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…
“Power, Progress & Paradox”
The Assignment That Sparked a Vision It was 1977, and Dutch elections were in full motion. For a school assignment, we were tasked with creating our own political parties. Predictably, most of my classmates drafted manifestos that revolved around abolishing school altogether—a dream of endless play and no homework. Except for Reinier, whose father owned…
“Shinoden, Souls & Crows”
The Alchemy of Offering: Souls, Archetypes, and Ants There’s a peculiar wisdom in watching ants ignore chocolate cake. Yesterday, I found myself doing just that—placing sweet crumbs beside a plant where the industrious little creatures had made their home. It was a small offering, a peace treaty of sorts, to redirect their paths away from…
The C.O.M.C. Files 