From German generals to quantum thinking, how old power games and new festivals reveal the absurdity of living by yesterday’s labels. “So, what do you do for a living?”It’s the kind of question that says more about the asker than the asked, polite little probe for status, intelligence, and, ultimately, whether you’re worth their time….
Category: phaedrasfables.com
“1st May Day Musings on Masses and Manipulators”
Hoisting and Being Hoisted As mentioned in an earlier column, I once hoisted my neighbour from the curb—he looked as though he’d just gone twelve rounds with the garbage league. Yesterday, it was my turn. I was crossing the street, minding my own business, when a chorus of “oooohhhh” from across signalled that something had…
Blackout in Spain; A Field Report from the Flickering Edge
12:17 I was poised to publish a column on Estonia’s oldest freedom postal, a tiny, stubborn survivor of history that’s outlasted the attention span of even the savviest marketers. (I wasn’t surprised; I’ve been the unofficial ambassador for overlooked relics for years.) Then, as if on cue, my screen blinks: “No internet. Check your router.”…
Feasts, Flags, and Fictions
“Rather Turkish Than Papist” Of Orange Crowds, Thanksgiving Birds, and the Art of National Mythmaking and bullshit artist. When I was a child, every April 30th, the Netherlands would dissolve into a sea of orange. Queen’s Koninginnedag was more than a holiday; it was a national permission slip for exuberance. Streets became rivers of laughter,…
“Maps, Mothers, and the Modern Malaise”
Today’s world is a curious, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic theatre. Armed with technology that can summon the sum of human knowledge, teenagers still ask for directions to a football stadium, unable to use the Google Maps app in their hands. In the same breath, their peers bicker over the difference between a province and a…
Portraits, Paint, and the Perils of Being a Muse (and Sometimes a Witch)
How Old Magic Rekindles New Inspiration There are people who live one life in one place with one story. I am not one of those people. I have lived many lives—sometimes all in the same afternoon—and if there’s a thread running through them, it’s that I seem to leave a trail of art in my…
The Muse Manifesto
by Irena Phaedra, Professional Muse (and Occasional Witch) & vice versa Preamble: On the Perils and Pleasures of Being a Muse Let it be known: I did not apply for this position. There was no interview, no onboarding, no health insurance. One day, I was simply living—reading, laughing, perhaps stirring my coffee with a bit…
“Grifters, Griffins & Phoenix”
second part “And as the world scrolls and swipes through curated perfection, I wonder if there’s still a place for stories that carry the scent of ashes and the laughter of rebirth. Maybe that’s the real adventure now; showing up, unfiltered, in a world of filters.“ So my story doesn’t end there. It simply moults,…
“Honour Among Thieves & The False Morality of Legitimised Crime”
As a teenager, I was swept into a world that most people only glimpse in the margins of late-night news or the footnotes of family gossip. My grandmother’s new husband had a son—let’s call him the youngest black sheep—who seemed to have been born with a surplus of vision and a deficit of supervision at…
Column Addendum: Of Ants, Flies, and the Futility of Human Grandeur(A Sardonic Interlude)
“Profound Pests and Philosophical Pretensions.” Picture this: I, the enlightened anthropologist-entrepreneur, engaged in a War and Peace reenactment with six-legged adversaries. After days of diplomatic negotiations (read: bribing ants with sugar trails leading away from my desk after acknowledging the chocolate cake wasn’t very tasty), I resorted to chemical warfare. The fat fly? I attempted…
