Herrings and Cyberarms

Van Gogh’s Satirical Herrings

Martin Bailey | Art Newspaper | 3rd December 2021 | U

Biographical vignette from December 1888, when Van Gogh mutilated his own ear at the home he shared with Paul Gauguin in Arles, the Yellow House. The gendarmes who attended the incident unwittingly inspired Van Gogh's next still life, Two Herrings, and a pair of Gauguin caricatures. The French for smoked herring, hareng saur, is also a slang term for police officers (1,108 words)


📚: This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends, by Nicole Perlroth

via FiveBooks | Best Business Books 2021

A thriller-paced offering from the New York Times' cybersecurity reporter to wake the world up to the dangers of the cyberarms race, in particular the booming global market in ‘zero day’ exploits or critical vulnerabilities. The book is intended to terrify, and the author herself is no exception: “One too many times I caught myself staring suspiciously at anything with a plug, worried it was a Chinese spy” (528 pages)


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