I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know how to encapsulate,
to express in a few words, a thousand words
everything there is to say
about this girl:

Pandora Aurora Rose
(Katherine Jeanine Hastings)
July 22nd, 1975 – January 25th, 2005
She was, among many other things,
(as best described by our friend Mer)
a talented musician, an artist, a poet, a killer DJ,
a fire-breather, a stilt-walker, a rookie entymologist,
a fine picnic hostess, a fantastic director,
a creative and energetic storyteller, a costumer,
a lover of animals and children, a burlesque star,
and an instigator of phenomenal
events and occurrences.
She was whip-smart, wickedly funny,
well-read, well-traveled, loyal,
generous with her time, quick to love,
quick to forgive, bad-ass, sexy, silly,
thoughtful, and endearingly childlike/childish.

She was a faery, a whiskey-pixie.

She was a firecracker.

She was a siren.

She was Calamity Jane.

She was my friend and I miss her.

If I could compose a paean,
a eulogy, an elegy for her
I would- but the words I have
are to her, a letter that I can
never send. I’ve never had
to write anything more difficult-
Bear with me, while I try.
This was you:

Minutes after being born,
the littlest pumpkin..
Before your eyes darkened
to foxfire amber, full of sparks
and mischief’s glint.
Your tiny starfish hands curled
and itching to be full of the world,
to know what was out there..
Before life happened to you..
Before..

You so bright and small.
Mouse bones..
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost
a month since you died..
It’s taken me this long to come to the
place where I could even attempt to
say what needs to be said:
now, I want to try and say it to you-
even though I don’t know where you are,
I feel you with me all the time.
I hear your gravelly kitten voice
pulling at my ear, I see your eyes
when I close mine.
The night I found out, I had just
been thinking of you- a few weeks before
I was standing on the street discussing
your invincibility with our tall friend –
how you were made of rubber,
made to bounce back…
Oh, how we believed that.
Unthinkable, then that he should call me
later and ask me to verify a rumor,
a horrible rumor that you were dead-
and not in some fiery calamity,
not some bizarre accident-
but alone in the bath,
a needle in your hand.
I refused it utterly-
I wouldn’t accept it as truth until
I spoke to someone that had seen you.
A dozen phonecalls later, my egg of denial
started to crack. I fell on the floor howling,
knowing you were lost.
In the morning, I called the police.
The detective verified all our worst fears-
he had seen you. He told me it was true,
and even then, it didn’t seem real.
Impossible, that you could be gone-
but far too late for a joke, an errant bit of
nasty gossip- the hope that I could ever
hear your voice wisecracking,
“Remember when everyone thought I was dead?”
Yeah, we all totally freaked out.

The next week was lost in a blur of tears.
I got sick, and blew out a blood vessel
in my eye from weeping. It didn’t matter-
I couldn’t stop, because with your death
came every other- each loss magnified,
brought back just as fresh, just as raw..
It seems every year we lose another
friend this way– ignominious and
horribly wasteful, how beauty and genius
are continually destroyed by a love,
a need for poppy juice and opium escape.
It makes no sense.
A few nights before the funeral, the three of us


came together to make a shrine for you –
carved wood and hinges, images of
everything that brought you to mind:
Beetles, orchids, geishas, jewels.
Laughing fountains and paper dolls.
Rabbits, forests, foxes, graces.
Carousel animals, chariots, cocoons.
Monarch migrations, moons.


We came to Dallas bearing candles,
flowers, rose-flavoured cupcakes,
dollies, candy, and treasures to
place on your altar- along with a
shot of Jameson’s and a shot
of Pepto Bismol, for your
notoriously troubled tummy.
The service was held outside,
on a gorgeous clear day.
Everyone was shaky and scared.
Your friends from Austin all came,
and your entire family was there-
and both groups did their best to
comfort each other. In the sunlight,
under bare oaks and overlooking
a winter-worn field we sat as the
minister incanted ashes to ashes.
A herd of little black cows came up
to the fence to pay their respects,
and we all bust up- knowing you
would be loving it and laughing
in some heavenly saloon
about your unruly bovine mourners..

