This was me at maybe 15 or 16? It was for a fashion show at the old Club 404. I was total monster-child jail bait, who spent
most of my time scampering around in the woods on drugs wishing I wasn’t human, poring over Elfquest and Sandman comics
and Storm Constantine’s Wraeththu trilogy. I made my outfit in five minutes out of electrical tape, eyeliner, wire and black tulle.
Oh, and a thong. Heaven forbid that should I ever spawn a girl-child as naughty as I was! With any luck, I’ll end up with a Saffy.

(photo by Monte McCarter)
At the tender age of barely 17, I became the armed spokesmodel for FringeWare Review’s book catalogue.
This involved posing in my underpants and various getups made of rubber and dollparts with books and guns.
Real guns. That’s totally an actual Uzi or Tech-9 or whatever the hell, too. As you do, when you are a teen goth.

My best friend and first (gay, middle-school) boyfriend, Milé Boban and I in the high-school cafeteria, being spooky.

(Photo by Milé Boban)
Baby vamps reign supreme. This is maybe my favorite picture of Pandora and I, ever. Wild goth children!
Moments before this photo was taken, I had snatched that martini glass off the table of a fancy sidewalk cafe,
and ran shrieking down the street with it. I was obsessed with the idea of martinis, though I had never had one.

Dressing up before our second ever excursion to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. She was 11, and I was 13.
It’s a marvel our parents ever let us out of our rooms at all. I remember wailing and telling my stepmom that
I’d DIE if I wasn’t allowed to go out to the midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the crappy mall movie theater.

Sassing it up in the junior high parking lot. Brash and invincible as only baby goth warrior girls can be.

My shaved sides and purple dye growing out, brown eyeliner for lipstick, a pore-squeezer for an earring.
With my old friend Blake at our alternative high-school that was a haven for goths, gays, teen moms and wastrels.

It was also where feral children raised by wolves ended up. We were allowed to smoke cigarettes and go barefoot.
I wrote elaborately researched papers about my interests: alien abduction, Freemasons, Ecstasy, and Absinthe.

(Photo by Milé Boban)
Gothic Marilyn at 15. One thing about being a goth in Texas – no one ever could take themselves or each other
too seriously down here. Something about the heat, or the hicks (Beers, Steers, and Queers, anyone?), but I really
do think that Southern goths seem to be less afraid of cracking their porcelain pancaked faces when busting into a big grin.

Dressing like a Russian vampire countess was my thing even back then – pretty hilarious,
considering that this was in Texas. I wore that fur hat and coat everywhere, despite the mild weather.
Oh, and – this was taken in a Whataburger at 3am. The cereal box was because of my friend
Christopher Daniello, who wrote songs about Raisin Bran, and liked to photograph people holding it.

I got inspired on a gray day to take “post-apocalyptic” gloomy goth photos of my best friend Pandora in my backyard.
I always really loved how this photo of her turned out – it has nice movement to it, despite (or because of)
being taken with a crappy-ass disposable camera. Oh the angst! The torment!
The rusty wreckage & glow-in-the dark rosaries! Oh, and she’s 11 years old here. Ummm…

Pandora, Renee and I being weird and bitchy at some party.

This one was taken by Pandora’s papa, at their dining room table. Note my clever accessorizing with black cat and juice boxes.
Teen goth afterschool special all the way. Also, I love how her dad insisted on having Dali’s Last Supper hanging in there.

I love that my sweet granny took these photos. All four of my grandparents were the most accepting, tolerant and loving
a grandchild could ask for. I was so blessed to have them. No matter how bizarre or dark my ensemble, they were always
able to look beyond it, and just see me. I think you can see the love in these photos. I know it’s there, caught like a lizard in
amber – the memory of my grandparent’s wonderful backyard in Los Angeles, the smell of lemons and oranges from their
trees, spicy roses, ice cream and fir needles. I asked my grandmother what she thought of my outfit, and she said that I’d
be more beautiful without the black lipstick, but that that was just her opinion. She captured me as I was. So much love.

