The Cliffside Town of Tropea

Tropea is a seaside resort located in the region of Calabria, in the south of Italy. The town is perched on top of an imposing cliff, in the gulf of St. Euphemia which is connected with the mainland by a narrow strip in the Tyrrhenian Sea. This stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea is called the Costa degli Dei – the “Coast of the Gods”, and is one of Italy’s finest summer holiday destinations. With dramatic cliffs overlooking a crystal clear blue sea and sunny beaches, Tropea is a famous bathing place. Although it is not particularly well-known to English-speaking travellers, Tropea is popular with Italians.

The town is a puzzling maze of pretty little lanes and piazzas. The cobbled streets are lined with old buildings made from golden stone and at various points, flights of stairs descend down to the beaches below. 

- Amusing Planet

The Year in How Things Seem

What were we obsessed with, invested in and plagued by in 2018? Hazlitt’s writers reflect on the issues, big and small.

Things are not what they seem is a common leitmotif of film; the eeriness of a suburban family against the backdrop of pristine Americanism. In Blue Velvet, a young, cherub-faced Kyle MacLachlan finds a severed human ear in the gladed green grass. In American Beauty, an idyllic family life thinly veils a marriage falling apart, betrayal, greed and Lolita-esque seduction. In Ordinary People, a family in mourning tries to remain stoic in the face of sadness. The darkness of mundanity is just beneath the quaint surface, stewing, bubbling, wanting and waiting to erupt. I’ve always related to the facade of togetherness.

- Hazlitt

Impressionism As Street Photography: George Hendrik Breitner’s Streets of Amsterdam

In the 1890s Dutch impressionist painter George Hendrik Breitner (12 September 1857 – 5 June 1923) took his camera onto the streets of Amsterdam. Could the camera record changes in light and motion, capturing the essence of any subject and not only the details? And could an avant-garde Dutchman on a cloudy Dutch day translate a quintessential French movement into photographs?

- Flashbak

Diary of a Tomb Raider

Can you imagine being among the first to study an ancient site? How you would feel brushing your fingers against those ancient monoliths, untouched for thousands of years, hidden in the thick of the jungle. You would think the days for such an adventure are long gone; that there’s nothing left to discover nowadays– but you’d be wrong. Throughout the region of southern Mesoamerica, the number of un-investigated or unknown ancient Mayan sites are so numerous (one study has documented over 4,400) that no complete archaeological list of ruins has ever been made to this day.

- Messy Nessy Chic

26 Abandoned Discos

“Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't” ― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

Eric Tabuchi lives and works in Paris. He photographs buildings in France that are now abandoned ruins. Once the authentic venues of their age, these buildings will one day vanish. As a set, Eric’s photographs form a map of France’s vernacular and diverse architecture – we’ll be looking at his images of abandoned petrol stations and follies after these photos of former discotheques. The names of these discos spirit you away – La Tour de Londres, Le Spinx, Memphis, Palm Beach and, of course, Paradise. So ‘let’s all have a disco’, as the England football fans sang at World Cup Italia 1990. It’s where the beautiful people go to see and be seen:

- Flashbak

“Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”: The Superb Paintings Of David FeBland

David FeBland was born in London, UK and has received degrees from The University of Virginia, USA and The University of Manchester, UK. A self-taught artist, FeBland pursued careers in Landscape Architecture and Communication Design as well as hosting jazz radio programs before turning his attention to painting in the mid-1980’s. Since 1984, he has bicycled through 55 countries around the world, often using his observations as inspiration for his painting.

- Design you Trust

The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology

It’s a question that’s reverberated through the ages – are humans, though imperfect, essentially kind, sensible, good-natured creatures? Or are we, deep down, wired to be bad, blinkered, idle, vain, vengeful and selfish? There are no easy answers, and there’s clearly a lot of variation between individuals, but here we shine some evidence-based light on the matter through 10 dispiriting findings that reveal the darker and less impressive aspects of human nature: 

- Aeon

Porn Made Me Feel Pretty

I can’t remember how I came across it — I don’t even think it was in the context of anything particularly sexy — but one day, while browsing for something or other on the internet I came across a pornographic Tumblr page focused on mature natural women. Pornographic may even be a stretch. It was just photos of women with no clothes on. They didn’t appear to be in any uncomfortable or undesired situations or positions. There were no salacious or disrespectful captions or comments, only comments on their inherent sexiness.

- Medium

Being a Single Mother Made Me Embrace the Sex Drive I Thought Was Dead

Newly single moms can be horny as hell. I can testify.

As a single mom, after two kids and an almost ten-year relationship, I've taken to connecting with other women in a similar walk of life. I talk frequently to single mothers about everything from separation agreements and the process of divorce, to the complicated (and yet, seemingly necessary) world of online dating. There’s a lot to divulge, from the few-and-far-between good dates, to the total disasters that stem from dating profile red flags (read: abs-only shots or ten pictures of a dog and none of a human). In local online groups—where I met many of these women—screenshots are frequently shared. Warning: narcissist, raging alcoholic, MARRIED!! But one of the most constant (and fun) topics of our conversations revolves around the glory that is post-separation sex.

- Tonic

GRANT MORRISON'S HAPPY! ON NETFLIX IS THE ANTI SUPER-HERO SHOW

Morrison is known for his meta-fiction and the frequent breaks from reality that his works take, dipping heavily into surrealism even for superhero comic books. With that in mind, the premise of Happy! starts to make a lot more sense. The show – an adaptation of a miniseries by Morrison, it spans eight episodes of 43 minutes each – is about a former policeman who works as a hitman, who comes across a flying cartoon unicorn that only he can see, and the unicorn tries to get him to rescue a little girl who has been kidnapped by Santa Claus.

- Global Express News

These Men’s Fashion Ads From The 1970s That Will Leave You Speechless

The 1970s must have taken place on a different planet. These photos of men’s fashions from that decade leave us drowning in astounding mustard knits, garish patterns, high waists, way-too-skimpy briefs, and other fashion faux pas that defy description 40 years later.

- Design you Trust

The Last Curious Man - The enormous life of Anthony Bourdain

Chris Bourdain is searching for a word that he cannot quite find. We're sitting together in a small café in Grand Central Terminal, drinking table wine and talking about his late older brother, Anthony. Chris has a habit of looking away as he's talking to you, one of many physical traits he shares with Tony. And right now he is thinking, with Bourdainian intensity, for a way to sum up his brother succinctly, and for a very specific reason.

"The death certificate that was printed in France," he tells me, "listed as his profession 'chef.' And I tried for months to figure out, what is the appropriate way to describe what Tony has been doing for the last seven or eight years? There's no description for it."

- GQ