Ben Shahn’s maypole

Something puzzling me on V-E Day on May 8 last week: no one seems to have noticed that Ben Shahn‘s Liberation is a French maypole scene. I believe from the MOMA@NY blurb that it draws on a Cartier-Bresson image, but if it’s a maypole it must surely be celebrating the end of the war in…

Mexico City’s organ-grinders

On the same day the Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, a small Mexico City pharmaceutical manufacturer offered the distinguished Hungarian Jewish contract bridge player, George Rosenkranz, work synthesising progesterone from inedible yams. He fell in love with the city immediately: I saw the blue sky, the volcano, and heard this music outside my…

Changing schools

I’m just trying to work out what will now happen to the hypothetical French girl whose parents tattoo “Dubya is Love” on her forehead at birth. Will she be able to attend school normally, or will she have to wear the hijab? An interesting interim solution would be to let everyone wear what the hell…