13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 738)

1. The House that Madness Built In the tidy Westphalian town of Lemgo, Germany, where the gabled houses wear their history with restrained Protestant pride, there stands a house that seems to have wandered in from another reality. It is a house made of wood, and also of something more difficult to name—delirium, perhaps, or…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 737)

1. For Sale: Portobello Road’s Most Famous Antiques Shop & the Home Upstairs Property for sale on Knight Frank. 2. Becoming an Artist Residence at the Historic National Arts Club 3. In a Quaint French Village, a sculptor and his daughter brought Vincent Van Gogh’s celebrated Room to Life as an Airbnb This captivating project…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 736)

1. A Ravishing Radish Hat And other wonderful creations by Rebecca Gardner. 2. Penitentes en Cuenca (Penitents in Cuenca) by José Ortiz Echagüe, 1940 a lay confraternity of Spanish-American Roman Catholic men active in Northern and Central New Mexico and southern Colorado. They maintain religious meeting buildings, which are not formal churches, called moradas. More about…

Crate Digging for the Forgotten Sound of Zambia’s Rock Revolution

In the copper-mined heart of late 1960s Zambia, a new sound was brewing — raw, electrifying, and entirely unexpected, channeled the sounds of Hendrix, Sabbath, and Cream through the lens of life in a newly independent African nation. It was called Zamrock, a genre that fused the fuzzed-out guitars and rebellious spirit of Western psychedelic…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 735)

1. The Magical Garbage Dump Spirits of the Congo In Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, a subculture has found a new way to draw attention to the foreign waste they’re drowning in by turning mountainous piles of invasive trash into surreal costumes. French photographer Stephan Gladieu traveled to the city’s “apocalyptic” waste sites, he documented the collective of artists called Ndaku Ya La…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 734)

1. A wonderful tip from a reader about a very unusual French water tower found by the roadside From our reader: Just perusing your recent article of your internet finds and thought you might like to see this “treehouse”. I found it just outside Pontorson Railway Station when making a “pilgrimage” to the amazingMont St.…

Botany and the Forgotten Sexual Revolution

Sex and botany– two words rarely found in the same sentence, but there was a time when the study of botany was considered so obscene that books on the subject were censored for women; branded dangerous and unsuitable for her delicate sensibilities. Gardens and greenhouses became an enlightened woman’s secret haven of discovery, expression and temptation. While today’s scientific…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 733)

1. Paper Sculptures by Kate Kato (who also teaches online courses) Kate is a sculptor living in the Welsh Borders, obsessed with flora, fauna and paper. Shop her creations here. Take an online paper mushroom-making course here! Because, why not. 2. Salvador Dali’s Anti-Venereal Disease poster he made in 1941 Found on Open Culture. Further reading:…

Curiosity du Jour: The Intimate Little World of Nun Boxes

Let’s say you’re rummaging around the dusty recesses of a centuries-old French convent, as one does, half-expecting a stray rosary or two, when suddenly you happen upon a miniature wooden box — no bigger than a jewellery case, adorned with tiny religious figurines, bits of dried flowers, and perhaps a painting of a saint. You’ve…

The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere

Familiar to anyone who pays attention to vintage aesthetics, I’m embarrassed to say it’s taken me 40 years to learn the name of the beloved typographic symbol that been guiding the way for centuries. Alas, that beloved inked symbol in the shape of a pointing hand (often used to draw attention to a section of text)…