Things mentioned in passing in the McNally series that I have no clue about.

Priapus was probably the son of Dionysus and Aphrodite, a fertility god.

Kay Kendall random blondish movie star. Played opposite Rex Harrison and Yule Brenner. She died at age 33.

“A wonderful bird is the pelican.
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak,
Food enough for a week,
But I’m damned if I can see how the helican.”
—written by Dixon Lanier Merritt in 1910.
(Apparently it is a famous limerick for pelican lovers.)

Modigliana- an artist whose work I kind of recognized, but didn’t know before this.