“In Crockett Johnson’s iconic comic strip, the type speaks for itself.”
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How to Think About the Sublime
“An exquisite mix of fear and awe, pleasure and pain, the sublime stretches the imagination and reveals the limits of reason.”
The Grassroots Race to Save Altadena’s Historic Batchelder Tiles—Before the Bulldozers Move In
“In the Eaton Fire burn zone, fireplaces adorned with Arts and Crafts tiles are among the sole surviving relics of the town’s architectural heritage, and volunteers are on a mission to salvage them.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending notable stories by Kelley Engelbrecht, Sam Anderson, Lindsey Liles, Jeannette Cooperman, and Claire McNear.
The Great AI Art Heist
“A lab at the University of Chicago is protecting artists from theft by a new adversary: the machines.”
David Lynch Was Here
A dispatch from the real Twin Peaks, where fans of the director flocked after his death.
How Does the Writer Say Etcetera?
“Sumana Roy ponders the linguistic and aesthetic significance of ‘etceterization.'”
A Portrait of the Artist as an Amazon Reviewer
“Between 2003 and 2019, Kevin Killian published almost twenty-four hundred reviews on the site. Can they be considered literature?”
Looking at Art Will Never Be the Same Again
“A conversation with the art historian Claire Bishop about technology’s influence on museums and galleries, and her recent book Disordered Attention.”
‘Maya Blue’: The Mystery Dye Recreated Two Centuries After It Was Lost
“A ceramicist in Mexico retraces his Maya roots to recreate a long-lost pre-Hispanic pigment for the first time in more than two centuries.”
