Froissart Kneeling Before Gaston Phébus, Count of Foix, by Master of the Soane Josephus, c. 1475. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.
• “That Time It Took 133 Votes to Elect a Speaker of the House.” (Slate)
• The history of El Cholo in Los Angeles: “It has food that is familiar and comfortable and accessible. Much of its menu is that Americanized Mexican fare that we think of. But that doesn’t make it any less special.” (New York Times)
• Looking at the houses in medieval illuminated manuscripts. (Medievalists.net)
• Sifting through the forty thousand menus stored at the New York Public Library. (TASTE)
• On the Osage orange. (Texas Monthly)
• “An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago.” (Associated Press)
• On Colette’s Chéri: “ ‘You look like a badly frosted cake!’ she says to her pink and white and blue-tinged husband. ‘A cake that looks unwell.’ ” (London Review of Books)
• “For many Americans, Lincoln’s death was the first time they’d ever seen an embalmed body. The idea took off among the public, and the train tour proved to be a key turning point for burial practices in the United States.” (Grid)
• Recent obituaries: Pelé, Barbara Walters, Arata Isozaki, Vivienne Westwood, Fay Weldon, Charlene Mitchell, Marilyn Stafford, Cara De Silva, Anita Pointer, Xi Xi, Oscar White Muscarella, Jeremiah Green, Nélida Piñon, King Phojanakong, Fred White, Dorothy Iannone, Maxi Jazz, Ali Ahmed Aslam, Thom Bell, Joyce Meskis, Gangsta Boo, Walt Cunningham, Black Stalin, Maya Widmaier-Picasso, Henry Grossman, Kathy Whitworth, Ian Tyson, Bridgette Wimberly, Greg Bear, Tshala Muana, James “Buster” Corley, and Pope Benedict XVI.