There were pictures of you everywhere,
and red rose petals, and a big feast –
but I couldn’t eat anything, only drink
whiskey, and more whiskey.
Everyone did- in your honour
and in order to get through it.
I’ve been lighting candles for you,
having imaginary conversations
with you, poring over pictures of
you, writing letters to your friends
and family, crying over you in
drugstores and bathrooms and bars..
None of it brings you back.
Nothing I do now will ever kill
the hideous sense of regret that
I didn’t show you enough, tell
you enough that you were loved.
Everyone that loved you feels now
a terrible guilt, because we all
believe that there was more we
could have done to help you,
to save you. If only, and
if we had- would you still
be here with us?

Living your life

making music

being a fairy of peril

having easter egg hunts and tea parties


and laughing (with midgets)

and eating watermelon?

I don’t know, honey.
It kills me that you never
realized how amazing
you were. I wish we could
have shown you that before
it was too late. I wish I had
seen you, talked to you more
in the last five years.
Visited you when I had the chance.
Had slumber parties and
gone out dancing with you.
People all across the country,
scattered all over the world
are mourning the loss of you.
You touched so many lives.
I know you were in pain,
I know you were sad
most of the time.
I’m sorry I wasn’t there.
I’m sorry I couldn’t
make it better.

I love you.
I miss you.
“If your hands were in mine
I’d be sure we’d not sever..
My apple tree, my brightness
It’s time we were together
For I smell of the earth
And am worn by the weather..”
I don’t know how to say goodbye.

We’ve been witnessing your many and varied forms of control today.
They’re very effective.
Very pretty.

When the gods want to punish you they answer your prayers

If an arrow is shot at your feet, don’t pick it up and stab yourself in the heart with it.

The meeting of two personalities is like
the contact of two chemical substances:
if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Love is a snowmobile
racing across the tundra
and then suddenly it flips over,
pinning you underneath.
At night, the ice weasels come.

Forgive the long absence,
and the coming deluge-
A dear friend of mine died
recently, and I am still
processing the weight
and wages of loss..
All perception of the past two weeks
has been blurred by an overwhelming
intensity of emotion- it melts and
warps into an alien landscape
dotted with rubbery clock-faces-
the persistence of memory, indeed.
I will attempt to move backwards
in time- approaching the hours
of terrible realization the way one
would a rabid animal, slowly, slowly-
always cautious, always wary..
And so, the first step back is
Ash Wednesday, and Mardi Gras:

A day of cinders and errant sparkle-
In the morning, bedecked in our
unwieldy finery and long without
sleep, we hustled and hobbled
to the crossroads, where the air
was thick with invisible smoke-
an acrid haze you could vaguely sense
but not see or smell- a mugginess,
a wheezy fug settling over the plumed
heads of the gathered revelers-
permeating into every pore
already clogged by greasepaint.

The Queen of Hearts, Saint Genet, and me – a unicorn princess…
Parading through the confetti-doused
streets through packs of rabid yokels,
seething beaded hyenas with beer coozies
and cameras capturing us up like
the herd of elegant, exotic and awkward
giraffes that we had suddenly become.

Swan Boy + Wolf-Girl

We careened into a transvestite insect parade;
the Queen Bee decked out in a hive-dress
covered with fluttering drones,
her court a mass of elaborately gotten-up
mini-queens in the latest exoskeletons.
We dodged giant scarabs, and strapping
bikers wielding enormous valentine hearts
which they carried like the born-agains
with the wheeled wooden crosses.
I got my hoop skirt caught on somebody’s
sequined proboscis, or was it a tentacle?
After awhile of this we grew weary of
antagonizing the evangelicals
and catering to the paparazzi
(except for the Russians, of course)
and made our way down to the river..

Nina Carolina and the She-Wolf

In the Krewe of Saint Anne walking club,
it is a tradition to take the ashes
of members of the Krewe who have
died in the past year- bringing them along
as the parade winds its way to the river,
and then ceremonially casting them into
the muddy waters of the Mississippi.
We didn’t have her ashes,
so we burned our letters to Pandora,
and placed them and other special objects
into a tiny hollowed out pumpkin with purple sage flowers..
We walked down to where the water lapped
the wooden steps and set the little orange boat afloat.
It bobbed and opened, the black ashes mixing
with glitter and sparkly confetti acquired
accidentally during the parade.
As the misty light refracted off
the little waves and jetties,
and the big boats skulked past,
we watched as the water carried the tiny pumpkin off-
a glowing orange orb sailing in the murky river,
carrying our wishes and words to our lost friend and little sister..
Ash Wednesday bloomed sullen and hazy-
A day of penance, swamped in memory
and the past radiates incandescent behind..
The body is worn, stretched to its final
capacity, no longer conforming to the
mind’s instruction, but only willing to
fall in a heap onto the floor- the eyes
only able to stare and no longer
comprehend the swollen dewdrops,
or the turning black flocks through
the open window.
All my words flew out with them,
and all I have are these well-trodden
verses, but shockingly apt in the
light of recent events..
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jeweled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word.
So, yes.
And two more things-
This is what our poor parlour looked like
the morning after:

