There are trees, and then there are trees out west. "Ancient sequoias," "Mammoths," or "Big Trees," as John Muir liked to say – the nicknames varied, but the trees' contribution the grandeur of the storied West Coast remained the same. Pioneers worked, breathed, and seriously liv … | Continue reading
1. The Sweet Nostalgia of Opening Day at Disneyland, 1955JULY 1955 (Photo by Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)JULY 1955 (Photo by Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images)JULY 1955 (Photo by Loomis Dean /The LIFE Picture Collection via Gett … | Continue reading
The Tour de France: It's a viscous cycle.For a long time, I didn't really "get" the appeal of the Tour de France. A bunch of men in spandex torturing themselves on two wheels, each producing enough sweat to flush a toilet 39 times? (That was one of the more unusual statistics I f … | Continue reading
Oneida Community Mansion House Revivalist sects, polyamorous communes and radical experiments in communal living – America was rife with it all in the mid 19th century – but not exactly where you might expect. Forget the Bible Belt. In western New York state, so many religious re … | Continue reading
© EdivovinoNearly a decade ago, south of the Aland archipelago, between Sweden and Finland, a 200 year-old shipwreck was discovered to be holding 168 sealed bottles of Veuve Cliquot produced between 1839 and 1841 at the bottom of the sea. Divers had the first taste, and found tha … | Continue reading
Lois DeFee performs. © giannicorso73 / FlickrIt took more than a pretty face to make it big in burlesque – it took fearlessness and a strong dose of je ne sais quoi to make America take notice during the golden age of showgirl entertainment. Five women in particular have caught o … | Continue reading
This time next summer, how would you feel about escaping to your own private island? Having the space to think, work on a few ideas ... ya know, generally soak up all the inspiration that can be soaked from living on your own goddamn island for an entire week. Such an opportunity … | Continue reading
1. A vintage trailer, complete with a 1955 BMW Isetta micro-carThe BMW Isetta became the world’s first mass-production car to achieve a fuel consumption of 3 L/100 km. It was the top-selling single-cylinder car in the world, with 161,728 units sold.Found on Vintage Camping. 2. Th | Continue reading
There's a lot of interest in the Moon again lately and not just because this weekend marks the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing in 1969. Only 12 people have walked on the moon, and no one has been back since 1972, over four decades ago. If all goes well, Nasa has plans … | Continue reading
Parisians are drawn to the water. But so, too, are tourists. Boatfuls of them are ferried north, south, east and west throughout the year, with a steady soundtrack of tour guides indicating “to your left, you will see…”. Give the "Bateaux-Mouches" a wide berth this summer and exp … | Continue reading
Proust, turned her into a fictional princess and Ravel turned her into music. Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec couldn't stop painting her. Picasso was a confidante, Serge Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes, a best friend, and Coco Chanel – her "soul sister"; possibly her lover too. Belle … | Continue reading
© Mars SocietySomewhere out in the Utah desert right now, there are a bunch of folks pretending to live on Mars. The simulated Martian habitat, known as the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), is the closest you can get to the red planet here on earth, where science projects are … | Continue reading
Of course Don't be a Tourist in New York comes with its own soundtrack! It's less about the Franck Sinatra clichés, and more about the sounds of gritty New York in seventies and the folk singers that flocked to the East Village in the 1960s. You'll also find plenty of talent born … | Continue reading
Safe in Hell, 1931Before we even knew it as "Hollywood", the American film industry was a very different place, producing a surreal amount of extraordinarily liberal and raw movies that would give today's rated-R movies a run for their money; featuring nudity, strong female chara … | Continue reading
1. Starcourt Mall from ‘Stranger Things’ is actually a real dead mallThe Verge:There’s a reason why the Starcourt Mall, the principal location for the third season of "Stranger Things" looks so real: it’s built inside of a real shopping mall. Specifically, it was built inside of … | Continue reading
Unidentified woman breastfeeding a baby, ca. 1860. Schlesinger Library / FlickrYou know the daguerrotypes. Stiff scenes of Victorian families in too much clothing, expressing about as much enthusiasm for one another as one would have for a lamppost. That's why we did a double – n … | Continue reading
