The Town Square Milan I went daily to the cathedral of Milan, that singular mountain which was torn out of the rocks of Carrara. I saw the church for the first time in the clear moonlight; dazzlingly white stood the upper part of it in the infinitely blue ether. Round about, wherever I looked,
Beauty & the Beast Can Melusine be freed with a kiss? As everyone knows, Princess Fiona in Shrek was cursed to be transformed into an ogre every night, and only at the end of the movie with Shrek's kiss is she freed from the curse, to be her true self. Long before Shrek, there was the Roman de Mélusine
Oz is China There was a Chinese sequel to the Oz books When L. Frank Baum died in 1919, his Oz novels were continued by Ruth Plumly Thompson and illustrated by Baum's illustrator John R. Neill. Their very first collaboration, The Royal Book of Oz (1921) is set in China and there is plenty of imperialist yellow peril thinking going
Immortal Beloved Vermeer's letter writers If there was one painter who captured the agonies of love letters well, it was surely Johannes Vermeer of Delft, in the Netherlands. These 6 paintings are listed in my order of preference and while I admire the use of light from the window and the colors (lapis lazuli blues
The Whore's Revenge Syphilis came from the Americas Casanova appears to have escaped the disfigurements of skin sores on the face and genitals, the "purple flowers" or lesions caused by syphilis (Treponema pallidum). But his memoir is full of lively anecdotes about syphilis and other STI's, some of which he was responsible for spreading,
Oz is China Princess Ozma of Oz is a trans character? Well, yes she is! She first appears in L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), which was Baum's second Oz book and she appears in everything after that. It is well known on social media (Reddit, TikTok, Tumblr, etc.) and the trans community and
A Tale of Two Women Paraguay's own femme fatale Should an Irishwoman who died in 1886 be a national heroine of Paraguay? In 1961, then-Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner declared "Madame Lynch" a national heroine and had her body, which was buried in Paris, exhumed and brought back to Paraguay. Eliza Lynch had gained notoriety as the partner
Alice's Mirrors Do today's dictators need a Court Jester? Yes, they do. Unfortunately, today's dictators don't have a sense of humor and I expect they would have their court jester deported or even shot the moment they told the Truth. The kings and queens of yore who did have court jesters or - the term
Alice's Mirrors Baron Münchausen: patron saint of Conspiracy Theorists Among my right-wing in-laws and social circle, conspiracy theories have always flourished and they are, if anything, intensifying in the Trump era. They push back on the science of global heating and their own carbon emissions, they think the Democrats allowed for "open borders," they see crime and
Voices and Saints The other Joan of Arc, Jeanne Hachette Who knew there were two? Jeanne Hachette (real name Jeanne Laisné) was born more than 20 years after Jeanne d'Arc's death in 1431. She gained fame by inspiring the defenders of her city of Beauvais - especially the women - to resist a attack by the
Alice's Mirrors All religions borrow from each other: the odd case of Serapis Many religious believers refuse to accept that their religion borrows from other religions, or even that it can evolve. For example, Judaism arose from ancient Canaanite religions and has continued to evolve, the ancient Egyptians and Greeks borrowed from all over the place, and Jesus Christ did not arise out
The Judgment of Paris Death isn't all He's cracked up to be Or should I say She? My favorite Death character in literature is Ninon de Lenclos' Noctambule where, if Ninon doesn't cheat Death exactly, she does delay him and deny him her immortal soul. She lived to be 84. Similarly, in movies it's Ingmar Bergman'
Dreaming of the Virgin Mary Can you get pregnant with a beam of light? Yes you can. Genghiz Khan was conceived this way. So was the prophet Zoroaster and maybe Mithra, who was popular with the Roman armies. It was common at the time, of course, to claim the uniqueness of a virgin birth - Alexander, the Ptolemies and the Caesars all did it
The Town Square The Bakery Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. ... With bread all sorrows are less. – a wise philosopher known as Sancho Panza I enjoy cozy, welcoming cafes, with the aroma of brewing coffee, but the aroma in bakeries is even better.
The Town Square Miniature Wonderland Miniature towns, villages and gardens... The appeal, I suppose, is to the kid in all of us. I especially enjoy seeing model trains in action and wondering what on earth I will stumble upon next. Wonder is more important than wander. The inherent problem miniature model towns have is: how
A Tale of Two Women Venezuela's greatest novel, 'Doña Bárbara' If the national foundation myth of México could be said to be Cortés and Malinche, in Venezuela and much of South America it's the story not just of Simón Bolívar and liberation from Spain, but also of Doña Bárbara, Santos Luzardo and Marisela. They are the central characters
The Town Square The Cinema I worked in the film industry for 27 years and now I cannot watch a movie. My favorite movie is a movie I cannot watch. Movies now seem too literal, too linear, too authoritarian in their plot lines. It's not that time is an arrow (plots can still
Alice's Mirrors The Maiden in the Lonely Tower Or should it be the Lonely Maiden in the Tower? The old stories are still good today: I'm reminded of the retreat of rich Americans into enormous white 2-story box houses that all look the same – with walls, cameras, and a view where they can look down on
Angel Incarnate Cherubs are the Fools of Renaissance art Cherubs – or more accurately “putti” - in Renaissance painting and sculpture were, in my view, another variant of The Fool found elsewhere in the theater and literature of the time. They were a way of replacing classical angelic figures with more childlike and humorous characters that people could relate to,
Angel Incarnate Raphael is always third The seemingly endless stream of articles and exhibitions comparing Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael is a bit pretentious, as if the only way we can understand Renaissance art is through a "fight" to decide "Who is the greatest of the Renaissance masters?" (The Guardian). These days, art
Loki's Children Wishing for the Apocalypse The thing about the Apocalypse is: how can we distinguish between projecting our own personal anxieties onto the chaos around us, versus believing what the scientists say? For example, St. John of Patmos clearly was projecting his own personal anxieties when he wrote Revelation around AD 81–96. The dragons,
Homer's Women Homer's Riddle “What we caught, we threw away, what we didn't catch, we kept.” This is Homer's Riddle and I didn't figure it out, but neither did Homer. In the story, Homer is on the Greek island of Ios, and he is sitting on a rock
The Town Square Beijing Better to be a broken piece of jade than an intact piece of pottery. 宁为玉碎，不为瓦全 Is it better to restore once-destroyed ruins to their former glory or leave them as a reminder of what happened? The Chinese proverb above is about integrity: how do we respect the past? Or
Loki's Children Climate Change Protests Echo the Suffragette Protests Why does it seem like climate change protests (Just Stop Oil, Last Generation, Extinction Rebellion) are just yelling into the void? I can think of three reasons: (1) the elites (Davos and tech billionaires, for example) think that it’s too late and too difficult; (2) climate protests almost never
A Tale of Two Women Statues can be very political In early 2025, a statue of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was reinstalled in Plaza de Armas in the center of Lima, Peru, 22 years after it had been banished to a faraway park. The return of the statue (above) enraged indigenous locals who have long regarded Pizarro as a
