Many Amer­i­cans might think of Rip Van Win­kle as the first man to nod off and wake up in the dis­tant future. But as often seems to have been the case in the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth cen­turies, the French got there first. Almost 50 years before Wash­ing­ton Irv­ing’s short sto­ry, Louis-Sébastien Merci­er’s utopi­an nov­el L’An 2440, rêve s’il en fut jamais (1771) sent its sleep­ing pro­tag­o­nist six and a half cen­turies for­ward in time. Read today, as it is in the new Kings and Things video above, the book appears in rough­ly equal parts uncan­ni­ly prophet­ic and hope­less­ly...…Many Amer­i­cans might think of Rip Van Win­kle as the first man to nod off and wake up in the dis­tant future. But as often seems to have been the case in the sev­en­teenth and eigh­teenth cen­turies, the French got there first. Almost 50 years before Wash­ing­ton Irv­ing’s short sto­ry, Louis-Sébastien Merci­er’s utopi­an nov­el L’An 2440, rêve s’il en fut jamais (1771) sent its sleep­ing pro­tag­o­nist six and a half cen­turies for­ward in time. Read today, as it is in the new Kings and Things video above, the book appears in rough­ly equal parts uncan­ni­ly prophet­ic and hope­less­ly...WW…

Wes Anderson has been making feature films for 27 years now, and in that time his work has grown more temporally and geographically specific. Though shot in his native Texas in the late nineteen-nineties, his breakout picture Rushmore seemed to take place in no one part of the United States — and even more strikingly, no one identifiable era. Few filmgoers had seen anything like Anderson’s clean-edged retro sensibility before, and in subsequent projects like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, it intensified considerably. Then, in 2012, came Moonrise Kingdom, which...…Wes Anderson has been making feature films for 27 years now, and in that time his work has grown more temporally and geographically specific. Though shot in his native Texas in the late nineteen-nineties, his breakout picture Rushmore seemed to take place in no one part of the United States — and even more strikingly, no one identifiable era. Few filmgoers had seen anything like Anderson’s clean-edged retro sensibility before, and in subsequent projects like The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, it intensified considerably. Then, in 2012, came Moonrise Kingdom, which...WW…

Life imitates art, and by art, I mean, of course, The Simpsons. More than thirty years ago, the show took on the issue of censorship with a story in which Marge Simpson launches an impassioned campaign against cartoon violence, only to find herself on the other side of the fence when asked to support a protest against the exhibition of Michelangelo’s David. This episode returned to cultural relevance just last month, when a parent’s complaint about an image of that most renowned nude sculptures — indeed, that most renowned sculpture of any kind — being shown in a sixth-grade art-history...…Life imitates art, and by art, I mean, of course, The Simpsons. More than thirty years ago, the show took on the issue of censorship with a story in which Marge Simpson launches an impassioned campaign against cartoon violence, only to find herself on the other side of the fence when asked to support a protest against the exhibition of Michelangelo’s David. This episode returned to cultural relevance just last month, when a parent’s complaint about an image of that most renowned nude sculptures — indeed, that most renowned sculpture of any kind — being shown in a sixth-grade art-history...WW…