Anyway, in class, we've been studying Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway."  We were discussing the character of Peter any whether or not he was sympathetic as a character.  Someone brought up the point that he was so wrapped up in himself that he couldn't find true love.  The fundamental problem with this is the fact that he's already married.  If you can't focus on someone besides yourself long enough to make a decent compromise, then you're not near mature enough to get married.  Some people never get there.  I have no sympathy at all for people like this.

Magdalena Zurawski's new debut novel, "The Bruise" recently came out thanks to The University of Alabama Press. Zurawski examines the precincts of truth/honesty, writer/speaker, reality/dream, traditional/experimental narrative, and more. Her prose consists of tightly woven rambling sentences that detail the minute nuances and fantasies that make up the narrator M-'s reality, the details progress the narrative forward, constantly blurring reality and fantasy.

M- is a neurotic, obsessive lesbian that is terrified of her obsessions because she understands all actions change and determine ones reality. Because of her attention to change and fear of change, the novel centers on M-'s slow paced acceptance of the hard fact - a person cannot be in control of everything and consequentially must learn how to interact with a world that is full of unforeseeable events. Like Virginia Woolf before her, Zurawksi uses minimal dialogue, the majority of action is internal processing of external actions. Stylistically, Zurawski reminds me of Gertrude Stein; both writers explore automatic writing and both investigate the loops and turns of the mind, their discoveries are conveyed in their works content and prose style. M- takes you on an adventure through existential dreamworlds that consistently propel the reader toward questioning what is and isn't, why does it matter to know what is and isn't, what is the weight of is and isn't in relationship to the person experiencing both reality and fantasy. The narrator constantly calls to other characters and to fiction itself to clarify that her life is real, M- believes that without the mirrors of others she wouldn't exist except within her own imagination, suggesting Jean Baudrillard had an influence on Zurakwsi because her work remains aware of image into completion. Reading "The Bruise" consistently brought me to corridors within my own psyche that I had yet to examine, I met ghosts that wanted to speak to me that I had naively refused breath.

The back of the book, "Magdalena Zurawski reclaims the university bildugsroman as an intelligent and moving form."

Here are some sites featuring the work of Magdalena Zurawski.

"The Sleepers"
"The Bridge"

Almost one hundred years after Virginia Woolf wrote those words in her painfully beautiful and witty A Room of One's Own, it is indeed the Year of the Woman. Hillary Clinton, Benazir Bhutto, Tina Fey, Diablo Cody, and now, Sarah Palin. Sure, there have been some notable men so far this year as well, but it's the women we are talking about right now. Everyone is talking about women. And why? Because women are fascinating.

Woolf wrote about the fascination that women hold for men, and the wildly contradictory (and often ridiculous) opinions that men had formed about them:

"Are they capable of education or incapable? Napoleon thought them incapable. Dr. Johnson thought the opposite. Have they souls or have they not souls? Some savages say they have none. Others, on the contrary, maintain that women are half divine and worship them on that account. Some sages hold that they are shallower in the brain; others that they are deeper in the consciousness. Goethe honoured them; Mussolini despises them. Wherever one looked men thought about women and thought differently... It was distressing, it was bewildering, it was humiliating. Truth had run through my fingers. Every drop had escaped."

Today the fascination is no less, and thankfully more informed than some of the above cited convictions (despite whatever prejudicial vestiges may still tinge our modern conversation), and is held by not just one sex, but both. Women, whatever their sexual orientation may be, are fascinated by women. What they say, what they wear, what they do and how they do it. Oh sure, we love the boys too, but it's the girls that are really exciting.

Why? Perhaps because we have heard comparatively little from and about women throughout our lives. They (and therefore we) remain still somewhat mysterious, untested, unknown. We read about great women scattered here and there throughout the pages of our history books that are otherwise completely filled with men. We have certainly come a long way since Woolf's time, and, in recent years especially, American women have made unbelievable strides in gaining positions of prominence and power in business, politics and the media. And now they are closer than ever to holding high office.

When a woman rises to the spotlight in any sphere, we (women) inevitably measure ourselves against her, could I do what she is doing? Is she me? Am I her? We identify with her and we reject her at the same time, because two sides of the same coin are at work: our innate desire to succeed and prove ourselves and our innate fear of failure. In those areas where women's abilities and competence are still untested and questioned we are especially ecstatic and fearful when one of Us breaks through the barriers. Will she pass the test? Will she prove that we are all worthy? Or will she plunge us back into decades of waiting and hoping for another chance?

We thought Hillary just might do it. She had the guts, the drive, the experience, the support. Even women who didn't like her couldn't help but feel that prickle of pride that she was in the big ring, she was a contender. She held her own, and she lasted twelve rounds, but in the end she was not the victor, rightly or wrongly. We took a breath, thought, ok, maybe next time. At least she has famously cracked that ceiling. And then along came Sarah.

Sarah Palin, whatever you may think of her politics and qualifications, is a woman who has riveted this nation like no other politician in recent memory. "Since her name was announced as John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin has generated more US-based internet search traffic than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Michael Phelps and Barack Obama combined." (www.fivethirtyeight.com) In just the first two days after the announcement that she was the Republican VP pick, "the number of U.S. Internet searches for "Sarah Palin" reached a peak greater than any other political personality in the past three years." (www.time.com) She has beaten all ratings records with both her convention speech and her debate with her democratic counterpart.

What is it about this woman that enthralls us so much? Whether you recoil in horror when she opens her mouth, or you applaud her folksy down-home mannerisms and "Sarah six-pack" style, it is undeniable that we are all completely in awe of her. How does she do it? Five kids! A new baby! Governor of Alaska, and now candidate for the second highest office in the country? OK, so she doesn't read any newspapers, can't name any important Supreme Court cases, gets her facts and figures on energy wrong, oh and on our military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, oh and that whole "Bush Doctrine" thing. The woman has still got the country reeling and the Washington suits panting like excited dogs.

Women envy, admire and revile her, and all with good reason. She represents a new day, certainly, and a new reality. When Hustler is producing an adult film starring Sarah Palin look-a-likes called "Nailin' Palin," you know we have entered a new era. This is the Republican nominee for Vice-President! Did we become Italy all of a sudden? (Cicciolina, an Italian porn star, was elected to their parliament in 1987, serving only one term, after which she co-founded the political movement Partito dell'Amore (Party of Love).) Is Ms. Palin going to start wearing skimpier and skimpier clothing the closer we get to November 4 and the further the poll numbers sink for McCain?

