Nigel Bruce

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

Dreaming of the Virgin Mary

Guanyin and the Virgin Mary

Guanyin holds a particular fascination in the West as an Asian Virgin Mary. Like Mary, she is a goddess of mercy and compassion (and also fertility and vegetarianism among other things). Originally, in India, Guanyin was a “male” bodhisattva (named Avalokiteśvara), who became a Buddha, then stepped down to stay

Alice's Mirrors

Do Places of Execution have Ghosts?

Today, it is hard to imagine any ghosts hanging around Tyburn, but for centuries, this spot by Marble Arch is where London executed more than 50,000 people. These were public executions. The last man to be hanged there was a highwayman, in 1783. But, all you can see today

Kama Sutra

Some Like It Hot: spicy foods and sex

Is spicy food an aphrodisiac? According to gossip columns, eating spicy foods releases endorphins and dopamine, boosts antivirals and antioxidants and testosterone in men and leads to more sex. Health pages tout hot sauces and chili, garlic and onions and ginger, oysters, olives and olive oil, bananas, carrots….. to balance