Martin Blythe
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twomileshigh.bsky.social
Martin Blythe
@twomileshigh.bsky.social
160 followers 170 following 130 posts
Art, literature, mythology, sexuality, science, religion... "We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
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twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/thresholds-c...
Thresholds, crossroads and gateways
I have always been fascinated by train stations and I travel by train whenever I can. The best stations capture that sense of "in between" that we can get - well, I do - from waiting rooms, antechambe...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
November 10, 2025 at 3:26 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/the-drowned-...
The drowned city of Kitezh
Russia is rich in folktales, but one of my favorites is about a city that disappeared under a small lake when threatened with an attack by Batu Khan and the Golden Horde (the Mongols). There are many ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
November 3, 2025 at 10:54 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/the-most-bea...
The most beautiful gay man ever?
Are there lots of candidates? A giant head known as Antinous Mondragone was unearthed back in the early 18th century, in an old ruined Roman city near today's Frascati, south of Rome. His giant head -...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
October 27, 2025 at 3:33 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/diane-de-poi...
Diane de Poitiers and drinkable gold
As gold prices surge to historic highs, perhaps investors might consider drinking some of it to make themselves better looking? Both the U.S. and the E.U. have long authorized gold as a food additive ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
October 20, 2025 at 6:22 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/vulva-imager...
Vulva imagery and the Virgin
A secret seemingly known only to Reddit (the Sexuality subreddit), Instagram and Queer religious scholars is that sexual meaning can be found in, gasp, of all places, the iconography of the Virgin Mar...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
October 13, 2025 at 2:34 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/gretchen-is-...
Gretchen is the hero of Goethe's 'Faust'
In Germany these days there is a debate about whether schools should stop teaching classics like Goethe's Faust. After all, "in Berlin for example, 55% of all children and teenagers have familial root...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
October 6, 2025 at 2:48 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/roman-monste...
Roman Monster found dead in the Tiber River
This is really a story about money and riches, but more on that in a minute. Even today it reads like a tabloid headline but, in January 1496, after the Tiber River flooded the city of Rome, a rumor ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
September 29, 2025 at 2:50 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/beautiful-wo...
Beautiful women who brought down China's empires
Well, they didn't really. In Chinese mythology, the "Four Beauties" were beautiful women who were said to have brought about the downfall of empires, but it was mostly wishful thinking dreamed up by people in the early 19th century. That said, these women were important figures at the Chinese imperial
two-miles-high.ghost.io
September 22, 2025 at 5:31 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/can-we-find-...
Can we find lesbian scenes in famous paintings before 1850?
Well, yes we can. By looking before 1850 I can exclude Gustave Courbet, Gerda Gottlieb Wegener, Toulouse-Lautrec (above), Simeon Solomon and many others where it's obvious. But, also, we can't assume ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
September 15, 2025 at 1:19 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/beauty-and-t...
Can 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Song of the South' be updated for today?
When Disney classic animated films are updated as live action movies, they generally make a token effort to shake up old ways of thinking, in order to meet contemporary audiences where they are, even including confronting White Nationalism. This is something all corporations have to do. The most recent Snow
two-miles-high.ghost.io
September 8, 2025 at 6:36 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/venetian-cer...
Venetian ceruse and toxic Whiteness
What was the most toxic cosmetic ever used? Lead would be the favorite. Lead White carbonate was used in cosmetics because it could be caked on easily. It also was used by painters of frescoes, manusc...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
September 1, 2025 at 2:53 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/milan/
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 ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
August 25, 2025 at 5:17 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/can-melusine...
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. L...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
August 18, 2025 at 2:35 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/there-was-a-...
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) i...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
August 11, 2025 at 3:19 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/vermeers-let...
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 ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
August 4, 2025 at 3:37 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/syphilis-cam...
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 a...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 28, 2025 at 4:20 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/princess-ozm...
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 (Red...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 21, 2025 at 3:00 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/rumi/
Rumi
The best-selling poet in America today, many say, is… er, a Muslim.  Not Whitman or Dickinson or Frost, but Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet and theologian, who lived most of his life in Konya, now C...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 18, 2025 at 3:40 AM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/paraguays-ow...
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 bu...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 14, 2025 at 4:15 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/teplice-cast...
Castle Square, Teplice, Czech Republic
Beethoven knew it as Teplitz, at a time when the majority population spoke German - above. It was a popular spa town for artists, writers and the aristocracy and Beethoven met Goethe here in 1812 and ...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 10, 2025 at 5:51 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/holy-grail-a...
The Holy Grail as Sexual Quest
Strip away the clothes and what you find at the heart of the Holy Grail myths is sex and sexual passion. The virgin knight errant must first climb the holy mountain, cross the perilous bridge to the c...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/pessimist/
Pessimist
To find out if you are a pessimist, start here (Putin's Kiss) or here (Pictures at an Exhibition) or here (The Poisoning of Litvinenko). YOU ARE A PESSIMIST You are not an optimist, or a cynic, or a...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 8, 2025 at 5:29 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/do-todays-di...
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...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 7, 2025 at 2:40 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/aimee-semple...
The Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson
It is curious to think that in 1926, only 7 months before Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days, the famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared in Los Angeles for 35 days. It was widely re...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 6, 2025 at 7:31 PM
twomileshigh.bsky.social
two-miles-high.ghost.io/leonardo-and...
Leonardo and The Deluge
In Leonardo's later drawings (around 1515-1517) there are fascinating images like the one below that show the Deluge sweeping down upon a town. I wouldn't be the first to say they foreshadow modern Ab...
two-miles-high.ghost.io
July 5, 2025 at 8:59 PM