A 40-Foot Wedding Cake in the English Countryside

By Kin Woo The Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos is known for her ambitious oversize sculptures that frequently elevate everyday objects. Her 2005 Venice Biennale contribution, “A Noiva” (The Bride), was a chandelier made of 14,000 tampons and “Valkyrie Miss Dior,” the imposing, tentacular fabric-wrapped installation that formed the backdrop of Maria Grazia Chiuri’s fall ’23…

Dips for Dinner

There is a food-related bit on the Hulu series “Only Murders in the Building” that I think of often. It begins in the show’s second episode: At an apartment-lobby memorial for a deceased neighbor, the debt-stricken Oliver Putnam, played by the incomparable Martin Short, rushes to a table of free goodies. “You know, this is…

How a Toilet Plunger Improved CPR

In 1988, a 65-year-old man’s heart stopped at home. His wife and son didn’t know CPR, so in desperation they grabbed a toilet plunger to get his heart going until an ambulance showed up. Later, after the man recovered at San Francisco General Hospital, his son gave the doctors there some advice: Put toilet plungers…