Books · Observations

The spatium in typography and the rule on spacing between initials

Spacing (the Russian shpatsiya, from the German Spatium) is a typographical term for a thin plate used to make gaps narrower than the body of a type. As for the rule concerning the gap between initials, I find it very hard to observe, simply because the standard interval in that

NB! · Observations

The word "modernity" drives me up the wall, and so do ill-judged generalisations

Books · Observations · Humour

The Aeneid retold by Ivan Kotlyarevsky and Nikolay Osipov

Эней был парубок бедовый И хлопец хоть куда казак, На шашни прыткий, непутевый, Затмил он записных гуляк. Когда же Трою в битве грозной Сровняли с кучею навозной, Котомку сгреб и тягу дал; С собою прихватил троянцев, Бритоголовых голодранцев, И грекам пятки показал. Literal translation I have discovered an incredible pleasure,

NB! · Observations

The State of Play

A man in a blue jacket and dark face mask, with a blue decoration on his lapel, stands in a hall with a wide staircase.

Cinema · Observations · People

The author agrees with Vladimir Ivanovich in his assessment of the gift

Film director Vladimir Khotinenko on receiving the Order of Honour: “It is such a wonderful New Year’s present; to my mind, not a bad present at all”. Well, what can one say? I agree with you entirely, Vladimir Ivanovich: an excellent present

Art · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages

Ceramics, plates by the singer Lisokot and Baronina tiles at the Sample fair at Strelka

Dropped into the cosy Sample fair at Strelka and once again confirmed my observation that very many people have taken up ceramics. Not far from LotyLoty I found almost the same plates, only by the singer Lisokot. I wanted the silk masks at 2,500, but they had already been

Architecture · Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations

Memorial workshop of Pyotr Konchalovsky in the Pigit House on Bolshaya Sadovaya

I was recalling today how, on the first day the memorial museum-studio of Pyotr Konchalovsky opened, we went there on a tour with Club 418. A couple of days later, it seems, the decree closing the museums was issued. So we were lucky to get in in time. This

Observations · Education · Society

State Duma adopts in first reading amendments on control over public education activities

You will, of course, see for yourselves that we are having an incredible number of very bad news items from the State Duma these days. Today amendments to the law “On Education” on the control of any educational activity were passed in the first reading. The appalling bill proposes to

NB! · Observations

So nice 🥰🥰

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Good Lord, just look at these conceited monarchs!

Good Lord, just look at these conceited monarchs! Porcelain figurines of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Neapolitan craftsmen of the 1800s. True, the porcelain personages have ended up with rather Habsburg jaws; in two-dimensional images they generally look far better

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

One might say I have fulfilled the dream of any author: to stand, if only for a moment, beside the diaries of Alina Hess

Books · Observations · Mores · Society

US Civil War veterans' pensions were paid to widows and a daughter until 2020

I remember reading in a book about the American Civil War (1861-1865) that the state went on paying war pensions right up to the 1960s. Not a bad lag of a hundred years. But quite recently, in another book, written in the 1990s, I came across an interview with