Observations · People · Society Pages

A viewer’s response to the premiere of Kirill Serebrennikov’s production of “The Decameron”

My heartfelt congratulations to Kirill Serebrennikov on an incredible premiere, a great success, and such a beautiful and kind production! When the whole house was shrieking “bravo!”, I was there too, stamping my little foot 🧚🏼‍♀️ For the first time in a great many premieres I did not leave during the

NB! · Art · Heritage · Paris · People

The signature cross on the tombstone of that very René Lalique at Père Lachaise cemetery

Art · Mores · People · Humour

Anna Lea Merritt on the obstacles facing a woman artist and the role of a wife

"The main obstacle to a woman's success is that she can never have a wife. Just imagine what a wife does for an artist: darns his stockings, keeps the household going, writes his letters... How very hard it is to be an artist without such a saving

Faith · Interviews · Society · People

Continuing our Papal Readings: the second part of Pope Francis's interview with Carlos Herrera

Continuing our Papal Readings, I offer the second part of Pope Francis's interview with Carlos Herrera. Read attentively; Saint Peter will be checking later. On euthanasia - We live in a culture of rejection. What is useless is thrown away. The old are disposable material: they irritate. Not all

Faith · Interviews · Society · People

Pope Francis in a Spanish radio interview on migrants, the European Union and Catalonia

Pope Francis has given a long interview to Spanish radio. And, it seems, for the first time. I have listened to the two-hour conversation with the pontiff, restored to health by the grace of God, and made notes on the most important points. Whether or not you have already

NB! · Faith · Interviews · People

Pope Francis returns to duty after illness; yesterday he gave a lengthy radio interview to the Spanish journalist Carlos Herrera

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Paris · People

Twenty-four years ago, Arthur Edwards, who had photographed Princess Diana for seventeen years, took this picture of her coffin leaving the ancient Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital in Paris

Books · Observations · People · Humour

Charles Baudelaire’s lines on perishable beauty, on the 154th anniversary of his death

But remember: you too, exuding contagion, will lie a rotting corpse, you, sun of my eyes, my living star, you, radiant seraph. You too, my beauty, you too will be touched by decay, And you will rot down to the bones, Dressed in flowers to the sound of mournful prayers,

Page of an old book with a poem dedicated to V. S. Sreznevskaya, dated 1913, with blue pencil marks and underlining.

Books · Observations · People

A 1913 poem dedicated to V. S. Sreznevskaya about lost youth and passing years

1913: Anna Akhmatova, aged 24, regrets that she can never take back her unkissed lips. How swiftly the years do sail by, to be sure

The East · Observations · Society · People

Jacques Chirac suddenly speaks English in Israel, although he usually used an interpreter

Speaking of the French and the English language, one might recall François Hollande or Jacques Chirac, who took a master's degree in the United States and naturally knew the language perfectly well, though I have heard his pronunciation criticised. In reply I offer this footage, famous in its

Antique sepia photograph of a girl with long curly hair on all fours, looking at the camera.

NB! · Archive · Mores · People

Ella Harper, known as the Camel Girl, a circus and amusement show entrepreneur in the US

But jokes aside, the photograph shows Ella Harper (1870-1921), known from childhood as the Camel Girl, an impresaria of amusement and circus shows in the USA. She drew the public's curiosity by her manner of getting about, on all fours, which was owing to the peculiar structure

Archive · Mores · Society · People

Were such photographs not captioned, there would simply be no way of telling who is who, even for the most seasoned archivists

One might suppose that the frame is an ideological statement, yet we could just as easily take the picture for a prank. If you have ever looked through a good collection of photographs of that era, the chances are that it contained something of the kind: men larking about in