My mom’s beautiful antique rosaries which I destroyed and then lost.
Still regret doing that, dammit! Also, a neon yellow rat, because, you know.

Aw, look – it’s baby’s first pair of Doc Martens! They were oxblood steel-toe
and I bought them on sale. I really wanted 20-hole boots, but these were all I
could afford on my three dollar a week chore-slave allowance. The rest I spent
on clove cigarettes and LSD. Sorry ma + pa! I turned out all right, though!

Dancing for New Bohemia’s first fashion show. I think I’m maybe 14 or 15 here? Jeez.

That was me watching Nick Cave and falling in love before swooning from sunstroke.
Baby vampires + outdoor summer music festivals are a bad combo. Lollapalooza 1994
was my first and last! I fainted on the ground and everyone just thought I was on
drugs and stepped over me. It was pretty rad. At least I made it into the paper, I guess.

Moving into some club kid-isms. Electrical tape bra + kiddie barrettes. Hey there 1990s.

My sweetheart Colin, pre-beard. Who would have known that 18 years later,
I’ve ended up with my perfect sulky goth-boy dreamboat? He’s a lot less sulky
(with way more facial hair!) these days, but he still insists that we have
Skinny Puppy marathons on long road trips and is prone to pensiveness!
Is he not the prettiest goth-boy, ever? Yes, yes he is. Major swoon!

♥ Lisa Bettany shot this amazing photo of a Double Rainbow Over Manhattan after a recent storm in NYC.

In order to counter some of the disaster-fraught gloom looming ’round these parts of late,
I’ve ordered up a double helping of moonbeams and rainbows, liberally sprinkled with
some of my favorite faces to help dispel the lingering funk. Plus, I haven’t even had a
moment to warble with joy about how wondrous my recent NY visit was – unlike my
last visit there (which was not the rosiest or easiest excursion ever, alas) it seemed that
this journey was blessed from the start by some lucky star. Despite a few really insane
travel misadventures, everything came together swimmingly, and I got to spend time
with so many dear friends who I had not seen in far too long! Speaking of…

I got to visit with Gala, whose sweet face I had missed so much!
It was so, so good to spend some time with her – I wish I could
be back in NY celebrating her birthday RIGHT NOW! It’s today!
(Well, yesterday probably, by the time I get this posted…)
Many happy returns of the day, sugarbomb!

We made an eye-dazzling superhero duo in our retina-scalding get-ups.
I covet that delicious neon coral lace skirt from ASOS, fervently!

♥ Also, muchas felicidades to her and her bridegroom: MK + GD Forever!
– this makes me soooo happy! I can’t wait to meet the lucky fellow!

We lunched with Miss Mer at Veselka on fuschia borscht & pierogies,
followed by crack pie from Momofuku, which sent us all into diabetic
comas immediately. That stuff is hardcore, y’all! There’s a reason it’s called CRACK PIE!

Me + Mer = giant ♥

I had an incident with the gorgeous almost-Yves-Klein-blue dress Tamera sent me,
getting into a taxi. My abundantly callipygous posterior split the dang thing from
here to Saskatchewan! Luckily, the ladies accompanied me to Trash + Vaudeville
for some emergency superhero underpants in metallic teal to protect my uh, modesty.

Another marvelous woman born on September 13th – Miss Molly Crabapple,
who never ceases to amaze me with her work. She just completed her Week In
Hell, during which she locked herself in a hotel room with white papered walls
that she managed to completely cover in her drawings. My motto lately has been
“Where your comfort zone ends, life begins”, and Molly really put that to the test
with this project, testing her endurance beyond its limits, beyond reason – just to see
what could happen, what could be created. The lady’s a huge inspiration to me,
and to so many artists out there. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone with
such intense FOCUS. She’s admirable, formidable, wonderful, and incredibly lovable.

