The phrase “here there be dragons,” so famously seen on old maps indicating places where there were great and mysterious dangers to be found, was not so very long ago not simply a metaphor. In fact, no less an authority on natural philosophy (what would later become known as natural history) than Linnaeus himself included […]
Well, it ain’t necessarily so Well, it ain’t necessarily so Dey tells all you chillun De debble’s a villun, But it ain’t necessarily so! So sang the character Sportin’ Life in George Gershwin’s award-winning 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. Sportin’ Life was, of course, in his own playful and opportunistic way seeking to disrupt the […]