Ok, Cue the Sun 🌞 ⛈️ 💔
It's been an awful week for the world, I'm down with a flu, so how about this?
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Hello, Lovelies, How the hell are you? I thought Gene on the very last Muppet Show might work here given the intense Muppet energy this summer seems to be bringing.
I am not so great… neither is the world. TFG’s current telenovela only seems like more proof that we are trapped in some bizarro late capitalist political simulation. Alice Munro’s betrayal of her daughters makes me particularly sad…
But a sweet story from one of the places I visited.
Valencia, Spain. I’ve been investigating the erstwhile adventures of postmistresses throughout history for my next book.
My favorite is of the Spanish postmistress who saved the Holy Grail.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, everyone from Spanish revolutionaries and Nazis to MI6 agents wanted to steal the Holy Grail, says Adam Hay-Nicholls in Air Mail. But they were all eluded by a Valencian postwoman. Sabina Suey was a worshipper at the Valencia Cathedral which housed the Santo Cáliz: the cup most often cited as the true Grail by Western Christianity. The city suffered badly from a heavy-handed Republican military presence, with priests, nuns, and bishops murdered and churches looted. Fearing the Cathedral was next, Suey took the cup from its shrine, wrapped it in cotton wool and newspaper, and placed it in a box, which she secretly stowed in the springs of her sofa. When militia members burst into the cathedral hours later and made a beeline for the cup, it was nowhere to be found.
Republican fighters searched Suey’s house three times, never discovering the chalice. But soon, whispers of her involvement reached the ears of British and German spies. She was approached by MI6 agents who offered her family safe passage to England in return for the Grail. She denied any knowledge of it. Another agent made an approach on behalf of Heinrich Himmler, who was obsessed with the occult powers of the Grail and believed it would be the “ultimate prize” for Hitler. Again, Suey refused, and “somehow lived to tell the tale”. When Valencia was liberated in 1939, she handed it to the Recovery Board of the National Artistic Treasure. Her family still has the sofa.
One Marvelous Thing Before I Go…
A Sewing Class for Trans/Gender Expansive People
I can’t think of a better way of processing feelings of change, finding community, and experiencing belonging. These sorts of studio-based sewing classes should be a grassroots movement nationwide—especially as the assault on Trans Rights continues.
But stay safe, Lovelies, and know I’m thinking of you in between weary wakefulness and fevered dreams – xoxo, gotham girl
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Three times?! They searched her house 3 times and never found it?! Typical man, only doing a cursory search. I find that to be incredibly hilare since in movies now, when places get ransacked, the couch cushions get ripped to shreds, too. LOL But that's fascinating history. Us women are fabbity-fab at hiding shit. LOL
First, hope you're feeling better. Second, that phrase about the chaos without his name, so perfect: "TFG’s current telenovela only seems like more proof that we are trapped in some bizarro late capitalist political simulation." And then the rest that says so much about your humanity. What a treasure you are.