♥ Here Is Everything I Learned in New York City
by Sarah Hepola
Cabbies Are the Greatest People on Earth, at Least for Fifteen Minutes
Thank you to Gala Darling for pointing me towards this article!

Rainbow saris, source unknown (let me know if you know the provenance for this
and the other mystery images here – I had no luck looking on Tin Eye, alas.)

Please, please, please take a moment to watch this incredible interview with my friend Altercation.
She just blows me away, y’all – and always has. We both moved to New Orleans the same year,
and I remember seeing her singing mournful murder ballads in a chiffon robe with her breasts exposed
and a beehive wig, from a tiny wrought-iron balcony on the side of the old Winter Palace. I remember
the first time I saw her shake her ass, and stood there, jaw dropped – hypnotized by that rolling motion.
I didn’t know an ass could move like that! I was there with her and Rusty and Freedia and Nobby for that
first bounce show in New York in 2009. Who knew then where all this would go? I’m so glad that she teaches
this dance to people, and that she asks people to think about it, to talk about it. She’s fucking brilliant. I love her so much.

Rainbow clouds, source unknown

Lio – Banana Split
“Ça me déplairait pas que tu m’embrasses
NA NA NA – Mais faut saisir ta chance avant qu’elle passe
NA NA NA – Si tu cherches un truc pour briser la glace
BANANA BANANA BANANA
C’est le dessert
Que sert
L’abominable homme des neiges
A l’abominable enfant teenage
Un amour de dessert
BANANA NA NA NA NA BANANA SPLIT
Les cerises confites sont des lipsticks
NA NA NA – Qui laissent des marques rouges sur l’antarctique
NA NA NA – Et pour le faire fondre une tactique
BANANA BANANA BANANA
Baisers givrés sur les montagnes blanches
NA NA NA – On dirait que les choses se déclenchent
NA NA NA – La chantilly s’écroule en avalanche
BANANA BANANA BANANA”

Photo by Clayton Cubitt

Photo by Clayton Cubitt – In-camera Dichromat Homage, Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, Berlin, 2007

♥ My friend Jennymarie Jemison has been working on this web series about life in the offices of a sex toy factory:
The Flesh Life – You Know You Want to See This

♥ Sex on the brain: What turns women on, mapped out

♥ I’m feeling this article by Susannah Breslin on Unemployment/Self-employment.
As terrifying as it can be to step on the limb of only doing what you love, and trying to sustain yourself
on what you make doing that, I have to say I don’t know if I could ever see myself going back to a “job-job”.
I’m pretty determined to make this work – go big or go broke, man. Just hopefully not both!
I prefer Hunter S. Thompson’s maxim: “When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.”

♥ Austin’s Planned Parenthood Loses State Funding – What fucking dark age are we living in, y’all?

One of Alphonse Mucha’s exquisite stained glass windows in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral.

♥ Spellcaster and Earth Angel…Angeliska Polacheck a sweet interview with me from the lovely Celeste Quesada

♥ A beautiful article from The Paris Review about Frida’s Corsets by Leslie Jamison
“Sadness is green as well. Also leaves and the nation of Germany. She has an entire vocabulary of color. Brown is mole and leaves becoming earth. Bright yellow is for the undergarments of ghosts.”

♥ I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Katelan Foisy during my visit to New York – I’ve been watching her hand-painted
tarot deck blossom card by card, and was so excited to see her latest work, featuring Baby Dee as The High Priestess

Babies can’t eat kimchee! That’s the look on my face when I smell kimchee!
Hate the stuff. Korean food is my favorite, though! Just not that part…

Handmade Portraits: YOKOO
♥ I love her. Thank you to JL Schnabel for sharing this.
“There is only the slightest chance that you might cross Yokoo’s path in the streets of Atlanta, Georgia.
Holed up with the quiet company of old movies, she knits about 15 hours a day. Running a one-woman knitwear enterprise from home,
Yokoo is an artist, a perfectionist and a “total control” worker. She enjoys being a part of the entire process: thinking, designing, sketching,
picking up the material, creating, photographing, promoting, trading and sending. She still gets butterflies every time she packages up a new order.

