OF A GOLDEN AGE

Oh man, I’m riveted by This New Yorker post on the century-old remains of an Azerbaijani magazine called Molla Nasreddin. The one I like best is slide 9, which depicts side-by-side images of a modern, thriving city on the left and a population of winged, flying people on the other:

The captions for the left and right pages, respectively, are “According to the book, the world of the devil,” and “According to the book, the world of believers.” “With the bicycles, cars, bridges and buildings, the world of the devil is modern and developed,” the editors write. “The world of believers is full of ethereal illusions and idleness.”

Is it weird that a magazine from a hundred years ago from a Russian-colonized state made better, more pointed, more germane statements about religious fanaticism and literalism than people today are able to make? In the U.S. and abroad, death threats hit the mailbox over much, much less.

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