Queendom is a documentary film by Agniia Galdanova about queer Russian activist and performance artist Jenna Marvin and her unusual form of protest against the war in Ukraine and Russia’s treatment of LGBTQ+ people. From a short review in the Guardian: When Russia invaded
Eléonore Joulin casts humble foods in a fresh light with her gastronomic collection of ceramic goods. From her studio in Brussels, the artist layers crinkled cabbage leaves into a vegetal dwelling and twists a long sausage into a sculptural, worm-like shape. She outfits many
Ahead of the Paris Olympics, France has released a scratch-and Sniff baguette stamps . “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Interesting hypothesis: the aesthetic of Incan stone work was inspired by corn . “The layout of Machu Picchu mirrors the shape of a corn cob, with its terraces resembling the kernels of corn.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Kirkus’s list of 20 Books That Should Be Bestsellers reminds me that Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new book, Long Island Compromise , is due out this summer, so yay to that. Yay also to pal Nicola Twilley for making the list with her book Frostbite . And there’s a new-to-me title on
In 1802, Italian sculptor Antonio Canova produced a marble sculpture known as “ Venus Italica ,” notably commissioned by Napoléon Bonaparte and intended to replace another Venus statue at the Louvre in Paris. Among numerous other historic statues and artifacts at the Museum of
A recent study estimates that a human pregnancy demands 50,000 calories , “significantly more than the researchers expected.” The fetus only needs 4% of the energy — “the other 96% is extra fuel required by a woman’s own body.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
How to get Google search results without the AI garbage . “It’s essentially Google, minus the crap. No parsing of the information in the results. No surfacing metadata like address or link info. No knowledge panels, but also, no ads.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Amidst the cobblestone streets of Chinatown in Prato, Italy, typography has become a bridge between worlds. Beatrice Murphy, a student in the Master’s Course in Graphic Design at Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) Firenze, developed her thesis project by examining and dissecting
A free and unified Europe was first imagined by Italian radicals in the 19th century. Could we yet see their dream made real? - by Fernanda Gallo Read at Aeon
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Though that line probably originated with a Canadian novelist called Grant Allen, it’s long been popularly attributed to his more colorful nineteenth-century contemporary Mark Twain. It isn’t hard to understand why
The story is a good one: put some tea bags in a mason jar filled with fresh, cold water. Put it in the sun. Four hours later, smooth and delicious tea is waiting for you. The photons from the sun go through the clear glass and the water, strike the leaves and transfer radiant
In years past, we’ve brought you rare recordings of Sigmund Freud and Jorge Luis Borges speaking in English. Today we present a remarkable series of recordings of the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy reading a passage from his book, Wise Thoughts for Every Day, in four
Those of us in arts philanthropy need to redouble our efforts to fund artists and organizations of color and sharpen our grantmaking practices to advance racial justice.