Faith · Observations · Rome · Humour
In his customary good spirits, the Pope not only handed out autographs to the eager crowd this morning, but gladly tried on a pileolus offered to him and exchanged the gift for his own papal zucchetto. No fuss, no fanfare, and most warmly. Pope Francis is love ❤️ ps Time was
Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies · Humour
What's that you say? All rappers' wives look the same? One wonders how Henri Gascar, the French painter, would have commented on it in 1697, with his portrait of Marie Casimire Sobieska, Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania, with her daughter Therese Kunegunde, Electress of
NB! · Monarchies · Observations · People · Humour
Art · Museums · Paris · Humour
Charon crossing to the kingdom of shadows. Second quarter of the eighteenth century. A masterpiece by the French artist Pierre Subleyras. From the collection of the Duke of Penthièvre, now in the Louvre. An interesting choice: to show the glints from the heat of the burning Phlegethon on the buttocks
Aristocracy · Art · People · Humour
To which the countess replied: "Surely you have not lost all your talent?" In the striking portrait in shades of red by Léon Comerre, Jeanne is still an unmarried girl.
Cinema · Humour
Which is scarier: a giant spider threatening an entire city, or an ordinary spider attacking a man shrunk to the size of a thimble? The proper person to ask would be the director Jack Arnold (1916-1992), who, after all, had to conjure up both of these afflictions. It must
NB! · Art · Observations · Nature · Humour
NB! · Faith · Geography · Maps · Observations · Humour
This map marks every European town whose name begins with the root Saint, "Holy" (in the national languages, naturally). One is tempted, of course, to say: France, Spain and Italy, pray for us
NB! · Archive · Science · Pop Culture · Humour
In the future you will be able to carry a telephone in your pocket. A prediction from 1963
Faith · Ethnography · Humour
In principle, anyone at all might hatch from such an egg. The Slavs, for instance, had a deity of sorts: a house spirit and enricher that served people entangled with sorcery and brought them riches taken from other people. It was called the shkryatok, the khovanets or the rarasek, it
Cinema · People · Humour
Werner Herzog and the ship which he (or rather 700 Indians) hauled over a mountain during the filming of Fitzcarraldo, 1982. If you have not yet seen this epic film about the madcap attempt of a fanatical music-lover to build an opera house in the heart of the Peruvian
NB! · Cinema · Observations · Humour
Astonishing, really. Hitchcock carried the same unchanging expression through his entire life