• On medieval hair and cleanliness: “There is a popular misconception that medieval people rarely washed or cared for their bodies as we do, but there is abundant visual and textual evidence to the contrary. The emperor Charlemagne was known to have loved taking steam baths with his family, friends, and bodyguards, while the so-called Bad King John reportedly took more baths than any other English king before him.” (The New York Review of Books)

• Bai Juyi contemplates baldness: “My scalp has advanced ahead of its years!” (Medievalists.net)

• Revisiting the work of E. Nesbit. (NewYorker.com)

• The poem jars of David Drake. (New York Times)

• The writing of Satyajit Ray. (Mubi Notebook)

• Reframing the 1976 film Chess of the Wind. (Current)

• Listen to Lizzo play James Madison’s crystal flute. (Washington Post)

• Mining art for life. (Astra)

• “It was funny to see how much nostalgia existed for this version of the Gramercy Park Hotel, which has existed for less than twenty years.” (Curbed)

• This week in obituaries: Hilary Mantel, Coolio, Joyce Reynolds, Louise Fletcher, Valerie Maynard, Sonia Handelman Meyer, Marcello Magni, Meredith Tax, Irwin Glusker, Joe Bussard, Ramsey Lewis, David Foreman, Bill Plante, Pharoah Sanders, Rita Gardner, Ray Edenton, Sue Mingus, Jim Florio, Roxanne Lowit, Hilaree Nelson, Maarten Schmidt, Newton Harrison, Nancy Hiller, and Aicha Ech-Channa.