Only a few weeks ago, the young actress Lili Reinhart—also an advocate for mental health—launched her own skincare line, Personal Day. The brand is specifically formulated for sensitive, acne‑prone skin. Her products are empathetic by design: vegan, cruelty‑free, and consciously gentle.

He likes what he sees. He thinks of the fabulous day ahead, but before stepping out he grows serious. At his level, you don’t have too many friends. Oliver is an Austrian jewelry designer—and that detail matters. When you step outside here, you tread on two millennia of cultural wealth. Under the Habsburgs, in the 18th century, this city counted citizens like Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven. In the 19th, Strauss II. In the 20th, Gustav Klimt. Enough to drive anyone mad. And for the mad: Sigmund Freud.

I don’t know what some creatives have rattling around in their heads. AGL—Attilio Giusti Leombrini—is an Italian luxury brand. They make shoes and handbags, all handcrafted. They’ve been doing it since 1958. They’re as old as the Cuban Revolution. Which also has a shoe stuck on its head. AGL blends old‑school leatherwork with contemporary design. The company is now run by three sisters. Third generation. Probably with an iron fist. Sara, Vera, and Marianna—the kind of women nobody dares to contradict, nobody dares to hold eye contact with

When I was a kid, I was dead sure that anything coming from the so‑called first world—cold fronts first and foremost—had to be good and pretty. Those Nácar soaps, which were anything but nacreous, were handed out along with sugar and oil without wrappers, just as the God of Central Planning had brought them into the world. That filthy little pleasure of tearing off a wrapper was denied to us until they started bringing them in from the Socialist Bloc—cold as well, but not first world.

There are advertisements seemingly conceived to strike at our deepest longings while at the same time mocking the sentinels of political correctness. Some are more daring than others, like this one, which promotes a steakhouse and cocktail bar. At first glance, it appears thoroughly elegant: against a black background advance a cocktail (a Love Potion 209, perhaps, or an Aviation), some frosted‑magenta blooms, and a rather brazen copy of the Venus de Milo. The composition invites the promise of refined sensory experiences.

In the early years of the eighties, while I was slogging through junior high, two ravishing Hungarians crossed my path. Katalina Soós shot past at such speed that I could only glimpse her contours through a pocket telescope. The other, Szonja Török, struck me with the same force with which the Tunguska meteorite flattened the remote Siberian taiga. Hungarians were something else entirely. You could tell by their avant‑garde hairstyles, by the freedom and self‑assurance with which they moved.

It is always a good moment to remember our ancestors. The close ones, naturally, because no matter how hard I try I cannot summon the memory of my grandparents, nor the great‑grands, nor the elders before them… I never met them. My three grandmothers—one of them a great‑aunt—were always impeccably behaved, devoutly Catholic, endowed with a natural elegance unembellished by refinements. Perhaps because of the times and the kind of life they were groomed for, they developed an exceptional talent for keeping their domestic skirmishes invisible.

Here we see a Victorian couple upon a tandem bicycle. These nineteenth‑century contraptions were designed for two or more riders. Both were expected to pedal in unison, though the one seated at the front—promptly styled the “captain”—was entrusted not only with steering the machine but also with directing household finances and, by extension, what was eaten, when sleep was taken, and at what hour the day was to begin. The rider behind—known as the stoker—supplied power to the pedals. In other words, the one who truly set the contraption in motion, despite its ostensible purpose of shared effort.

A couple of days ago, while browsing the digital edition of the Financial Times, I read that on November 16th a dinosaur is going up for auction. The event will take place at the Château de Dampierre-en-Yvelines, in the Île‑de‑France region, between four and six in the afternoon—right in the middle of afternoon tea. Curiously, its value is estimated between four and six million dollars.

Each year, around October 12, debates resurface across Latin America over the day’s legitimacy. In Spain it is both National Day and Día de la Hispanidad; in countries such as Mexico and Argentina it is marked as Día de la Raza, often with a focus that rejects Spanish roots and exalts Indigenous heritage. In the United States it is Columbus Day. Criticism of the evangelization of the Americas grew after World War II, when newly independent former colonies began to rewrite their histories.

Today, October 15, marks the International Day of Rural Women. Those who devote attention to this often vulnerable group should also consider the images chosen to speak for them. In our time, a message rarely gains traction unless it comes with a winsome figure, a touch of naiveté, something informal and easy to like, or a striking black‑and‑white photograph—or, at best, a graceful image in color. Without such devices, few will look twice.

I have the impression that most people who used to read regularly and are now in their fifties or sixties once had a symbolic affair with Ernest Hemingway. In 1980s Cuba, profitability was never a serious consideration. Publishing houses flooded the streets with thousands of volumes sold for next to nothing—often cheaper than a plain cheese pizza. Even so, the books gathered dust in the shops. Among them, Hemingway’s complete works could be found without effort.