Five stories that explore cultural and literary references to the tarot.
Aeon
Why Make Art in the Dark?
“New research transports us back to the shadowy firelight of ancient caves, imagining the minds and feelings of the artists.”
Acid Media
“How perforated squares of trippy blotter paper allowed outlaw chemists and wizard-alchemists to dose the world with LSD.”
Ant Geopolitics
“Over the past four centuries quadrillions of ants have created a strange and turbulent global society that shadows our own.”
Sick City
“My dad grew up in Robert Moses’s New York City. His story is a testament to how urban planning shapes countless lives.”
Flat Places
“Whenever I stand in a flat landscape, I feel myself becoming weightless, taken out of my childhood full of painful nothing.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we are showcasing pieces from Shoshana Walter, Stephen Lurie, Guy D. Middleton, Katherine LaGrave, and Chris Colin.
The Horrors of Pompeii
“The name ‘Eutychis’ was etched into a wall 2,000 years ago. Finding out who she was illuminates the dark side of Rome.”
Ingenious Librarians
“A group of 1970s campus librarians foresaw our world of distributed knowledge and research, and designed search tools for it.”