Kalash women. One of my favorite photographs. Still not sure who took it.

♥ 5 Views of East Side Show Room from the delightful Miss Tolly
One of my Austin favorite restaurants, written about lovingly by one of my favorite Austin blogger ladies.
She also came to Vintage Vivant recently, and wrote this sweet piece about her hijinks:
Meet me at the speakeasy, buy me some giggle water

♥ Why Lying Broken in a Pile on Your Bedroom Floor is a Good Idea – Akhilandeshvari, The Goddess of never not broken – by Julie (JC) Peters

There’s No Place Like Here: Brazenhead Books from Etsy on Vimeo.

♥ I meant to make a pilgrimage here, but there was no time! The Secret Bookstore – Brazenhead Books

♥ I want to visit all of these one day, too:
10 Unconventional Bookstores For Your Browsing Pleasure

I cannot even handle Amelia’s next level googly eye game. She blows my mind so hard. Dang, girl! She don’t even mess around!

Iana + David

Norah

Katie

Stephana

Sassy + John

Devaki made incredible photo magic once again! This is definitely my favorite
Exquisite Corpse photo set yet! Brilliance. Plus, everyone turned it OUT!

David

So amazing. Can’t handle.

Dustin

Colin

Royal family portrait!

I want to put them in my pocket, please.

Why are all my friends so amazing? But, really!

Fiona + Jonny – copper moon children

Frannie

Charlie’s Angels got nothin’ on us…

Jen + Melissa

Chad

Antony + Cleopatra

DJ Pasht Moon

Pasht + Devi

Jen + Summer

Blue, Ashley and Matt

Lau + Justin

Jackie + Norah – this is how the night always ends…
Hot bitches rollin’ around on the floor!

I’m getting excited about the theme for the upcoming Exquisite Corpse – The Left Eye of Horus.
Norah came up with it, and I’m so glad because it’s given me the opportunity to explore an aesthetic
that I’ve always found very alluring: Egyptian Goth. I call it that, but really it’s a mish-mash of traditional
and fantastical styles from a variety of Middle Eastern countries and peoples. The bleak tales of death in
the desert from The Sheltering Sky, and the wraithed, black-clad shapes, of kohl-eyed, tattooed Berber
women shimmering on the horizon planted the seed, which grew into a lush little oasis: a stark vision in
black and white, hung with hammered silver and gold. Heavy clouds of incense, sharply scented with
Sandalwood, papyrus, lotus, and sycamore. These are embalming herbs, for canning hearts in canopic jars.
Bear with me while I wax rhapsodic, won’t you? The mysteries from the fertile crescent continue to inspire, even
as in modern Egypt, at the very moment I write this, Hosni Mubarak is standing (or laying down on a bed in a
cage, actually) trial for the murders of over 850 peaceful protesters who died fighting for change from the days
of ancient Egypt – when pharoahs could hold a throne hostage for generations while amassing untold riches
If you’re interested in keeping up with what’s happening in Egypt, I can’t recommend a better source than Mona Eltahawy.
I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and we struck up an immediate connection. We talked about writing, but at
the time, I had no idea that she was an award-winning columnist or a total information powerhouse on Arab and Muslim
issues, until January 25th. I had come across her card, and decided to start following her Twitter feed, which is pretty much
the most up to the minute source for whatever’s going down in Egypt politically at any given moment. She’s truly amazing.

Sapho – Methylene

So, in part this post is dedicated to some strong women – Mona, my friend Zahra-Jane, and also Oum Khalthoum (who I’ll get to later…)
Zahra and I were Livejournal friends from way back, and finally had the pleasure of meeting one another for real recently in Chicago.
She has an incredible aesthetic sense and has turned me on to so much awesome stuff over the years. For this post in particular, I asked
her to recommend any treasures I might be overlooking, and she sent me some wonders, indeed. I also heavily pillaged her kick-ass tumblr
The Signs in the Stars and her beautiful blog, Black Celebration – go check out both and be delighted and inspired! I can’t thank her enough for showing me Sapho, a moroccan singer who hung out with Siouxsie in the 80′s and made awesome egyptian-inspired new wave!

