Whale catches runaway train.
The Curious in Ecstasy or Shoelaces, by Louis François Charon, 1815. Satire of English fascination with South African–born Saartjie Baartman, who was exhibited under the name Hottentot Venus. The British Museum, London.
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Miscellany
In July 1947, a U.S. Army spokesman in Roswell, New Mexico, issued a press release to announce that the military had found a “flying disc” that had landed at a ranch near an air base. “It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field,” according to the army, “and subsequently loaned to higher headquarters.” There were no further public statements about the matter.
France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.
—Mark Twain, 1879Lapham’s
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Roundtable
In the Beginning, There Were Taxes
On the historical inevitability of paying the government. More
The World in Time
Nathaniel Rich
Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade. More