April 2012
30 posts
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Albert Kahn’s Catalogue of Humanity →
‘In 1909, millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn decided to enlist the era’s burgeoning photographic technology in a mission far greater than aesthetic fetishism, and set out to use the new autochrome — the world’s first true color photographic process, invented by the Lumière brothers in 1903 and marketed in 1907 — to produce a colour photographic record of human life on...
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Brain Food →
‘One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.’ On academia, academics, and food.
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I am the one who clicks banner ads →
‘It is not for myself that I click these banner ads, not because I yearn for exclusive local deals and belly fat-reducing tips. No, it is for all of you that I click to learn more, rollover to expand, and tap to download. Without me, your banners would go unclicked. And if your banners go unclicked, then who will pay for your web pages? Banners are the steam engine of the Internet, and I...
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The Curse of the Diaeresis →
‘we use the diaeresis for the same reason that we use the hyphen: to keep the cow out of co-workers.’
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Anti-Pasta →
‘Marinetti claimed that pasta induced lethargy, pessimism, nostalgia, and neutralism. In short, pasta stood behind everything the Futurists had been battling ever since the appearance of their initial manifesto in 1909.’
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Big Squeeze: On Accordions and Accordionists →
‘Accordionists may be a flock of odd birds, but their devotion to their instrument is compelling. Today they tread a fine line between ironic hipster coolness and the age-old covenant of nerd-dom.’
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Good Americans: Food, Memoirs, and Alice B. Toklas →
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On the perils of drunk-buying books →
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How to make pesto. From Kinfolk.
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Orhan Pamuk on museums →
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The Bathroom Muse →
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Eric Hobsbawm remembers Tony Judt →
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Paris versus New York - in graphic form →
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Eric Hobsbawm and Simon Schama in conversation →
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Food and Religious Identity →
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Elif Batuman on food in Turkey →
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