Siouxsie and the Banshees – Arabian Knights

I collect khamsas (or hands of Fatima) – my grandmother always wore a big silver filigree one when she traveled,
and I remember always being fascinated and drawn to it. I wear it when I fly, and treasure it immensely. Sacred hands.

Givenchy Haute Couture Fall Winter 2009/2010 Full Show

I am FEELING this show so deeply. Knockin’ ‘em cold in black + gold is my permanent fashion motto,
and this just does it all for me. Now where can I get my hands on piles and piles of gold headdresses,
elaborately wrought paillettes, handfuls of massive knuckledusters, et cetera? I need it all by tomorrow.

I love these headdresses:

Dying for this one, made by my girl Miss Arielle de Pinto – her work is beyond fabulous. I desire silvery mounds of it.

Not sure where this one came from, but I sure do love it.

Sequin masks from the Givenchy show… DIY, y’all!

I love this photo of Inga & Anush Arshakyans. Watch out if you click on this link – the video is whoa.
They’re Armenian, but whatever – they look rad.

Oum, Umm, Oumme, Ümmü, OM!

From Zahra-Jane’s killer post on Oum Kalthoum
“The details of a woman. Oum Kalthoum. b. December 31st, circa 1900-1904, Egypt. the capricorn. Star of Egypt.
Queen of tarab, which is that…”this is MY JAM” feeling you get. Tarab is like a state beyond enjoyment, a state of
almost oneness and total ecstasy with the song. There is also a level of audience participation, the crowd moves the singer,
who moves the crowd, which allows an especially spiritual element which decades later, you feel listening to these recordings.
Enchantment is a popular translation, but the word seems almost too quaint for what I feel when I hear Oum Kalthoum.
It is no shock that she has inspired some of my favorite artists, from Nico, to Maria Callas.”

1938 Kodachrome film of two Ouled Nail dancers. Silent.
I recommend that you watch it while playing the track below.

Egyptian lover – Egypt Egypt

Pola Negri

From a 1970′s Playboy magazine

Nefertiti by Youssef Nabil

Shirin Neshat by Youssef Nabil

Kate performs “Egypt” on a 1979 Christmas special.
She is so bonkers. God, I love her.

Follow the Nile
Deep to much deeper.
The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.

She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
Oh I’m in love
With Egypt.

I had the pleasure of meeting Maria Dahvana Headley, author of Queen of Kings,
(my own copy is tantalizing me at this very moment from my nightstand!)
recently – she is a fiercely joyous hummingbird of a woman, who I immediately adored.
We had discussed creating an event around her book-signing here in Austin to celebrate
her new work, which is all about vampires and monsters in ancient Egypt. It didn’t work
out time-wise, but the inspiration lingered – so I’ll dedicate this Exquisite Corpse to her
as well! I can’t wait to delve into this world she’s created…

Another book that comes to mind when developing this theme is an old favorite – Storm Constatine’s Wraeththu, a trilogy that shaped many of my views about style, gender, magic and provided a beautiful vision of a post-human, post-apocalypse future.

Illan Riviere is a consumate androgynous Wraeththu Har – and one of the most incredible dancers I’ve ever seen.

From ZJ’s post on Propaganda Magazine

The Sisters Of Mercy – Temple Of Love (Featuring Ofra Haza)

This was my number one favorite song throughout much of my childhood. I was (and still am) so, so into it.
During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution the song enjoyed a surge in popularity among the younger population of protesters:

All the old paintings on the tombs
They do the sand dance don’t you know
If they move too quick (oh way oh)
They’re falling down like a domino

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say
Ay oh way oh, ay oh way oh
Walk like an Egyptian

Natacha Atlas – Leysh Natarak

My look for the evening ended up looking something like if Dark Lily from Legend
had ended up doing it with a cat on the side. Maybe one that had a penchant for KISS?

