in Food & Drink, Photography | April 5th, 2023 1 CommentJames Hoffmann knows something about coffee. He’s authored The World Atlas of Coffee and runs a prolific YouTube channel, where he covers everything from making coffee with the AeroPress and MokaPot, to brewing the perfect espresso and also providing basic coffee making tips & tricks. Pretty bread and butter stuff, if you can use that expression when talking about coffee. But he also covers some subjects at the margins of the coffee world–like how to develop photographs with coffee. Above, Hoffmann introduces you to...…in Food & Drink, Photography | April 5th, 2023 1 CommentJames Hoffmann knows something about coffee. He’s authored The World Atlas of Coffee and runs a prolific YouTube channel, where he covers everything from making coffee with the AeroPress and MokaPot, to brewing the perfect espresso and also providing basic coffee making tips & tricks. Pretty bread and butter stuff, if you can use that expression when talking about coffee. But he also covers some subjects at the margins of the coffee world–like how to develop photographs with coffee. Above, Hoffmann introduces you to...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…

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…

in Online Courses, | June 14th, 20173kBack in 2014, how  (IAI) launched  — an online educational platform that features free courses from world-leading scholars “on the ideas that matter.” They have since put online a number of philosophy courses, many striving to address questions that affect our lives today. We’ve listed a number of them below, and added them to our list of . For a complete list of  courses, Note: The courses are all free. However, to take a course you will need to create a user account.If you would like to get Open Culture post’s via...…in Online Courses, | June 14th, 20173kBack in 2014, how  (IAI) launched  — an online educational platform that features free courses from world-leading scholars “on the ideas that matter.” They have since put online a number of philosophy courses, many striving to address questions that affect our lives today. We’ve listed a number of them below, and added them to our list of . For a complete list of  courses, Note: The courses are all free. However, to take a course you will need to create a user account.If you would like to get Open Culture post’s via...WW…

It’s easy to see why kumihimo, the ancient Japanese art of silk braiding, is described as a meditative act. The weaver achieves an intricate design by getting into a rhythmic groove, overlapping hand-dyed silken threads on a circular or rectangle wooden loom, from which up to 50 weighted-wooden bobbins dangle. If the mind wanders too far from the task, the weaver risks screwing up the pattern or the uniformity of the threads’ tension. The word kumihimo translates to “gathering threads” – one mustn’t let them get snarled by a lack of attention. While simple braids of tree bark or plant fiber...…It’s easy to see why kumihimo, the ancient Japanese art of silk braiding, is described as a meditative act. The weaver achieves an intricate design by getting into a rhythmic groove, overlapping hand-dyed silken threads on a circular or rectangle wooden loom, from which up to 50 weighted-wooden bobbins dangle. If the mind wanders too far from the task, the weaver risks screwing up the pattern or the uniformity of the threads’ tension. The word kumihimo translates to “gathering threads” – one mustn’t let them get snarled by a lack of attention. While simple braids of tree bark or plant fiber...WW…

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…

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one trans­la­tion of the Tao Te Ching’s 18th Chap­ter. The sen­tence cap­tures the frus­tra­tion that comes with a lost epiphany. Whether it’s a pro­found real­iza­tion when you just wake up, or moment of clar­i­ty in the show­er, by the time your mind’s gears start turn­ing and you grope for pen and paper, the enlight­en­ment has evap­o­rat­ed, replaced by mud­dle-head­ed, fum­bling “what was that, again?” “Intel­li­gence comes forth. There is great decep­tion.” The sud­den flash­es of insight we have in states of...…Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons “The great Tao fades away.” So begins one trans­la­tion of the Tao Te Ching’s 18th Chap­ter. The sen­tence cap­tures the frus­tra­tion that comes with a lost epiphany. Whether it’s a pro­found real­iza­tion when you just wake up, or moment of clar­i­ty in the show­er, by the time your mind’s gears start turn­ing and you grope for pen and paper, the enlight­en­ment has evap­o­rat­ed, replaced by mud­dle-head­ed, fum­bling “what was that, again?” “Intel­li­gence comes forth. There is great decep­tion.” The sud­den flash­es of insight we have in states of...WW…