While millions across North America tuned in to last week’s vice-presidential debate via traditional TV or online streaming, my oldest daughter was in a remote part of northern Ontario and only had access to satellite radio. So she heard the debate, but she didn’t see it. And that’s why I texted her when that fly landed – and stayed and stayed and stayed – on Mike Pence’s hair. She's also a journalist and so we both knew the fly would probably get more attention than the issues discussed between Pence and Kamala Harris. (Saturday Night Live proved our point.) News outlets everywhere made reference to the incident. But no one – and I mean no one – had the same idea as Sally Hickson. She’s an art historian at the University of Guelph and she quickly pitched us a unique story. “Flies have long held symbolic meaning in the history of art,” she wrote. “When a fly becomes famous, it’s worth wondering why.” Her wonderful story explained how flies have “long held symbolic meaning in the history of art.” From Renaissance portraits to surrealist Salvador Dalí, flies have made appearances in art for centuries. Prof. Hickson worked with our Arts Editor Susannah Schmidt to pull the story together quickly and our readers loved it – more than one million views within the first 36 hours of its publication. If you haven’t read it yet, I would encourage you to do so.

For your weekend reading pleasure, I’ve assembled some of my other recent favourite Arts and Culture stories from the global network of The Conversation (including a great piece on the Showtime series about the 19th century abolitionist John Brown, which is my new favourite TV show). Enjoy….and we’ll be back in your Inbox on Monday.