This scene is definitely at the top of my list of things that made me weird…
Hello! Amazing. This may well have been the birth of my gothness, right here.
If you were a child when this film came out, wasn’t this film just EVERYTHING to you?
I know it was for me. Unicorns, faeries, goblins, Tim Curry as the Devil? I mean!

I was also thinking a lot about the Tarot of the Cat People by Karen Kuykendall
while I was getting ready… I’ve loved this deck since I was a child – it’s so strange and beautiful.

Raven + Monika worked all day on their crazy-amazing cat ensembles!
They were totally mindblowing! I honestly still can’t handle how perfect they were.
I’ve instructed them to both wear these costumes as their everyday clothes, from now on.

Amelia made the perfect mermaid! She was a sequinned sea-treat to tempt all the kitties!
“Do you see that fishy swimming round and round
Maybe we can reaching in and make it drown…
If we sneaking up upon it carefully
There will be head for you a tail for me”

Beware leaping tigers in the jungle!

Gina, Kitty, Devi, and myself gettin’ wild….

Azz everywhere!

Devi!

and with Xander Harris

Casting hexes on my intended! It’s the only way to keep ‘em in line!

Lovely Drew

Rowr!

Summer Lawson

Celeste Chesser

Meow!

Proud parents with their litter.

Oh Norah!

Kittens!

Hairballs!

Lali Ferpecto!

It kind of ended up being that kind of a night…

Exquisite Corpse – Lovecats

To purchase prints go here….

Stray Cats – Stray Cat Strut

Squeeze – Cool For Cats

All photos by Devaki Knowles of www.funlovingphotos.net

Beautiful Monika and Nemesis

Jackie bought her beautiful new ophidian companion from a guy who was leaving the country, and couldn’t take her.

Mr. Bones happened to be riding in the guy’s front seat when he pulled up for the snake hand-off.
He very kindly lent the handsome skeleton to adorn our photobooth for the night! A snake and a
skeleton? It doesn’t really get more goth than that! How perfectly synchronicitous it was…

Radiant Norah

Sass!

Miss Blue Madrigal working Elegant Gothic Lolita REALNESS (serpent sold seperately!)

La Belle Colombe – Elaine

Devi + Natalie gettin’ wild!

I love this lady, and her songs.

Rachel Dobos wears Nemesis well, but the snakes – they are not for eating! They are for kissing!

David Salazar, creature of the night.

Wooing the wonderful Miss Maranda!

Liz + Katzen!

Ramon’s shrine. Rest in peace, dear friend.

I found these amazing images over at Mlle. Chromium Dumb Belle’s lovely blog –
thank you to Mlle. Ghoul and Mlle. Avril-Violette for your help in identifying provenance!

“La Belle et le Bête, circa 1940. Tirage argentique d’époque”
(The others are Leonor Fini –
André Pieyre de Mandiargues – Masques de Leonor Fini
Paris, La Parade Éditions André Bonne, 1951

We move like cagey tigers
We couldn’t get closer than this
The way we walk
The way we talk
The way we stalk
The way we kiss

We slip through the streets
While everyone sleeps
Getting bigger and sleeker
And wider and brighter
We bite and scratch and scream all night
Let’s go and
Throw all the songs we know
Into the sea
You and me
All these years and no one heard
I’ll show you in spring
It’s a treacherous thing
We missed you hissed the lovecats…

We’re so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully
Wonderfully pretty
Oh you know that I’d do anything for you
We should have each other to tea huh?
We should have each other with cream
Then curl up by the fire
And sleep for awhile
It’s the grooviest thing
It’s the perfect dream…

Hand in hand
Is the only way to land
And always the right way round
Not broken in pieces
Like hated little meeces…

I must admit, ever since Lundi Gras, I’ve been itching to do more crazy cat make-up!
It feels so right, somehow! These shots are from the 7 Minutes ‘Til Heaven Party in New Orleans:

(photos by Glitter Guts)

Me an’ my brother form another mother, Rusty Lazer!

