Those were the words of the acclaimed French publication 'L'Illustration' written in a review of the 1850 Salon showing of Gustave Courbet's painting 'The Stone Breakers'. The review would go on to describe the work as being of poor composition, failing to add importance to its subject, and with lighting that was not "appropriate". Other critics would lambast the thickly applied palette knife paint as "careless", they'd describe the subjects as "Brutish, worn, and dirty". Ove

Truth be told, often evil does not succeed through grand gestures. It is not in the marching megalomania or weapons of mass destruction they find their path to victory. It is in the attrition, the erosion of all resistance that clears the road upon which they march and allows these final exclamation points to be added to the end of their opponents life sentence. Taking down a castle wall in one great swing is hard, the attacks location and attackers identity obvious, but unde

Once again I’m rewatching the office. At this point it’s a background playlist in my life, something to put on across those nebulous holiday periods, or the second half of a long haul flight. It has cropped up with varied frequency across the last decade since I first saw it. This is not unique, to me or this show. Yet after all this time there are still jokes I missed, even on the third, fifth, or fifteenth rewatch. There are quotes I’ve misremembered, misattributed, and app