Sad, sad, sad..
Such sordid evidence of debauchery!
A drunken dress-form passed out
in a pile of sequins and cigarette ashes!
Well, this is where I retreat to:

Heaven..

Ah, so- my birthday is the day after tomorrow,
and I am so excited, I could just pee!
But, for the sake of my trousers, and this chair-
I will attempt to restrain myself.
If you find yourself in the area,
and would like to celebrate with me-
we’ll be dining at Rasputin on St. Charles Avenue
around 8:00 pm, and then retiring to the parlour
for cake and frolics afterwards.

Incidentally, I realized after I made those reservations
that Rasputin (the man, not the restaurant)
and I share a birthday.. Shocking, eh?
 
I was also born on the same day as Andreas Vesalius:

As well as Pat Benatar, Linda Lovelace and Sal Mineo.

All these folks all kicked the bucket on January 10th:

•  Carolus Linnaeus (d. NS 1778)
• Buffalo Bill (d. 1917)
• Dashiell Hammett (d. 1961)
• Coco Chanel (d. 1971)
• Howlin’ Wolf (d. 1976)

And these things occurred on January 10th:

• Templars suppressed in Britain, 1308
• UK declares war on King of Kandy, 1815
• Tomb of Cleopatra discovered, 1890
• World War I ends with ratification of Treaty of Versailles, 1920
• Metropolis 1st shown, Berlin, 1926
• 1st cartoon appearance of Tintin, 1929
• Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford divorced, US, 1935
• 2000 die when Niragong erupts, Zaïre, 1977
• Full diplomatic relations with Vatican restored after 116 years, US, 1984
• Kissing while driving made illegal, Italy, 1993

Golly! And so, to commemorate that fateful date,
as well as the anniversary of my whelping
(here’s the part where I get shameless..)
and yet had not the slightest inkling of
what on earth would make me do a little dance-
um, well… Just to give you an idea:

Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia

by Danzig Baldaev, Sergei Vasiliev, Alexei Plutser-Sarno

Karl Blossfeldt : Art Forms In Nature – The Complete Edition

-Georges Bataille, Karl Blossfeldt

Or, a musical saw would make me pretty damn happy.
Just in case you were wondering.
Actually, what I probably need most
is a just sound spanking and a stiff drink.
And that’s probably exactly
what I will get!

The turning of the year in this dirty old town
was rung in with much dancing and frivolity,
to be sure- amid a rain of gunshots and fireworks
popping and falling though a haze of dense fog..
The cathedral rose up through it
floating like a great gray ghost,
spires invisible in the mist.
I followed the trail of dying moths
down Royal to a scene of utter chaos-
none of which I am prepared to detail
at this particular moment..
In lieu of that, let’s just pretend for now
that the following photographs are
faithfully recorded from that evening
instead- in truth, this is what a dinner
party at my house looks like-
in true Eastern European/What the fuck-style..

   Hallo! Jagshemash! Why you laugh?

   I make only premium borscht!

   Really, I am promising you it is best you will ever taste!

  Everyone agrees that it is superior..

 

I H8 YUR NIGHTLIFE and the last sodden piroshki.

We discovered later that this charming piece
of edible artwork was not, in fact, baloney (or bologna, either)
but in fact- a unused piroshki skin leftover
and stained with beet juice, and then lovingly inscribed.
I’m still not sure who is responsible,
but it makes me very happy in my
heart.                                             


                                  
Piotr Nu + Miz
O.                                 


                              
MUSIKAS
Shortly after this, I think, I found myself unable to
continue singing in Russian, or to properly perform
my duties as hostess- because of all the many bottles
of premium vodka consumed I found myself stranded
on the desolate beaches of Yalta!
But that didn’t matter much, as due to the excessive
number of guests raucously dancing and stomping
and general making crazy we got shut down early
by bad-tempered neighbours. To them I say:
NE LEZ PAPEREK BATKI V PEKLO!
(or, “don’t rush into hell ahead of your daddy”)

Oh, and Daisy and Violet Hilton showed up, in doll-form of course. 