Sex sells, and it sells even better with a dash of mystery. For every housewife in mid-century America, the enigmatic charm of Indian performer Korla Pandit was the ticket to getting weak in the knees before the kids came home from school. In the 15 minutes allotted to The Korla … | Continue reading
As the 1930s, the Frida Kahlo gained international notoriety as "Diego Rivera's wife", gracing the cover of French Vogue. Then, she floored the avant-garde scene with artworks whose vulnerability spoke from the heart while their rawness punched you in the gut. The public ate it u … | Continue reading
The sisters (minus Deborah) / Wikipedia The Mitford sisters were like a train wreck wrapped in a tornado wrapped in a circus fire – you could't avert your eyes from their lives. The Times' Ben Macintyre famously caricaturised the women with impressive pithy: "Diana the Fascist, J … | Continue reading
1. The Red Regatta“Red Regatta is a non-profit independent public art project, presented in collaboration with Associazione Vela al Terzo, that unites Venetians and visitors to celebrate the cultural and maritime history of this iconic city to call attention to the forces of clim … | Continue reading
Whether you know it or not, you have definitely heard them play. Popular music of the 1960s was dominated by young bands like The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas and The Monkees – bands that didn't play their own records. Sometimes, the only members of famous bands to appear on … | Continue reading
©arte / YoutubeIt began with a glance, as so many love stories do. Bernard Boursicot was your average, unremarkable accountant at the French Embassy of 1960s Beijing. Shi Pei Pu was anything but forgettable, a rising opera star in the city who enraptured her soon-to-be lover, and … | Continue reading
You might have expected Japan's next bullet train or even the Eurostar to have figured out solar-powered rail travel first, but instead, on a disused old railway track along the sandy coast of New South Wales, Australia, a little 1940s "engine that could" has become the world's f … | Continue reading
Alexander Gorlizki / Instagram "Power clashing" is an art not easily learned, but Alexander Gorlizki lives, breathes, and paints it in his art. The intricate, bright prints and designs look like they've been sourced from an ancient Islamic library and combined with vintage Bollyw … | Continue reading
1. Monday MoodDancing ladies on overhanging rock in Yosemite Park, 1890s by George Fiske. Found on Calisphere. 2. Viktoria Modesta after her burlesque show Bionic Woman at Crazy Horse, ParisModesta was born in Latvia in 1988 where she learned singing aged six at a local m | Continue reading
Our dreams have always remained an ineffable, un-shareable experience – the kind of thing we can describe, but never quite convey to the fullest. Then, we saw Taxandria. The 1994 film by Belgium's Raoul Servais is the closest we've felt to stepping inside a world that feels just … | Continue reading
Am I one of the few who didn't realise where the name Motorola originated from? The American telecommunications company's first commercial product was a radio for motor vehicles in the 1930s and in 1946, Motorola equipment carried the first calls on the Bell System's new car radi … | Continue reading
Pendant in the Form of Neptune and a Sea Monster,early 17th century / ©The Met Pearls have always been in a league of their own. As souvenirs from the depths of New World waters in the 15th century, they were simply something diamonds, emeralds, and rubies could never be: alive. … | Continue reading
©Frame of Travel / Flickr There are themed restaurants, and then there's Japan's Robot Restaurant, which will steam roll your brain with glow sticks, techno, and robots. Running counter to the Japanese cultural rubric usually shown, it's a space age Cirque de Soleil on acid or a … | Continue reading
The Seven Sisters (Syv Sostre), a mountain range on the island of Alsten in Norway. Photographed by Knud Knudsen circa 1880.Waterfalls – nothing more, nothing less. This is a brief compendium of gelatin silver and antique postcards found in various archives, dedicated to one of n … | Continue reading
The Winter Garden at the shop of Madeleine Castaing on the rue Jacob. © Derry Moore You know her touch, even if you don't think you do. As a decorator, the late Madeleine Castaing embodied over-the-top luxury and la vie bohème. As a patron, no – diva – of the arts, Castaing's eye … | Continue reading
1. A Village in Provence, Abandoned over a century agoThe Bories Village is nestled on a low mountain in the Vaucluse region near Avignon, now classed as a historic monument, giving a priceless account of the way of life in Provence. The group of 30 stone huts, called 'Les Cabane … | Continue reading
