The Alphabet of Insects
At Gallica you can peruse Léon Becker’s Alphabet Des Insectes from 1883. Its scanned pages and illustrations are grlorious. Read it here.
Queer Histories and the Secret Language of Queer Art
The National Galleries has a pair of videos on Queer art. The first is “The Secret Languages of Queer Art,” which talks about identification and coding in Queer art and can be watched here. And “The Hidden Histories of Queer Art,” which discusses Queer art and the suppression […]
Summer Fun Time Reading ’23
Summer isn’t quite here, but it’s been hot and a chunk of North America is already on fire, so I thought I’d go straight ahead with my Summer Fun Time Reading recommendations. There’s Gilded Age tomfoolery, science fiction, horror, mysterious figures with antlers, UFOs, ghosts, cats with skulls […]
The Gutter’s own Carol on Tsars and Assassins!
The Gutter’s own Carol Borden watches Karen Shakhanazarov’s Assassin of the Tsar! A 1991 Soviet-British co-production starring Malcolm McDowell and Oleg Yankovsky! Read it here.
“Cat Funerals in the Victorian Era”
“During the early 19th century, it was not uncommon for the mortal remains of a beloved pet cat to be buried in the family garden. By the Victorian era, however, the formality of cat funerals had increased substantially. Bereaved pet owners commissioned undertakers to build elaborate cat caskets. […]
“Why We Need to Keep Searching for Lost Silent Films”
At Smithsonian Magazine, Fritzi Kramer writes about the importance of recovering lost silent films. Read it here. “These lost films have a resonance beyond film history. They might offer historians an opportunity to see historical figures like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Teddy Roosevelt. They might feature real […]
The Cultural Gutter 