Alfred Stieglitz’s Art Journal
"The best one can say of American art criticism is that its CLEVERNESS OFTEN CONCEALS ITS LACK OF PENETRATION," Alfred Stieglitz wrote.
Selling Toys with the Sailor Moon Transformation Sequence
From her nails painted glossy red to the tiara appearing on her forehead, if you time it out, the transformation in Sailor Moon lasts 40 seconds.
“Meet John Doe” Shows the Darkness of American Democracy
Meet John Doe, Frank Capra’s 1941 drama, carries forward the populist themes of his other movies, only with a much darker premise.
The Allure of the Millionaire Family Drama
The reason we put aside our personal dislike of rich TV families, people we might deeply resent if they were real, is two-fold.
What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge
By mistaking a culture’s history for fantasy, or by disrespecting the wealth of Indigenous knowledge, we’re keeping up a Columbian, colonial tradition.
Who Decides Which Books Are “Great?”
The concept of “Great Books," the historian Tim Lacy explains, developed in the late nineteenth century as an attempt to foster a “democratic culture.”
The Cold War Origins of Interactive Cinema
The world’s first interactive cinema system, the Kinoautomat was the brainchild of Radúz Činčera, a Czech cinematographer.
The 1925 Dinosaur Movie That Paved the Way for King Kong
During a slow day at work, a young marble cutter named Willis O’Brien began sculpting tiny T-Rex figurines.
The Patron Saint of Bookstores
100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore, Shakespeare & Co.