In ancient Athens, only the richest people paid taxes on wealth, and they were happy to do it. Twospoonfuls via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Thomas Martin, College of the Holy Cross In ancient Athens, only the very wealthiest people paid direct taxes, and these went to fund the city-state’s most important national expenses – the […]
Public Christmas trees, like Rockefeller Center’s famous tree, didn’t start appearing in the U.S. until the 20th century. Nicholas Hunt/WireImage via Getty Images Troy Bickham, Texas A&M University Why, every Christmas, do so many people endure the mess of dried pine needles, the risk of a fire hazard and impossibly tangled strings of lights? Strapping […]
Andrea Wright, Edge Hill University “Cult” is often indiscriminately applied to film and television. In Cult Movies (1981), film critic Danny Peary argued that it should be reserved for “special films which for one reason or another have been taken to heart by segments of the movie audience, cherished, protected, and most of all, enthusiastically […]
A look at the dark origins of popular nursery rhymes by Noah Lefevre of Polyphonic. [Polyphonic | Via Neatorama] Music essayist Noah Lefevre of Polyphonic looks at the dark origins of popular nursery rhymes and why the subject of so many are so very creepy. LeFevre notes that nursery rhymes, such as “Mary, Mary Quite […]
From Cadbury Flake to jelly babies, Siobhan Thompson shows us the British candies we should all try at least once. For those who want to try some of these, here’s where (below) you can get them online. Please note that Geeks are Sexy might get a small commission from qualifying purchases done through our posts […]
Wow! Just wow! Youtuber “Nineteenth century videos. Back to life.” used an AI to bring Fritz Lang’s classic sci-fi movie Metropolis (1927) into 2022, and the result is mind blowing! It’s hard to believe that the VFXs in this movie are almost a century old! Also, “Mars, the Bringer of War” by Holst is a […]
Talokan is inspired by Mesoamerica, a vast area that encompasses Central America and parts of Mexico. Source: Marvel Studios. Julian C. Chambliss, Michigan State University As someone who teaches and writes about Afrofuturism, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” I’m particularly excited about the introduction of Namor and the hidden […]
Words don’t pop up fully formed… they evolve over thousands of years. What can we learn about our relationship to monsters by tracking the word down into the distant past? [Storied]
I just love British people, and one of my dreams is to fly over the Atlantic pond and travel through all of Britain for a few months. If I ever decide to make the move, meaning when my kids are old enough so I can safely leave home for a while, I’ll make sure to […]
Many ages ago, Liam Butler‘s father wrote a letter to Christopher Tolkien, asking him if it would be possible to release a new edition of The Hobbit entirely written in Erebor Dwarven runes. Unsurprisingly, he never got a reply. I’m sure Christopher Tolkien had better things to do than to translate a full book into […]