The extended silence here was due to a train vacation throughout Europe—and as usual, another international trip meant time to catch up on my stack of periodicals. First up: Historiskan. Topics included:
- The cover story about The Carter Family, the progenitor of country music as we know it today.
- The lesbian girlboss and prolific diarist Anne Lister, who nonetheless remained a fervent Anglican Tory her entire life. The duality of man, or something.
- Qiyan in the Umayyad Caliphate: women musician, composers and entertainers analogous (though not identical) to geisha.
- Continuing on the music theme, the Swedish singer Ulla Billquist. Translating her Swedish Wikipedia page into English looks like a fun project for Future Me.
- Women on board the doomed ship Vasa, including a few remains that were misidentified as men. Coincided neatly with an Australian friend’s visit to the Vasa Museum.
- La Malinche, the enslaved Indigenous interpreter and consort of Hermàn Cortès.
- The Soong sisters, which coincided relatively neatly with my reading of The Dragon’s Village. I’ve been meaning to follow that up with Wild Swans, maybe it’s finally time…
- Tillie “the Terrible Swede” Anderson, a pioneering woman cyclist.
- The Swedish non-profit organization Svalorna, which still operates today in Latin America and Bangladesh.
