The Tiger’s Wife, by Téa Obreht – I’m almost finished with it. It’s so good it makes me kind of sick.

Ramona, my love – won’t you be mine? I want this, I want this, I want this – but I cannot have it!

I also want every single one of these bird cigarette cards!

Mardi Gras 1983 poster. Yes, yes – I covet this, also.

Back of the taxi cab disco goth Cleopatra realness goin’ on…

Late night drawing. Sideways roots.

Moon moth cuffs. Done & nearly done. I make jewelry, y’all. For sale, soonly.

Le bain – my happiest refuge.

Bath pavilion, dusk de-glittering.

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

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!

She falls into frame
with a professional pout
but the polaroids ignite
upon seeing their subject
and the aperture shuts -
too much exposure…
– Red Light, Siouxsie & the Banshees

Drea:
Vintage Hola, Gaucho! hat
Vintage black mesh bodysuit
Hand-embellished black bustier with red ribbon via Lovecraft Vintage
Black AA disco shorts
Black patent leather Chloe booties
Single army surplus fingerless biker glove
Grandma Sheena’s antique slave bracelet
Charm School Vintage handmade buffalo tooth + vintage gold chain necklace
Trail of Tears

Kathlee:
Bewitching black hat
Hand-dyed vintage red lace blouse
Fuck yeah F21 peplum skirt
Charm School Vintage handmade crystal, elk hide, and gold chain necklace
Model’s own tights and uh-mazing shoes
Lace on the face

Erin:
1930′s black satin gown as turban
Scheherazade choker
Charm School Vintage handmade antler, elk hide, + gold chain necklace
Red vintage dress hemmed into Issey Miyake-inspired bustier
Starry Skies vintage skirt
Model’s own legs and shoes
Trail of Tears

Blakesley:
Red Hat Society in-training vintage chapeau
Lonely crimson glove
Wild Wing Dove vintage dress
Dirty Librarian Chains Spider Bite necklace
Lace on the face
Model’s own tights + shoes

On all models:
ass
attitude!

Clothes + Accessories: Charm School Vintage
Styling: Shari + Angeliska
Makeup: Angeliska

The gossips!

These songs kept running through my head while we were working on this,
and provided the soundtrack and musical inspiration for the shoot – Enjoy!

Red Light – Siouxsie & the Banshees

Photographic – Depeche Mode

Girls on Film – Duran Duran

Me + Randall Buckthorn Chili Frangelico outside the All Ways Lounge on St. Claude.

Drewzilla displaying his characteristic babyface witch-finger beard.

R.I.P. Magnolia Shorty – she was so mighty.

Corinne + Frannie

Monique + Ponyboy – just another night at the Dragon’s Den.

Alisan rockin’ a bit of Prince flair.

Alisan + Fran out in the soft light on North Rampart St.

Big Blessings Poppin’ – The Devil Can’t Stop It!

Joe Power on the steps of the monster-face church.

Bean Dress!

I forgot to include the back of her dress! It sez:
“If you like it then you shoulda put a BEAN on it!”
Genius.

I came upon this marvelous bean krewe one afternoon…

Their ensembles were stunningly bedecked in various varieties of the magical fruit.
(The more you eat, the more you toot – the more you toot, the better you feel!)

I always fall in love with the creole cottages + shotguns of New Orleans.
We carry on illicit affairs, and I whistle at them, and shoot smoldering glances
as I ride by. Oh, if only I could sit on your stoop, baby. I’d be hangin’ half naked
off your balcony every night… You know I’d treat you right, get you insured, get
your shutters greased with butter, your floors waxed and gleaming. You know I would.

I fall hard for paintjobs, bits of gingerbread trim, stained glass – all that.
I’m a sucker for the lonely, quiet looking ones. I think how lively I could make them.

See you soon, baby.

These hairpins are made from kingfisher feathers. They are beyond words.