It’s probably not surprising that after seeing the musical Cats at a very impressionable age
that I became fascinated with leotards-as-clothing, and that I still sing “Memory” (loudly!) in the shower.
In fact, maybe I shouldn’t admit that I was incredibly titillated at the part where all the cat-dancers come
into the audience and get all purry and fondly. Was that just me? Does that make me… A furry?!
Oh well!

Another big inspiration is Soo Catwoman!
I remember loving her most of all, poring over pictures of The Bromley Contingent in
Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces when I was just a wee thing. Free admission to anyone with
genuine Catwoman hair! I always wanted it, but was never brave enough! You do it!

The Cure – The Lovecats (Top Of the Pops, 29th December 1983)

This version by Tricky is killer – can’t wait to dance to it…

Clip from The Mighty Boosh…
Goodnight, moon! See you at Lovecats…

By Kaycee

A solstice wish for the rains to come back and wet the cracked and dry
lips of our land, so thirsty, so cooked. A lush and whispering wish,
a green and liquid gaze, a beetle-wing hum and scissor of wings
to accompany a change in the wind, in the weather. Let the fireflies
come back, the poppyheads, the bare feet in soft dark earth. Come back,
you voluptuous nights that made me lose myself in the air, the air the exact
temperature of my blood. Nightswimming in you, I become weightless, invisible.

The membrane between my flesh and the dark green leaves, my heartbeat and the cicada
song grows so permeable that I nearly forget to exist, breathing there in the night, on the path,
no light but the moon. Lay me down between the rows, under that spicy canopy of tomato
stalks, sharp and greener than green. Heady and hot, stinging my upper lip studded with
silver sweat, the mosquito wail, the drip, the thunder. Come back dark clouds, furious black,
riddled with the swarming termites of heat lightning. Give me a tympani boom that makes
my little dogs shake and tremble, give me the insect alarm call, the pressure drop, wind lifting
the hair stuck to the back of my neck. Come feverish storms! Pound at my windows at the witching
hour, and maybe I’ll just fling them all open and let you in. Come back you tempests, you ponderous
fierce summer thunderstorms, bristling with electricity, gray wolves of cumulus hunkering at the horizon.

Denishawn dancers doing their Thai magic.

Bring back those nights where no one can seem to leave their porches, where your silk slips are soaked
though, even though you’ve barely moved a muscle in an hour. Laying there with your back glued to the
wood floor, watching the ceiling fan sway, the fat moths gossip, another lizard hunting party making a foray
back across the screen-door. “Iced tea and no deep thinking” indeed. Rum and cigars and dominoes and
no thoughts of work or money. Only your friend laughing with her red lipstick on, the fairy lights, that night.

Moth photographs by my friend, amazingly talented photographer L.E. Lake

I petition the leafy sea-dragons I have seen swimming beneath the skin of the sky for their watery blessings.
I will ask the creatures made of violet prism who live in little fires to make inquiries about where our paperwork
might have been mislaid. I’m sure we filled it out correctly, in triplicate even, but nixies can be tricksy I reckon,
and it seems we’ve been bumped to the bottom of the list. May their fiery ears be tickled by our wishmaking into
issuing benedictions, and may they be gentled by our songs, by our gifts. What else can we do now, but beg
elementals to take pity on us? Let our wishes be enough for them. Let them bring back our green world.

Photograph by Tamera Ferro – aka. Mlle. Verhext (I hope is okay that I use it, dearie!
I’ve had it stashed away all this time, and it really is too perfect!)

This is the song a slow afternoon rain would sing so sweetly, on one of those dim days
where you sit at the kitchen table with your tea and all the lights off, and wish
that the rain could be your lover, and come around every day at about 4 o’ clock,
like it does in New Orleans still. While you sit there clutching your mug and making wishes.