The fact that Palin looked and sounded like a programmed Stepford Wives robot during her debate with Senator Joe Biden on Thursday night doesn't seem to have altered the nation's view of her much, in fact she has risen in the majority's esteem (84% said she did better than they expected and 55% said their opinion of her had changed for the better in two separate surveys) simply because she managed to wink and grin and recite her way through the 90 minutes, leaping high above the sadly low bar that had been set for her after her disastrous media interviews.

This is insanity. There is no denying that she has that certain something, that star quality that humans, and Americans in particular, seem to admire above all else. Those of us who are scared out of our wits at the possibility of a Palin presidency find ourselves squirming in discomfort as she fixes the camera with that smile and emits vacuous conservative platitudes in between "you betchas" and "doggone its." It is truly as if fiction has overtaken reality and we are no longer living in the Age of Reason, but the Age of Utter Stupidity.

How can the nation not realize that this woman, beguiling and talented in front of the camera as she may be, is sorely unqualified to be our vice-president, let alone our president? How did we go from Virginia Woolf's reality, where women were just winning the right to vote but were still fighting demoralizing obstacles to any positions of power, to Palin's blind and ruthless ambition skyrocketing her to a shot at the second most powerful position in the world? How did we trade Senator Clinton for Governor Palin? What are the qualities that we want in our female leaders? Are good looks and cut-throat drive really what it takes to get a woman in the White House? We thought Hillary was ambitious and would stop at nothing. Sarah the pit bull makes Hillary seem like a pussycat.

Woolf wrote of the generations of women who have lived throughout the ages without a voice, and how those who had a literary gift or a touch of genius, or, say, a passion for politics, had to suffer in silence, some, perhaps many, becoming insane and even suicidal because of their societal prison. A woman needs money and a room of her own, if she is to write fiction or poetry, she said. True words, even today. And if she wants to become president of the United States?

NC

Several things struck me about Machowicz's list.  First, the current tension between the needs of counterinsurgency and conventional state-on-state warfare is apparent when technology like the RPG-7 appears next to the F-117A.  (After all, how might a COIN theorist's list differ from a RMA-minded person?  From a COIN mindset, the list seemed somehow 'dated' to me.)  Secondly, I have to wonder whether some of these technologies had a greater impact on culture than they did on the battlefield.  For example, the S-75 Dvina pushed the United States to develop countermeasures and new surveillance methods, but the 1960 U-2 incident had a cultural impact above and beyond the technological leap this one SAM system represented.

This leads me to two important questions.  What does it mean for weapons technology to change the world?  More importantly, how do we understand this change?  Perry Anderson, a historian and literary theorist, proposes a theory that might be useful in this context.*  In "Modernism and Revolution," he analyzes "Modernist" social movements and the change they represented. As you may know, Modernism is a term applied to various artistic movements including but by no means limited art, architecture, literature, and film, which constituted a radical break from the past. Examples include authors such as Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisee, and many others. However, Modernism is more than an isolated artistic ideal. Einstein contributions to physics, Freud's developments in psychoanalysis, and Keynes' economic theories all represent significant "Modernist" moments in their capacity to change the world. Another, less recognized Modernist is Giulio Douhet, one of the fathers of air power theory.  Douhet was an amateur novelist, painter, and poet, whose contributions led to a Modernist revolution in war making.

What do these world-changing moments have in common?  Anderson suggests that they emerge at the intersection of three key coordinates:  academicism, technology, and the proximity of social revolution.  In terms of academicism, it is not enough for an modernist event to happen.  Rather, there must be an academic theorization that attempts to define and articulate that event.  The second component is a new or improved technology that changes the way we view the world:  mass production, the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, the personal computer, et. al.  Lastly, social revolution according Anderson is Marxist upheaval of the socioeconomic order, but I have broadened this include other forms of radical social change:  the American revolution, decolonization, the atomic age, and many others.

Do the moments in which these weapons changed the world conform to these three coordinates?  Some do, certainly.  In very obvious ways, the atomic bomb and the ICBM changed how the United States and other powers waged war.  In the immediate wake of these advances, the Army struggled to become "high-tech" as the Air Force received increased funding and standing within the military establishment.  Victory and occupation had entirely new implications that decreased the value of conventional military force and increased the need for paramilitary operations.  The world had been changed.

Today, there is little doubt we face one of these revolutionary moments.  Theorists like Montgomery McFate attempt to grapple with the challenges of counterinsurgency, technologies like the RPG-7 have enabled insurgencies to wage asymmetric war effectively, and the rise of radical, supranational groups like Al-Qaida  threaten to overthrow the establish social other.  These three coordinates are but one, reductive look at a much more complex moment in which live.  The important thing to acknowledge is that the weapons themselves are only one component of radical change.  Indeed, even these "weapons that changed the world" would be nothing without the radical changes in theorization and social order that accompany them.

* - See Perry Anderson, “Modernism and Revolution,” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Gary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1988).

Pero hoy no nos centraremos en la coincidencia entre aquellos que piensan que los hombres convivieron con los dinosaurios y aquellos que quieren quemar literatura. Hoy quemaremos literatura. No nos basaremos en criterios morales, sino literarios. Eso sí, pasad de quemar a Lucía Etxebarría, Mario Benedetti y acólitos, que odiarles está muy barato. El tema es otro: ¿Qué libros os han dicho que son imprescindibles, y habéis odiado? ¿Qué obras canónicas lanzáis desde el panteón a la pira?

Los míos son:

10. Absalom, Absalom - William Faulkner: Aparentemente es como sus mejores libros, pero sin sentido del humor ni inspiración. Un tostón. Sí que recomiendo: Mientras Agonizo, las Palmeras Salvajes, Luz de Agosto, Santuario; todas de Faulkner.

9. Los Hermanos Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Si Crimen y Castigo ya se me hizo dura de terminar, ésta, con sus diálogos y Reflexiones interminables, se me hizo imposible. Sí que recomiendo: Pasarse a Tólstoi.

8. Ada, o el Ardor - Vladimir Nabokov: Nabokov es pedante y divertido. Menos en Ada, donde toda la diversión se convierte en más pedantería, dando lugar a demasiada pedantería. Sí que recomiendo: Lolita, Pnin, Pálido Fuego; todas de Nabokov.

7. La Señora Dalloway - Virginia Woolf: Una mujer aburrida tiene un día aburrido. Hurra. Sí que recomiendo: Las Olas, Orlando, la película de las Horas, basada en un libro que está basado en Mrs. Dalloway.

