#436 Elle a mis son smoking

She put on her tuxedo for her
senior portrait. The yearbook
left her photo out & spelt her
name wrong when they wrote

No Photo. She put on her tuxedo,
then put on a James Brown cape
to match. The result was much
more androgynous than the and-

roid she was meant to be. She
put on her tuxedo to try & get
her swag back. Such a retro thing.
But doesn't she look fantastic!

She put on her tuxedo, put away
her petticoats, then wrote a letter
to Marlene Dietrich saying how
grateful she was to have such a

role model. She put on her tux-
edo. Such a chic alternative to the
usual high school prom dress —
except they wouldn't let her in.

#435 La lumière du pôle

Is said the polar lights
dance. If so, is not so

dangerous. Unless. A
single light is much more

potent, will dry the skin
& brittleness will break

it off. Unless. You are a
bird. & feathers protect.

#434 The Famine

We turn into clowns &
start by fighting over who
has the right to eat Ensor's
Skeletons fighting over a
smoked herring. Eventually
that's gone, torn into little
pieces; but the intake doesn't
stay the hunger so we turn

upon each other. Now I'm
the last one left, & what is
left of me, I realize, is all the
food remaining. Where should
I start? I take off what's left of
my clown clothes. Naked-
ness is the proper dress for
facing existential questions.

#433 The Future of Voices + The Key to Dreams

The cicerone paused midway between the two paintings. "These were both painted in the same year," she said, "but we do not know which one came first. I like to think it was the one without the internal frame, without the labels. I am probably wrong, though. More likely that the painter saw these objects & captured & imprisoned them, then called their images by another name so that they would forget who or what they were.

"If we accept my initial ordering, then the future of voices is that they fall silent unless they are given names, no matter if inappropriate. If we believe the alternative scenario, then reality gradually falls away until the objects become the stuff of dreams, misnamed, though something of a key left behind so we can make the invisible visible if we so desire.

"Each time I walk by I make up stories, create associations. The briefcase has been floating around in space for so long it has become the sky that surrounds it. Then the painter comes along & stuffs it into the case it used to be but which he now names sky. It becomes a paradox: how can it be both inside & outside itself when it is not transparent?

"Then we confront mundanity. The sponge is so absorbent that no matter what we throw at it, it takes it in & remains what it always was, will always be, in captivity or not. The name remains the same no matter what happens in the interim. But a falling leaf transforms into the table we are lunching at.

"Not everything is so straightforward. Perhaps the bird slices its throat with the pocket knife & is swallowed up by the space between, eventually reappearing as a pipe. Yet if we approach this from the other end, it may be that the painter was unable to rename the pipe, disturbed by what he later described as the treachery of images, & so excluded it from the reworking, leaving a space until the knife flew into view.

"History records that it took the painter two more years before he could confront the pipe again, & even then could not name or rename it. Instead he attached a warning label: Ceci n'est pas une pipe."

#432 The Murderous Sky

The hillsides are crammed
with rocks, patches of snow
contained between them. They
didn't kill the birds. Or bird,
one only, but cloned or repli-
cated, & placed with mathe-
matical precision within each
quadrant of at least the rectangle
we can see & likely elsewhere.
The sky may be the murderer;
but the painter is its accomplice.

#431 Green Night

The crossbones have melted
in the moonlight, now look
like sad dumbbells, as does

the crew of the ship beneath
the flagging standard. It's all
very jolly being rogered, but

more than a bit embarrassing
when you're in port, & some-
one has left the curtains open.

#430 "Exciting Perfumes by MEM"

I still think advertising is
imbecile work, useful
for the artist as an activity
to help in putting food on
the table or pay the rent. That
attitude somewhat softened
since the war, getting back
into painting, but now with
only limited options for dis-
play. Pessoa once said to me:
the unnatural & the strange have
a perfume of their own. I've mixed
& matched. The unnatural &
strange have always been with
me. Now I've added someone
else's chic perfume; & so, in
magazines & tous les grands
magasins, posters & full-page
liftouts have returned my
name, my output, back into
the discerning public's eye.

#429 Great Journeys

A naked woman plunges
headless into the edges
of the forest, bringing the
already built blocks of a
small city along with her.

This is how civilizations
are sometimes founded —
almost as easily as one of
those videos games, but
with much more panache.

#428 Wreckage of The Shadow

The bird without feathers is
a mountain in the Pyrenees.

An angular snow shoe for
walking through the dust
of diamonds holds feathers
that do not hold a bird.

Another mountain holds a
cave. (In another painting
we are inside it, waiting
for the bird to look away.)

Wooden parrakeets morph
into prototype string instru-
ments. Bricolage becomes
a bits & pieces bird whose

disproportionate tailfeathers
take on the conductor's rôle.

The sea hovers above the sky.

#427 La Sortie de l'École

You go to a friend's house. Their call center’s average call handle times are way past your bedtime. You want to eat pasta. Why are humans so drawn to these foods? Do they help pay the utility bills? Fraudsters call Santa Clara residents asking for help tracking a fraudster. They offer six steps to get your money back by identi- fying emerging patterns. Again it makes you want to eat pasta. You go back to your friend's house & wait in the call center queue. They get round to you eventually, tell you to immediately quit school.

In the double context of a sharp decline in the vocations and of an interrogation as to their identity connected with the aggiornamento of the Congregation, the sisters of Ribeauvillé in their majority left teaching, not by force as in Congo-Brazzaville, but through retirement. Though some of them, in the scope of the institution, chose to undertake new activities and to live within pluralist communities. — Luc Perrin

#426 The Desert Catapault

The shadow of Giorgio de
Chirico arrives outside
the railway station even
though it isn't one. Else-

when, clouds exit from
the tunnel, & a wooden
mannequin has a pepper
shaker shot into their eye.