This is what I looked like the next morning. All in all it was very good party.

And so for many reasons that I won’t go into now
this last year has been rather horrible-
(though I realize I am very lucky girl)
I am very glad to see it go-
but here’s a little light to wish you
all to stay strong through this next one, yes?

Every dream I have had in the past month
has involved intruders in my home.
I’ve found creative ways each time to
dispatch them all, neatly or otherwise.
But why is this? Except for one last
night where I woke up in a stranger’s
house, and I was the intruder-
making up stories of how I fainted
to explain my presence there to
a bored housewife who didn’t care.

Dream I.
Involving gypsy-sheik intrigues.
A moment finds me in my neighborhood,
which is now surburban/yugoslav
italian-style white stucco houses
the streets are patrolled by samurais
in yellow plastic rain-slickers and
straw hats, wielding silver katanas.
They have infiltrated my house,
and are holding my family hostage.
I am the über-grandmother, rotund
with olive oil in my long black hair-
singing and weeping and tending
to the frightened skinny little ones.
I invoke the sympathy of the guards
with my keening, humming song-
mournful and comforting all at once.
I have two pistols in my apron pockets
which I use to take them out one by one-
making improvised silencers out of
wadded-up baby clothes.
We hide the bodies in cupboards
and suitcases and under beds.
All the while I continue singing.
Soon they are all dead, and the
big boss arrives- a quiet and
thoughtful african muslim,
a very religious and very
dangerous man- he strokes his
chin and decides not to punish
our family as he respects me for
holding ground, even if I did
kill all his best men.

Dream II.
I live in a little house on the banks
of a deep green river strewn with willows.
The house has curved glass windows and
is built to resemble an antique curio cabinet.
An intruder peers in, trying to get to me-
muttering hateful words as he fumbles with
the locks. He sits all day in the cab of his
red truck and watches me through the slats
of the venetian blinds. Like an animal.
He tries to break in but runs away when he
hears that I am calling the police, only to be
replaced by a second and third intruder-
this time harmless but annoying bums
who smell powerfully of filth and sweat.
They gain entrance and beg for money
which I give them so that they will depart.
Then I am flying very high over countryside,
fields and trees and farmhouses far below.
We are precariously balanced on a broomstick.
A very daring girl risks plummeting to her death
while dancing on tip-toes on the end of the broom.
Horses in my dream- the black and the bay I ride
along the river, the seashore- strong legs
and manes rippling between my fingers.
His arms are torn and wounded,
heavily stitched and embroided in
complex geometric designs in lavender
thread by his new lover, I scream in his
face until I am hoarse.

Explain this to me.

It seems someone made a
grave error in neglecting to
renew our subscription for
winter this year- it ran out
a few days ago, and now
we swelter and sweat in
the muggy mist of mid-
December. Fucking unreal.

A few nights ago a special
outing was made to see the
Virsky Ukrainian National
Dance Company, in all their
swirling, bounding, leaping
splendour- my favorites were
the Vyshyvalnytsi (Embroideresses)
that wove tapestries with
brightly coloured thread
and their bodies.

And now I’m feeling like
an amputee, or as if
my heart is disembodied-
floating somewhere outside
my body on a string.
And now my days and nights
are so quiet and still.
How to mend?

Well, some good news at
least is that they are making a
film of one of my favorite books:
The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov

МАСТЕР И МАРГАРИТА

It promises to be better
than the Italian version
with Mimsy Farmer.

Not too long ago I had an
amazing dream about
Behemoth–
 He was sitting on the
edge of the bed in the
Czech boarding house.
I saw him. He turned
 his black furry head
around and looked at me
with yellow eyes as big
as dinnerplates.
I saw him on the street
again tonight only much
smaller, and he bit me.

“But there were even worse things in the bedroom.
A third visitor sprawled insolently on the padded ottoman
that had once belonged to the jeweler’s lady –
namely, a black tom of terrifying proportions,
with a glass of vodka in one paw
and a fork in the other with which he had
already managed to impale a pickled mushroom.”

