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Adding another layer to that theory, German abbess Hildegard of Bingen, around the year 1160, offered that the reason facial hair occurred exclusively around the mouth—rather than, say, on the forehead—was because of men’s hot breath.

I was an English major at the University of Missouri, where, in one of the miracles of the American way of life, I attended humanities classes where farm kids and St. Louis frat brothers got bludgeoned with healthy slugs of Homer, Cervantes, Hildegard of Bingen and the Quran.

“Works by women were not generally presented, nor studied,” Romano G. said, “Maybe Clara Schumann or Hildegard of Bingen, but certainly not contemporary women from Latin America.”

To cite just one example, there is the alluring mystery girl Corrina, who wears “a crinkly polyester nurse’s uniform” and recruits Jack to participate in her performance piece about the medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen by having him dress up like a character from the ’70s sitcom “Three’s Company” drenched in menstrual blood.

Another unique, one-night-only event titled “Electric Fields” will pair pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque with contemporary music soprano Barbara Hannigan in an immersive, multimedia exploration of the work of Medieval composer and saint Hildegard of Bingen, as well as the work of two female Italian composers, the Baroque era’s Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi.