Sunday Links

Mazes and Labyrinths: From the ancient water and stone mazes of Egypt (image above) and Crete through the Middle Ages, when nearly 25% of cathedrals had a labyrinth in their grounds, to the then fashion for mazes made from hedges. 

I hope you have as much fun on New Year’s Eve as this rowdy bunch had in 1953.

Quiz: Do You Speak 2024  I scored 2/10. I guess I’m not as hip as I thought I was. (NYT gift link)

The Color of Memory Wonderful photographs from Albert Kahn’s Archives of the Planet. This homage to a changing world contained more than a hundred hours of film and over 72,000 autochromes.

Excerpts from The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Read by Levi Shiach.

How to watch a baby a piece of visual journalism. “The most consistent echo I heard from other parents who used baby tech were the same questions I asked myself when I reached for the monitor at 3am to watch my daughter sleeping. Am I doing this because it’s helpful or because it’s available?” via Things Magazine

“If Jane Austen made a pretty good case that an economic system reliant on inherited wealth is a bad idea because it might pressure your brilliant daughter to marry her idiotic cousin, Agatha Christie added the compelling argument that the idiotic cousin is probably going to murder you next time you invite him to visit for a long weekend.” I have probably said this before but I’ll repeat it: I love Frank Bruni’s column and I think you should too. Here are his favourite sentences of 2024  (NYT gift link)

Carl Sagan’s forebodings 28 years ago.

Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit  In 1979 this story was used to portray the president as weak. Times have changed. Today the president-elect is a demented rapist and a large segment of the population think it’s ok. 

An Art Nouveau Calendar for a Terrible Fucking Year

Frank Hamer, the legendary Texas lawman who bagged Bonnie and Clyde.

A Long Rest “My grandfather shut himself in a room on the first floor of our home 32 years ago, and we couldn’t open the door from the outside. My mother said, ‘Leave him in there,’ and he was left as he was. I think he’s dead.”

We all see ourselves in him: How Scrim went from shy stray to New Orleans’ favorite outlaw.

Some vintage calendar girls as we enter the new year via Memo Of The Air

An interactive explainer on everything about the moon

Gamblers Anonymous meetings are filling up with people hooked on trading and betting. Apps make it as easy as ordering takeout. Read more:WSJ

The Year in Pictures 2024: Far From Ordinary  (NYT gift link)