The store’s motto is: “Find what has disappeared”, and with Gabrielle’s eye
for exotic treasure, you are sure to find it here – whether it be exquisite alabaster
pendant lamps that once hung in grand ballrooms, or ancient carvings from foreign
lands. There is a strong appreciation here for things well-made, and clearly loved.
Any object designed or created with an love of beauty, and a desire to make things
that would last a long time. Between these solid, comforting pieces flits the ephemeral,
taking the form of a faded love letter, or a shattered-silk parasol. I’ve been to hundreds
of antique shops, and there are certain ones that really just get it. The aesthetics, the
passion, the joy of the hunt, the deep browse – it’s not an easy combination to nail,
and very few actually even try. I love a dusty, ramshackle hodge-podge any day,
(especially when the prices fit the atmosphere) but those are a dying breed, and
sadly few and far-between these days. More often than not, you find the neon-lit,
sterile antique mall filled with aisle after aisle of overpriced depression glass and
arrays of offensive saltshakers. Or, it’s the quaint “shoppe” run by a coterie of biddies
on a straggly small town square. I prefer these to the former, but the aroma of potpourri
and desperation can be overwhelming. When I tell people I deal in antiques, I always
wonder if they flash to places like these. I imagine many picture one of those fancier
places, always very quiet and chill, with never a speck of dust on the perfect Edwardian
sideboards or exquisite carpets. I guess there’s Antiques with a capital A, junk, and um-
“junque” (oh yes – I see it all too often in some “shoppes”) which can be identified by
sponge-painted country geese. Thankfully, a new breed of curio shops has emerged
from the detritus that manage to combine the rare and fine with the imperfectly exquisite.
Natural objects like wasp’s nests might find themselves priced alongside woven gold tapestries
with the same reverence for the genius of both their makers. I’ve been lucky to have worked and
sold in one of the best – Uncommon Objects, where I’ve learned so much about all the beautiful
things humans have loved or used long enough to treasure, and the business of dealing in them.

The Tree of Life mural on the back wall was painted by Gabrielle’s mother, if I remember
correctly, (& I may not.) I love the lamia tucked up in the branches on the left-hand side.

Sailing away to a fantasy-land of flapper beads and reliquaries!

Lichen-love.

I want these girls to be my doll-friends. I love picturing them flopped on pillows in elegant boudoirs, clutched to the
feverishly rouged cheeks of sleeping jazz-babies. Stuffed in trunks of rotting satin, awakening here – together.

I would wear this heart on my hip everyday – paying respects to Marguerite Royer rather fabulously.

I like my saints softened with pink ruffles and frills. It suits him, don’t you think?

This guy is my wax boyfriend. He’s very quiet, but I like the way he looks at me.

The perfect setting for a tea party where only absinthe, cockle-shells and silver bells are served.

La belle Gabrielle, lost in thought, more luminous every time I see her. She comes from the moon.

We ladies: myself, Gabrielle, and Mlle. Dana Sherwood.

Oh, and I can’t resist sharing my favorite picture of Miss Ekedal (age what, 16?)
I’m guessing snatched from a high-school yearbook. What a wild elf! Gorgeousness.
Go and see her:
at Gypsy Honeymoon
1266 Valencia St
(between 23rd St & 24th St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 821-1713

This house was decorated so wonderfully for Hallowe’en + Dia de los Muertos,
I had to stop and gawp at it for a bit. I wonder who lives there? I like them already.

A view from the back of Rusty Lazer’s trusty minivan, on the morning we left
New Orleans: my bike was secured by ropes, my bed was an amazing vintage
Peter Max quilt, my breakfast – a delicious Hubig’s pie. The factory is a street
over from my old house, and I miss standing on my balcony and breathing in
the sweet aroma of juicy fruit-filled fried pies being baked in the morning. Hu-dat!

This is my new boyfriend, Orestes. He and his sister Electra belong to Pandora,
and they are super high-fashion designer glam movie-star cats. They’re famous.

Miss Pea’s kitchen is a minature ocean, sailing high above the rooftops.

Her red-ribboned leather shoes share space with bottles found in her excavations.

Flying fish made from sequins.

You can sing sea-shanties while you do the dishes and swab the decks.

Rabbit lace! Do you swoon? I swoon.

I was invited to a miniature tea-party hosted by velour-flocked rabbits, but all they
served me were anise pastilles, arsenic and dust. I had a pastille. Wouldn’t you?

