The background

 I’ve always enjoyed dressing up – a penchant for it, you might say. I was a drama kid, and before that would dive deep into the family dress-up box, in our case, an old leather suitcase with generations of costumes inside, some requiring abstract thinking to bring a character to life. 

This got me thinking when reflecting on this month’s theme of beauty. When I think of culture, this is not a concept always seen in the traditional sense. I see beauty in costume and set design, beauty in scripts and dialogue, and beauty in written text. Oftentimes the beauty is even represented in the gritty and earthy elements of this world. 

That’s why I’ve taken a left-field approach this month and focused my attention on those experiential elements of the cultural sphere that make what we watch, listen to, and read so much more beautiful. 

I see this in the vast open plains of 19th Century America, the intricacies of our natural world in a thought-provoking read, and in lyrical mastery. 

I hope you enjoy this curation; I know I have.