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  • Meet the Forgotten Female Artist Behind the World’s Most Popular Tarot Deck (1909)
    by OC on October 28, 2025 at 9:00 am

    As an exercise draw a composition of fear or sadness, or great sorrow, quite simply, do not bother about details now, but in a few lines tell your story. Then show it to any one of your friends, or family, or fellow students, and ask them if they can tell you what it is you

  • How Saul Bass Designed the Strange Original Poster for Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
    by Colin Marshall on October 28, 2025 at 8:00 am

    With Halloween just days away, many of us are even now readying a scary movie or two to watch on the night itself. If you’re still undecided about your own Halloween viewing material, allow us to suggest The Shining, Stanley Kubrick’s “masterpiece of modern horror.” Those words come straight from the original poster hung up

  • 74 Ways Characters Die in Shakespeare’s Plays Shown in a Handy Infographic: From Snakebites to Lack of Sleep
    by OC on October 27, 2025 at 9:00 am

    In the graduate department where I once taught freshmen and sophomores the rudiments of college English, it became common practice to include Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus on many an Intro to Lit syllabus, along with a viewing of Julie Taymor’s flamboyant film adaptation. The early work is thought to be Shakespeare’s first tragedy, cobbled together from popular

  • Aldous Huxley to George Orwell: My Hellish Vision of the Future is Better Than Yours (1949)
    by OC on October 27, 2025 at 8:00 am

    In 1949, George Orwell received a curious letter from his former high school French teacher. Orwell had just published his groundbreaking book Nineteen Eighty-Four, which received glowing reviews from just about every corner of the English-speaking world. His French teacher, as it happens, was none other than Aldous Huxley, who taught at Eton for a

  • You Can Now See the Parthenon Without Scaffolding for the First Time in 200 Years
    by Colin Marshall on October 24, 2025 at 9:00 am

    If you’ve made the journey to Athens, you probably took the time to visit its most popular tourist attraction, the Acropolis. On that monument-rich hill, you more than likely paid special attention to the Parthenon, the ancient temple dedicated to the city’s namesake, the goddess Athena Parthenos. But no matter how much time you spent

  • The Mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 Theories on What Caused the Poet’s Demise
    by OC on October 24, 2025 at 8:00 am

    One of my very first acts as a new New Yorker many years ago was to make the journey across three boroughs to Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. My purpose: a pilgrimage to Herman Melville’s grave. I came not to worship a hero, exactly, but—as Fordham University English professor Angela O’Donnell writes—“to see a friend.”

  • How Did The World Get So Ugly?: Then Versus Now
    by Colin Marshall on October 23, 2025 at 9:00 am

    More than a few of us might be interested in the opportunity to spend a day in Victorian London. But very few of us indeed who’ve ever read, say, a Charles Dickens novel would ever elect to live there. “London’s little lanes are charming now,” says Sheehan Quirke, the host of the video above, while

  • Explore 1,100 Works of Art by Georgia O’Keeffe: They’re Digitized and Free to View Online
    by OC on October 23, 2025 at 8:00 am

    Lake George Reflection (circa 1921) via Wikimedia Commons What comes to mind when you think of Georgia O’Keeffe? Bleached skulls in the desert? Aerial views of clouds, almost cartoonish in their puffiness? Voluptuous flowers (freighted with an erotic charge the artist may not have intended)? Probably not Polaroid prints of a dark haired pet chow sprawled on flagstones…

  • The 135 Movies You Must See to Understand Cinema
    by Colin Marshall on October 22, 2025 at 9:00 am

    If you wish to become a cinephile worthy of the title, you must first pledge never to refuse to watch a film for any of the following reasons. First, that it is in a different language and subtitled; second, that it is too old; third, that it is too slow; fourth, that it is too

  • Alejandro Jodorowsky Explains How Tarot Cards Can Give You Creative Inspiration
    by OC on October 22, 2025 at 8:00 am

    The practice of cartomancy, or divination with cards, dates back several hundred years to at least 14th century Europe, perhaps by way of Turkey. But the specific form we know of, the tarot, likely emerged in the 17th century, and the deck we’re all most familiar with—the Rider-Waite Tarot—didn’t appear until 1909. Popular mainly with


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