Gregory Corso in his attic room of the Beat Hotel photographed by Allen Ginsberg (Stanford University Libraries/Allen Ginsberg Estate)"I lay there on the floor, he makes love to Nanette all night, as she whimpers," wrote Jack Kerouac, recalling the night he slept in Room 41 of a … | Continue reading
How do you dress for a dance with death? If you were a 14th century Samurai, the pressure was on to go into battle with a kabuto (helmet) that subscribed to a fiercely maximalist vision. These incredible creations varied in form and detail depending on the owner and era, but they … | Continue reading
It was a flourishing trade in human flesh. A quest headed by art suppliers so ruthless in seeking out the perfect pigment, that it makes Dorian Grey's creep-level look like amateur hour. It was the business of making "Mummy Brown," a paint colour that quite literally required t … | Continue reading
“Eccentricity exists particularly in the English, and partly, I think, because of that peculiar and satisfactory knowledge of infallibility that is the hallmark and birthright of the British nation.“. ― Dame Edith Sitwell of Renishaw HallRenishaw Hall may look like a very traditi … | Continue reading
_c0lette / InstagramArmed with a pair of hot pants and a Cheshire Cat grin, Miss Lady Kier became the lighting rod of '80s and '90s electro-pop. As the front woman for Deee-Lite, her intensity turned songs like "Groove Is in the Heart" into pure eardrum candy in the midst of a ti … | Continue reading
Skeleton with (Greek) inscription: Know thyself. (1st CE). From excavations in the convent of San Gregorio, Via Appia, Rome, Italy.The good people of the Roman Empire tend to be remembered as gladiators and prodigious builders of roads, temples and aqueducts who loved to drink lo … | Continue reading
1. Extreme tree pruning in the late 1800sFound on Imgur. 2. The newly opened bookshop in the Chinese city of Chongqing© shao feng© shao feng© shao fengThe chongqing zhongshuge bookstore by shanghai-based firm X+living is located on the 3rd and 4th floor of zodi plaza. | Continue reading
In 1960, a French farmer dug up a Belgian-manufactured Lefaucheux pinfire revolver in a field north of Paris next to the village where Vincent Van Gogh spent his final days. The severely corroded gun is believed to be the one that killed the artist in July of 1890, after he shot … | Continue reading
© Broken FingazGoogle "famous street artists" and you won't find these guys on the list, but Broken Fingaz ought to be on pop culture's radar. Our first introduction to them was this mural covering the side of a building in downtown Haifa, their hometown in northern Israel. It de … | Continue reading
They look as if they've risen out of the desert itself in some strange, dystopian world. There are no trees, no cars, no bus stops, no parks, no playgrounds, no people. Just the towers. In a barren landscape 50km outside of Iran's capital city, the Mehra Mer project in Pardis has … | Continue reading
Frida with Nick in her Studio, Coyoacán 1941Muses. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. That is, not without a fair degree of drama, and especially if you happened to fall into a romantic tornado with miss Frida Kahlo. For a lover to pull Frida out of orbit from Diego – t … | Continue reading
Promotional Photograph: "The Contestants," 1966, with Ellen Stewart centre / La MaMa ArchivesIn 1961, New York City was sizzling. Musicians, comics, artists – anyone selling a song or a run-on sentence made their way to Manhattan's East Village to make it big, or have a hell of a … | Continue reading
© beatrice chapillonOn the lip of a lush cliff in Aveyron hides a place exempt from logic. Granted we're not scientifically inclined, but there has to be some kind of sorcery bubbling under the bedrock of Bozouls, the ancient French village that's been teetering on the edge of a … | Continue reading
1. Backstage at the Folies-Bergères Brassaï 1930sBrassaï, Juan-les-Pins, aux Folies-Bergères, 1932Brassaï, Girl at Folies Bergeres, 1932 Gaston Paris, Folies-Bergère, Paris, 1937 Brassaï, 'The Rainbow' at Folies Bergere, 1932Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, Backstage … | Continue reading
Wigstock, 1993 © LeoLondon / FlickrIt was the drag world's biggest block party. From the heat of 1980s New York, equal parts glitter and grime, the "Wigstock" festival exploded onto its streets as a place for queens to hold court when no one else would have them. Today, watching … | Continue reading
They call it the Green Vault, said to be the world's first public museum (disputed by the Vatican), holding a veritable treasure chest of toys and amusements for Saxon royalty since the 18th century. Some 3,000 chef d'ouvres are exhibited in nine spectacular rooms inside Dresden' … | Continue reading