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Marcus Aurelius, Uncensored
How the words of the philosopher king were twisted. The artless parody of higher education that passes for today’s university system seems perpetually engaged in the censorship of new ideas and important conversations. On extreme occasions, the redactor’s black marker extends to the classics themselves—such as when the classics faculty at Oxford University sought to
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Making Books Better
I’m not just a luddite saving a soon-to-be lost craft, writes Alex Simon of Century Press. I’m also striving to imagine a new future for what book production should look like.
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Just Like Dad Used To Do
Twenty-three centuries ago, Plutarch wrote “it is not the places that grace men, but men the places.” Place matters – deeply. People matter more.
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Irish Born and Bread
Photo by Jim Lukach
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Just a Minute: a micro-interview with Kara Patrowicz
The Massachusetts fiber artist and Fulbright recipient explains how non-artists can still appreciate aesthetics. Just a minute. That’s all it takes to read each installment of Beck & Stone’s new micro-interviews with some of the world’s leading authors, inventors, visual and musical artists, gurus, and civic leaders.Kara, what are some practical ways that non-artists can
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Guerrilla Health: Part II
You are what you eat; keep it purposeful and wholesome. Back in CREATED: Issue 16, we discussed how to break free from the food pyramid and take back control of your health. It’s admittedly a difficult battle for the average person to begin this journey when the government, media, and so-called “experts” are trying to push
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The Frontier Under Your Nose
A Tennesseean finds adventure on the streets of his hometown, Nashville. While I might fantasize about prospecting for rare earth minerals in Africa with an AK-47 slung over my shoulder in the blazing Saharan heat or some other extreme adventure, I also have come to the realization that such a fantasy doesn’t suit me or
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Europe’s Once and Future Luxury Car
Luxury cars are more than the sum of their parts. My love for fine vintage cars started when I was young. Growing up around them, I suppose that was inevitable. We had all kinds over the years, from the behemoth 1964 Pontiac Tempest to the adrenaline-pumping 1987 Trans-Am, and the MG Midget (true to its
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Death of a Mad Man
The decline of the advertising industry is almost complete, but hope for creativity and innovation rests off of Madison Avenue and in the budding chaos of competition among the little guys. One of my all-time favorite shows is Mad Men. Partly, this is because my career motivations from a young age have been focused on the
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Canada, Mirror of Nationalists?
Photo by Randy Tarampi, Art by Andrew Beck
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Animal Magnetism
Everyone has seen the birdbath statue of St. Francis with a bowl of water. But perhaps what your garden really needs is a Saint Jerome lolling with lions in the strawberry patch, or a Saint Seraphim with his bear companion. The ranks of the blessed seem filled with a long lineage of beastmasters—not of the
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American Beer for the American
At the time, I was conversational in French—a language that rusts quickly, but in my grad school days was scoured and polished for ready congress with the natives. Or so I thought. The denizens of France and Belgium (but perhaps I repeat myself?) were not amused by the grating poseur who dared set foot on
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The Age of Either-Or
Photo by Patrick Tomasso
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Ride The Line
Jacket: check. Gloves: check. Helmet: check. Key. Kill switch. Ignition. A 300-pound amalgam of metal, rubber, plastic, and petrol comes to life. The frenetic syncopated rhythm of its single-cylinder heart thumps in time with my own. I am ecstatic. I am terrified. The city is just coming alive. Golden sun rays peek through the skyscrapers.
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A European’s American Flag
Massimo Vignelli’s flag is on my wall because he is more than a mentor—to me, he is the conduit to the impossible America I want to love. It’s impossible, as a European, to not be fascinated by the American flag. I currently have one in my living room. It’s a special one. Each time someone
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Just a Minute: A Micro-Interview with Frederica Mathewes-Green
Artist, public speaker, and bestselling author on religion and culture Frederica Mathewes-Green gives a new way to think about deeper questions. Just a minute. That’s all it takes to read each installment of Beck & Stone’s new micro-interviews with some of the world’s leading authors, inventors, visual and musical artists, gurus, and civic leaders. Frederica,