6. Ferdydurke - Witold Gombrowicz: Apuesto a que Gombrowicz tardó una semana en escribir esto. Sí que recomiendo: La sinagoga de los Iconoclastas, de Rodolfo Wilcock. Porque sí.

5. La Muerte de Artemio Cruz - Carlos Fuentes: Un tipo muere en Méjico y yo me aburro. Sí que recomiendo: Si quieres muerte y Méjico, tanto los Detectives Salvajes como 2666 de Roberto Bolaño.

4. Corazón tan blanco - Javier Marías: Un hombre mira por la ventana de su habitación de hotel durante 100 páginas, y yo dejo de leer. Sí que recomiendo: Autores españoles contemporáneos que valen la pena - La Velocidad de los Jardines de Eloy Tizón o El Hermano de las Moscas de Jon Bilbao.

3. La Náusea - Jean Paul Sartre: Un hombre bebe whisky y reflexiona. Esto no es una novela, sino un aburrido tratado filosófico. Sí que recomiendo: Para novelas de reflexión, Herzog de Saul Bellow.

2. El Corazón de las Tinieblas - Joseph Conrad: Uno de los libros más aburridos jamás publicados. Tuve que leerlo en la universidad, y aunque es corto, me costó más que En Busca del Tiempo Perdido, que son 7 libros. Sí que recomiendo: Para leer sobre europeos en Africa, acudid a Louis Ferdinand Céline y su Viaje al fin de Noche. Una obra maestra.

1. Fantasmas - Paul Auster: Una historia predecible y personajes que se llaman como colores. Pretenciosa, y además se parece a todos los demás libros de Auster. Sí que recomiendo: La autobiografía de Paul Auster no está mal.

(Esta entrada está basada en una MUY similar de Esquire)

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now—
James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it?
No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too.

He is able to reconcile the image of the lighthouse of his childhood with the lighthouse he sees before him. As such, he has a complete vision of 'truth,' which accounts for subjectivity. Similarly, Lily Briscoe finishes her painting at the end of the novel and 'completes her vision.' Her perception is an artful one, including the story of both past and present,  actual and representational. So this is truth, then? Idealized, misconstrued as bright or dark, in shades of grey, with rainbow colors, with cloudy moonshine, with infintesmal variation -- this lighthouse is the truth, a fluid kaleidescope of 'real'...

Does the signature slant to the right? If so, I bet that author would have been my friend were I to live at their time. Does it slant to the left? Well, they would have wanted to be my friend too, but it might have required more of an effort on their part. Especially with regard to their predilection toward derby hats. See how it works?

I am also interested in the legibility and crispness of the script -- or if it's not script at all. Are there flourishes or extreme angles? If so, then I'm pretty sure you like Picasso. And absinthe.

It must be stated that I've never read one of those books on handwriting analysis, but I have no doubt it would become an instant obsession of mine. And I'd probably take creative license in my interpretations of preferred authors.

In the meantime, I've decided to display a little series of authors' signatures. There are so many I love, so... please do not judge the order or omissions... There will be many more to come.

Now then, Part One of my Signature Series:

And so it came pass that we spoke of suicide, warmed to the bone by little more than breadcrumbs and the corpses of mice. Such things surely the begging for attention, supplication for a reason to live. We would like to think so.

But then the paradox of the internet's impact is that, while it is possible to 'meet' a much wider number of people than would have been the case before, this very possibility decreases the need to actually go out into the world and make thyself heard. Especially if the world at large is a place that feels you with terrors, rational and irrational - a place that makes you want to hide under the nearest table, or even call upon armageddon.

All of which would be made easier if you could believe that each and every person alive today would leave some significant mark upon the world should they peg it in the night. The truth is that most people won't. The best we can hope for is to be remembered well by small groups of people, who will nevertheless forget, with time, and in time will die themselves. Another notch on the sad bedpost of life.

Suicide or no, it seems that the most talented amongst us go young. And this has surely helped their legend. Poor souls. I wish to live to walk upon the Sussex shore, my own arcadia, my sacred grove.

Well this morning started out a bit earlier that it normally does for me, about 7 am, which I shouldn't complain about because it was much worse for the people who don't live at the res hall and had to treck across London to meet us. So anyway at 8 we all met in the lobby to get onto a bus that would take us out of London to Sussex. It was rather rediculous as there were only 13 of us in total and we were on a full sized charter bus. Perhaps environmentally irresponsible, but surely nice to have 2 seats for yourself. It was a field trip, but unlike the other field trips planned, there were not any extra volunteers to go on this one. I suppose that a cottage in the country doesn't have the appeal that Stratford-upon-Avon or Oxford do. The bus ride, about 2 and a quarter hours each way, was good because it gave me a chance to see a bit more of the English countryside and time to finish a novel and take a nap.

We arrived after a bit in Sussex, at Charleston Farm House with its impressive gardens, home of many of the Bloomsbury Group including the painters Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and the economist Maynard Keynes. It was also visited by such luminaries as Leonard and Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey. Anyway the house itself is quite old, I believe that the tour guide said it was built in about 1615. Grant and Bell moved in in 1916 I believe, in the midst of WWI. She was estranged from her husband, Clive Bell and Grant was a homosexual, who had a string of lovers who lived in the house with them. Bell was desperately in love with Grant, and despite his homosexuality they had a child together, born on Christmas Day 1918, I think, but don't quote me on that one. Clive Bell brought his girlfriend around with him sometimes when he came on the weekend. Clearly the Bloomsbury group had rather triangular sex lives and perhaps dubious morals.

Anyway, the house. It was a beautful house and quite fun to visit, but I absolutely would not want to live there. As the two primary occupants were painters they pretty much painted everything. Walls. Tables. Doors. Chairs. Wardrobes. Bathtubs. Porcelin. You name it, they painted it. Some of the things were quite pretty. There was one door with an angel on it that I rather liked. Some were awful. The kitchen was painted black with little yellow and silver squiggles. Very dark and very busy. I did not care for it. Not at all. But to each his own I suppose. They certianly managed to live in it for 50 years or so.

After the house we wandered about the garden, which was quite fantastical. Beautiful flowers everywhere. I took plenty of pictures which I shall post on Flickr later. I was quite impressed with the quality of the garden. My group finished a bit earlier than the other one, so I had a nice cup of tea with my tutor Mary. Actually I didn't have any tea, but I did eat something called a flapjack I think. It tasted like one of the granola bars my parents are fond of, but it was soft not one of those ones that you can chip a tooth on. It was quite good.

