Well how do you like that. I just spoke with Stavros, and I’m the villain! A manipulative raconteur! Evidently, I caused tears to flow from those beautiful Grecian eyes by making assumptions (in my previous post) that were quite far from accurate. He loves me! I think. Or am I making another assumption? Oh wait, here comes my Chorus of Therapists… “Oy, Coco, what did we tell you about this style of communication? It’s not only manipulative, it’s indirect, passive aggressive! He’s talking to you, loud and clear, through his actions, what’s this dreck about needing words? Words, words, words… Learn to understand his language! Enough already!” Stavros also took issue, humorously as always, with my presenting him in my blog as a sort of indecisive rapscallion and me as the wronged romantic dream lover. Ironically, this is exactly what annoyed me about Bob’s last book of short stories, the Bob character an amusing composite of both of our good qualities, and the Chris character representing all of our less desirable characteristics. I’d like to declare narrative immunity, but alas, I must protect my Stavros’ reputation and admit my contribution to his semi-frequent bouts of relationship anxiety.
And speaking of anxiety, I just saw Farewell, My Queen, an incredible film set in Versailles, in the few days after the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The film is about interior and exterior anxiety, featuring an implied lesbonic bond between la Reine and la duchesse de Polignac. The story is told through the eyes of the Queen’s reader, a young woman completely devoted to her mistress while the other servants and aristocrats gossip and eventually change into their grungy Citizen outfits and hit the road.
I’m photographing again. A new project, of flowers. Real ones this time, not ones made out of fuzzy blurry body parts. I’ll not say anything else, as I don’t know the what else just yet, just that the promise of new life is beckoning me, and I’m having such fun shooting again and hanging out with the bees in my plum tree. These will be large prints, 30″ x 40,” and all very close up—from the bees’ perspective. It seems like most everything there is to say about flowers has been said already, so I’m not thinking about breaking new conceptual ground, just in making really huge pretty things.