I'll go with thee to the lane's end... I am a kind of burr, I shall stick. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

I write not to teach but to learn. Rebecca West

drew's writing:

  • "Always Forever Now," Ideomancer volume 13, issue 2
  • "Black Sun," Black Static # 32
  • "Bread or Cake" and "Pride/Shame,"2nd Annual Philadelphia One-Minute Play Festival
  • "Copper Heart," Polluto Magazine issue 5, A Steampunk Orange
  • "The Accomplished Birder's Guide to Overcoming Rejection," Last Drink Bird Head, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
  • "Another Night With the Henriksens," Player's Theater Halloween One-Act Festival NYC 2008
  • "Hating the Lovers," and "Pipe Down!" Geez Magazine: Thirty Sermons You Would Never Hear in Church
  • "Beth/slash/Nathan," Paper Fruit Blogiversary Contest

Sunday, February 19, 2012

pantokrator

mardi gras 2 014

If there is a Christ, one would suppose he is well over the crucifixion by now and has moved on to other things, like making new worlds, or kindling love from the heart's brushwood of fears and hurts. But at Mardi Gras some killjoys, belated Simons of Cyrene, drag the cross from Golgotha, their home, and parade it around to remind us of the gory retroactive consequence of our supposed sins.

The resurrection ferns over their heads reproach them.

DSCF1499

Should the central icon of our religion be grisly death, or renewed and fruitful life?

spy boy

The first time I went to New Orleans I found a friendly local to show me around. He was a drag queen. He drove me to all the neighborhoods and took me inside his friends' homes. We went to a vintage shop where I got two wool jackets for $15 each, and he admired a shimmering golden gown--the beaded kind a girl could throw in a suitcase and not need to iron. I wish I had bought it for him. I wanted to buy him dinner to say Thanks, but he had to go to his job.

Later, I called him and asked if that gown was still in the shop, and told him to buy it for himself. I'd mail him a check. He said

oh no honey, that's long gone

My host also took me to see what I would have called a voodoo "priestess," but I've heard that mother may be a more precise term. She was a small woman with the same air of silent teeming intelligence you see in photos of Joyce Carol Oates. We met her in her shop. I was awed, but, a good tourist, I'm frequently awed.

We went to a shop with remains of old costumes from various parades. Each time my host referenced a parade I hadn't heard of, I was surprised. "They have a parade for that?" I would say. I only knew about Mardi Gras. My host would say,

honey, they have a parade every time a cat has kittens


or

honey, they have a parade every time a dog pees on the sidewalk


When I came back for Mardi Gras, I met up with my friend, in a bar. He was wearing a pith helmet and beads, and was in no state for conversation. I talked to a friend of his, a college professor in a bear suit. "You're a bear," I said.

"And so are you," said the professor.