After Charleston Farm House we went to go see a tiny country church, Berwick Church, that had been decorated by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. It was very pretty, but a tiny little thing. I really liked it. It was so small, maybe 10 or 12 pews total. We thought we weren't going to get to see it, there was supposed to be a wedding on, but I think we got there before they started to set up and what not, so we got to nip in and see it.

After the church we went to a quaint little pub, the Cricketers' Arms. I had my first real experience with traditional English pub food. I had locally raised sausage, egg, and chips. It was good, although a bit weird eating an egg sunny side up with french fries. The sausages were delicious. The only thing that I find really frustrating about English resturants is their lack of refills. One lousy glass of Pepsi, and a small glass at that, for a pound thirty. And that was the cheapest thing to drink. What a scam. Scam scam scam. I drink a lot with my meals. I dislike only having one small glass. Boooo.

After our little party finished with lunch we got back on the bus and headed over to Monks House, where Virginia and Leonard Woolf lived on the weekends when they were down for London. The house itself was not too impressive, and there were only some 5 rooms open to the public. But there were some large gardens that stretched out a bit in the back. They even had apples that you could pick and take away with you, or even eat there. I did like seeing her little writer's room where she wrote bits of many of her novels and essays. Also in the garden there is a bust of Virginia and a plaque to mark where her ashes are buried.

Then a nice bus ride back to London, through the countryside passing fields full of little sheep and cows. I finished my novel and took a nap. It was glorious. I do love a good nap. Then back to the room, where I had every intention of messing about with some school work, unfortunately I find that I am severly lacking in motivation to learn about the History of London. I'll just force myself to do it tomorrow, motivated or not. So on for an evening of relaxing and doing nothing!

Very stupidly I was wearing my crampons attached to a sling round my middle and I sat on them for the full distance, so that they went in to the full length of the spikes, scarring me for life in a most interesting manner.
(Eric Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush)

A most affectionate “Portrait of Ethel Smyth” by Peggy Reynolds, broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Apart from a broadcast of The Wreckers many years ago and the more frequently played March of the Women, I didn’t realize that Smyth’s work had such range and colour.

Intrigued, too, by Henry Brewster’s suggestion of a threesome liaison between himself, his partner and Dame Ethel, rather than the more intimate demands of a ménage à trois. I assume that the character of H.B. in Henry James’s The Aspern Papers, again, a liaison with a man and two women, was also Brewster?

The fruity voice and comments by Thomas Beecham conjured a sense of the times and the closing anecdote of Vita Sackville-West, talking about the visit of the elderly and near deaf Dame Ethel, after her request to hear the song of the nightingale in her garden (Tenterden?) was quite heartrending. The birdsong could be heard but not by Dame Ethel. They were about to leave when a nightingale perched, nearby, and Sackville-West added, “I shall never forget the look on her face when she said, ‘I’ve heard that song again.’”. Sweet memories, too, of an earlier programme which told about Beatrice Harrison, in the mid 1920s, playing her cello in a similar setting.

As an antidote, I’m about to select from the arrival of two DVDs. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; another elegiac background, alongside horseshit and cordite; or Kurosawa’s Ran, a “re-imagining” of King Lear in feudal Japan. Brad Pitt won the toss – just!

Smythian robustness seemed to be typical of a more stark age. Dame Ethel gave up music and friends for two years when she campaigned for the Suffragette movement. Thomas Beecham added that she was brought to trial, sentenced and sent to Holloway gaol to “repent and reflect”. She did not. Hearing a women’s choir assembling to sing March of the Women in the prison quad must have been morale boosting.

Virginia Woolf cruelly topped her admiration for Smyth: “Being adored by Ethel was like being attacked by a large, giant crab.”

I’ve made notes to obtain recordings of the Double Concerto (1927) and the Concerto for Horn & Violin (reputedly a tribute to Henry Brewster) as the extracts, on the programme, were most inviting.

Virginia's Bisexual Icon of the Week!ta da!

In light of one of my recent posts about how I missed out on a significant event in my life because I didn't know bisexual was an option, I have decided to start compiling a list of prominent bisexual people. How dull monosexualism will seem in comparison!

First up: Virginia Woolf

As a woman so awesome I named my blog after her Virginia Woolf has to come first. She was an intelligent and sensitive woman and born into the privilege of literary high society. It was a natural progression that surrounded by creative people on all sides she should become a novelist herself, pioneering modernist styles with strong psychological development of her characters.

Virginia was a feminist and advocated that women have the potential to be equal to men in creativity given the time, space and freedom from financial worry to do so. In her upper class Bloomsbury group and creative circles it was common to take a lover in addition to marriage, so although she was devoted to her husband Leonard she simultaneously had another long term partner, Vita Sackville-West.

It is thought that childhood abuse from her half brothers and deaths of many significant family members in her youth triggered fragile mental health for the rest of Virginia's life. She had multiple breakdowns and it has been theorised that she may have been bipolar. At the age of 59 she drowned herself.

I think Virginia Woolf means something to me because I empathise with the way she writes about things. I know what it feels like to dissociate from the world because I'm so tangled in a web of my own thoughts (albeit less well constructed thoughts than hers). I understand how emotion can be there beneath the surface without being acknowledged, and what it feels like to be torn by something you refuse to admit exists. Virginia speaks to a side of my character that very few people do.

Just as watching a professional football game on TV is an entirely different experience than watching it in person, I've discovered that listening to a book, likewise, is a completely different experience than reading it. Like the game, the actual product, in this case words, are the same. And like the game, the sensations and impressions, audio versus reading, in person versus TV, could not be more different. One could argue, to no real purpose, which is better but it would be like arguing whether vanilla or chocolate ice cream is better or whether blond hair is better than brown. Both are only as good as the sensibility of the reader or observer as the case may be. What cannot be denied is this: the same words or the same game changes and it changes based on where one is standing so to speak.

I'm running out of time before I have to head to the airport, so I'll give this one example as it applies to Woolf's novel. The beauty of what she does, in my opinion, is not so much technique as it is artistry. She is not a crank-turner, as Wallace might say, she is, and this could be argued too since some saw her mimicking Joyce's Ulysses, a creator, the novel her canvas, her strokes bold, original and uniquely hers, uniquely gorgeous and beautiful.