Absolution and Eternal Refuge

[Proshchenie i vechnyi priiut]

Looks like this: (shamelessly filched from )

My homecoming arrival
was feted by unexpected elves
who rang me in with sweetness,
a lovely dinner inspired with
a chinese-mexican donut shop theme:
haricots vertes with sesame and shoyu
tofu enchiladas and butterscotch
pudding- all for only a dollar ninety-five!
In all actuality, it was homecooked-
extremely delicious, I might add.
Not only that, but the illustrious
Mister   appeared with
100 pearlescent helium balloons,
lit by a flashing scepter and,
to top it all off- he invited a mariachi band.
Well, it was really only one mariachi-
but what an outfit! Sequins and maribou!
And he played Brechtian ditties on his
mother-of-pearl accordion all evening.
Damn, but it’s good to be home.
I say that, and mean it truly-
as I haven’t left it for 48 hours for
any reason- the bloody flux has kept
me abed in paroxyms of bodily agony, alas.
We watched my street-pawned copy of
 Les Temps du Gitanes which I luckily
did not destroy with my high-powered
hematite magnets even though I left them
sitting on top of it all night long.
And now for edamame and tea.
And more of these treats:

I have become shamelessly addicted to
monkey flavoured pocky
and chimes peanut butter-ginger chews.
And that is because they are
astoundingly tasty.
Oh, and also bit o’ honeys
are filling my bowl, similarly tasty:

Though it is cold outside and in
I feel I have achieved the essence of gezellig.
Incidentally, this will be the first Christmas holiday
spent in my own dwelling and not in Texas
with my family. Or in some far-flung locale
like Hong Kong- (really, a graveyard in Macau.).
Honestly, I’m a bit anxious about it.
Are you an orphan too?
You should come down here and join ours-
It’s going to be very, very festive- I promise.
Seriously.
You’re invited-
An Orphan Christmas in New Orleans.
What could possibly be better?
(I could answer that, but I’ll restrain myself for now.)

A chilly night in Chi-town
and the wind is howling like
a disembodied thing, beating
against the glass, whispering
warnings or beseeching us
to walk out to the vast lake
and let it beat us in the face.
But I don’t think so.

Because inside it is warm,
a little too much so-
but I’ve got alchemy
engravings to copy out
and Asperger’s Syndrome to
fixate on.

I’m also discovering where
I come from. Or who,
really- these northern folks,
this lost family. Lost threads.

My great-grandfather’s family
came from Bohemia.
My great-grandmother came from
Wloclawek, Poland- a little town
on the Vistula River.
Her name was Hilda.
She wrote a book about
coming here, her
social and political activist work
and involvement
with Jane Addams and
Hull House.

It’s interesting to discover
that my family has always
been so socially and politically
active- deeply left-leaning,
socialist, communist,
supporters of women’s rights
and worker’s rights.
I suppose I knew these
things all along, but never
realized to what degree-
and learning now what kind
of people I came from has
given me some strength.

My great-aunt Dena,
(a very fascinating woman-
author and music librarian)
has given me a wealth of old
fotographs from family albums.
Nothing like seeing your relatives
as elfin infants in striped socks
and high-buttoned boots..

And my Grandfather!
The man truly blows my mind.
Actor, Magician, Puppeteer,
Director, Producer and
Television Pioneer!
Inventor of the Opticon Scillometer!
We visited the Museum
of Television and Radio
in New York to see if we
could find some footage of
the operas he translated
and directed (we did find
Salome and Down in The Valley)
And the curators there just
flipped out- it was kind of peculiar
to witness- these people to whom
my dear old grampa is something
of an icon..

He’s been telling me amazing stories
about meeting and working with
various unbelievable personages..
W.H. Auden, Kurt Weill, Louis Armstrong,
Toscanini, Leontyne Price.
Sometimes I fear my head may explode.

We went to visit his old friend
Studs Terkel yesterday morning,
who answered the door in his bathrobe
and kept offering us scotch.
The tales these two were spinning
were incredible- luckily, I recorded
most of it- wild anecdotes from the
days of blackballing and unrest.

We went tonight to the
Russian Tea Room for
pelmeni, black bread and borscht.
And for me, some lovely flavoured vodkas:
Coriander, Black Currant Tea and Lime.
Then to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra-
Bartók’s Viola Concerto, o holy!

I think I may have changed my mind
and am never coming home.