I was Salomé for Halloween this year, as in Dance of the Seven Veils,
daughter of Herodias, and all that. I suppose I oughtn’t have been
surprised at how many people I met had no idea who Salomé was..
All obscure biblical references aside- I mean, really?
The favorite femme fatale of the fin-de-siècle!

“In the turn-of-the-century imagination, the figure of Salome
epitomized the inherent perversity of women:
their eternal circularity and their ability
to destroy the male’s soul even while
they remained nominally chaste in body”
– Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity

Colin made a fantastic John the Baptist..
J’ai baise ta bouche, Jokanaan!
Some of my favorite renderings follow below:

Salome, by Pierre Bonnaud

Salome Receiving the Head of St. John the Baptist, by Lovis Corinth

Salome, by Franz von Stuck

Salome, by Lucas Cranach the Elder

The Dancer’s Reward, by Aubrey Beardsley

Alla Nazimova as Salome
“The horror of my virginity

Delights me, and I would envelope me

In the terror of my tresses, that, by night,

Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white

And glimmering radiance of thy frozen fire,

Thou art chaste and diest of desire,

White night of ice and of the cruel snow!”
-Stephane Mallarme, from Herodiade
For more thrilling Salome errata:
♥ Décolleté – A Severed Head Gallery
(need I say more?) Kallisti’s incredible
compendium of schadenfreude and stumps.
♥ John Coulthart on Alla Nazimova’s Salomé
♥ My grandfather directed a televised production of the Strauss opera
version of Salome for the NBC Opera Theatre in 1954. John Cassavetes
and Sal Mineo played Jokanaan and the Page, respectively.
♥ The Dance of the Seven Veils is thought
to have originated with the myth of the goddess Ishtar
and the god Tammuz of Assyrian and Babylonian lore.
In this myth, Ishtar decides to visit her sister, Ereshkigal,
in the underworld. When Ishtar approaches the gates
of the underworld, the gatekeeper lets Ishtar pass
through the seven gates, opening one gate at a time.
At each gate, Ishtar has to shed an article of clothing.
When she finally passes the seventh gate, she is naked.
In a rage, Ishtar throws herself at Ereshkigal,
goddess of the underworld; but Ereshkigal orders
her servant Namtar to imprison Ishtar
and unleash sixty diseases against her.
After Ishtar descends to the underworld,
all sexual activity ceases on earth.
Also, I would like to mention the recent passing
of another one of my great inspirations-
the incomparable Yma Sumac:


A recent post from Coilhouse –
Better Than Coffee: Yma Sumac, Peruvian Songbird

Yma Sumac – Pachamama