When read, slowly, and reread, as in reading a passage and then rereading it, perhaps the same paragraph several times, allowing her genius to expand and soak, one is, at times, awestruck with her talent. When reading, one is active, alive in the interchange, providing one's own inflections and pacing as if on a walk through the gardens, stopping to smell the roses one wants to smell and taking as much time as one wants.

Listening to these same words, the exact same words, however, is amazingly, entirely, a different experience. You no longer control the pace or the inflection and you surrender, almost like on a guided tour, when and where you stop. There is no time for reflection and what is beautiful when read is, in many cases but not all, just so many words when listened. At times, as I was listening, I had the distinct feeling of eavesdropping on someone's ramblings and found myself disinterested, even bored. What I found interesting is this. I had read those exact same words. And I knew, when I read them, I found them fascinating. Now, listening to them--and the reader, by the way, is superb, this is not a failure due to lack of auditory skill--they seemed like just so much white noise. In reading, I couldn't wait to turn the page. In listening, I couldn't wait to get to the end.

My list is short --- these days I tend to read slowly, and there some thick books on the list as well --- and it's apt to change, especially with the Texas Book Festival coming up in November (Nov. 1-2, to be exact). I never know what treasures I'll wind up with there. Last year it was Diane Ackerman's The Zookeeper's Wife, which was the spur that dug in the urge to write nonfiction again.

OK, so here's the list, already:

1. Write Free: Attracting the Creative Life by Rebecca Lawton and Jordan Rosenfeld

I'm sort of cheating here because I'm in the process of reading this book now, but won't be finished for at least a few more weeks. There are writing exercises involved so the reading is slow, but pleasant.

2. Swimming in the Volcano by Bob Shacochis

I bought this book about 3-4 years ago when, at the same time, I was encountering and reading a lot of Shacochis's journalism, mostly in Harper's. I also liked the title, which I thought was an allusion to the novel Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, a book I started reading but never finished. I learned about Lowry in Donald W. Goodwin's Alcohol and the Writer, an insightful exploration of the use and abuse of alcohol by writers. Though booze wasted a lot of writer's lives (think Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner) Goodwin isn't necessarily condemning alcohol's use: he's exploring why alcoholism seems particularly prevalent in writers.

Anyhow, my interest in Shacochis was renewed after reading an essay of his in the premiere issue of Mayborn magazine. It was a powerful piece, and now I want to tackle some of his fiction. Given that this novel is 518 pages in paperback, it'll probably take me through October to read it.

3. In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Gutkind

I'm sort of cheating on this, too, because I've been reading the essays in this collection since at least August. Again, though, it'll be some time toward the end of October or later that I'll finish this book.

4. Orlando by Virginia Woolf

I should probably pick this novel up some time in November. Supposedly, I read this in graduate school.

5. Writing Past Dark by Bonnie Friedman

This will be the last on my list, because I figure I'll pick this one up by December, and even though it's short, it may make take some time to finish. Again, this all depends on the Texas Book Festival.

I höstmörkret tänder jag ljus och pluggar. Jag pluggar till jag håller på att storkna nästan. Jag tycker inte alls om det ska jag säga er. Håller fortfarande på med min bok, den tar aldrig någonsin slut! Imorgon är en lång dag i skolan, jag hoppas den går snabbt. Verkligen.

I mörket myser jag även med Lior som är en av världens sötaste pojkar.

Lior (feat Sia) - I'll forget you
Lior - This old love

What I find interesting in this exchange--perhaps in light of reading the introductory material for Mrs. Dalloway, which among other things, spoke of how Woolf tunneled character, of how one explores the depths and nuances of a fictional character, of how Woolf did this--is how I know my grandfather, in stories, episodes, in bits or facets as I like to think of it.

I know him from my own direct experience. Snapshots of moments where we interacted and he was a grandfather to a grandchild and moments when I was an observer and he was husband, father, provider, patient, or other. In both cases, the view was rather narrow, limiting, a moment within a particular context, showing a facet, one of thousands upon thousands, and my image of him is a melding of the facets I held in my mind, my memory.

My mother, this morning, years after my grandfather's death, has given me more data, information, a couple more facets and I add them to the ones I already have. And I wonder, is this how we know others--by bits and pieces, moments, facets, never seeing the whole, never able to know the entirety? I think this is common sense and I've come to trust that common sense is usually right more than not. 

So, if this is how life works, how we know others, why not write this way? Why not create characters without the linear omniscient narrative?

"For my belief is that if we live another century or so -- I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives in which we live as individuals -- and have five hundred a year each of us and rooms of our own; if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting-room and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality; and the sky, too, and the trees or whatever it may be in themselves; if we look past Milton's bogey, for no human being should shut out the view; if we face the fact, for it is a fact, that there is no arm to cling to, but that we go alone and that our relation is to the world of reality and not only to the world of men and women, then the opportunity will come and the dead poet who was Shakespeare's sister will put on the body which she has so often laid down."

- Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

I'm having a moment where my chest is tight with a mixture of joy and frustration.  Sometimes it seems that almost a hundred years later, hardly anyone has gotten the memo.

It's late, and I should be sleeping, but it's moments like this when I'm so thrilled to be back in school.

Less typing.  More reading.

Paper type: Newsprint

Size: 18"x24"

Limited Edition: yes

I adore it, do you think I can own it: very possible, contact me :)

Those are just a few of the words used to describe the GroundWorks Dance Theater performance of "Unfinished Dialogues," a reflection on Virginia Woolf's last day before her death.

Read the Cleveland Plain Dealer story here and the Akron Beacon Journal review here. Read more about the world premier of the ballet here.

Currently listing to: Wisconsin by Bon Iver

I'm expecting a book order from Amazon today. Just 3 books this time around, as I've realized I have quite a book backlog on my nightstand.

• The Bell by Iris Murdoch (one on my summer reading list)
• Best Friends by Martha Moody (a gift from a friend)
• Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos (I keep starting this book, but can't get past chapter 2. I should just give up, but I hate to leave books I buy unread.)
• The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte (another one that I keep starting & can't get through. It must have been a bad book buying day when I bought this, because I bought Love Walked In the same day.)
• Archetypes for Writers by Jennifer Van Bergen (one of those craft books. Looks interesting. Just haven't been in the headspace to read it.)
• The Master Bedroom by Tessa Hadley (just bought last week. Will get to it.)
• The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf (this is one that I just open up & read a story here and there when I have time.)