Tail of the Yak is one of my most favorite places on earth. It’s a bit
like walking inside an enchanted cake – or, what it might be like
if you could shop inside my brain. It’s probably a very good thing
I live so far away from it, because I’d likely bankrupt myself there
five times over – their stock is constantly changing, and yet it
always seems to be just what I want. Alice Erb and Lauren
McIntosh are the owners, both very magical women, who have
made it their mission to create a little piece of heaven, populated
by gentle-faced saints in paper dresses, cooing doves, and very
exquisite taxidermy. They travel to the far corners of the globe,
collecting the most wonderful goods and curious objects.

I was cursing myself for not picking up one of these clever white journals!
My red moleskine wandered off somewhere, and I’ve been lost without
a daily planner. I like these because they are not dated (you can fill in
your own, and start any time.) I prefer that, as I have my own unique
sense of chronology. Also, I am saddened by piles of unsold and obsolete
planners and calendars half-way through the year. Unfilled, unfulfilled.


I did indulge in this perfume from Ortigia (Fico d’India)
though I’m sad I couldn’t afford the get the black amber also.
Alas! I’ve been craving a good dark amber perfume, and that
one really blew my whistle. Maybe they’ll still carry it when I
make my way back there. Fingers crossed. Oh, restraint and regret!

The angel of fine papers watches over, protecting from ink-spills + silverfish.

Is this not the most majestic chandelier? I would like to marry it,
if I were also a chandlier, or perhaps if I were a jellyfish. Either, really.

Joss papers from China for luck, burning and art-making.

Explosions of paper flowers everywhere! Like fireworks, hana-bi.

Magic cicada ink! I had to buy three, because they were so amazing.

I also went a little crazy with the Maison Bouche chocolate bars, as you can see.
In my defense, some are meant for gifting… Probably! It’s hard not to gobble them
all. I got Tilleul, Absinthe, Violette, and Pain d’Epice. I’m also such a sucker for
pretty packaging – they use shimmery metallic papers and colored foils. Le sigh!

My darling Miss Dana Sherwood inspecting the jewels. Tail of the Yak
has the most splendid selection of jewelry – Victorian mourning, Georgian
rose-cut diamonds, Edwardian intaglios, Bohemian garnets… In other words,
every thing I’d like to have a strapping collection of, one day. Marvelousness.


Oh, the agony of not being able to buy every single thing…
Also, my crown is very, very heavy. O dolorosa!

Lauren McIntosh also makes wonderful paintings, and has the most
exquisite calligraphy hand. I’d love to take classes with her one day.
Here’s a nice peek into her world: Studio Visit: Lauren McIntosh

Also, here’s another look around from Poppytalk,
and some glimpses from my last trip out that way:
The Barbary Coast

I recommend a pilgrimage:
Tail of the Yak
2632 Ashby Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705
(510) 841-9891

The Moviegoer was recommended to me by my friend Mr. Whittier, quite a while ago.
It wasn’t sparked by our shared love for New Orleans (where the book is set), but
by a conversation about “how travel is as wonderful as it is terrible”
– he sent me the following quote:

“Not in a thousand years could I explain it to Uncle Jules, but it is no small thing
for me to make a trip, travel hundreds of miles across the country by night to a
strange place and come out where there is a different smell in the air and people
have a different way of sticking themselves into the world. It is a small thing to him,
but not to me. It is nothing to him to close his eyes in New Orleans and wake up in
San Francisco and think the same thoughts on Telegraph Hill that he thought on
Carondelet Street. Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit-presence
of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man but never leave him alone, how, if a
man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risk he takes,
he may find himself No One and Nowhere. Great day in the morning! What will it mean
to go mosying down Michigan Avenue in the neighborhood of five million strangers,
each shooting out his own personal ray? How can I deal with five million personal rays?”

Oh man, have I been feeling this lately. More than ever before. It’s a strange feeling.
I once loved it, and perhaps I will again – the sense of anonymity, of being a stranger
in a strange land. It makes me want to return to China, or go anywhere where the
language is totally incomprehensible, where I am an alien. Maybe it’s the oddness
of coming back to so many familiar places, and finding them changed. New Orleans
is mine, and not mine. She’s the lover you come back to, sadly, wistfully – finding her
worse for wear, touching old scars, grazing new wounds, evidences of bizarre
reconstructive surgeries. There are other people in her bed, resting their heads
on the pillow you embroidered your initials on, and they look at you blankly,
thinking you a new visitor, a tourist. It’s very discomfiting sensation.

