News from Elsewhere

This week Timothy Young dug into an archive of old playing cards, illuminating how discarded cards found new life during a time when paper was considered a precious commodity. The writer Meghan O’Rourke made her Design Observer debut with a piece about luxury fashion’s new muse. Next week, contributor Adam Harrison Levy, normally on the lingerie beat, uncovers an art historical treasure. 

The cover of French Elle‘s weekly edition features an elegant illustration by Soledad Bravi in remembrance of the Charlie Hebdo attacks last week. New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center will screen the American premiere of the documentary Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy, on Friday, January 25, at 7:30pm.

Today is Susan Sontag’s birthday. Here is her Paris Review Art of Fiction interview from 1995.

Is Alain de Botton a Victorian reformer? John Fanning considers the writer’s School of Life in the Dublin Review of Books 

Do you follow the always impressive graphics desk at the New York Times on Twitter? You should. 

Sasha Frere-Jones, who is appearing with his brother Tobias Frere-Jones at our February conference on sound and design, looks back on his years as pop music critic at the New Yorker. 

Speaking of sound and music, the Guardian‘s The Long Read section looked at the challenging return of vinyl and their That’s Me in the Picture column this week is by Spencer Elden. Never heard of him? Me either, but many of us know exactly who he is. 

—Eugenia Bell

Homepage image from a January 6 New York Times graphic that accompanied an article on how non-employed Americans use their time