CULTURE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLaE996B-lQ Though the pop-cul­tur­al moment that gave rise to the asso­ci­a­tion has passed, when many of us hear about Kab­bal­ah, we still think of Madon­na. Her study of that Jew­ish-mys­tic school of thought in the nine­teen-nineties has been cred­it­ed, at...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHoT_Qch7jE Buster Keaton’s pen­chant and skill for comedic stunts made him one of the biggest stars of the silent-film era.  Nobody at the time imag­ined that he would still be engag­ing in dan­ger­ous-look­ing prat­falls 40 years lat­er in his sev­en­ties,...

In 2018 we brought you some excit­ing news. Thanks to a gen­er­ous dona­tion from Da Vin­ci Code author Dan Brown, Amsterdam’s Rit­man Library—a siz­able col­lec­tion of pre-1900 books on alche­my, astrol­o­gy, mag­ic, and oth­er occult subjects—has been dig­i­tiz­ing thou­sands of...

On 5 February 2025, two weeks after Donald Trump assumed the role of US president, Argonotlar (“Argonauts”), a queer art publication in Turkey, issued an urgent letter to its readers. “Last week, we were going to apply for a fund...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGGuiMt0DEs Tim Bur­ton grew up watch­ing Japan­ese mon­ster movies in Bur­bank, which must explain a good deal about his artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ty. It seems to be for that rea­son, in any case, that the new Kon­bi­ni “Vidéo Club” episode above takes...

Since its ancient ori­gins as the cam­era obscu­ra, the pho­to­graph­ic cam­era has always mim­ic­ked the human eye, allow­ing light to enter an aper­ture, then pro­ject­ing an image upside down. Renais­sance artists relied on the cam­era obscu­ra to sharp­en their own...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jibNLXFggM A too-pre­cious genre of inter­net meme depicts depart­ed pub­lic fig­ures who did not know each oth­er in life meet­ing in heav­en with hugs, high-fives, and winc­ing­ly earnest exchanges. These sen­ti­men­tal vignettes are almost too easy to par­o­dy, a kitschy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH0Yw0R84i0 Design­ing their new repub­lic, the Found­ing Fathers of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca looked back to ref­er­ence points in clas­si­cal antiq­ui­ty. That instinct con­tin­ued to shape Amer­i­can endeav­ors long there­after, and not just polit­i­cal ones. Take the exam­ple of...

It is safe to predict that the second Trump presidency will go down in American history as the most divisive ever. Everything to say about its first six months has already been said: all we can do is keep track...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FMoWxQWHUE Pur­ple may not be one of the most pop­u­lar col­ors in the appar­el of our age, but if you want it — as cer­tain cul­tur­al fig­ures have amply demon­strat­ed — you can get as much of it as you...