Pop Culture - The Parnassian (Page 29)

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Alain Delon's letter to de Gaulle and the president's resignation after a negative vote

Letter from Alain Delon to General de Gaulle, written on the eve of de Gaulle's official departure from the French presidency in 1969. An extraordinary time in the history of Europe, effectively the last season of a truly great France. Alain Delon writes as follows: “My General, for

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There Is No Mick Jagger Who Would Not Lower His Eyes in the Presence of Alain Delon

Black-and-white Gary Larson comic “The Far Side”: a frightened man at a desk in an office, with buildings and windows outside.

Books · Pop Culture · Humour

Anatidaephobia, the fear of ducks, in Gary Larson’s comic “The Far Side”

In 1988 an American artist and cartoonist invented (or merely formulated and set down?) a fear known as anatidaephobia: the dread that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you. The idea first appeared in the comic strip "The Far Side". The name of the condition, anatidaephobia, derives from

Moscow · Pop Culture · Saint Petersburg

Neil Tennant learned the Russian alphabet at 14, and West End Girls traces Lenin's route

The Pet Shop Boys in Red Square, Moscow, in 1993, during the filming of the video for Go West. The lads have loved Russia for a long time. Neil Tennant, the duo's singer, has said that he learned the Russian alphabet at the age of 14, simply out

Faith · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture

Author compares Olympic closing ceremony with Assassin's Creed and the opening ceremony

The dreadful symbolism of the closing of the Olympic diabolerie, which looks like a cult ritual disguised as sketches from Assassin's Creed (Ubisoft, after all, is a French company), is on the whole in perfect harmony with the Horseman of the Apocalypse and the other occult scenes of

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Gary Oldman as the young Dracula, 1992, photograph by Herb Ritts

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George Balanchine, founder of the School of American Ballet, born Georgiy Balanchivadze, with the ballerina Suzanne Farrell at the Saratoga Race Course, and an unidentified horseman

Back of an antique cello with painted decoration: a crowned female figure with a sword, a column, a crown and lilies on amber-brown wood.

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Andrea Amati of Cremona's Cello for the Court of Charles IX, Mid-16th Century

The oldest cello in the world dates from the mid-sixteenth century. The maker Andrea Amati of Cremona built it as part of a set of 38 stringed instruments for the court of King Charles IX

Blurred black-and-white night photograph of a woman in dark clothing standing barefoot on grass and aiming a bow.

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An actress on the set of “The Mongols” in 1960 shot a bow like a professional

Actress Anita Ekberg fires a bow at intrusive paparazzi after they refused to leave her in peace. 1960: the actress was filming "The Mongols", and the bow and arrows were her props. She was a professional markswoman.

Cinema · Pop Culture

Charlton Heston as the Spanish national hero and knight of the Reconquista Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in the 1961 Spanish-American film "El Cid"

Charlton Heston as the Spanish national hero and knight of the Reconquista Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar in the 1961 Spanish-American film "El Cid". Ximena, the beloved of El Cid, was played by Sophia Loren. The film is distinguished by the high quality of its costumes, sets, historical

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The maker of Parmesan has become a sponsor of the Olympic silver medallist, the Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa, and the athlete now poses so organically with enormous wheels of cheese

Art · People · Pop Culture

Swimming costumes created by Sonia Delaunay in the 1920s, when the bulky bathing dresses that covered the whole body gave way to more compact, close-fitting swimsuits with bare arms and legs

Delaunay's first swimsuits were still made of knitted fabric, wool jersey, but later began to be produced in silk as well. Sonia Delaunay was a French artist, a native of the Poltava Governorate, who grew up in Odessa and Saint Petersburg and left to study in Europe at