Our Lady of Amusing Acts of Violence, pray for us.

The rest of my time in London was spent with one of my dearest friends, a clever and attractive young gentleman named Finn whom I'd not seen in person in far too long. At the same time that he kept me off my guard by oscillating suddenly between being strangely silent and devastatingly articulate, we ate at some excellent restaurants, visited a great many museums, and attended a show that managed simultaneously to be a charity event for breast cancer awareness, a life drawing lesson, and a rather spectacular burlesque show. Many of the museums were places that blended antique medical instruments from the West with other, no less exotic folk traditions from various interesting nations and tribes. My favourite was a Mexican painting of the genre favoured by Frida Kahlo: a prayer was uttered, and if granted, it was traditional to create a representation of the miracle. A piece might present a soldier with a wounded and bleeding leg on the left, and whole again on the right. The Virgin meanwhile looked down from her perch on the moon, her granting his wish represented by lasers shooting out of her fingers, lightly pressed together in her constant meditations. The specimen of this type that I enjoyed so much was, I believe, meant to indicate a recovery from a head injury. What it looked like, however, was a picture of Our Lady dropping a flower pot on the head of some poor man, who bled profusely while an onlooker rushed to his aid.