This weird building on Upper Decatur has windows made from red mirrors.
Very creepy. The fern hanging in the atrium kind of looks
like a severed head, if you squint just right. ‘Twas the season.

Somebody got their head punted into this French door,
right across the street. Or maybe they punched it.

There are parts of the Upper Quarter and CBD that have a weird
magical, unknowable quality about them. Maybe it’s because I
rarely had reason to go up there, or would find myself on the street
at odd hours – but it seemed to me that the buildings would rearrange
themselves secretly at night, forming confusing configurations, mazes
for the unwary wanderer. Anywhere that was once bustling, but has long
stood deserted has that feeling for me. Haunted, and perhaps sentient.

This is one of my favorite things in New Orleans. I want to drink one very badly.

Oh, how I long for a little gingerbread cottage, festooned with morning glories like this one!

This was a very good street in the Bywater. I forget which one it was, but the people who
live on it are very lucky. My friend Bunny lives in the house to which these sweet wheels
belong. There are cypress trees, and it’s very quiet and peaceful. The shade is unusual.

Mossy cobblestone banquette, interrupted by cypress roots.

Wouldn’t you like this to be your front door? I wouldn’t mind.

Oh and, I didn’t realize until I was halfway through The Moviegoer that
Walker Percy was the man responsible for A Confederacy of Dunces finally
seeing the light of day! Bless his name! The story of how it all came to be is
as ironic and tragic and funny as the brilliant novel that almost moldered
in total obscurity. Reading books about New Orleans that really and truly
capture the essence of the place, the heavy air, the strange characters,
the accents, the fragrances both sweet and foul – well, for anyone that’s
lived and loved there, it’s like coming home. Do you know what it means…?

This is a real thing that exists somewhere, this rabbit. He’s almost four feet tall.
Can you handle it? Real rabbit fur, and composition. I wish he was mine.

Oh Gaga. This shoot from Vanity Fair a month or two ago had some really good
moments. Mainly this one, which I apparently liked enough to take a detail shot
on my phone camera. Good for note-taking, that. I really can’t get over how much
this reminds me of Katie-Jane Garside, Daisy Chainsaw era. Am I wrong? No!

My jewelry teacher plays this in the studio fairly often. I love the album cover.
Early Fleetwood Mac is really straight up Brit-hippie blues, and it’s good to listen
to while you hammer tiny bits of silver. I love the image of a Black Magic woman,
which has more to do with sort of a 70′s glam witchling who shops at Biba, dabbles
in the occult and wears dark glitter nail polish than any actual nefarious rituals or
bad shit. I remember getting dressed for a party one Halloween, and flipping the
the Santana LP over and over. This is what happens when your parents protect
you from mainstream rock music of the era in which you grew up. They were more
into Kitty Wells and Jimmie Rodgers at the time, or Sandy Denny and whatnot.
My mother would probably be horrified by my forays into that verboten world,
but I like it all. There’s something about coming to music fresh. So much of my
favorite music has definitely been influenced by what my parents listened to,
which was always extremely eclectic – and I’m so grateful for that. But that also
means that when I listen to something like Led Zeppelin now, I’m hearing it free
of context. It’s completely new to me. I was talking to some of my friends who were
home-schooled lately, or friends who grew up without television about their first
experiences of mainstream tropes. It’s fascinating, that feeling of exploring things
that many might find very basic givens of our pop-culture saturated planet. Odd.

Snapped these from the fabulous Thierry Mugler book at the library. Time to renew
my library card so I can pore over this! Absurd that I let it lapse for so long, really.
I don’t need to own every single book, right? I can give them back. Right. Also,
this is really my idea of what fashion should be. I wish I looked like this every day.
It’s so Gustave Moreau! Symbolist couture. More chimeras please! I tire of minimalism.

Look at these scales! Such detail. Genius! I’d kill to see it in person. (Or wear it!)

Red lips, beetle wings, favorite scarf. As close as I come to a uniform?

We grew this enormous pomegranate! It’s not quite ripe yet – I can’t wait to devour it.