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Armchair Opera

Quote of the Week

Isobel Waller-Bridge

The musician talks about scoring the film Emma; her sister, Phoebe; and what kind of sounds suit a hot priest

Smut and Vinegar

One company’s mission to restore vintage pornography and rare genre films gives new meaning to the word “artisan”

Read Any Good TV Lately?

Even when shows are in English, more and more viewers choose to watch with captioning. So, what’s the story?

My Father, the S.S. Officer

Earthly Delights

Consider the fragility of your natural habitat with songs from Marvin Gaye, R.E.M., Childish Gambino, and others

A Bug’s Life

The author of Contagion delivers an open letter from a tiny invader who goes by the name Coronavirus

The Signal and the Noise

The author of a new book on concentration finds her own focus shattered under quarantine

Murder, They Wrote

Girlhood

Essential Reading

On running a bookstore in lockdown

The Woman in the Window

The American photographer Ruth Orkin did her best work without ever leaving the house

A Cake and a Waltz

Sacha Floch Poliakoff

Looking Ahead: A Post-Crisis Novel

Going Green

No, not that kind of green! A week in the life of an envious (and totally inadequate) social distancer*

Superhero Worship

The Picture of Doris Duke

Sonic Tonics

Lose (or find) yourself in tracks from Aphex Twin, John Coltrane, an Environments album, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and more

A Vlog to Remember

Anne Frank’s diary is retold as a YouTube video about a teenager in hiding from the Nazis

The Leonardo Whisperer

Four decades spent studying Italian Renaissance art taught Carmen Bambach as much about navigating a field still dominated by men as it did about Leonardo da Vinci

The Oracle of Austin

Identity Crisis

While the younger of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s two sons struck out on his own, the older struggled to break free from his father’s shadow