Exquisite Corpse Presents:
AS THE WORLD FALLS DOWN
A Labyrinthine Masquerade Ball

Friday, February 3rd – 2012
10pm until 2am
SWAN DIVE
615 Red River

A night to enter the labyrinth and become a member
of the fairy court – don your tattered ballgowns, your
tightest breeches, and mysterious masques…
You know, you remind me of the babe…

I remember seeing this scene for the first time, and what an enormous impression it made on me –
it influenced my aesthetic indelibly. I just wanted the entire film to continue on in that ballroom…
For years, I’ve dreamed of trying to recreate that magic, and now – I finally get to give it a whirl…

I think I’m not alone in having practiced kissing on my Labyrinth poster with David Bowie as Jareth.
To me, he was the perfect man – a goblin prince who could steal me away to the Underground.
Hades and Persephone as retold by Jim Henson and Brian Froud. Dance, magic, dance.

There’s such a sad love
Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel
Open and closed within your eyes
I’ll place the sky within your eyes

There’s such a fool heart
Beating so fast in search of new dreams
A love that will last within your heart
I’ll place the moon within your heart

As the pain sweeps through
Makes no sense for you
Every thrill has gone
Wasn’t too much fun at all
But I’ll be there for you
As the world falls down

I’ll paint you mornings of gold
I’ll spin you Valentine evenings
Though we’re strangers till now
We’re choosing the path between the stars
I’ll leave my love between the stars

Vogue Germany / photographer Ruven Afanador /

McQueen

Rima Hyena

Shiseido Magic

More Dior, J’adore.

Of course, we’d be delighted to see you all turned out like this…
By the by, Garbage Reign by Danil Golovkin may just
be the best thing I’ve ever seen.

…Or you could just glue a bunch of My Little Pony stickers on your face. That works too.

Just be there!

Vulpes Masquerade by Caitlin Hackett

Let’s get lost…

More inspiration here:
Labyrinthine Masquerade

I’m getting super excited about the playlist DJ Pasht & I have been putting together for Exquisite Corpse’s Labyrinthine Masquerade Ball tomorrow! Finally, we get an opportunity to play so much of my favorites: Qntl, Die Form, Dead Can Dance and a bunch of other gems I haven’t heard played in a club in far too long! Get ready to waltz & twirl to some seriously amazing music: think goth/medieval + 80′s/new wave with a healthy dose of witch house + disco noir! Klaus Nomi, Roxy Music & Stevie Nicks will also be making appearances. WHAT.

Exquisite Corpse Presents: As The World Falls Down A Labyrinthine Masquerade Mix by Miss Angeliska and Dj Pasht from pasht on 8tracks.

Love is colder than death – Non Lievi Alchun

Labyrinth Series – How To Make Your Own Goblin Ballroom Mask Part1

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!

I love this sketch Adriano Moraes did of Jeff Wengrofsky and I that night.
I remember feeling so perfectly and completely happy while standing there near the doorway, being sketched.
I could see all the guests coming down the grand stairway at Morningside Castle, all in their finest frocks and
sharpest suits. Something about people-watching with permission to be silent and still in the mad throng of that
beautiful party, all while being watched and taken in so intently by an artist making the magical transference
between eye and hand, hand and pencil, pencil and paper. The moment was captured in more ways than one.

Portrait within a portrait.

I had an amazing meeting of the minds with Gerald Busby, a brilliant composer and truly wonderful man
who lives in the Chelsea Hotel. You’ll be hearing more about him from me soon – he’s amazing.

Gerald instructed me to go up to the top floor and walk down the stairs. So glad I did.
It was such a gift to be able to wander the halls of this grand old dame who gave
shelter and succor to so many artists and heroes of mine. I could feel their shades
dancing in the halls, their footsteps echoing. I made a wish that the Chelsea will
continue, will not be robbed of her spirit – though she is being mercilessly robbed
of her art and her tenants. What spirits will be left when they are all gone?

