The way in which certain countries have made an enduring annual ritual of remembering two specific wars is also a way for them to ignore all the terrible, dubious wars since and their own disgraceful track record in them.

An infographic marks each place on Everest where a mountaineer has died with a little red flag, like a flag you get on a green at a golf course. That's the joke. Is it good taste? No. Is it good? Also no. Is there any point? Let's not pull on that thread.

All those flags ... that's a pretty challenging golf course.

Cézanne produced a number of sketches of his son Paul. This is from 1880 - it was a decade of great emotional turbulence for Cézanne, a disastrous affair, the break-up with Emile Zola, the abrupt decision to marry his long-time companion Hortense, and the death of his father

Tatiana Samoilova in a close-up from the film. She has long dark hair and her face is smudged with ash as she stands in the remains of a burnt-out building.

Tatiana Samoilova in another close-up, her eyes are glinting with wetness as she looks to the right.

A profile shot of Tatiana Samoilova, dressed all in black, her hair tied up. Her right eye is visible and glinting with the realisation of betrayal.

An extreme close-up of Tatiana Samoilova showing just her nose and eyes. One eye is brimming with a single tear.

Rewatched The Cranes Are Flying last night, and I don't think there's a better face in cinema than Tatiana Samoilova's in this film

The Beatles in Mono & Marc Bolan at the BBC. Both multi-disc boxsets.

I'm always banging on about the LPs I've bought, but two of my best purchases this year have been these CD boxsets. Without doubt my two favourite bands when I was a young kid. Music as a comfort blanket is such an important resource to tap into in times of stress.

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

YouTube video by Tommy Boy Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise (feat. L.V.) [Official Music Video]

#90sTop30
#MusicChallenge

Songs unranked

6|Coolio - Gangsta’s Paradise

youtu.be/fPO76Jlnz6c?...

#NoirvemberChallenge
Coolest #FilmNoir character is Philip Marlowe...

Day 1 #NoirvemberChallenge
Favorite #filmnoir Opening?
“Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.” I could continue.
youtu.be/HduXGYkoc_w?...

Our political moment is ripe for David Cronenberg’s body horror | Aeon Essays As struggles over the human body escalate, we should return to the work of cinema’s greatest anatomist: David Cronenberg

“It’s possible, of course, that this evolution reflects only the personal journey of one #Canadian #filmmaker. More interesting, though, is viewing Cronenberg’s body horror as a response to the cultural and political moment it emerged from” aeon.co/essays/our-p...

Bonus Episode 4: Dorian Stuber and Rohan Maitzen Discuss Vanity Fair Welcome to One Bright Book! Rebecca and Frances move out of the picture for this bonus episode where Dorian gets a chance to finally discuss VANITY FAIR by William Makepeace Thackeray with his one …

On a Very Special Episode of @onebrightbook.bsky.social I’m joined by @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social to talk about William Makepeace Thackeray’s wonderful VANITY FAIR

onebrightbook.com/2025/10/28/b...

YouTube video by American Masters PBS Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive | Full Documentary | American Masters | PBS

The American Masters doc on Edgar Allan Poe, "Buried Alive," is now up on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=zank... For the NEH, I wrote a piece on Poe's hatchet-job reviews, tied to the doc's release: www.neh.gov/humanities/2...

From: Angel's Egg (1985), dir. Mamoru Oshii, Studio Deen

Oshii's career suffered after this film flopped in the '80s -- but it became one of his defining works

10/25/72: Jean-Pierre Melville's last, Un Flic
w/Delon, Deneuve, Crenna ++
Opening sequence remains unsurpassed
More:
@akareynolds.bsky.social: spectrumculture.com/2019/05/01/c...
@simonsaybrams.bsky.social: www.villagevoice.com/un-flic-jean...
Serge Daney: sergedaney.blogspot.com/2017/08/cop-...

