredibly popular mystical novel of the same name by the English writer Marie Corelli, naturally, about a pact with the devil…
The cover of Bauhaus's debut single Bela Lugosi's Dead: a still from the 1926 film The Sorrows of Satan, an adaptation of the incredibly popular mystical novel of the same name by the English writer Marie Corelli, naturally, about a pact with the devil. Much as
Faith · Books · New York · Society
In 2019 the murder of Pope John Paul I was claimed by the American gangster Anthony "Pluto" Raimondi, a member of one of the five most powerful Mafia families of New York, who confessed to taking part in the crime in an autobiographical book…
According to Raimondi, the murder was arranged by Bishop Paul Marcinkus, president of the Vatican Bank from 1971 to 1989, who in 1973 was suspected of involvement in supplying the Vatican with counterfeit bonds worth almost 15 million dollars. The gangster writes that Pope John Paul I intended to expose
Books · People
I was walking down an unfamiliar street, and suddenly I heard the cawing of crows, and the sounds of a lute, and distant thunder; before me flew a tram
How I leapt onto its footboard Was a riddle to me. It left a fiery trail in the air, Even in the light of day. Literal translation It raced like a dark, winged storm, It had lost its way in the abyss of time… Stop it, tram driver, Stop the
Books · Observations
...he sat on his perch on the gun, still agitated at the thought of the Sovereign and of his love for him...
All the same, the most charming character in "War and Peace" is Petya Rostov
NB! · Books · People · Humour
Edgar Allan Poe looks like a cartoon about himself
Edgar Allan Poe looks like a cartoon about himself. The writer died on 7 October 1849, and yet his works seem far more modern than that. Edgar Allan was found in a gutter in Baltimore, and for four more days he lay in hospital, reportedly because of a brain tumour.
Faith · Books · Mores
When men strive together with one another, and the wife of one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: then thou shalt cut off her hand; thine eye shall no
Deuteronomy 25:11-12