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A Very Fine Romance Redux
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A newer version of my other blog A Very Fine Romance that was hacked & deleted. This version continues with my usual eclectic mix of topics.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'history'
Three Historical Cross Dressers: Part 3, Marina the Monk
This final installment will deal with a young woman who was the total opposite of the other female cross dressers that I have written about who were both "Amazons" and in the case of Catalina de Erauso sometimes exhibited unsavory conduct. ...
Three Historical Cross Dressers: Part 2, Catalina de Erauso
When I first contemplated doing this series I had planned to write about Amandine Aurora Lucile Dupin better known as George Sand, but I later decided to focus on one of my recent discoveries, a cross dresser who was not particularly savory or admira...
Three Historical Cross Dressers: Part 1, Nadezhda Durova
This is the first in a three part series about three women who defied the conventions of their times to wear male attire. Their decision to don men’s clothing had perhaps nothing to do with their own sexuality from a gay prospective. To them, wear...
My Favorite Historical Authors
I am a history addict. I fell in love with history while growing up. I loved to play around with the Britannica Junior and Collier’s encyclopedias in our house. When I wanted to escape from the stresses and disappointments of my young life, my drug...
Afro-Turks
A few years ago while teaching in a language school in Istanbul, Turkey I had a student named Omer in my beginners English class. He was tall, lanky, handsome, and dark. He closely resembled Adolfo Quinones (below) who was in the 1980s movie Breakin...
Al-Hussain: My Blogger Friend and the Nephew of Saddam Hussein
Last year I started a blog about the late leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. This post is not going to deal with his policies or his personality. Plenty of apocryphal stories have circulated about the man over the years. For close to 15 years he was und...
In My End is My Beginning: Mary, Queen of Scots
Mary Stuart or Mary I (1542-1587) is one of the great Romantic and tragic figures of history. She is known to history lovers as Mary, Queen of Scots. She became queen of Scotland when she was only a few days following the death of her father, James ...
Great Historical Posts
No, I am not suffering from insomnia even though if you check the time of this post it might seem like it. It is after 3 AM here in Izmit. I do not have to go into work tomorrow until 5 PM, so I am up. I was so impressed by some posts by two blogger...
Until We Hopefully Meet Again, Fare Thee Well
Nearly a month ago I was offered a teaching position in Izmit, Turkey which is an industrial city about 40 minutes outside of Istanbul. Since that time I have been receiving calls, sometimes twice a day, from the head teacher of the school during thi...
Lovers of the Ages: Heloise and Abelard
Beware of tutors and their pupils baring great intellectual gifts.Heloise (1101-1164) and Peter (Pierre) Abelard (1079-1142) were two of the greatest thinkers of their day who were student and tutor, lovers and soul mates. Their love story is one of ...
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
This was the fall of the Roman Empire. A great civilization is not conquered from without until it destroys itself from within.How and why do empires fall? Samuel Bronston’s 1964 epic drama The Fall of the Roman Empire tries to answer the question....
Dr. King’s Legacy from 45 Years Back
Last night was Barack Obama’s triumph and the possibility of this nation moving closer to its’ long held back promise of equality for all. Forty-five years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream Speech.” I listened to...
Jean Cocteau’s Masterpiece: Beauty and the Beast
I decided not to do a long WRITTEN post this week. It will be a long VISUAL post instead containing a feature length film by the French filmmaker, poet, playwright, novelist, designer, and boxing manager, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). Jean Cocteau was on...
The Princess and Idi Amin
I was wondering what had become of Princess Elizabeth of Toro or as she apparently calls herself now, Elizabeth Bagaaya. After returning from the Peace Corps in Botswana, Africa in the early 1990s I happened upon her autobiography entitled Elizabeth...
My Stumbles and Other Treasures, Part I
I decided to begin a randomly scheduled saga of some of my discoveries on StumbleUpon.com. I will also include items shared with me and my own findings on the web which I think are worthy of sharing with my readers.Thank God for the smorgasbord the i...
Reviving Artistic Romance and Excellence
I have long felt that art should be beautiful even before I read the mission statement of Art Renewal International. When I found the statement and the site months ago, I was very excited that there are there still more than ten people out there who ...
Byzantine Princess and Scholar Extraordinaire: Anna Comnena
A few years ago I bought a young adult novel called Anna of Byzantium which was written by Tracey Barrett. Its’ cover art is above. When I was a graduate student I took a class called The Young Adult Novel. Due to that course I learned how interest...
Sergei Bodrov's Mongol
Russian movie poster for the movie MongolNo! I flat refuse to write about The Dark Knight even though I have an intuition that it is probably quite good despite all the brouhaha about it in the media. Being the eccentric, eclectic individual I am, th...
