Autumn Grasses in Moonlight (detail), by Shibata Zeshin, nineteenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harry G.C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, gift of Harry G.C. Packard, and purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer bequest, and the Annenberg Fund Inc. gift, 1975.
• “I write frequently about the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, not to make predictions or analogies but to show how a previous generation of Americans grappled with their own set of questions about the scope and reach of our Constitution, our government, and our democracy.” (New York Times)
• Hiring a walking streetlamp. (JSTOR Daily)
• Consider the peanut. (NewYorker.com)
• Charles Darwin and plants: “I should like to try a few experiments on your tendrils; I wonder what would be good & easy plant to raise in pot.” (The Public Domain Review)
• On historical witch scents. (Atlas Obscura)
• Found: a Roman-era column base. (The Jerusalem Post)
• Also found: “2,700-year-old rock carvings featuring war scenes and trees from the Assyrian empire.” (The Guardian)
• This week in obituaries: Mike Davis, Peter Schjeldahl, Jules Bass, Leslie Jordan, Ian Whittaker, Lady Blood, Ngo Vinh Long, Beryl Benacerraf, Lucy Simon, Dietrich Mateschitz, Ian Hamilton, Mary McCaslin, Pierre Soulages, Joanna Simon, Ash Carter, Jody Miller, John Jay Osborn Jr., Ahmed Alshaiba, Pablo Eisenberg, Lenny Lipton, Billy Al Bengston, and Vanilla Beane.