Grease, Rails, Marble, Focus, Dinosaurs
Your weekly free edition of The Browser. If you'd rather get daily recommendations, and no ads, join now.
The Story Of The Anglo-Yugoslav Café
Natasha Tripney | Vittles | 23rd August 2021
On "Yugonostalgia" and how food can keep a national identity alight long after the nation is gone. There are few Yugoslav restaurants now in the UK, but the food survives through home cooking. "Flaky pastry, hot from the oven, seeping grease through its paper bag, accompanied by a drink of yoghurt and, almost inevitably, a cigarette, remains the ex-Yugoslavian breakfast of choice" (2,295 words)
A New Look At The Hobo
Jason Christian | LA Review Of Books | 20th August 2021
The tramping tradition of the American hobo has all but disappeared from popular culture. In the early 20C, these free spirits had their own unseen society, even their own newspaper, and many stayed in motion on the US's rail freight network. The scene then overlapped anarchism and punk. Even when romanticised, the life is hard: "My hunger was my constant companion," one writes (2,581 words)
Drunk And Disorderly
Alexander Lee | Engelsberg Ideas | 11th August 2021
Can a statue be drunk? Can a statue be "too gay"? Michelangelo's Bacchus may have been both — shocking the Cardinal who commissioned the masterpiece, then rejected it. "The god, who has obviously had one too many, is struggling to keep his balance. As he tries to lift his right foot off the ground, his weight slips clumsily onto the left. His mouth flops open and his eyes flash lasciviously" (1,200 words)
Video: The Art Of The Focus Pull | Philip Jozef Brubaker. Succinct visual essay about an under-appreciated technique in cinema — the sudden and skilful change of focus mid shot that a director can use to direct the viewer's gaze (4m 39s)
Podcast: A New Raptor From Tajikistan | I Know Dino. Enthusiastic conversational podcast about dinosaurs, which keeps listeners abreast with all the latest news in the field of palaeontology (53m 17s)
Interview: Jordan Schneider In Conversation With Baiqu Gonkar. Jordan shares the joy of Chinese landscape painting whilst listening to Anna Karenina, learning to dribble like Devin Booker, and staging Hamilton in Beijing (20m 57s, or read the transcript here).
Afterthought:
"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done"
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow