Most of us who know the work of Roald Dahl grew up with it, eventually coming to consider the man a master of imaginative, often grotesque tales for children. A bit later on, when we heard that he’d also written books for adults, with titles like Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch,
“Nothing stops me except the publishing industry,” quipped the novelist and AIDS historian, who cut her teeth as an East Village journalist writing for queer and feminist papers.
Ian’s Shoelace Site Is Still The Best Site For Tying Your Shoes . However: “What is the point of adding value to the internet if it is only going to rob you? Why do research, make diagrams, and develop new knots?”
“This song has no instruments in it.” This is cool: a song made only from pink noise and an equalizer.
Dr. Steven Nelson to helm the nonprofit, Aperture HQ's fall opening date, and, uh, the New Museum partners with Penske Media?
This week: Jean Shin’s memorial to the trees of Greenwood Cemetery, the 250th anniversary nobody wants, Pride bar-hopping, and more.
This is clever & depressing: the Apocalypse Early Warning System tracks private jet activity. “In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies…”
The institution cited “a shift in the political and funding environment” and said staggered furloughs would help avoid layoffs.
The new campus is an expression of the former US president's civic ideals, and a reminder of how distant they now seem.
A professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago asked her students to imagine a way to help someone they might encounter. Leadership found that beyond the pale.
For his great visual field guide to the chili peppers of the world , Erik Gauger hand-drew 176 peppers from India, South America, Korea, Thailand, Africa, and seemingly every other place on the Earth. Capsaicin, the compound that makes chili peppers hot is an evolutionary
The Houston institution said Clarence Heyward's self-portrait "Man in the Garden" (2025) was deliberately vandalized by visitors.
John Thomson’s photos of China (1860s-70s) . “Unlike many other early photographers he didn’t spend all his time photographing palaces and ruins. He also captured a lot of daily life including peasants, merchants, and criminals.”
“Split the Lark — and You’ll find the Music, ” Emily Dickinson taunted the materialists, “Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?” In the wake of On the Origin of Species, the poet intuited that for all its magnificent revelations, science could tell us nothing about the
"To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt.”
A close-up look at some of Spain’s oldest & most compelling cave paintings . “We lost the connection they had to this world. They led the way quite nicely and successfully, and we got…distracted.”
For the first time on record, solar overtook coal in the US electricity mix in May 2026 . “Solar supplied a record 12.8% of US electricity, while coal fell to 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.”
Released a few days ago, this is the official video for Max Cooper’s Becoming , directed by Brandon Eversole . It’s mesmerizing, trippy, and a little bit glitchy. The video is also notable for being so wide that it breaks YouTube’s desktop layout — anything less than stretching
“It’s so dumb!” I quote this line from Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion like 10 times a day now. Feel free to add it to your repetoire.
Billionaires’ Billions Are Increasing Faster Than Ever . 15 years ago, billionaires had $4.5 trillion. “Now, their combined wealth totals $20.1 trillion — an amount that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output.”
"Decades after 'The Emporium' failed to open on Broadway in 1954, one man went on a quest to find it."
Yoko Ono’s painting invites us to step on it, challenging both galleries and audiences. Why is touch transgressive? - by Aeon Video Watch on Aeon
Plus, the largest survey of Arthur Jafa’s work is coming to New York.
The editor of The Best Women's Travel Writing series on curation, grief and levity, and the stories she hopes to read more of in the future.
Terrorists and tech bros alike view accelerationism as a revolutionary weapon. Nick Land glimpsed something much darker - by Vincent Lê Read on Aeon
When culture pushes us to measure things that don’t matter to us, our values are captured. Once the metrics turn a profit for corporations and those in power, they are amplified, and almost overnight, begin to matter to us, even if they run contrary to what we originally set
Ask around for what everyone knows about Istanbul (other than that it used to be called Constantinople), and you’ll find that the presence of Hagia Sophia there comes right to many a mind. Less likely to be mentioned is its proneness to earthquakes, though it tends to rank just