The greatest library of its age, that of Alexandria, burned intermittently over several centuries. Thousands of scrolls vanished, and with them much of antiquity’s science, philosophy, and literature. The intellectual inheritance of the ancient world was reduced to ash. We cannot rule out deliberate intent in some of those episodes. Long before, a vast portion of Phoenician-Punic art had disappeared in the wars we know as the Punic Wars. Nothing remained of Carthage, a cultural and artistic power of its time.
Not long ago I came across a Facebook post claiming that “sometimes… destroying art is art.” It offered three examples that, to my mind, have little to do with one another. Let’s take them one by one.
On the morning of November 15, 2022, two activists from Letzte Generation (Last Generation Austria) threw a black, oily liquid over Gustav Klimt’s Tod und Leben, on view at Vienna’s Leopold Museum...
A few weeks ago, a post appeared on my Facebook feed from the Beagle Freedom Project, celebrating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Snoopy — perhaps the most universal of all beagles. Since 2010, the Beagle Freedom Project (BFP) has been rescuing, rehabilitating, and rehoming animals once used in research laboratories. The initiative was born of people who, for some reason, paid special attention to this breed — probably for its docility and its good-natured temperament.
Avi Schiffmann was born in Washington State on October 26, 2002. That same month saw the release of Ghost Ship, a gothic supernatural thriller that, through its pale and diluted horror, moralizes about the sin of greed. A salvage crew discovers the ocean liner Antonia Graza, lost for forty years, drifting in the Bering Sea; on board, they find gold bars and the remnants of a massacre. They soon realize the ship is cursed: a demon has set a trap to harvest as many souls as possible, using the treasure as bait.
In these times, corporate philanthropy moves with caution. At least in the United States, it seems to be entering a period of adjustment. Federal scrutiny over diversity, equity, and inclusion policies has altered donation strategies. It is not something that keeps me awake at night. It leaves, rather, a curious sensation—like noticing, in a moment of distraction, that a cloud has drifted over the sun while a cold breeze lifts one corner of the notebook.
Helene has been regarded as the deadliest inland hurricane in modern U.S. history. It was impossible to foresee the magnitude of the disaster as it moved toward eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It was there, in the latter, that the greatest number of deaths occurred—over a hundred. Material damage is incalculable. Recovery has been slow, fueling political debates. Yet even if it had been swift and efficient, the loss of human lives is irreparable. Like everything that has borne, let us say, a proper name.
If there is something that substantially differentiates the socioliberal left from today’s woke left, it is the politics of cancellation. And if there is a figure that embodies that debate in the world of cinema, it is the German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, author of two highly celebrated documentaries, pioneering in many ways, which she made on commission from Adolf Hitler. It is not the first time nor will it be the last time that we talk about the way of judging the relationship between art and politics
When the prospect of some impending misfortune crosses our mind, we knock on wood. When someone whispers another’s calamity, we knock again. In truth, we spend the day rapping at it. Often it isn’t even real wood. And if such a gesture could truly ward off the avoidable, every carpenter would be the luckiest man alive. Both Joseph and his son Jesus might have been. On one hand, seen through today’s eyes, their deeds would rack up staggering numbers of views, likes, and followers—Jesus the most influential influencer in history...
Giorgio Armani died on September 4, 2025, at the age of ninety-one, as confirmed by the Armani Group. He passed peacefully at his home in Milan, surrounded by loved ones, and remained actively bound to his work until his final days, pouring his energy into collections and projects still in motion.