...and soon to arrive:

• Straight Up & Dirty: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein (read about this book here & it sounded like a fun read. Also, I like Klein's blog & keep meaning to read one of her books.)
• The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg (I read her book Open House a while ago & liked it. I've been meaning to read something else from her. Noticed this is written in 1st person, so that made it appealing given my current needs--read below.)
• Style Statement: Live by Your Own Design by Danielle La Porte & Carrie McCarthy (this book is part of my quest to figure myself out. Never hurts to be more self-aware.)

...and currently reading:

• The End of the Story by Lydia Davis (half-way through & really liking this. It's exactly what I've been looking to read.)

I've just been a slower reader than usual the last couple of months; but a apparently a very prolific book buyer. I don't know what's going on. Probably just a phase. Will say I'm really liking the book I'm currently reading. I think part of my reading funk has been because I can't seem to find exactly what I want. Because my plan is to work on draft #2 in 1st person, I really want to immerse myself in 1st person. But I'm having the hardest time finding books that I want to read. Yes, there are plenty of good books out there written in 1st, but I guess I'm just looking for a certain voice. I keep walking into every bookstore I come across, pulling books off the shelves, & reading the first page. More often than not, it's not what I'm looking for. But I guess I'm realizing that what I'm looking for is what I'm trying to write. My head wants to hear a certain voice that letting in any others, any that aren't quite right, is just difficult.

I know what this all means. I need to write my own book.

On that front, the reading of draft #1 is taking longer than I expected. Not because I hate it or anything, I just keep saying I'll get to it, & I don't. This is starting to frustrate me. Yes, my procrastination & I might soon come to blows. I want to get started on draft #2, sooner rather than later. So, to get that going, I need to finish reading this & figuring out what I can take from it & what I need to do to make it better the next time around.

So, instead of saying "I plan to...", I'm going to say: I AM WILL FINISH READING DRAFT #1 BY THE END OF THIS WEEK.

And: I AM WILL WORK ON AN ARTICLE IDEA THAT'S BEEN FLOATING AROUND IN MY HEAD THE LAST COUPLE DAYS.

Just a quick hello from a brand new Hesperette! Although, my first few weeks here have been mostly taken up trying to get to grips with life in a new office, the time has now arrived to take on the rather daunting task of writing something for the blog.

The recent batch included our new ‘On’ series which I have currently piled up on my desk so that I can admire the effect of the series design. I love the combination of dark front covers with the edible-coloured pastels of the back – sorry that sounds rather strange, suspect I might be hungry.

 Each of the books is a collection of a writer’s thoughts on a specific subject. Being new at Hesperus, I am still delighted to discover alternative facets to well-known writers and, for me, the ‘On’ series epitomises this process. I love the idea that I am getting to know Virginia Woolf or John Donne in a different and novel way.

 Anyway, having broken the ice and, to some extent, introduced myself, I shall sign off.

Martha

P.S Apologies for the rather bizarre layout, I'm still coming to terms with the artistic side of blogging...

...((I walk out my door and my ipod begins to play... "Since it means so much to you..." The energy is fantastic. I love this city. Everyone seems so intensely focused on themselves. The way we dress, the way we walk, the way we all listen to our iPods... It all says: "This is me. Respect it or fuck off." And yet at the same time, we are crushed to the point of conformity. We are surrounded by billboards for movies, advertisements for jewelry, clothing store windows, plaques on walls mark the buildings where famous people lived... Fame... That's what it comes down to for so many of us - fame among your peers, fame among your school, fame among your community... fame that makes everyone want to be you. I cross Central Park. My ipod continues to play Puddle of Mudd... my heart beats faster... my pace quickens... "Hollywood hills, pocketful of shells, Sunset drag, I haven't even slept for days, zone in, somethin's gotta give, might as well live it up until the fat lady sings."))...

Well, guys... life has been nuts. Just the way I like it. You'll never find me happier than when I'm sleeping 4 hours a night, drinking coffee like water, running two miles each morning, practicing like a maniac, grabbing random meals with equally stressed out friends, and indulging in every kind of alcoholic beverage in an wild attempt to fall asleep before 3am. I don't know how to "turn off" these days. Presentation this day, concert this day, rehearsal this day, teach this day... My desk is littered with sticky notes. I can't remember which ones I'm done with... Obviously, my stress level will go down after my concert on Wednesday. But my work load certainly will not decrease. Fine with me.

"But after Q? What comes next? After Q there are a number of letters the last of which is scarcely visible to mortal eyes, but glimmers red in the distance. Z is only reached once by one man in a generation. Still, if he could reach R it would be something." One letter at a time. There was a time when I was at letter A. I know I am far beyond that. Far enough along the alphabet to want letter Z. If only I didn't want that. Maybe then I could be satisfied. But that is not who I am.

...((I reach the building I'm supposed to practice in today... It looks like any other grand building on the upper east side. But I know how this works finally. Before I reach the door, a smartly dressed doorman lets me in. A second doorman calls up to the apartment I'm visiting. I third doorman escorts me to the back elevator where yet another attendant operates the elevator for me. I am met at the door by the very stern maid. "Who are you?", she asks... even though she, of course, knows. She then precedes to give me the run-down on the rules that I know all too well and can be boiled down to "don't touch anything!". Why would I? I'm literally practicing in a museum. I can look directly at the Picasso drawing on the wall - probably worth hundred times my entire bank account. Or the antique furniture which is probably worth more than the whole building I currently live in. The owner comes in briefly to say hello before she leaves. She's completely decked in the finest designer clothes. Probably meeting some important dignitary. Some person whose name alone should make me gasp in awe. Fame. The lyrics come back... "You want it, you got it, it's everything you dreamed of, cuz I just wanna be famous, be so fucking jaded..."))...

I love it when life is out of control because all the irrational things I do and feel can suddenly be justified as I madly go about my daily tasks. For instance, I'm sure I finally destroyed the last remnants of a friendship with TurtleGirl. While this summer, I preserved a sort of sentimental view towards everything that happened between us, now I simply don't care. She made her choice and I can find no feelings at all for her. Not sadness, happiness, anger, or sympathy. Rather I've surprised myself with the icy coldness I bring to all things remotely connected to her - I ignore her friends now (who were mine as well), I stay away from the area where she lived, her photos are gone from my apartment, her gifts are gone, her phone calls remain unanswered, her messages have only the weakest responses... everywhere I find something related to her, I discard it without a second thought. But in some cases, my reaction has had its downside. She had a good heart and a strong faith. But I ignore now all the things that I know I should have learned from her. If it weren't for the fact that I have to play at church on most Sundays - I might be leaning towards becoming an atheist at this point (although I doubt I'd go that far, I hope).

