staghorn post
me wearing red harem pants in odalisque solidarity
I have decided to send a secret message to Henriette. Carrier pigeon post was not an option as she is incarcerated in a basement, which I assume has no windows. Therefore, I am using staghorn post. This service, with their wide net-work of inconspicuous agents, will be able to return any messages to me even though only a single agent (who lives here in the obelisk) knows of my actual location.
I have placed a misleading return address in case my message is intercepted. Just let those authorities try to find me on the open seas where I will never, never go again!!
More as the situation develops.
(Read about my imprisoned friend, Henriette, here.)
–The Odalisque
Henriette
I’ve had terrible news. Owl breezed in with all-the-news-fit-to-print, in which I found an article about an old friend, Henriette. (read the article Odalisque in Red Pants here.)
me & Henriette back in the day
Henriette has, for the past decade or so, led an austere, artistic life in the southwest desert, as the article states. She was an example to me, The Odalisque, when I came to my obelisk. I have these snapshots from Henriette …it’s hard to even look at them now….
snapshots from Henriette in the desert
Henriette has been captured! Packed in a red tube (don’t let that industry double-speak fool you…she was bound in red harem pants, then rolled up in a sumptuous Turkish rug) and handed off to authorities who will return her to a dank basement where, the article says, no one will appreciate her!
Can you imagine what it means for an odalisque to be amongst people who do not appreciate her? It is one thing to be a solitary odalisque as I am, but to be in the public eye but dismissed?! Even worse, the article says she will be spited as a bourgeois. Henriette? A bourgeois? Long, long ago poor odalisques ASPIRED to the bourgeoisie. No more! Henriette and I are beyond your conventions oh wretched outer-world. Leave us alone!
I want to help Henriette if only with kind words and assurance that she has a friend. I blush with shame at my hesitation. For I, The Odalisque, am afraid. If “they” know about me, will they snatch me, too? Where would they take me, these authorities?
I comfort myself with the thought that I have birds for friends…far more useful than the company of bones, which Henriette preferred. Birds can fly and spy and deflect and bring warnings.
What should I do for pauvre Henriette?
Here is the picture that keeps appearing in the newspapers. What no one but I notice–because I, also, am an odalisque– is that Henriette still has her COAT. As I said in an earlier post…every odalisque needs a fantastic coat for dark times…
figures (obelisk triangulation)
[click to enlarge]
figure [unenumerated]: boreal
figure 2: perspective/aquatic
(cross-reference & view verso)
figure [unenumerated]: astral/beloved
—
figure 17: traverse (the obelisk)
Movie Night! Gold and the Woman
In MOVIE NIGHT I wrote about Owl & I’s proclivity for the lost films of Theda Bara. Last night we watched GOLD AND THE WOMAN, a film made in 1916 which is now considered lost. In this film, Theda played Theresa Decordova.
movie night in the obelisk
GOLD AND THE WOMAN
SCENE: A motel room.
(Blast of light. Cataclysm. Two glaciers collide, slip, cleave, crest, peak, lock in angular apex.)
(A wrecked ship, its cruciate mast.)
(Wash to white. Fade to shadow, deeply creased.)
(THERESA crawls out of bed, stumbles towards camera. Small table, paper box, golden lamp.)
(Drawl of her gestures in acquisition of fag. Lit.)
(THERESA smokes. Posture, as if figurehead of pagan font.)
(Emerge spiritous smoke.)
(Dry, white vesper in darkling room. Drift.)
(Chin down., eyes up, THERESA. Speak:)
INTERTITLE
“WHAT DO YOU OFFER?”
“I WANT PEARLS, SPILLED THROUGH MY FINGERS,
GOLD, STUFFED IN MY PURSE.”
(Ice heaves. Mast erects.)
(MAN rises from bed.)
END OF SCENE
This movie inspired me to make a piece of paper-doll porn:
I am the odalisque who lives in an obelisk. I converse with birds.
