This weekend we will hard boil two dozen eggs. We will layer newspaper, line up every teacup we can find and open several decorating kits. Combining dye pellets, vinegar and water in the cups, we will argue about the best way to color the eggs. Do you just plop them in, suspend them for perfect [...]
Archive for the ‘History’ category
Happy International Women’s Day!
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the first International Women’s Day, declared in 1911 by the Socialist Party of America. Celebrate!
Tuesday updates
For your reading pleasure, a few updates from previous posts. 1. The New Yorker caption contest. In March 0f 2009, I wrote of my frustration at never getting a cartoon caption in the final three in the New Yorker’s contest. The first of the rather astonishing 34 comments included AWB’s link to a site (since [...]
Not to be reproduced: New Year’s open thread
Rene Magritte, La Reproduction Interdit / Not to be Reproduced (1937) On January 1, 2011, I was lucky enough to wake up in the home of dear friends, with whom I had joyfully celebrated the night before (at a party complete with bicoastal buddies, disco dancing, and a “gorgeous gateau”). As we eased into the [...]
Death may have no mercy, but it frequently offers some fascinating stories
I’m a big fan of the obituaries page in the Sunday paper. It may seem a little morbid, but I love the mini-biographies and micro-histories of the semi-famous and somewhat influential that can be found there. Reading an interesting, well-written obituary is among the most entertaining ways to learn a sliver of knowledge about a [...]
Photoshopping the past onto the present
Many of you have probably seen this already, but Sergey Larenkov has a fascinating series of altered photographs at his Live Journal site here. Larenkov has taken photographs from World War II, found the exact locations (in Berlin, Prague, Moscow, St. Petersburg et. al.) where they were shot, and grafted the old images onto contemporary [...]
Slaughterhouse five
(Text by Swells, photos by ScottyGee) Dresden is known for its beautiful central theater complex, its devastation after the Allies firebombed it in WWII, and of course its central role in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. It’s such a culty novel, at least for American college boys, that I assumed its iconic status would at least [...]
Eastern architecture pt. 3: Fernsehturm Berlin
One of the more famous landmarks in East Berlin is the TV tower (or Fernsehturm Berlin), which was constructed by the GDR in the late ’60s as a way to showcase its technological superiority over the West. My first impression as I exited Alexanderplatz metro station was that I was not moved either by its [...]
Flag waving
In June of 2006, the last time we were in Europe for any extended period of time, we planned to go to Berlin for a long visit. My ignorance of sporting matters is such that the trip was almost completely planned before a more culturally aware friend (read: having any awareness at all) casually mentioned, [...]
How to Try
I am missing the arrogance of my stupid youth. When did I get so embarrassed of making a fool of myself? Why wasn’t I ashamed of myself then? The lack of shame usually works for my college students, in that they dare to say and do all kinds of productive things in my classes. It [...]