"He could see, without wishing it, that old, that obvious distinction between the two classes of men; on the one hand the steady goers of superhuman strength who, plodding and persevering, repeat the whole alphabet in order, twenty-six letters in all, from start to finish; on the other the gifted, the inspired who, miraculously, lump all the letters together in one flash - the way of genius. He had not genius; he laid no claim to that: but he had, or might have had the power to repeat every letter of the alphabet from A to Z accurately in order." Is it not a more noble purpose in life to fight for each and every last letter than to easily pass through half of them and settle contentedly in the middle - knowing that you made it farther than most? The questions continue to keep me awake. I see Mr. Ramsey staring out at the ocean... reaching for R. I see myself pouring sweat into Petrouchka... reaching for R.

...((I pass by the movie theater... still advertising The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger as the joker. What happened to him? Did he not possess that rare quality of fame? A fame that would have been multiplied ten times over after the premiere of The Dark Knight. Then again, why should John Edwards have an extra-marital affair while he was running the most respectable campaigns? That was a suicide in its own right. The song reaches are crazy intensity: "Well, I hope that it's everything that you dreamed, when everything's falling apart at the seams, and I know that you never believed in me. Don't ever let them fuck with your dreams!"))...

Despite my apparent coldness towards my past, it's truly wonderful to be back among friends again. Only one thing is different: I actually seriously miss NinjaGirl back in Colorado. She was one of those rare people who you could be embarrassingly honest to. But the good news is, she overcame incredible odds to move out of her parents' house and start making it on her own... I remind myself of her whenever I want to give up on this freakin' Petrouchka everyday. It definitely shuts up my complaining brain. But anyway, I'm surrounded by a such a great support group and I know this is my year. This is my year to take control... to throw every last ounce I have towards my dreams. And meanwhile, the rest of life is going well. I even went out on a limb to hit on a few girls this weekend - still don't care enough to ask for phone numbers, but it's a start. I certainly can't pull the "my-girlfriend-just-left-me" excuse anymore.

"Yet he would not die lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, he would die standing. He would never reach R."

...((My friend passes me in the hallway at school. "Hey, did you see our pictures in the new viewbook? We're famous!"))...

During brunch with my teacher today, she overheard me talking about how one must eat right and rest correctly in order the give the best performance. "No!" She turned on me. "Go ahead and take care of yourself... but no matter how horrible you feel - body or mind - you must bring the intensity, focus, and passion to your playing! All the time!"

Idag är jag massa trött och har varit på körrep i 4 h. Då blir man, om möjligt, ännu tröttare. När jag kom till mötet osminkad idag säger min bror till mig: "men åh, Sofi, som du ser, det är PINSAMT!" Och jag älskar dig också bror, var jag på väg att svara.

Min kväll ska jag tillbringa med boken ni ser ovan. "Mot fyren" av Virginia Woolf, visst låter den otroligt spännande? Nästan så att man bara vill hoppa upp och ner. Jag hatar att bli påtvingad böcker från olika epoker. Tack och lov tar Svenska B slut tills våren..

White Hot Magazine loved the Mapplethorpe piece! It'll be published in their next volume (without the footnotes below...)

Polaroid Roles:

Robert Mapplethorpe as Faust, Patti Smith as Mary Magdalene

By Kyle Thomas Smith

Filmmaker Derek Jarman once described photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s life as “the story of Faust.”[1] As any student of Goethe knows, Faust was an alchemist who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for infinite knowledge and power. In Mapplethorpe: A Biography, Patricia Morrisroe describes how, shortly after dropping acid for the first time in the summer of 1966, Mapplethorpe stopped going to Mass and started attending Timothy Leary’s “Celebrations” at his League for Spiritual Discovery (LSD) in Greenwich Village. As the nuns at Our Lady of the Snows in his native Queens might have warned, these wayward excursions would soon lead Mapplethorpe to explore Satanism.[2] As Morrisroe says, Mapplethorpe was “convinced that exploring the dark side would incite his imagination.”[3] In 1967, twenty-year-old Mapplethorpe told his roommate Harry McCue that he had sold his soul to Lucifer so that he could become the rage of the art world and “destroy all the bullshit people”[4] who looked down on his work at Pratt Institute.

That same summer, at a love-in in Tompkins Square Park, Mapplethorpe met a homeless waif and future rock star named Patti Smith. For the next five years, Mapplethorpe and Smith lived together, first as lovers and then as friends. Both were obsessed with becoming famous artists and, in their early creative efforts, studied the macabre and paranormal together. Smith created poems and drawings to invoke the spirit of Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, the archetypal enfant terrible who lived in poverty and addiction while vagabonding across three continents and producing one of French literature’s greatest corpuses of poetry. Mapplethorpe’s forays into the occult led him to concoct early collages and installations that fused the themes of pornography, religion, homosexuality and guilt.

According to Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe’s homosexuality “happened overnight”[5] in the summer of 1968: “The gay thing wasn’t there and then suddenly it was.”[6] This wasn’t the gospel truth, of course. Mapplethorpe had struggled with homosexual desires all his life and had been willing to do almost anything to conceal them from himself and others, going so far as to join the ROTC and pledge the Pershing Rifles fraternity in his freshman year at Pratt. Even years later, in the free-love days when Smith dumped Mapplethorpe to shack up with painter Howie Michels, Mapplethorpe screamed, “Please don’t go! If you go, I’ll become gay.”[7] The next day, Smith came back to the apartment to collect her personal effects and found Mapplethorpe sitting amid piles of pictures that he’d clipped out of gay porno mags.

When Smith’s relationship with Michels fell apart, she discovered that Mapplethore was sleeping with a young man named Terry. “If I had been going out with another woman, it would have been different,” Mapplethorpe later recounted, “But Patti couldn’t compete with a man…She went crazy.”[8] Smith did indeed become suicidal, so she decided to take a break from her life in New York. She scraped up a paycheck or two from her cashier job at Scribner’s and flew to Paris with her sister Linda. She spent four months there, hanging out with street musicians, picking pockets and stalking the boulevards mapped out in her treasured Rimbaud biographies.[9]

This past May, my partner Julius and I were in Paris for Land 250, a collection of 40 years of Patti Smith’s photos, sketches, films, and written works on exhibit in the basement of Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain. The exhibition’s namesake is the Polaroid Land 250 camera, a throwback to Smith and Mapplethorpe’s salad days before the rocker started rock and the photographer boxed up his Polaroids in favor of a Hassebald 2 ¼-inch camera, his passport to art-world superstardom, which longtime lover Sam Wagstaff would give him in 1975.

