On July 13, 1833, during a visit to the Cabinet of Natural History at the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, Ralph Waldo Emerson had an epiphany. Peering at the museum’s specimens—butterflies, hunks of amber and marble, carved seashells—he felt overwhelmed by the interconnectedness of nature, and humankind’s place within it.
A touchscreen hanging in the middle of the exhibition highlighted all the questions for everyone to see. Would you have a chip implanted in your brain to make you smarter? Would you leave your elderly mother or baby in a robot’s care? Should that robot have rights? Would you allow supposedly impartial artificial intelligence (AI) software to judge your legal case? Would you transfer your consciousness to the cloud in order to live forever?
Within minutes of my decision to hand my life over to AI, ChatGPT suggested that, if able, I should go outside and play with my dog instead of work. I had asked the chatbot to make the choice for me, and it had said that I should prioritize “valuable experiences” that contribute to my “overall well-being.”
What is “creative nonfiction,” exactly? Isn’t the term an oxymoron? Creative writers—playwrights, poets, novelists—are people who make stuff up. Which means that the basic definition of “nonfiction writer” is a writer who doesn’t make stuff up, or is not supposed to make stuff up. If nonfiction writers are “creative” in the sense that poets and novelists are creative, if what they write is partly make-believe, are they still writing nonfiction?
THERE IS A LINE from a Bruce Springsteen song that goes: “I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face“⏤and while I don’t want to change my face, I do like to change my clothes (often), and my hair (sometimes⏤in fact, just last week). A friend once asked me if I changed my décor tastes to match where I happen to be living at the time (she was visiting us in Spain), and I realise that yes, yes I guess I do.
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.
In January 2021, 18 months after a sticky divorce, I bought a house. I bought it partly because I could – my ex-wife and I had got lucky on the property ladder and walked away with enough money for a deposit each. But also, I bought it because I was desperate. With shared custody of our two-year-old daughter, I needed a place where she could be happy and where I could get back on my feet.
WHEN DESIGNING your kitchen, you might not necessarily think about artwork first, but if you did, you would be surprised how well it works in this space. Many people opt for food-inspired themes such as fruit (lemons, apples) or Still Lifes, but Landscapes, Watercolours, and even Figurative drawings also work. We've rounded up a few of our favourite ways to display art in the kitchen, whether leaning on countertops or picture rails, hanging on subway tile and marble backsplashes, exposed brick and boiserie...
THIS INSTALMENT OF 10 IMAGES features the charming meanderings of Rachel Cooney, a second-hand shop enthusiast and the Creative Content Manager @daylesfordfarm, who is also in the process of renovating her first home. In fact, it was the image of her kitchen, below, that first caught our eye, with its tile backsplash and leaning artwork, island counter, antique jugs and wicker. Rachel's feed also features old cars in London streets and vintage finds in second shops, quiet corners of her ongoing renovation and more...
WHEN I WAS little, I would tell anyone who would listen that the my favourite colours were pink and purple. My little sister (who was always by my side) would chime in that she liked blue and black. Being unabashedly girly, I never favoured those colours and wore a steady wardrobe of preppy pink for as long as I could. Fast forward to the future and black would be a firm wardrobe staple, but blue, well I never ever really took to it⏤that is perhaps until now?
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST recently featured the country home of Leslie Fremar, and the A-frame living room with its dramatic stone fireplace and cosy country kitchen were the things that first caught our eye. Fremar, a fashion stylist who counts Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore, and Jennifer Connelly as clients, decided to take on the decor of the 18th-century Katonah, New York farmhouse herself.
THIS INSTALMENT OF 10 IMAGES features the work of Julie Ann Marr, a Vancouver-based food afficionado who runs Kitchen Culinaire, offering cooking classes, wine tastings, culinary tours and private dinner parties. In 1997 Marr graduated from the professional culinary program at the Dubrulle Culinary Institute in Vancouver, after which she worked in restaurants around the city for a few years before coming to the realisation that she wasn't a good fit for the demanding life of a restaurant cook ...
BRIE AND PEARS at a picnic by the seaside at sunset; wicker lamps and wicker bags and sun umbrellas flapping in the breeze; Lisbon kitchens and wide-legged pants; summer sweaters with city shorts and trolleys full of lemons... These are the things of far-flung places but also of summertime, our very favourite time.