Aquatic Nocturne by Sylvia Plath

deep in liquid turquoise slivers of dilute light

quiver in thin streaks of bright tinfoil on mobile jet:

pale flounder waver by tilting silver:

in the shallows agile minnows flicker gilt:

grapeblue mussels dilate lithe and pliant valves:

dull lunar globes of blubous jellyfish glow milkgreen:

eels twirl in wily spirals on elusive tails:

adroir lobsters  amble darkly olive on shrewd claws:

down where sound comes blunt and wan like the bronze tone of a sunken gong.

In the same way that violinists can be counted on to have remarkable hands, photographers have great eyes. Brassai’s were bouncing balls under aerodynamic eyebrows and his Paris was a city on the cusp “between the era of the Belle Epoque and that of the Modern Age.”  The gas lamps of Europe were giving way to electric streetlights.  That meant a new kind of nighttime, full of sexy pinpoints in the fog, 20th century floodlights over 19th century cobblestones, popguns of brightness in dark places that told dirty jokes about the naked city.  Brassai claimed as his territory the nocturnal city that camera and film technology was just then arriving at the means to capture.

Kiki Smith: “Frankenstein is an allegory of what our body is now — a composite body where you’ve got your brother’s kidney, somebody else’s eyes, and a slew of surgical implants. People generally think of their body as their fortress, their landscape for being here, but this is rapidly becoming less and less so.”

Sam Wagstaff, Robert Mapplethorpe’s lover and patron, pulled him from his suburban Queens existence, gave him a camera and brought him into an art world that seemed to be waiting for him, creating the man whose infamous images engender emotions ranging from awe to anger.   “25 years separated the lovers, but their relationship was symbiotic to its core, and the two remained together forever.”

“You’re so fucking verbal!  Who else could have talked me into giving him a blow job at my father’s funeral!?!”

Oh princess of mad sleep listen to my horn and my pack of hounds.  I deliver you from the forest where we came upon the spell.  Here we are by the pen – one with the other wedded on the page.

Jean Cocteau

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.