A century ago, physics breakthroughs came in rapid sequence. There was quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theories of space and time, lots of new particles, two new nuclear forces, and eventually the standard model of particle physics. This progress and its technological applications commanded respect, if not outright fear.
WE ALL KNOW the iconic opening scene of the 1963 film Charade: Audrey Hepburn looking devastatingly chic in a chocolate brown Givenchy coat and oversized sunglasses, sipping coffee on a sunny terrace in the French ski resort of Megève.
Cultural upheavals can be a riddle in real time. Trends that might seem obvious in hindsight are poorly understood in the present or not fathomed at all. We live in turbulent times now, at the tail end of a pandemic that killed millions and, for a period, reordered existence as we knew it. It marked, perhaps more than any other crisis in modern times, a new era, the world of the 2010s wrenched away for good.
BETELGEUSE, the red supergiant star in the shoulder of the constellation Orion, will disappear from the sky briefly tonight, at 8:17 p.m. EST in what scientists are calling a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. An asteroid called 319 Leona will pass in front of Betelgeuse and block its light for a few seconds as a shadow falls across Earth’s surface.
Time is not to be trusted. This should come as news to no one. Yet recent times have left people feeling betrayed that the reliable metronome laying down the beat of their lives has, in a word, gone bonkers. Time sulked and slipped away, or slogged to a stop, rushing ahead or hanging back unaccountably; it no longer came in tidy lumps clearly clustered in well-defined categories: past, present, future.
ON SATURDAY we were out celebrating something special and about 10 to 15 minutes into searching for new vinyl at the record shop, I reached into my coat pocket to reply to my sister’s text and realised that my brand new phone wasn’t there. I had left it on an outside table the tapas bar where we’d just had patatas bravas and we were a ways off by now. I found P happily browsing in the electronic section and told him what had happened. His first words were, It’s gone.
Balmoral Castle, in the Scottish Highlands, was Queen Elizabeth’s preferred resort among her several castles and palaces, and in the opening pages of “Spare” (Random House), the much anticipated, luridly leaked, and compellingly artful autobiography of Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, its environs are intimately described.
THIS WEEKEND we watched Aftersun, the 2022 drama written and directed by Charlotte Wells, starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio and Celia Rowlson-Hall. We talked about it for quite a while after it was over, analysing what it could mean, discussing our own interpretations, processing the feeling of sadness it left in us afterward. It's about memory⏤more specifically, our memories of those we love after they are gone, the people we remember them as, sometimes as opposed to how they really were.
HAD FORGOTTEN to mention that a couple of weeks ago, we saw the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was a bit crazy, a little hard to follow at times, manic and funny and perhaps worth it if only for the wildly romantic line, "...I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you." 
IF YOU'RE wondering how we came across the work of Gregory Mellor, it is through the Bobbejaanskloof Private Nature Reserve in South Africa that we featured here last week. The Cape Town-based designer was behind that wonderfully decorated travel resort and you may see similarities to this home in the Karoo, a semi-desert natural region of South Africa ...
For as long as I can remember, one of the most common compliments I've received is not, surprisingly, about my style, but about my hair. Over the years I have invested a lot of time and care into it and all I can say is that today my hair is healthy and I have managed to find a healthy routine for it ...