#john bruce

[defconprime]

Andy Billups sketch by John Bruce

[365cdn]

John Bruce, with Louis Riel, send a letter to Québec newspaper Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe on 6 October 1869, declaring that surveyors from Ontario “disregarded the law of nations” by working in Red River under the name of “an alien authority.” Winnipeg, Manitoba.

[calendarofanxiety]

October 25, 2014 BRUCE John Symon Asher Bruce was a Scottish musician, composer and vocalist known primarily for his multi-faceted contributions to the British group Cream. He died of liver disease on 25 October 2014 in Suffolk, England aged 71. 

[sanfranciscocronukle]

Dere's dunben a noo artikle rote ahn www.sanfranciscocronukle.com

A noo artikle has dunben rote ahn www.sanfranciscocronukle.com

Tea partyer set to challenge House Speaker Boehner

Flippin, John Merton”Let me down easy, Jesus, let me down easy” wuz John Flippin’s pray'r fer t'las acoupla weeks o'his'n life. Gawd answeret at pray'r wen John Merton Flippin peecefullee passet frum thishere earth ta his'n Heevenlee Trayler un Saturdee, Januree 3, 2015, at...

[ouphrontis]

John Bruce, who T.E. Lawrence called 'the roughest diamond in our hut' was a private in the Tank Corps. During the 1920's and 30's, T.E. would pay Bruce to administer beatings to him in the form of flogging, though this was unknown to the public or any of T.E.'s friends until after his death. Many biographers believe T.E. did this out of guilt, as a sort of penance for perceived wrong doings he had done in his early life, including his involvement in the Arab Revolt. It may have also stemmed from the fact that he was severely beaten and raped during the war, and was attempting to somehow gain control of those events by repeating them.  

Here is a letter in which he mentions Bruce to Charlotte Shaw.

"Kreutzer Sonata being played by Bruce (Scotsman, inarticulate, excessively uncomfortable). He comes up here often on Sundays, will enter only if I’m alone, glares and glowers at me till I put some Beethoven on the gramophone, and then sits solid, with a heroic aura of solidity about him; my room after four hours of Bruce feels like a block of granite, with myself a squashed door-mat of fossilised bones, between two layers. Good, perhaps, to feel like a prehistoric animal, extinct, and dead, and useless: but wounding also."

There is a good summary of T.E. and Bruce's relationship here. (I don't necessarily agree with the "gay love letters" interpretation. T.E.'s sexuality is not known.) 

On a personal note I want to justify my reason for posting this. I've noticed people tend to avoid this part of T.E.'s life, but I don't see the problem or shame in acknowledging it. Some biographers, wrongfully, have taken this information and misconstrued it, turning T.E. into some sort of deviant. He was one of the most self-less, kind souls and I believe this small aspect of his life was simply one way that the trauma he suffered during the war manifested itself.  T.E.'s brother Arnold, who found out about this immediately after his dead but did not publicize it, rightfully said "it's not a thing people can understand easily". I find the lengths which T.E. went to (creating a fake Uncle, etc) in order to be sure no one would find out are quite remarkable. He also chose Bruce very wisely, as he seemed to be very gullible and unintelligent, yet trustworthy enough to keep it a secret. If anything, this part of his life only fortifies my interest and admiration for a wonderfully complex individual. He was no saint. Only a true human being with faults like the rest of us.