You should read this for 3/26/2023:
Art, Music, and Film
A speculative theory holds that Maria Vermeer was not only a model for her father but also an artist who created several of the paintings attributed to him. Could it be true?
How these art sleuths reunited a family after centuries apart
Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language
Book thief who stole more than 1,000 manuscripts ‘wanted to cherish them before anyone else’
The former publishing employee who stole manuscripts of books by Margaret Atwood, Sally Rooney and Ian McEwan has said he had a “burning desire” to feel like he was a publishing professional, and had no intention of leaking the books he stole.
Filippo Bernardini pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in New York in January, encompassing the theft of more than 1,000 manuscripts.
Ben Jonson work from 1603 may contain ‘lost’ Shakespeare sonnet, say experts I haven’t read the bppk yet, but in the sonnet there are some echoes of Shakespeare’s hobby-hrse phrases and stylistic habits.
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Food and Drink
Know your onions! The definitive and surprising guide to organising your fridge
Handing down the family secrets – one dish at a time
I was taught to cook by a mix of demonstration and oral instruction. The recipes I learned from my mother and aunts were recited and assumed a certain level of familiarity with the ingredients and methods: quantities were approximated, timings loosely described, such as “until the oil rises to the top”.
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There is a word used across the Indian subcontinent for this: andaaz – loosely translated as estimation. The vagueness is not intended to be difficult; rather, it speaks to the different expectation in what a cooking instruction is supposed to do. In being imprecise and allowing room for variation, it allows a home cook to be able to improvise where needed. Your grandmother would hope you can figure it out even if you’re short an onion and only have green and not red chillies available.
History and Archaeology
Remains of Roman aristocrat[ic woman] unearthed in ‘extraordinary’ cemetery near Leeds
Unusually for an ancient cemetery, the remains found in Garforth belonged to people from the late Roman and the early Saxon eras. The skeleton of the late Roman aristocratic woman was found alongside the remains of 60 men, women and children from the two periods.
My neighbor found Lincoln’s hair in his basement. I found a mystery
Bent nails at Roman burial site form “magical barrier” to keep dead from rising
Archaeologists excavating an early Roman imperial tomb in Turkey have uncovered evidence of unusual funerary practices. Instead of the typical method of being cremated on a funeral pyre and the remains relocated to a final resting place, these burnt remains had been left in place and covered in brick tiles and a layer of lime. Finally, several dozen bent and twisted nails, some with the heads pinched off, had been scattered around the burn site. The archaeologists suggest that this is evidence of magical thinking, specifically an attempt to prevent the deceased from rising from the grave to haunt the living, according to a recent paper published in the journal Antiquity.
Archaeologists Discover Worship of Unknown Gods at Ancient Desert Monument
Mustatils, huge stone monuments concentrated in northern Saudi Arabia, were the site of rituals and early pilgrimages according to new research.
Politics and Society
Pete Buttigieg: One year in, parenting has taught us about vulnerability and gratitude
It was what they call a “surprise” adoption scenario — a mother had given birth that day and wanted to arrange adoption. The agency explained that there were some sensitive circumstances and potential health complications for us to weigh, but also that we would need to quickly decide whether we were prepared to travel to the rural hospital and begin the process. And one more thing to consider: it was twins!
Senior care is crushingly expensive. Boomers aren’t ready.
Beth Roper had already sold her husband Doug’s boat and his pickup truck. Her daughter sends $500 a month or more. But it was nowhere near enough to pay the $5,950-a-month bill at Doug’s assisted-living facility. So last year, Roper, 65, abandoned her own plans to retire.
John Oliver on timeshares: ‘Lying is a key strategy’
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Women’s Work
Mary Beard: ‘Everyone is policing everything, and the left are just as bad as the right’
“The most useful advice I ever received,” she says, “came from a man who was a real toughie. He would say things that you would never get away with now. I had written one of my first academic papers and given it him to read. We met, I remember, to discuss it in that original Pizza Express in Coptic Street near the British Museum. We were probably on our second bottle of wine and he said something about my paper which I’ve never forgotten: ‘It may be right, Mary, but it’s bloody boring.’ I was 24 or 25. I thought about it. Up until that moment I had always believed writing was just about saying what you wanted to say. But after that I realised there was someone else involved: you had to think about the reader.”
Something Wonderful
Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee let his domain registration lapse. This wasvquickly seized upon as an opportunity by creative LGBT+ tech workers.
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From the Unshelved Comic Strip