All Apologies to Frida Kahlo

by Mara Grayson

I PROBABLY SHOULDN'T have touched the oil paint. I know I wasn't supposed to. Please understand that my transgression was not an attempt at defiance or destruction. I never wanted to harm the painting, but at thirteen years old, my understanding of some things was not as clear as it is now. I wanted to touch Frida's hands, but because her hands weren't in the painting, I touched Diego's nose instead.

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The Force of Intercourse

by Mark Jay Mirsky

THERE IS NO independent force of evil in the Hebrew Bible or the Thousand Nights and One scholars have pointed out. A djinn or genie taking on the identity of a court appointed tempter, the Satan of The Book of Job, may be an emissary of ill report, the spy of the Oriental court, a Shaytan, sworn to the harm of man. Or he or she can simply be a creature of another realm. There are no witch-hunts, no searches for warlocks in the Arab or the Jewish world. Even the intercourse of men and women with djinns has its laws.

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