Eye of the Giant: Cinema's Cyclops Problem. Cinema has spent 120 years trying to crack the Cyclops. Christopher Nolan finally found the answer – and it was staring everyone in the face lwlies.com/hard-craf... mentions our UMass colleague Debbie Felton [utpress.utexas.edu/b...]

Eye of the Giant: Cinema's Cyclops Problem

Cinema has spent 120 years trying to crack the Cyclops. Christopher Nolan finally found the answer – and it was staring everyone in the face.

lwlies.com

Change Your Toilet Seat, Change Your Life | Reviews by Wirecutter www.nytimes.com/wire... First World Problems

Surprise! who could have guessed? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ DOJ drops Reflecting Pool charge, citing ‘botched’ work...Trump claims vandals deliberately damaged the pool, but prosecutors dropping charges against David Hearn say a contractor probably rushed installation https://wapo.st/3TA3SMC

As chance would have it, while sitting near the patio fire at the Inn on Boltwood, we were discussing abysmal street maintenance, and I referenced precisely this trick from England 11 years ago Mystery Artist Wanksy Paints Penises Around Potholes To Get Them Fixed www.huffpost.com/entry/artist...

Sanho Tree@sanho.bsky.social · 5d ago

Do not do this…unless you want speedy service from your local government.😂

Do not do this…unless you want speedy service from your local government.😂

tyler@tylergscott.com · 5d ago

in portland someone spray painted penises around potholes, and they got filled pretty immediately www.oregonlive.com/portland/202...

post-concert continuation of conviviality on patio of the Inn on Boltwood--the Amherst College pseudo-colonial inn formerly known as the Lord Jeffery Amherst until modern sensitivities finally prompted a change less than a decade ago--on the Amherst Common gazettenet.com/2018/...

Laid-back early Friday evening on the Amherst Town Common

pleased to announce the Winner of Bluesky

“The architect of the German V-2 rockets, Werner von Braun, entitled his autobiography ‘I Aim for the Stars’. Londoners, however, will remember that he usually hit London” Easily the most stone-cold zinger I’ve encountered all year.

I hadn't realised it was big Chodowiecki anniversary this year. I've always rather liked his engravings. chodowiecki300.eu

King’s College (now Columbia University) Literary Society prize medal, awarded to James Creighton in 1770, at Spink (starting bid at US$30,000) #c18 #c18th #18thc

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference www.reuters.com/world/africa... Reuters "the ​image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that ⁠signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company said it was investigating"

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a State Department presentation at ‌a global conference taking place in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attendees who took screen...

reuters.com

Mohadeseh Salari Sardari, The Castle in Chicago: The Obama Presidential Center & the Architecture of Power insights.telosinstit... "departs from the modernist emphasis on transparency and civic openness...a contradiction between architectural language and democratic ideals

The Castle in Chicago: The Obama Presidential Center and the Architecture of Power

by Mohadeseh Salari Sardari

insights.telosinstitute.net

We're in the process of renovating the old city hall into a library. The weight of the books was an issue with figuring out how to do it until they hit on the idea of putting the stacks in the old fire truck garage. www.adn.com/alaska-news/...

Anchorage plans to renovate Historic City Hall this summer, open downtown library in 2027

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance says funding is in place to turn the historic building into a new library branch.

adn.com

From 1942 this work is one of a series by Henry Moore. It captures the dark, claustrophobic, conditions faced by miners working underground. Moore was born on 30 July 1898 in the industrial town of Castleford where his father worked at Wheldale Colliery.

I really missed a trick not writing this blogpost a year ago (read it to find out why): norseandviking.blogspot.com/2026/07/i-wr... Anyway, in honour of St Ólafr's feast day today, better late than never! #runology #olsok

How to fix Faneuil Hall: There is an obvious way to revive Boston’s ‘festival marketplace.’ www.bostonglobe.com/... Pioneering project no longer unique, turned tawdry tourist trap: is the solution housing and a hotel?

How to fix Faneuil Hall - The Boston Globe

There is an obvious way to revive Boston’s “festival marketplace.”

bostonglobe.com

Jetzt also doch: Die Deutsche Post will eine Briefmarke mit Davidstern und dem Schriftzug »Antisemitismus – ohne mich!« doch abdrucken. Zuvor wurde sie für die Entscheidung aus der Politik und der IKG München kritisiert.

Deutsche Post will Davidstern-Briefmarke doch drucken

Die Poste lehnte eine Briefmarke mit einem Davidstern und dem Schriftzug »Antisemitismus – ohne mich!« erst ab. Nach Kritik hat sie sich nun umentschieden

buff.ly

#HamburgerZeitungenDigital Reklame der #Karstadt AG vom Juli 1925 in der Bergedorfer Zeitung für das Schlafzimmer “Martha”: resolver.sub.uni-hamburg.de/kitodo/PPN10... Eines von über 300 Musterzimmern im 1916 eröffneten Möbelhaus #Thalia am Pferdemarkt: resolver.sub.uni-hamburg.de/kitodo/PPN10...

10. Whatever one thinks of the film as a work of art, it's doing some good in the world, by generating big conversations, bringing new audiences to the cinema, and new readers to ancient literature. I hope it helps save the humanities.

Thys doth sounde lyke a joke, but it ys a reallye pointed observacioun about what partes of the ancient poeme are ignored: "There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible." -Emily Wilson, 2026, about *The Odyssey* film

Complexity lies at the heart of history. The Jacobins secured manhood suffrage, universal education, abolition of slavery. Robespierre + Terror saved the Revolution--& ironically, the chance for moderate regimes to follow Alternative: counterrevolution + foreign occupation 10/10

Props to complex Robespierre: radical democrat who favored habitual dress of the Old Regime over performative gesture; at first opposed death penalty & declared self agnostic re: best form of government; warned against war the moderates launched. Higher evolving consistency. 9/10

Among the moderates involved in the coup against Robespierre on 27-28 July 1794 was Bertrand Barère (en.wikipedia.org/wik...). Unlike most of the other coup plotters who survived the Revolution, he came to regret his actions (so, too did the radical Billaud-Varenne) 8/10 8/10

Among the most cynical radicals who overthrew Robespierre was Joseph Fouché (en.wikipedia.org/wik...), who, perhaps second only to Talleyrand, shapeshifted his way through regime changes between 1789 and 1815. Here his report on the state of affairs to Louis XVII in 1815 7/10

After acquiring an aristocratic mistress, the murderous Jean-Lambert Tallien turned against Robespierre (en.wikipedia.org/wik...) Ironically, the seller of the autograph didn't speak French, so he thought "execution" referred to Terror rather than just carrying out a policy 6/10

Among the bloodthirsty radicals who overthrew Robespierre to save their own skins were Collot d’Herbois (en.wikipedia.org/wik...) & Billaud-Varenne (en.wikipedia.org/wik...). Portraits: Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins (1848); Sognatures on a document of the Committee of 5/10

I'm not a fan of Andzej Wajda's "Danton" b/c of its distortion of the French Revolutionary #history.Ironically, it flipped the script on a drama sympathetic to Robespierre nupress.northwestern.... But the great Polish actor Wojciech Pszoniak masterfully portrayed him in both 4/10

A turn of the fortunes of war in favor of the Republic seemed to render such action unnecessary His justifiable attack on the terrorists who were committing atrocities in the provinces made them feel threatened, & the vagueness of his threat caused others to join the plot 3/10

Robespierre, executed 28 July 1794, was not the monster his detractors claimed, but his fall is an object lesson in personal & political flaws. An unshakeable believer in the republic of virtue & his unique ability to establish & preserve it, he spoke vaguely of new purges 2/10