Author Archives: corvusfugit

1991: Time’s Arrow

Posted on December 31, 2018 by corvusfugit

In Martin Amis’s 1991 novel, Time’s Arrow, time flows backwards. It’s not simply that the events are narrated in reverse order; rather, it’s as if the characters were in a film being show in reverse. Here’s how eating works, for … Continue reading →

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1973: First Strike in Space

Posted on December 30, 2018 by corvusfugit

On December 28, 1973, the crew of Skylab 4 went on strike, shutting off radio communications with NASA ground control to protest their grueling working conditions. The three astronauts—Gerald Carr, William Pogue, and Edward Gibson—left Earth on November 16, 1973, … Continue reading →

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1963: Pastoral

Posted on December 29, 2018 by corvusfugit

Richard Mayhew: Pastoral (c. 1963)

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1975: Fred Hampton’s Door

Posted on December 28, 2018 by corvusfugit

Dana C. Chandler: Fred Hampton’s Door 2 (1975) Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton was drugged and murdered by the Chicago Police in 1969.  Dana Chandler first memorialized the event in 1970 with a small trompe I’oeil painting of a … Continue reading →

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1773: An Extraordinary Animal

Posted on December 20, 2018 by corvusfugit

In his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, James Boswell famously recounts his travels with Samuel Johnson in the highlands and western islands of Scotland. The year was 1773; Johnson was in his mid-sixties. In an 1885 edition of … Continue reading →

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1978: The Far Side of the Moon

Posted on December 4, 2018 by corvusfugit

Desiree E. Stuart-Alexander: Geologic map of the central far side of the Moon (1978) [detail]; full map here. (source)

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1842: Snowstorm

Posted on December 4, 2018 by corvusfugit

J. M. W. Turner: Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (c 1842)

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2018: Gan Ainm

Posted on December 4, 2018 by corvusfugit

Helen O’Toole: Gan Ainm (2016-18); gan ainm is Irish for “without a name,” untitled.

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1903: The Phantom Ship

Posted on December 3, 2018 by corvusfugit

Frank Wilbert Stokes: The Phantom Ship, Atlantic Ocean (ca. 1903)

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1897: C.3.3.

Posted on December 1, 2018 by corvusfugit

When Oscar Wilde’s poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol was published in February, 1898, the author’s name appeared only as “C.3.3.,” which had been the number of Wilde’s tiny room in the prison: block C, landing 3, cell 3. It … Continue reading →

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