Before Playboy, Came “La Vie Parisienne”

A pair of clandestine, gender-bending lovers are about to embrace at la brasserie. A fashionable young woman in a barely-there dress is partying the night away in the cabarets of Paris without a care (or a man) in the world to ruin her fun. A curious eye would be intrigued by the risqué illustrations of…

India’s Overlooked Concrete City of Oz

When you think of Indian cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur, you might think of the impossibly intricate architecture, ancient folklore, explosions of colour and unstoppable energy; a welcome deluge of the senses. But there is one place that is not like the others. In the north of India, on the foothills of the Himalayan…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXVIII)

1. This statue hanging in the cellar of an abandoned castle in Italy Found & photographed by urban explorer Romeo Battini. No further information available on the location (trust me, I’ve looked). 2. Roscigno Vecchia, the Italian ghost town with only one inhabitant, Giuseppe Spagnuolo Roscigno has an old town (vecchia) and a new town.…

A Guide to Beirut’s Small Shops & Hidden Gems

It seems as if all we’ve seen of beautiful Beirut lately are images of devastation. Not so long ago, it wasn’t hard to convince people to take a glamorous vacation in Lebanon. It was a playground for movie stars like Brigitte Bardot, Omar Sharif and Peter O’Toole. The Beirut harbour was host to the Queen…

How to Do Fall Cottagecore in Paris

In the mood for something cozy and pastoral for fall in Paris? Something “cottagecore” – internet slang for all that is effervescently au natural. Think gingham tablecloths, and cottages on rolling fields with cuddly donkeys. Think quaint bee houses in the Luxembourg Gardens, or a stroll through Paris’ accidental gingerbread house street. Fun fact: 31%…

Movie Nights are the New Cocktail Parties: Here’s 50 Films to Gather Around

Even if lockdown and social distancing rules have been loosened where you live, you may still feel that there’s just something not quite right about throwing a house party in the times of Covid. This is probably not a good time to invite judgement from your neighbours, nor potentially invite suspect germs into your home…

Remembering NYC’s ‘Secret’ 82 Drag Club

Bedazzled drag queens, mobsters, and Errol Flynn playing a piano with his errr … manhood? It was just another Saturday night at NYC’s “82 Club,” c. 1955. Tucked inside a nondescript door at 82 East 4th Street in Manhattan, “82” declared itself the “gayest rendez-vous”on the town in every sense of the word, falling somewhere…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXVII)

1. There’s a pyramid hidden in the Scottish Highlands Hidden away in woodland on the Balmoral Estate in Royal Deeside is an incredible pyramid structure which rises above the trees… Erected by Queen Victoria, it was created in memory of her husband Prince Albert after his death in 1861, aged just 42… A plaque on…

America’s Lost Towns of Black Affluence

Going into this, I don’t think I was prepared at all for how un-unique the story of Florida’s Sugar Hill neighbourhood really was. In the 1950s and 60s, the once upper class and prestigious Black community of Sugar Hill in Jacksonville, was chosen by city officials to be levelled to make way for a multi-lane…

Let’s House Hunt for that All-American Utopian Commune. Just in Case.

We do love a good plunge into worlds apart – filled with utopian goat herding, secret society conspiracies and hippies living off-grid on the fringes of society. Of course, the line between commune and cult is famously slippery and plagued with crackpot messiah tendencies. The more modern and optimistic term for the idea of a…