By Noah Charney We tend to think of Valentine’s Day as a “Hallmark holiday:” an excuse to sell flowers, chocolates, and cards depicting cartoon birds, hearts, and teddy bears. To ask someone if they will be your “valentine” has evolved (or perhaps devolved) into a shorthand for a child-like crush’you […]
By Patrick Hunt – In the green Trastevere area of Rome on the Via della Lungara along the Tiber River, the Villa Farnesina is one of the Renaissance jewels of Rome, splendid with art and architecture from its inception between 1506-10. Its name has been associated with the Farnese Family […]
by Patrick Hunt How often do we use idioms as part of common speech, figures of comparison that easily sum up an experience or trial by extension? That many of these seem idioms are devoid of actual context doesn’t deter us from peppering our language with them. Some are particular […]