In the coastal city of Ravenna, which was, for a short time, the capital of the Ostrogothic successor kingdom to the Roman Empire, there is a tomb to King Theodoric. Aesthetically, the tomb is almost entirely Gothic, except in construction, as the Roman technique of placing large unmortared stone blocks together for the walls was used. One should not mistake this tomb’s rather simple design as indicative of a weak king: the dome itself is a two-hundred-ton slab of rock, shipp

Postliberal film does not exist. No director has set out to make a postliberal film. Just as no Soviet director set out to make dissident Soviet cinema. Soviet cinema became dissident in retrospect because the Soviet Union collapsed. If our Master and Margarita is The Camp of the Saints, our Hard to Be a God is Christmas with the Kranks.

"Beauty of the American landscape: that the immeasurable size of the entire land is inscribed, as expression, even in the smallest of its segments.'

How do I get you to pay attention to this story? Tragically, if you are reading this, you have likely heard of this story before. I can...

My favorite local restaurant does something that I hate. On each table in their otherwise beautiful restaurant, in a small and delicate plastic blue tealight, there is an electric plastic candle. You know the kind. Perhaps you came across them because you were shopping in a Halloween store with your parents, looking for a good way to keep your jack o’ lantern lit. Or maybe you worked at a restaurant and had the job of lighting the candles, turning the button on each one, and