“In its June 26, 1948, issue, The New Yorker published Shirley Jackson’s unsettling story “The Lottery,” and it’s not an overstatement to say that readers freaked out. They wrote letters in droves, angry or unsure about what this slowly unfolding portrait of small-town mob violence was doing in a literary-minded magazine. Now considered an American classic, the story went on to become a classroom mainstay.”  Haven’t read it yet? Here you go.

Archaeologists at the Pompeii ruins have discovered a still-life fresco of a Mediterranean meal that looks ready to eat even after 2,000 or so years. To many viewers, it appears to contain a pizza. But pizzas as we know them today, with tomato and mozzarella, weren’t baked in Italy until the 1800s. Instead, it’s more likely that the fresco  features a focaccia — food that was commonly eaten in the city before it was destroyed in the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The Archaeological Park of Pompeii unveiled the small fresco on June 27. The image was found during recent excavations in Regio IX, a section of the ancient town that contained a mix of residential houses and commercial structures, such as a laundry and a bakery, as well as the skeletal remains of at least three people.

I am a regular follower of the wonderful Japanese arts and culture blog Spoon & Tamago. The site recently featured a story about Yoko Tada who began painting in her 80s. At 100 she’s publishing her first book. There’s hope for late bloomers everywhere.