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May ’68: A Great Lyrical Community
Fifty years later, we look back at the student-led protests that shook Paris in May 1968 and have occupied the French political imagination ever since. May 1968, Paris. Photo: Bruno Barbey. The...
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The Philosopher of the Firework
He was looking for a chemical mixture—a potion or tonic perhaps—that would give him eternal youth. Instead, when it caught fire, the ninth-century Chinese alchemist discovered gunpowder. From there,...
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In the Name of Notre Dame
Henri Matisse, Notre Dame une fin d’après-midi, 1902 In September 2016, police found a Peugeot with missing plates parked just steps away from Notre Dame; inside the car, they found seven cylinders of...
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Celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston
Jas. I. Campbell, Historic American Buildings Survey: Ashton Villa, Photograph, 1934. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The long-held myth goes that on June 19, 1865, Union general Gordon Granger...
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What Is Drag, Anyway?
Martin Padgett’s first book, A Night at the Sweet Gum Head, tells the story of Atlanta’s queer liberation movement through the alternating biographies of two gay men, runaway–turned–drag queen John...
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White Gods
Jose Chávez Morado mosaic mural El Retorno de Quetzalcóatl, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico of Mexico City. Photo by Eva Leticia Ortiz. “We were superior to the god who had created us,” Adam...
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Fairy Fatale
An illustration by the painter Natalie Frank for The Island of Happiness. One of Frank’s favorite tales is “The Green Serpent,” in which the prince is a snake, though only literally. “I love the image...
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A Memorial for Those Accused of Witchcraft
Colors extracted, using a traditional recipe, from maritime sunburst lichen the author collected from the wildlife corridor along Ellebækstien in Køge. Fabrics from left to right, top to bottom:...
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Chateaubriand on Writing Memoir between Two Societies
Charles Etienne Pierre Motte, The Surroundings of Dieppe, 1833, licensed under CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons. François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) was born in Saint-Malo, on the northern coast...
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The Dress Diary of Mrs. Anne Sykes
“Anna. Three dresses when in mourning for her mother. 1845.” Photograph by Kate Strasdin. In January 2016 I was given an extraordinary gift. Underneath brown paper that had softened with age and molded...
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