For this month’s Exquisite Corpse, we will be dedicating the evening’s festivities
as a special memorial to some of our friends and heroes who have died this month:
Ramon, crazy-cat extraordinaire, Leonora Carrington – the surrealist sorceress,
and to Nefairia Devi, Bharatanatyam dancer and true gothic beauty. Bring something
to add to the altar for them if you wish, and come prepared to dance and celebrate their spirits.

Ramon and I. This is one of my favorite pictures of us together. He was very protective of all the ladies
of Swan Dive – acting almost like a dad (albeit a crazed, over-protective one!) A few weeks before he
died he told Amelia, “Ain’t nobody gonna be messin’ with you – they would rather be walking through hell
wearin’ gasoline drawers!” He was so great. We had a beautiful Second Line Jazz Funeral for him the other
night, and following the procession of friends playing “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”, something just broke in
me. The wall of weariness crumbled, and the numbness that has reigned in the face of losing so many amazing
people was replaced by waves of grief. Tears flowed down my face as we marched in a crowd packed with
people who knew and loved Ramon. It was the music, and being surrounded by such a beautiful community of
friends who would gather together to celebrate the life and mourn the death of one of our own. Ramon was
basically homeless, a veteran whose health (both physical, emotional and mental) had been severely
damaged by what he went through in the war, and in his difficult life – and he carried demons with him,
no doubt. Despite all that, his huge heart won out – he was a loving person, a good man. It’s just not going
to be the same without him. Lots of the fellas who work at the bar have gotten tattoos of his main motto:

Truth. One that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Amanda Stone and Marshall LaCount (of the Mudlark Puppeteers and Dark Dark Dark, respectively.)

Beautiful Norah

Devi cracks the snake!

Laurel and I worshipping the gilded skull.

Monika Hakkinnen

Monika + Colin

Stunning visitors from Germany. They wandered into the party and were much delighted.

Amelia was so beautiful that night that I was inspired to say some downright naughty things to her!
Luckily, she’s a tough dame who can handle my dirty talk. Must’ve been that vicious absinthe/tequila combo…

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, Naomi Elliott performed an incredible Aztec dance ritual that involved a watermelon being disemboweled! So beautiful.

Les Surrealistes

Nefairia Devi (Elizabeth Emily Mincho)– December 7, 1976 – May 14, 2011
Photo by Solvej Jordahl

Strangely, I never actually had the chance to meet this amazing woman, though we came from the same town,
and had many friends in common. She left for London when I was still a blooming wee gothlet, and somehow
our paths just never crossed, even though she had moved back this way for a few months before her untimely
passing. When I lived in New Orleans, she started sending me sweet parcels: gifts of books and music, and
even this incredible heart-shaped floral arrangement, accompanied by an actual honest-to-goodness telegram!
Both were delivered to Sideshow, where I was working at the time – and I remember my boss teasing me mercilessly
about my admirer. Nefairia was like that: someone who would shower affection on you, just because she could.
I love how the card on the flowers reads “Angel M. Gorgeous” – what a sweetheart! It’s truly bizarre that’s she’s
gone – just like that. A freak car accident resulting in a severe brain injury, and in a flash the world has lost one
of its shining lights. It makes no sense to me. I hope her journey across the river is easy, and am lighting candles for her
and sending love to her family and friends. Nefairia, I wish we’d been able to meet in this life. Perhaps in the next.

We also lost Leonora Carrington – (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) last week.
Oh death! I wrote a piece about her life and work for Coilhouse.

LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

This video is an excerpt from the film GIFTED BEAUTY – directed by Anne Kjersti Bjørn,
with music by Maia Urstad and animations by Gustav Kvall. (Ragg Film, 2000)

New York Is Killing Me (Chris Cunningham Remix)
Damn, and Gil Scott-Heron too? The afterlife is being populated with poet angels
wearing tarnished silver halos. The beating of their flaming wings is deafening.