Image of the mechanical ladder outside the Louvre Text below says WENN'S MAL WIEDER SCHNELL GEHEN MUSS (When you need to move fast) Underneath is more German text which translates as "The Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min - quiet as a whisper."

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast'

10/10 response, no notes

Will always associate this painting (which I love) with Moore's fantastic use of it in FROM HELL. Here he is writing about it and Blake's art:

Poster with a gradient blue background. Large text reads “the web we’ve built.” Smaller text says “Celebrating 1 trillion web pages archived.” Pixelated 3D icons of a floppy disk, magnifying glass, cursor arrow, computer window, and others radiate outward from a bright starburst in the center. On the right, text lists event details: “Wednesday, October 22, 5–10PM PT. Live stream: 7–8PM PT. 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco.” The Internet Archive logo appears in the bottom right corner.

Tomorrow’s the big event! 🎉 Celebrate 1 trillion saved pages with The Web We’ve Built with #InternetArchive. Join in San Francisco or online 🌐

📅 Weds, Oct 22
🕖 7 PM PT
🖥️ Virtual ➡️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1626431011...
🎟️ In Person ➡️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1626438133...

#Wayback1T

OK, who can explain what's going on here? Bagpiper leading group of ladies (and dog!) along path away from home. Or is it an inn? Mystery painting by Lucas van Uden of Antwerp, whose day is today.

Donate to Help Archita and Her Mom Rebuild Their Lives, organized by tehseen baweja Hey Everyone! My name is Tehseen and I publish an online magazine called T… tehseen baweja needs your support for Help Archita and Her Mom Rebuild Their Lives

Fellow Calcuttan writer/editor Archita Mittra is in desperate need of financial help. She recently lost her father, her home was damaged in the recent rains, & her mother's in hospital. They don't have insurance, & she's a freelancer. I can vouch for her. Please share widely & donate:

Text: No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are all failures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining the effort of our life. In this matter vanity is what leads us astray. It hurries us into situations from which we must come out damaged; whereas pride is our safeguard, by the reserve which it imposes on the choice of our endeavour as much as by the virtue of its sustaining power.

Joseph Conrad, The Duel.

***ANNOUNCEMENT***

Coming on December 1st on #4K #Steelbook in the UK from @crunchyroll.com: #GhostInTheShell (1995)!

2029: A female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of "The Puppet Master,” a mysterious and

As a caregiver for someone with Parkinson's, it's interesting to see an actor talk about performing with Parkinson's. I've seen quite a few moving performances of characters with Parkinson's recently (including a robot, curiously--DOOM PATROL), but unsurprisingly from actors without the disease.

Monochrome photograph featuring a white woman sitting sideways on a patterned armchair dressed in a dark jacket and skirt and with her hand raised to her face

I will cut adrift—I will sit on pavements and drink coffee—I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim—this fine October.

- Virginia Woolf
#Womensart

Just saw 2 Palestinian accounts vanish right after asking me for help--one a mother grieving her baby daughter who just died of starvation, another begging for help to keep her little sick, starving baby daughter alive. I cannot say what I think of Bluesky admin.

Diane Keaton: a life in pictures - Diane Keaton, who has died aged 79, started her stellar career in The Godfather and Woody Allen’s early comedies, before going to appear opposite just about every major star in Hollywood. We look back at her six-decade career www.theguardian.com/film/gallery...

R.I.P. Diane Keaton 🙏

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Brazil's Miracle: An Indigenous Disaster The story of the Krenak community in Brazil

" This documentary tells the story of what the Krenak community lived through, and the ways the dictatorship still impacts them to this day" www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist The long read: Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bi...

The Pushkin job: unravelling the mystery of the theft of Russian classics from libraries across Europe.

The crimes began after the invasion of Ukraine, with Putin’s speech evoking the “culture and values, experience and traditions of our ancestors”.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

If you're still pursuing a creative outlet alongside a more mundane day job, don't give up on it. It may not get you anywhere, but you'll have some good memories and a sense of satisfaction that money can't buy.