The geography of hate is a litany of tragedy and place names like Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda. But hate has no borders, as recent events in the U.S. reminded us. Photographer Lynn Johnson spent five years documenting the wreckage of hate’s corrosive force in America. Her project, Hate Kills, evolved from a master’s thesis and has been exhibited in…
Meet Robert Kincaid. Plays guitar. Smokes Camels. Stuffs a knapsack full of equipment in his pick-up truck, and takes off for Iowa to shoot the covered bridges of Madison County for National Geographic. Falls deeply in love with Francesca Johnson, a farmer’s wife. But it’s not happily ever-after—at least not for Kincaid and Johnson. They…
Meet Robert Kincaid. Plays guitar. Smokes Camels. Stuffs a knapsack full of equipment in his pick-up truck, and takes off for Iowa to shoot the covered bridges of Madison County for National Geographic. Falls deeply in love with Francesca Johnson, a farmer’s wife. But it’s not happily ever-after—at least not for Kincaid and Johnson. They…
“Oftentimes the world of women cartographers seems to be hidden, much like the so-called dark side of the moon,” says Will C. Van Den Hoonaard in Map Worlds: A History of Women in Cartography, newly published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. As it turns, a woman—the Russian-born cartographer Kira Shingareva—was one of the first mapmakers…
“Traditionally whatever is worn on the head, whether or not it grows there naturally, is a sign of the mind beneath it,” writes Alison Lurie in The Language of Clothes. What then is going on in the mind beneath the Dudley Do-Right camel-colored hat worn by singer Pharrell Williams at last night’s Grammy Awards? And…
“Traditionally whatever is worn on the head, whether or not it grows there naturally, is a sign of the mind beneath it,” writes Alison Lurie in The Language of Clothes. What then is going on in the mind beneath the Dudley Do-Right camel-colored hat worn by singer Pharrell Williams at last night’s Grammy Awards? And…
Literature is full of quests. Jason hunted for the golden fleece. Dorothy followed the yellow brick road to find her way home to Kansas. Christopher Kemp, you might say, went looking for a piece of whale poop, which in its most refined state is the worth-its-weight-in-gold substance known as ambergris. The material is used as…
Literature is full of quests. Jason hunted for the golden fleece. Dorothy followed the yellow brick road to find her way home to Kansas. Christopher Kemp, you might say, went looking for a piece of whale poop, which in its most refined state is the worth-its-weight-in-gold substance known as ambergris. The material is used as…
Selfie: A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website. The Lord of Words, aka, the Oxford English Dictionary, has anointed “selfie” the word of the year for 2013. The term sprinted past other short-list entries like twerk (a sexually provocative…
If you remember the ‘60s, you weren’t there, the mantra of that weed-filled decade goes. For those who missed it—for pharmaceutical reasons or otherwise—the Museum of Fine Arts Boston opens its Hippie Chic Show on July 16. It will run until November 11, 2013. Editor at Large Cathy Newman spoke to Lauren Whitley, MFA curator…
He didn’t speak, he growled in a low-level rumble like the sound of distant thunder or the scrape of boots over gravel. For many, his was the voice of God itself, a standing reinforced by the needlepoint panel that hung above his office door. “Wipe your knees before entering,” it said. Despite the prie-dieu, a…
Dino-fanatic author Brian Switek grew up in New Jersey, dreaming of Jurassic celebrities like Stegosaurus and Brontosaurus (now known as Apatosaurus). An imaginary pet Brontosaurus figured in carefully crafted crayon portraits of his family. He discusses his passion in the new book My Beloved Brontosaurus. Switek, who writes the Laelaps blog for National Geographic online,…
Who knew that a weed can smell the difference between a tomato plant and wheat, a tobacco plant can sense color, and a Venus flytrap can distinguish between the splash of a raindrop and a fly? Like so much in nature, it’s a matter of survival. Daniel Chamovitz, author of What A Plant Knows: A…
There is no notation in the archives of National Geographic to indicate why Luis Marden happened to be at the dedication of Wright Hill, a memorial honoring the Wright Brothers in Dayton, Ohio, but one can guess. Marden, a legendary photographer and writer who worked for the magazine from 1934 to 1976, loved airplanes. He…
It is in the nature of human hubris to assume Man Knows Better than Nature. Which is why, perhaps, when it comes to trout, things are a downright mess. Thanks to the British, as the Empire expanded beyond the sunset, so did trout. In 1864, they were introduced to Tasmania, India in 1889 and South…