Category Archives: Morality

November 15

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

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On the 15th of November 1959, Mr. and Mrs. Clutter, their son Kenyon and daughter Nancy, were murdered in their farm house in Holcomb, Kansas. The two men responsible for their deaths, Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, were executed by hanging five and a half years later. The gallows from which they were […]

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November 13

David ‘Carbine’ Williams: From Prison to Hollywood

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There are quite a few stories of criminals, whose exceptional intelligence gets them out of prison. We are talking here about characters such as, for example, Frank Abagnale, whose life story is probably best known from the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can. However, today, on the 114th anniversary of his birth, we recall […]

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October 08

Can and Should Manners be Taught?

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On the 8th of October 1952, American socialite-journalist Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette was first published . Most of us wish to be seen as well-mannered. However, acknowledging the existence of a set of rules which would dictate how to behave has largely become a derided, old-fashioned subject. Things were different in the 1950s. Vanderbilt’s 800-page tome set the standard […]

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October 03

Ginsberg’s Howl Versus American Censorship

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On the 3rd of October 1957 Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl and Other Poems‘ was ruled not obscene. ‘Howl and Other Poems’ by Allen Ginsberg polarised American society of the 1950s. On one side of the barricade placed themselves bohemian writers and poets of the Beat Generation, to whom transgression of social standards and taboos became an axis of […]

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September 29

Breaking Boundaries in TV Drama

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On the 29th of September 2013, the long-awaited final episode of American drama Breaking Bad (2008-2013) was aired to U.S. television audiences. Vince Gilligan’s AMC TV series turned out to be a complex and complicated work of cinematic art. The most striking first impression is the film’s atmospheric intensity. The warm hues of the American southwest landscape with […]

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September 11

Paintings of a Writer: Obscenity in the Art of D. H. Lawrence

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On the 11th of September 1885, English novelist, poet, dramatist, essayist, and critic D. H. Lawrence was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. He was the fourth of five children born to a passionate but uneducated father and a serious, intellectually alive, and religiously devout mother. Her Congregationalist views were most influential on young Lawrence – […]

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August 05

Was The Elephant Man Dr Treves’ ‘Private’ Freak?

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On the 5th of August 1862, John Merrick, commonly known by his stage name ‘The Elephant Man’, was born in Leicester, England. Merrick suffered from a rare condition, which has not been conclusively identified yet. Some doctors believed his condition to be neurofibromatosis type I, others, Proteus syndrome and it caused severe deformities of Merrick’s body. At […]

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