NB! · The East · Cinema · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

The Netflix series “Blood, Sex and Kings” is rather good, only one would note that in 1523 the Tudors had no Oriental carpets on their floors, nor could they have had: such a treasure could be found only on a table

Books · Mores

Faina Grimberg's poem about a book by Plato, a winter window and Diotima

The snowflakes fall half-asleep. In the small flat there is silence. I have settled down with a book of Plato By the big winter window. Outside the window there is such a womanly picture. Outside the window, the sweep of an arctic-fox fur coat. Outside the window, the

NB! · Observations · Mores

Make Yourself at Home, or What I Mean When I Say "Domesticity Has Swallowed Me Whole"

Aristocracy · London · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Most Peculiar

Most peculiar. The former husband of England's Queen Consort Camilla, the retired Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, was recently the Queen's official representative at the funeral of a distant relation of the royal family, John Bowes-Lyon, a second cousin of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

NB! · Observations · Mores · Humour

I don't know about you, but to my mind the glass teapot with a plunger is one of the least aesthetic and most senseless objects of modern domestic life

I don't know about you, but to my mind the glass teapot with a plunger is one of the least aesthetic and most senseless objects of modern domestic life. A herald of the plastic-and-steel age, borne aloft on the wings of overconsumption

Art · Books · London · Mores

William Hogarth's engravings on the fate of a woman of loose morals in the 18th century

A Harlot's Progress. William Hogarth's series of engravings of 1731-1732 describes the typical path of a girl of free morals in the eighteenth century, from procuress to grave, and usually not a very long one at that: 1. Ensnared by the procuress 2. Quarrel with

NB! · Archive · The East · Observations · Mores · Humour

I Cannot Decide Which Number at This Ball-Concert in Grozny Is the More Interesting: the Eccentric Negro Dance "Elly", the Ryazan Peasant Women with Their Chastushki, "Jealousy" as Performed by Sofya, or the Jazz Imitation of Domestic Animals, "The Piglet

NB! · Mores · People · Pop Culture

The English ballerina Margot Fonteyn (1919-1991) in an evening gown eighteen years her senior

NB! · Art · Mores

A Kiss Beneath an Umbrella, by the Czech Artist Luděk Marold, 1895

Faith · Observations · Mores · Society

Pope Francis voices concern over priests and nuns viewing pornography online

Pope Francis has expressed concern that many priests and nuns use the internet to watch pornography. The Pontiff urged his brothers and sisters to be more wary of diabolical temptation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines, in so many words, the exploitation of sexual images as an offence against

Marble sculptural group on a slab, showing Hermaphroditus from behind wrestling with a satyr who is falling backwards.

Archaeology · Art · Mores

First-century AD symplegma of Hermaphroditus and a satyr from ancient Oplontis

I Do Not Love You, and That Is My Chief Virtue! A sculptural group of entwined bodies is called a symplegma. The symplegma of the 1st century AD, found in ancient Oplontis, depicts Hermaphroditus and a Satyr. Hermaphroditus, the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is undergoing an extraordinary metamorphosis, while

The East · Monarchies · Observations · Mores

Eleanor of Aquitaine, the chess queen and the widening of the queen's moves

When in chess the Ferz, meaning vizier, is called the Queen, this alludes to Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of Richard the Lionheart, who is often named as the initiator of the chess reform that changed the name of the ferz. The photograph shows a chess figure of a queen from