Rants & Raves – 09 March

Rants & Raves is where I share links to stuff that caught my attention online during the previous week. Today’s collection is all Raves because the bad news these days is never fun-bad news, it’s only ever bad-bad news—and I’m just gonna go ahead and assume you can find terrible news yourself.

Let’s read some interesting stuff!

I’ve read several historical novels so far this year—and I’m in the fifth week of my Literature of the English Country House class—so I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about corsets. These photos of Victorian women scaling icy terrain and rock faces in long skirts, corsets, and heeled boots blew my mind.

You know how sometimes it feels like you’re just swimming upstream, struggling in your striving to make your mark on the world? My friend Bethany Butzer—remarkably kind, thoughtful, intelligent… and my neighbor here in Prague—has something to say about that! In her TEDx talk “Stop trying so hard. Achieve more by doing less.” she outlines concrete steps you can take to increase your ease and progress on the things that will bring you true satisfaction and happiness.

The New York Times has added a really lovely feature to its obituaries section: “Since 1851, obituaries in The New York Times have been dominated by white men. With Overlooked, we’re adding the stories of 15 remarkable women… Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre; Emily Warren Roebling oversaw construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband fell ill; Madhubala transfixed Bollywood; Ida B. Wells campaigned against lynching. Yet all of their deaths went unremarked in our pages, until now.” I, of course, thoroughly enjoyed their obit for Charlotte Brontë.

Ah, these dresses from French designer Sylvie Facon. So fantastical and beautiful! The one on the left is made of book spines. BOOK SPINES! I can’t even…

This video brought me so much joy! Turn up the volume and enjoy this Ratt-Marvin Gaye mashup. Brilliant.

My online literature class is taking a look at gothic fiction this week, and I’m reading the Anne Radcliffe novel The Mysteries of Udolpho. It’s fun and weird and SO dramatic— and free on Project Gutenberg. Maybe you want to join me in a spooky castle?