zeppelins?
I was so focused on my first movie! Now that it is released, wide swathes of languor billow in the obelisk, revealing sun, casting shade. I sit inside it. Mindlessness after intense focus is very pleasant for a while.
My first movie was a response to a question from a reader….how did I get into my obsidian obelisk? Please do not hesitate to ask me any questions you might have about odalisque-hood! It is my custom to be as forthright and delightful as possible. You can ask questions via the comments, or by email at:
One reader question that I have not answered? Odalisque, would you accept a caller who arrived by zeppelin?
My first exploration of this question resulted in this image:
Hmmm. I will consider the implications of this image, and by so doing, the question.
More on that later.
Owl has buried the cupid costume in my heap of sand. I’m still waiting for word of Henriette.
–The Odalisque
movie props
I’m still trying to finish my movie “How I got into the obelisk”, which is a response to a reader question.
I discover that even with a paper movie, post-production takes longer than actual filming. Not to mention the complications with my composer. He and his guitar exist only as astral projections, so scoring is frustrating and time-consuming. Movie projections, astral projections, it gets pretty wacky up here. Thank goodness for owl with two clear eyes in a very clear head that can rotate 270 degrees.
In the meantime, here are some of the props used in in my movie. One day maybe they will be auctioned off for millions of dollars and I can start a foundation to build secluded spots for odalisques world-wide. Which reminds me…I still have not heard from my imprisoned friend Henriette, though the return staghorn post will undoubtedly take some time.
–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
[ ] Odalisque.
click to enlarge.
Fig. 1
Fig.2
Fig.2 (Verso)
Fig.13
(ghosts carry blessings & strange dreams around sharp corners through cracks in the sill.)
(moonlight turns the turn of the stair into an ascension.)
(nails loosen.)
(boards creak.)
(ghosts carry blessings and strange dreams in their open palms.)
(breathlessly.)
(careful
they are exquisitely delicate
accumulations.)
(tangles of dust pins string hair.)
cyberflaneurs, sycophants & odalisques
The owl says that WordPress says that if you want people to read you, you go read them and then comment with charm, enthusiasm, and sympathy so that they will be flattered enough to click on your profile to see who you are. Then, you will develop, like Jesus and the Grateful Dead, followers.
As an odalisque of course I want to be gazed upon. But the odalisque’s appeal is her sequestration. She is couched in exquisite seclusion. She is come-to, arrived-at. She does not prowl or solicit. She reclines in recumbent expectancy, like a saint awaiting the ecstasy of her god.
My scrapbook is something you–stumbled upon?
Cyberflaneur, how have you found me? I am at a distance from the world. I have nothing to offer but the sensuousness of my presence. There is no gain in me because I have distanced myself from all that is gainful. Will you come without motives of your own ascendancy? Without sycophancy? Will you come, then come again, delighting, quite simply, in me?
Why do I secret my scrapbook in a social sphere?
I have sequestered myself in this essentially inaccessible obelisk to unearth in my impossible-to-relieve state of expectancy, what it is I wait for. What is it I want as I gaze out windows that are not doors that men can open and close and journey towards?
The owl’s lids slowly shutter owl’s eyes.
When I wake up hours later, I see two yellow lanterns shine from a boat far out at sea.
Owl is still on the window-sill. Eyes open. Watching me.
–The Odalisque
I will write no more of love.
I will write no more of love.
Is anyone ever satisfied?
A Japanese poet, maybe.
When her lover (a jade bead
slipping along a silk cord
which is a path
white with almond blossoms
or snow?)
hurries.
My garments do not tie closed.
The stairs to my room are
dirty and who ever mounts them?
I am the odalisque who lives in an obelisk. I converse with birds.
