the ugly earring

(photo from here)

old age is attractive to me.

a head of white hair, red lipstick, wearing turbans, smoking cigarettes hand-rolled by lover, owning a camel, showing up at bella’s piano recital with 10 lbs of necklaces and fingers layered with rings (including a queen min ring), and saying fabulous things that stick to walls.

***

i really like renata mohlo. 

here she is in her own words: 

the sart: dress to impress who?
rm: Myself: in the meaning that dressing for me is just a way to share the space with others, so sometimes I feel like giving a strong contribute to the picture, and sometimes I just need to be transparent, to pass through without making any noise. But it’s always referred to my mood in relation to the others.

***

from fashion indie:

On why no one should go to fashion school:

“These schools today are pretty useless. They are very theoretical. What do you need theory for? Nothing. What you need is experience, to have lived and seen and done other things in life. I taught for a while and I used to tell my students: ‘Seeing one picture by Chagall is much more important than reading all the issues of Vogue ever published.’”

On what happened after the magical ’80s ended:

“Everything turned into a soulless homage to other things we had seen before. Think about the era of successive revivals that began after the 80s. For example, even today in most runway shows the music is nothing but a mix of 60s, 70s, and 80s music. It’s a big empty hole. Nothing is exciting anymore, and most things are tremendously boring. Often, the best things are written by unknown editors and journalists, while the big names seem to sign things off with their left hand. Haven’t you noticed that nobody expresses an opinion anymore?”

quote by stendhal.

you see, in your fantabulous cities there’s wonderful things happening.

here in phoenix, we get an occassional tumbleweed. or maybe a few rain drops.

so when fashionalities shared the news, we wanted to spread the word too.

(photo taken during a recent weekend picnic; more here)

i was the editor of my high school yearbook. go figure.

on those long nights before deadline, ian and his bunnymen kept me company in the darkroom as i developed black and white pictures of the prom king and queen.

fifteen years later, echo and the bunnymen still make perfect background music, especially on those moody creative days when inspiration flows like sweat.

anyway, have you listened to the killing moon lately? you should.

also, one more thing that used to perplex my goth days:

what kind of eyeliner do you think siouxsie sue wore?

Aristotle Onassis, once said of his clandestine lover, Maria Callas: “You are a nobody. You’re just a woman with a whistle stuck in her throat.”

(whether it’s true or not, i’m not sure. I just found it here.)

if it wasn’t 100+ degrees i’d wear this outfit everyday.

in other words, minus the tights, this is already my staple look:

• wooden heels
• frumpy cardigan (on big business days it’s a tailored jacket)
• grandma purse
• quarky dress
• hair part
• (and we can’t forget the editor glasses that slip down the nose)
• and always fugly jewelry

(from here)

the summertime of our youth meant black widow hunting with a can of aqua net and a lighter. rummaging behind junk boxes in the shed or in between the wooden slab entrance of our mother’s garden, we could spot her irregular spider web several feet away; the way it glistens in the afternoon shade.  my brother held the aqua net can and i ignited the fire; it created a firestorm, an instantaneous charred death.

the cruelest act was watching her cocoon of eggs burn; and her babies scattering for shelter.

it is a nightmare that returns, the phobia that remains in the forefront. Yes, i dream of  the dead mothers; their hour glass bellies resting against mine, their children crawling up and down my arms and legs is if i were their play gym.

it is a reoccurring sentence given for the crime of being a cruel child.

in our yard, they are free to take shelter in the cactus, in the aloe vera garden, inside the old wooden rocking chair that rests under the mesquite tree.  

inside me, turmoil brews when little bella races around the yard–curious and brave in extending her hand in areas where those shiny widows may rest. 

we watch her carefully.

we are told widows fear us more.

dearest reader, i must confess i am at odds with myself.

one half is deathly fearful of their poison and vengeance; but the other half believes in harmony, that all mothers must exist side by side. 

so, i show bella her glistening web, the beautiful black mother and her red hourglass crown. I tell her, “if you see her red belly you must not touch or get too close.”

i do believe she understands what i am saying.

 ***

inspired by the thought of wearing my cruelty like a scarlet letter or a necklace charm.

(a real black widow charm here )

in another life, i loved a taxidermist.
he stuffed a coyote and said
“the skin of the desert is
you.”  

***

if you haven’t met polly morgan, let me introduce you:

the last enemy

still life after death

***

if words run out of meaning, 
then stay tuned. you will find me at the road’s end
collecting carcasses and earth worms.

p.s. some music as you google the term taxidermy.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety.  We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses.  I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s.  The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.  And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons

(morning song by sylvia plath)

***

rumors abound that sutro rises during the quarter moon when neptune awakens calling for his lady with the liquid feet.

a bath house for amphitrite and the two crabs that hang from her temples.

a fine-haired eagle perches on a limb thinking about ghosts in one piece bathing suits sitting on ruined planks.

apparently, sutro tells a pretty mean tale.

photos from here and here. and some more great info here.

“Oshima,” I finally say, “this is a pretty weird thing to ask, but do you think it’s possible for someone to become a ghost while they’re still alive?”

               “Kafka on the Shore” Haruki Murakami