Surviving Summer in NYC with the Essential Ice Cream Bars

Come Summer, New Yorkers risk feeling like humans kebabs when they step out to the sidewalk, and we’ve concluded that the most reasonable remedy is to find an ice cream parlour. Whether it’s a zesty scoop from the Lemon Ice King in Queens, or behind the bougie doors of Serendipity 3, we’d like to rebrand…

A Lost Breed of Parisians

Without them, Paris would’ve stood still. They were immortalised in song by Serge Gainsbourg, and put into poetry by the cheeky Raymond Queneau. But by 1975, Paris’ metro ticket punchers, or poinçonneurs, were a dying breed. Their rise and fall traces the streamlining of the whole métropolitan system, which was inaugurated at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair to a crowd in…

Once Upon a Summer in Black Eden…

Today, the glory days of Idlewild feel a bit like a fever dream. Just ask any of the African American vacationers who made the pilgrimage to the Michigan resort from the 1910s-60s. “It was something that you’d never believe…stranger than fiction,” reflects one woman in Coy Davis Jr.’s documentary, Whatever Happened to Idlewild? In the midst of Jim…

How One Frenchman Became the World’s Most Beloved Lesbian Poet

We thought we’d heard it all when it came to imposters. Clearly, we hadn’t met Pierre Louÿs. The French writer had Europe’s literary scene eating out of the palm of his hand, and was decorated as a Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’honneur in his lifetime, two of his country’s highest honours, that would never have been awarded…

Chateau Miranda is Here to Break Your Heart

Her turrets sprouted mushrooms, and vines ate up her halls once filled with aristocrats, candelabras, and plushy velvet lounges. It was one of Belgium’s grandest castles, but the Chateau Miranda had run out of time —at least according to its guardian, the Count de Liedekerke-Beaufort. In October of last year, he set the 100-room giant ablaze…

Meet Lucy, America’s Oldest Surviving Roadside Attraction

If you build it, they will come. That was the logic behind American real estate magnate James V. Lafferty when he embarked on the most Edwardian PR stunt ever: to build a gigantic elephant. (Apparently it was a thing). The idea was to catch folks’ interest with it, and then lure them inside to show…

He Made the Most Beautiful Films of All Time and They Put Him in Prison For It

It was a pretty epic Round Table, albeit one held in vain. Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Yves-Saint Laurent and other creative power-houses had joined forces with one impossible goal: to save Sergei Parajanov. “In the temple of cinema, there are images, light and reality,” said Godard, “Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple.” Locked up…

The Vault

How America Fell for Maude Fealy

Can you blame them? She’s the kind woman whose nearly 100-year-old snapshots still radiate charisma and mystique from one of the most magical eras in film history. She was a Southern Belle of showbiz stock, and she was just as convincing in the role of an 17th century French diva as she was crossdressing in the…

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Deep in Italy, One Man’s Surrealist Mini-City Sleeps

It’s a labyrinthine citadel more surreal than even the weirdest of Fellini sets. “La Scarzuola” is a modern wannabe-Utopian estate imagined by one man and built amongst the pointy trees of Italy’s Montegabbione in the 1950s. This esoteric wonderland and its elaborate surrealist structures are awaiting your visit… Echoing the dreamlike worlds of Dali and…

Never Again Would There Be a Toga Party Like the Lost 1920s Delphic Festival

Every summer we run into the same problem: too many amazing festivals, too little time. Then we caught wind of the long lost Delphic Festivals, which makes every concert we’ve ever been to pale in comparison to its over-the-top, 1920s interpretation of Greek merrymaking. Think Coachella, but on steroids… The Delphic festival was so lavish…