“TO THE PURE, ALL THINGS ARE PURE”
I took a wrong turn looking for Gerald’s apartment
(I should’ve just followed the music!), but I’m glad I
did, because I happened upon room #528 and its
perfect message. It reminds me of being in Rome
with my Grandfather. We were in Madrid, on one
of the last days of what would be our last trip together.
We had gone to the Ermita San Antonio de la Florida
to see Goya’s Sistine Chapel and final resting place,
and I remember both of us were so, so happy that day.
We gazed up at the gorgeous domed cupola depicting
the miracle of Saint Anthony, and all the angels and fat
cherubim gamboling below and just drank in all that beauty,
that light. I asked him then, “How did we get to be so lucky?”
and he replied, “Because our hearts are pure.”

A detail of some as of yet unstolen art from the Chelsea Hotel.
Not sure who the artist is. Fill me in if you know…

From a mural at Petite Abeille, where I had a delightful
post-earthquake brunch with some of my favorite fancies.

Goat girl phone doodle.

I loved this gargoyle/green man who ornaments an apartment on the prettiest street in Crown Heights.

Subway serenader. He also played erhu.

This is Lola. She is one of my favorite people.

This is one of her toys, which she let me play with.

This is ostensibly the pleasant goat. But where is the big big wolf?

I finally found the intersection of Waverly Place and Waverly Place,
stumbling up it alone, by chance, late on my way to dinner one muggy
night. It would have been better if it had been snowing, and silent – like
in Veronica, but at least it exists. People had told me that it didn’t. It does!

The nothing is coming – unicorns unite!

Morning, glories.

♥ 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!

Before the Joanna Newsom concert at the Paramount. It’s so lovely to see her play there, in that big grand place.
This time and the last, I couldn’t help the tears that just popped out of my eyes and kept flowing, unwished for,
unbidden. Last time, it was “Cosmia” that did it, but that’s a given. This time, only three songs in, “Easy” unexpectedly
slew me, and then “Cosmia” kept it going. I’m trying to get better at weeping. I’m a pretty ugly crier, all red faced,
snot-strewn and crumpled. Maybe it goes easier if you don’t fight it like I’ve been doing all my life. When music moves
me, or a sad film, a book, or a painting – I give myself over as wholly as I can manage. I try and just let it come and
wash over me, run down my face and keep going, deeper into what I am being given: this art, this feeling, this moment.

It’s funny, because I never noticed the lyric from the end of “Easy” until that night – “Speak my name, and I appear.”
Perhaps Miss Newsom is some sylph that can be beckoned in this way, because she did just that once – or twice, that I can
think of… It’s a long story, but I had been saving some little treasures to gift her, in return for all the beauty she’s bestowed
on my life with her songs. I grabbed them by impulse one morning on my way out the door, late already, but still I felt the
weird sting of sight that made me run back inside for them, and then forget as soon as I got to work. By the end of the day,
I lingered over a stack of constellation cards like the one with the sea-monster on it above. I had to choose which ones to buy,
and which must be put back into circulation, and it was very hard, because they’re all so wonderful – with little holes poked in
where the stars shine through when you hold them up, aligned with their originals spangling the night sky. I chose the seamonster,
the unicorn, the lynx, and then paused over Ursa Major, thinking “Oh, this one I ought to keep to give to Joanna, for Ursala in
“Monkey and Bear.” At that moment, the bell over the door clattered and in slipped a cute fourteen year old wrapped in an old
red and black flannel, with a brooch-studded tam perched over one ear. I tried not to goggle, with those constellations shivering
in my hand when I realized it was none other! I wrote a quick note of thanks on the back of the bear, and gathered those treasures
I had unthinkingly run back in for – a silver Victorian owl buckle, a little tin of pretty bits, blue morpho butterfly wings, and went to
summon up my guts to give them to her. She was dear and kind, and even teary – but I had to hug her and run away quick before
I fell over. So that’s my story – Miss Melissa Petitchou has another one, that’s similar – it starts and ends with a bell, a thought of her
and then she appeared. Maybe she’ll share it with us if we ask very, very nicely. Oh, won’t you Miss? Oh, do!

