NB! · Observations · Science · Humour

By 1979 Computers Had Become Positively Tiny

By 1979 computers had become positively tiny. And the floppy disk! A mere trifle! I even mistook it for a nano-SIM

NB! · Observations · Humour

Big Clay, at the Very Least, Has Been Immortalised on Yandex Maps

NB! · Observations · Society · Humour

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain

Don't fret that your friends run you down behind your back: try explaining to them that you are better than Britain. On the evidence of the annihilated native peoples of North America, say, if nothing else

NB! · Books · People · Humour

When it was put to Chesterton that he was not especially gallant, the writer objected: in fact, only this morning on the bus I stood up to give my seat to three ladies at once

Old sepia photograph of a bearded man sleeping in bed with his head on a pillow before a striped wall.

NB! · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Claude Debussy asleep in an old photograph for his birthday

Claude Debussy is still asleep: he has second period today. It is his birthday, after all

NB! · Coming Up · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

An Unexpected Greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich Advertises the Premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre

An unexpected greeting from the "Field of Miracles" Museum: Leonid Yakubovich advertises the premiere of Lavr at the Gorky Moscow Art Theatre. Such a touching merger of two forgotten universes that I quite wanted to reread Doronina's letter to Putin.

A room with turquoise walls painted with red flowers. Two portraits in ornate frames hang on the wall beside a painted door; a metal stove stands at right, with a chair and sofa below.

NB!

Interior of a house with painted turquoise walls, floral ornament and portraits

NB! · Observations · Pop Culture

And You Call That Fashion?

Close-up of a painted terracotta head of a man with parted lips, upturned gaze and short dark hair.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Paris

Painted terracotta head of a Franciscan monk by Guido Mazzoni, 1475, Louvre

Head of a Franciscan Monk. Guido Mazzoni, painted terracotta sculpture, a kind of living painting frozen in place. 1475. The year fourteen hundred and seventy-five, exactly so. Collection of the Louvre

NB! · Archive · Moscow · Observations · People

When I want to think of something pleasant, I remember pancakes, or photographs of Sophia Loren in Moscow

NB! · New York · Society · Pop Culture · Humour

You Never Know What You Will See at the Met Gala, or Yulia Volkova's First Day at Work in the State Duma

Head with closed eyes covered in white plaster; red spiral patterns on the forehead and cheeks, partly worn away. Dark blue background.

NB!