Luridness was the name of the game at Land 250. There were Polaroid snapshots of crypts, headstones, Hendrix’s guitar, former lovers like Mapplethorpe, and literary mementos like Herman Hesse’s typewriter and Virginia Woolf’s bed in Bloomsbury. Found objects on display included a rock from the river Ousse where Woolf drown herself. There was also a reconstruction of Smith’s pre-fame “dungeon” bedroom, where one could find notebooks full of jagged sketches, apocalyptic poems, and vicious crayon caricatures of Mapplethorpe and Smith’s consorts at the Chelsea Hotel and Max’s Kansas City.

Several of Fondation Cartier’s walls were awash in black-and-white video footage of Smith in various states of disarray and disorientation. Mapplethorpe directed and filmed one such short in which a bony, raven-haired Smith stands in a white room, wearing a virgin white nightgown: she sways in zombie-like slow motion, holding a Crucifix; candles burn before her, a demon’s head glares behind her. At age 7, Smith came down with scarlet fever and began having horrific visions on the scale of those in Gabriel Garcia Marquez novels. Although her mother was a Jehovah’s Witness and her father a Christian fundamentalist, her parents did nothing to disqualify or “exorcise” these hallucinations, so, from an early age, Smith was free to channel them into poetry and the visual arts. Thus, it’s no coincidence that she was attracted to Rimbaud’s absinthe-soaked “disordering of the senses”[10] or to Mapplethorpe’s unshakably Catholic visions of reprobation and damnation. One of Land 250’s main attractions was Smith’s letters to Mapplethorpe during her 1968 stay in Paris, where she wrote him many apotheoses of Rimbaud and attempted to come to terms with Mapplethorpe’s “coming out.”

A couple days after Julius and I returned home to New York, we went to The Whitney Museum of American Art to see Robert Mapplethorpe’s Polaroids exhibit, which featured selections from the more than 1,500 Polaroid snapshots that Mapplethorpe took between 1970 and 1975. Before filmmaker Sandy Daley lent him a Polaroid camera in 1970, Mapplethorpe had shown no interest in photography. He did not regard it as an art or as anything more than a favorite pastime of his prosaic engineer father, Harry Mapplethorpe, and the engine behind his own volumes of pornographic magazines. But tired of making mixed media installations that did not sell, Mapplethorpe developed a rabid fascination for the instant camera’s capacity to capture the instant. Art historian Sylvia Wolf writes that, for Mapplethorpe, “the Polaroid provided instant gratification, but more important it ignited a lifelong passion for using the camera to penetrate appearances and get at the complexity within.”[11] Mapplethorpe would cut his teeth on the Polaroid before achieving his dream of becoming one of the most celebrated and reviled artists of his era.

Patti Smith was a chief subject of this period in Mapplethorpe’s art. Mapplethorpe was known for treating his models as puppets whom he could easily manipulate into compromising erotic and autoerotic scenarios. Such was not the case for Smith, however, who was anything but a passive player before his lens. Even when nude, she appears no more vulnerable than he does in his utterly commanding nude self-portraits. Instead, she was a combination of muse and soul mate, whose intense gaze and androgyny were a welcome departure from the frilly female magazine models of the day. Patti Smith’s raffish aspect dominates nearly a dozen of the Polaroid shots (mostly untitled) that were on exhibit at the Whitney, all taken just before Mapplethorpe’s breakout photo of Smith on the cover of her debut album, Horses (1975).

“Once a Catholic, always a Catholic,” the old chestnut goes. Just like Andy Warhol and Madonna, Mapplethorpe wove Catholic imagery into some of his most controversial works. In the Polaroids exhibit, a shot of his long-haired model Michael’s face closely resembles that of many historic depictions of Christ at his last gasp on the Cross. Mapplethorpe also frequently exploited the highly erotic motif of St. Sebastian, the loin-clothed, tied-up, arrow-impaled youth, whose picture catalyzed writer Yukio Mishima’s first orgasm at age 12. At the Whitney, we witnessed several allusions to this image both in Mapplethorpe’s untitled self-portraits and instamatic shots of porn star Peter Berlin. In two portraits, there are also full-frontal and full-rear nude photos of his model Manfred, who is standing in a niche, duplicating the haughty contrapposto of Donatello’s David.

As a lapsed Catholic and Buddhist convert gazing at these Polaroids, I couldn’t help but wonder: Given all the Catholic iconography in his early and later work, was Patti Smith both a muse and an impenitent Magdalene for Mapplethorpe? Remember her opening line to Horses, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”?

Whether or not Mapplethorpe ever actually made a deal with the devil, he did indeed develop a creative acuity and achieve worldly success far beyond anything his early critics at Pratt ever could have imagined for him. His work not only pinned American Puritanism to the floor, but gave kinky sex a supreme seat in modern art. How could this erotic explosion come out of a former Knight of Columbus, who hadn’t even seen a dirty magazine until just before his freshman year of college?

In 1989, months before Mapplethorpe’s death, his mother Joan sent the parish priest, Father George Stack, to her son’s Bond Street apartment with the words: “Father, he has AIDS and I want him to die in a state of grace.”[12] In his youth, Mapplethorpe used to drop by Father Stack’s office with portrait drawings he had made of the Madonna and Child. Father Stack later admitted that he found the drawings to be freaky, but he never told Robert this and always encouraged “this gentle, creative person surrounded by all these gung-ho macho types”[13] to continue his artistic endeavors. Holding true to the seal of the confessional, we will most likely never know what the priest and artist discussed at their reunion nor do we know if Mapplethorpe, like Goethe’s Faust, formally broke the bond he claimed to have made with the Prince of Darkness almost a quarter century before. But in his homily at Mapplethorpe’s funeral at Our Lady of the Snows, Father Stack said: “The last time I spoke with Robert he said he tried to present what he saw as beautiful in the most truthful way possible.”[14] He shared this same ideal with Patti Smith who can be seen sprinkling a likeness of his ashes on to her palm in her new film Dream of Life.

Kyle Thomas Smith is a writer in Brooklyn, NY. He is the Editor of Sentient City: The Art of Urban Dharma and a frequent contributor to Edge Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, and The Vision and Art of Shinjo Ito. He is preparing for the release of his novel, 85A.