On my letter writing desk (where very few letters ever get written, alas! Hopefully that shall change soon.)
Green frog ink bottle, fairy compact that was my Nonnie’s, tintype, Mint Humbugs tin filled with pen nibs,
ink sticks and calligraphy accessories in brocade boxes, embroidery of a wishing well by Holly Bobisuthi.

Discovering a latent love of yellow. Saffron, really. Goldenrod. Especially together with deep teal. Oh my, yes.

I re-hung all the art on the walls, scrubbed and dusted until I was sneezing black! More evidence
to come. (Of the fanciness and sparkle of my fresh studio, not of my sodden tissues or whatever.)

Book altar.

Wooden friends.

Eulalia Chrysanthemum in her winter hat.

Treasures.

My electric stereoscope and a hand-stuffed quail Sarahfina taxidermied for my birthday.

My instruments. I play the ocean harp much better than I manage the ukulele, I’m afraid.

Hey, hey – last light of day.

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

The Brooklyn-based artist Swoon, who may know from her beautiful wheat-pasted cut-out street art (and the following flotillas:
Miss Rockaway Armada, Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea, Swimming Cities of Serenissima) is bringing a landmark, permanent
sculpture to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. This “house” also functions as a musical instrument. A growing group of
local and national sound artists are creating interactive instruments that will be built into its walls and floorboards so that visitors
can bring the house to life through their touch. How does a house sing? How does it keep a beat? Can a house be played like a trumpet?
These are the kind of questions will be answering this fall when we launch The Music Box – A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, which is the
first incarnation of what will evolve into Dithyrambalina. Our prototypes will gather together in a musical village of singing shanties!

Swoon’s “Ice Queen”, (currently debuting at MOCA, Los Angeles’ Art in the Streets exhibition).
Screen print on paper, coffee stained and hand painted, 2′x3′, signed in an edition of ten.
Happy to say that all three of these beautiful pieces went to each of our awesome Kickstarter backers who pledged $3000 or more!

We are very excited to be collaborating with Elizabeth Shannon, a hero of the New Orleans art world since the 1970′s on the shanty
that will shelter our piece TINTINNABULATION STATION. This temporary installation will run from October thru early January and will
be built on the future site of the Dithyrambalina in the New Orleans Bywater neighborhood. Over the course of the exhibition we will
welcome visitors, hold children’s workshops, and present a three-part series of performances featuring local and national musicians who
will orchestrate original works on the devices. Check out our fellow artists, also – we’re amongst great company of some dear friends and many future friends! I’d love it if you’d take a moment to go read more about this project – the whys and wherefores, the inspirations, and the spirit behind it. I’m so proud to be a part of this beautiful thing! The Dithrambalina Kickstarter Campaign ends Thursday Jul 28, 8:49am,
and not only did meet our goal, but nearly doubled it! However – any and all additional pledges are appreciated and needed! Additional funding will go towards build costs for the Dithyrambalina house, developing more instrumentation, and paying our artists and musicians
for all their hard work. We would all be so grateful for any donations, and for any help spreading the word about this project!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Swoon and Sound Collaborator Taylor Shepherd Discuss the Project

P.S. Have you been wondering why Swoon calls the musical house Dithyrambalina?
The root of the name comes from the ancient Greek work dithyramb. A dithyramb
was the chant of wild abandon sung by the devotees of Dionysus to call for their God.

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest and wine, and he connotes ritual madness
and ecstasy in Greek mythology. He is generally depicted as an enchantingly beautiful
man attended by a debauched procession of animals, dancers, and music makers.
Suffice it to say that Dionysus has never missed a Mardi Gras in New Orleans!
– from the Dithyrambalina blog, which is chockablock with good stuff – go see!

School picture day! 7th grade. For real.

