Culture

what the decline of small bookstores means for local culture and how to support them realistically

I still remember the first time I ducked into a tiny bookshop on a rainy afternoon — the bell over the door, the smell of paper and tea, a cat stretched across a stack of travel guides. It felt...

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what vintage postcards teach us about disappearing everyday aesthetics

I keep a small stack of postcards in a shoebox on a high shelf — edges softened by years of handling, corners rounded by fingers that once folded them into envelopes or stuck them to fridges....

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how to spot cultural appropriation without shutting down conversation

I remember the first time I felt uneasily split between wanting to notice something and wanting to keep a conversation alive. It was at a market in Lisbon where a stall sold "tribal" jewelry beside a...

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how to read a museum plaque so you actually learn something meaningful

Walking through a museum, it's tempting to treat the objects as scenery: beautiful things behind glass, a backdrop for selfies, or tokens in a checklist of must-sees. Plaques — those little cards...

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