Inquiring Minds

Party ring.

Paris had the triumphal Champs Élysées and London the stately, tree-lined Mall. But in mid-19th-century Vienna—seat of the historic Habsburg monarchy—there was only a faded tangle of old-town streets circled by military towers. And for Emperor Franz Joseph I, that wasn’t good enough.

The shape of things to come.

When they met 13 years ago outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, the downtown hub of skateboarding, D Calen Knauf and Conrad Brown found they had similar tastes in both tricks and terrain. Today, the two Vancouver natives, both 31, are lauded for resourceful, minimal, thought-provoking, and handsome work.

Requiem for the double-double.

It wasn’t the service. Or the ambience. And let’s be honest with ourselves—it wasn’t the coffee or the doughnuts either. No, it was a feeling that turned Tim Hortons into our national coffee shop. Call­­ it a sense of humble comfort: a small-town, aw-shucks goodness its customers liked to see in themselves.

Or: There's no such thing as a bad nude.

The first thing I noticed was the breasts. They were hard to miss. True, this was a Picasso—something from the Rose Period, wherein breasts still plainly resembled, well, breasts—but I was only eight years old and my appreciation of high art was somewhat lacking.

Strings attached.

There was only ever one place that could be the setting for a museum devoted to the violin: Cremona, Italy.

The Internet's shady sites.

Ross William Ulbricht is in jail. And if the FBI has its way, he’ll be there for quite some time. The charges: drug trafficking, money laundering, computer hacking, and ordering a hit on a resident of White Rock, B.C., who had piqued his ire.

The scent of memories.

Is there any smell better than the fragrance of a brand new car? It is seductive, on par with the most fragrant rose or the sweetest ice wine; it is the exhilarating aroma of a new beginning.