The Quiet Before The Storm
We’ll tell you all of our secrets but lie about our past. Today it’s Venison leftovers on tap for lunch and a sloggy day ahead. Other than that, all is quiet on the Dark Sky front. At least for now. There’s always action up ahead. But this is a perfect time to peruse the Web for quality reading. We start with Michael Kranish’s lively new take on Thomas Jefferson, and then belly crawl to Rebeccas Skloot’s important review of the life and times of Henrietta Lacks. Does that make you hungry? It makes us hungry — segue — Spiked has the history of food in, well, all of human history. We know you all want to go on The Daily Show, so prepare with Ethan Watters. Finally, we spend a relaxing moment with Bauhaus. All’s quiet now, people. But what’s that, on the horizon? – Andrew Geer
– Here’s a Jefferson story few have heard. On June 29, 1826, he is on his deathbed, and he knows it. The son of the late Henry Lee, a political enemy, comes knocking at Monticello because he’s publishing an edition of his father’s memoirs, and wants to be fair to Jefferson, whom Lee had attacked for his record as Virginia’s wartime governor in 1780-81. — Thomas Jefferson in The Boston Globe
– The best book blurb I’m aware of came from Roy Blount Jr., who said about Pete Dexter’s 1988 novel, “Paris Trout”: “I put it down once to wipe off the sweat.” I’m not sure I know what that means. Was the sweat on Mr. Blount’s forehead? On the dust jacket? On the inside of his fogged-up reading glasses? But I like it. — Henrietta Lacks in The Times
Yum!
– Tom Standage’s book, An Edible History of Humanity, opens with a quote from the philosopher Karl Popper: ‘There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life.’ That is the outlook that has spawned a growth industry in quirky history books that take one, often trivial, element of our existence and look at how it has shaped, and been shaped by, society. — An Edible History in Spiked
– Don’t expect any warm up. Jon Stewart comes into the green room before the show and chats with you for about 3 minutes. The conversation in my case focused exclusively on the contents of my Daily Show gift bag.* — The Daily Show in The Rumpus
– Bauhaus is back. With the 90-year anniversary of the founding of the famed German school of art and craft and design — the school that calls to mind sharp corners and flat roofs, glass and steel and exposed materials, simple furniture and bold painting — have come the exhibitions, retrospectives, and commemorations. Among these is a book by the art historian and writer Nicholas Fox Weber that seeks to illuminate new aspects of the Bauhaus through new descriptions of its major players. — Bauhaus in the Hoover Institute Policy Review
Video: The Bauhaus Art Movement