You see, we met when I was 13 and she was 11. The setting: a manky teenage boy’s bedroom in the trashiest
trailer in our neighborhood. I was in the middle of having my first kiss with a chubby boy who I agreed to try
making out with on basis of the fact that he had Robert Smith hair (sort of). The soundtrack: The Glove – Blue Sunshine.
With song titles like “Punish Me With Kisses” and “Mouth to Mouth“, it really couldn’t have been much more apt. I was much
more captivated with the album (it took me years to track it down and hear it again! Still a major favorite.) than I was
with the kissing. I think I was a little stoned, and all I could think about was giant pink slugs undulating. ¡El Grosso Maximo!
At the sound of the door creaking open, we wriggled apart, and through a veil of shaggy bangs that I thought hid my awesome
coke-bottle glasses (they totally, uh, didn’t.) I spied a feral wolf-child. A sullen cherub with a nimbus of golden curls that glowed
in the blacklight bulb. She stomped in all tough in plaid skater shorts and monkey boots. We eyed each other, and I think both
realized instantly that we were saved. Literally, in so many ways. We say it all the time, but it doesn’t make it any less true
that if we hadn’t stumbled across each other at that time in our lives, that both of us would have probably ended up dead
or worse. How fate decided to bless us by having our parents find houses right down the street from each other made up
(a bit) for all the other ways she decided to completely fuck us up. Soon, we were spending every free moment together,
hanging out in burned-out, abandoned houses after school and sneaking out of our bedroom windows to smoke pilfered
ciggies and wander around. Eventually we were dressing up like baby hooker vampires and cadging rides to nightclubs
and yet somehow made it back in our beds every night before 4am and go to school in the morning. We were wild, bad
little Lolitas, and it’s a goddamn miracle that we made it out of adolescence so (relatively) unscathed. Amazing, really.

I can’t find the picture of us as baby vampires, so instead here’s us dazed + starry-eyed after modeling in our first fashion show
at the very first New Bohemia, when it was over on Duval. Back in the day, man. We were such babies! Children! What.

Pea on St. Valentine’s Day back in our old place on Royal + Mandeville.
Observe her emu claw diadem and scars from Cupid’s arrows. Heartbreaker!

Sweet valentines. I am grateful to say that this girl was my very first lover, and who better to be initiated into
the mysteries of love than the person you love most in the world, your best friend and partner in crime?
We were lucky. We are lucky. She has taught me so much in these past (holy shit) 19 years…

Queen Marie, still from Pastrisetimania. – “Cake Sits, a fetishistic photo series.”

CYGNUS OLOR
This video is a collaboration between Dana Sherwood and The Black Forest Fancies
An incorrigible collector with an eye for the exotic captures a swan girl and holds her captive in a confectionary cabin

For the past few years, Pandora was working with the Dream Community in Taiwan,
living in rural villages, and working with the inhabitants to build large scale puppets and stage colorful parades.

I’ll let the beautiful Princess of the Puyuma tell you about it in her own words:
In this year overburdened by impossible goodbyes, I’d simply forgotten to miss Taiwan.
I’ve taken the double life summer dive headfirst into color I never can suffer at home.
The electric magenta hibiscus, relentless fuchsia and indigo of tree climbing orchids.
Tropical shades that sear the retina when viewed at midday and emanate neon through
thunderstorm gray. We have such colors in the swamps where I’ve nestled. We’ve the
requisite cruelty of the hot house garrote, anesthetized in narcotic notes of jasmine and datura.
But here these colors throb with mountains’ magic, erupting from black rock and vapour like Boschian
airships suspended in battle – a mesozoic sex display, the glow of which recalls the natal moments when
this magma formed landscape was molten. The timeless beauty of the mountains underlining indignity
of the cinderblock cityscapes, alive with devouring mold. Tree and trellis spangled with giant spiders,
Giger aliens spinning omens, and all we monstrous spinners on display.

Our parade work this year concerns the rediscovery and celebration of Taiwan’s aboriginal cultures.
There are 14 active and politically recognized tribes in Taiwan today, each with their own unique language,
mythology and cultural practices. There are at least a dozen more unrecognized tribes whose organization is
decentralized, as reflected in the death or morbidity of their language and dispersal of their genetic strains.
Archeological research suggests that the ancestors of the current tribes have been living on this island since 8000
years before Chinese immigration began in the 17th century. They have an ethnic identity that is distinct from the
Asian mainland but now comprise only 2 percent of Taiwan’s population, the majority of the population being
ethnically and linguistically Chinese. From the beginning of recorded history the aboriginal peoples have experienced
economic and military conflict with a global menagerie of covetous colonizers: western and northern Europeans,
north and south Americans, the Japanese, who came armed with the anvil of archeology. They staged digs and
opened museums, nailed bare asses into grey woolen writing desks in a thousand thatch roofed classrooms.
Turning practice into history as they systematically laid the – timeless – life of the village to waste.
A clock forever counting circles round the irrevocable bootprints of modernity.

