Inquiring Minds

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.

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.

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.

Green tea mecca.

For the Japanese, the drinking of green tea, in the proper way, is a Zen experience. Fukujuen Kyoto Flagship Store, a six-storey emporium in Kyoto, Japan, is dedicated to green tea in its many forms.

The cinematic calendar.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: From the next Harry Potter installment to next year’s Oscar hopefuls, it’s all crammed into the holiday season like a big buffet of turkey and fixings. After that, nothing but leftovers.