By the time the weekend rolls around, I always seem to have dozens of new websites and stories bookmarked. Some I manage to return to and some just get eventually deleted. Any road, here are some of this week’s survivors.
I was surprised to discover that American filmmaker, author, and all-around national treasure John Waters had once worked for the poet Mary Oliver in her Provincetown, Massachusetts bookshop. Here’s a story that excerpts a longer (podcast) conversation with John Waters about how he used to work at Mary Oliver’s bookstore in Provincetown. “They had this bookshop where you were allowed to be mean to the customers. It was really fun.”
“A complete digital edition of William Jardine’s 40-volume series on natural history published 1833–1843, including more than 1,300 restored hand-drawn illustrations of birds, mammals, insects, and fish.” Digitally recreated by Nicholas Rougeux. The descriptions and nomenclature are dated, and in some cases offensive. Some of the illustrations are quirky but still beautifully rendered.
Picture a Tuesday morning in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A young woman laces up her sneakers, grabs a bottle of coconut water, and heads out with no train ticket, no rideshare app, and no real destination. Ten hours and roughly 18 miles later, she crosses the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, phone battery drained, feet sore, and smile still intact. For a woman named Isabella Carr, days like this have become routine.
For Song of the Sky (1954), Guy Murchie collected the names of winds around the world — he calls them “among the least known and most beautiful of words”:
Leste — warm easterly wind of January in the Madeiras
Naalehu — of Hawaii, blowing from the arid interior areas
Soo-oop-wa — bitter sand-laden wind of Southwest Africa
Steppenwind — of Germany blowing from the steppes
Bise — cold wind of France
Southerly burster — of Australia, preceded by an eerie lull
Tramontana — Alpine blast of the Italian east coast
Etesian — of cool summer afternoons in Greece and Levant
Siffanto — up from the hot heel of Italy
Kai — balmy south wind of China
Yamo oroshi — foehn of the steep valleys of Japan
Klod — Balinese wind that blows “downwards to the sea”
Reshabar — lusty and black, out of the high Caucasus
Mistral — down from the Cevennes to the Riviera
Ghost of Gouda — local gust on a calm night, South Africa
Vinds-gnyr — ancient blustery wind of Iceland
Wisper — whistling through narrow Rhine valleys
Imbat — refreshing North African shores
Virazon — cooling Montevideo on summer afternoons
Sz — first faint breeze of the Chinese autumn
Elephanta — of the Malabar coast
“Herodotus tells of the ancient people of Psylli (Tripoli) who became so hysterical when their wells dried up that they actually dclared war on the simoom and marched into the Sahara with clashing cymbals and beating drums until they disappeared forever into a red cloud of whirling sand.”
At 27 Via Veneto sits the Chiesa di Santa Maria Immacolata, or the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Rome is home to more churches than New York City has Starbucks, but this isn’t just any church. It’s a historic church of the Capuchins, a Catholic order established in the 16th century. Its friars are devout in their dedication to living the Gospel. They dress solely in brown tunics and take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Travel Between The Pages 