Today as ever looms the ubiquitous spectre of lady China, face-shifting parasite sister to the all-too-proximal north.
These colonial viruses have redefined the island with almost comic regularity, invasions so frequent that they echo the
seasonal tracks of typhoon – violently resurfacing the patterns of life and landscape with language shifts and cultural
(re)assimilation. In keeping with the common plight of indigenous peoples the world over, Taiwanese aboriginals face
steep social barriers rooted in prejudice and exclusion: unemployment, substandard state provision for healthcare and
education, squalid housing and farming conditions, staggering rates of alcoholism and drug addiction. Since the 1980s
efforts have been undertaken on the part of the surviving tribes toward a revival of ethnic identity.
These include incorporating elements of their culture into commercial and artistic endeavors, pop music and pageantry.
That’s where we parade makers figure in. Putting craft through its paces and the spinners on display.

Falling in love with an enameled sewing machine. I mean, wouldn’t you?

The Mudlark Confectionary a cabinet of curious conceptions.

Dolls of The Mudlark Confectionary

Saint Dymphna
These days though, Pandora owns and operates the Mudlark Public Theatre in New Orleans upper Ninth Ward
neighborhood and is the artistic director of that space’s resident company, The Mudlark Puppeteers and co-founder
of the Black Forest Fancies Ltd. She makes puppets, dolls, sets and stories. She is a weaver of magic webs.

A puppet from The Black Wallows Foundling Hospital.

So here’s the deal, in her own words:
In the month of June I had the extreme pleasure of working as a craftswoman on an installation of my dear friend Mark Dion’s
design for a site on a National Tourist Road in Norway. The piece will be located at the top of a mountain, near a glacier
in the incomparably beautiful area of Ardal. A number of world-reknowned artists have been selected by the Norwegian
Tourist Bureau to contribute work to such sites. Notable among these is the last work of the brilliant metal artist Louise Bourgeois,
which is a memorial to the victims of the witch-burnings at Vardo Island, in the North of Norway.

I am constantly at work and seeking future opportunities. I now, a month after completing my contribution to the piece in Norway, still
haven’t even the vaguest clue as to when I will be paid. None of us do. Even Mark, with his esteemed reputation and integrality to the
completion of the project next year, has been given what can only be called ‘the serious, red-tape runaround.’ At first we were told simply
to be patient, that everything was being done in its proper order. The latest word is that all payments are on hold until the end of the
Norwegian Summer holidays – at some time in August. While the bureaucrats summer in sunnier climes, our invoices are evidently on some
Kafka-esque nightmare ride through the gears of a grim machine of the very old garde, and as in Kafka, there is no indication as to where
or when the ride might terminate. In short, I budgeted my life around money I have no access to for the indefinite future.
I have been unavailable for all other work in this period and consequently find myself at a pretty serious financial impasse.
I have had to cancel many plans, the most poignant being a visit to my hometown of Austin, TX to visit my oldest friends and
light candles at my parents’ memorials in honor of my 30th birthday, which is July 22nd.
I am hoping to sell some of my past-works, mostly hand sculpted art-dolls, to offset the deficit.
– Pandora Gastelum

If you’d like to help, please take a look at some of her work over at The Mudlark Confectionary,
and be on the lookout for her handmade art dolls for sale soon on etsy under mudlarkconfectionary
(we’re working on getting her shop up, but in the meantime, let me know if you have any questions
about purchasing pieces!) She has gifted me a new dolly for my every birthday for years, and each
one is perfect and comes intact with their very own soul. I treasure them enormously.

(Photo by Petra Arnold)
Happy birthday, star of the sea, poppy petal princess, peach-pie pea-pod, sweet sister, dearheart!