Sorcha Dallas

Once more, with feeling.

Miss Verily-Existent and Miss Quite-Transcendent strike poses, gazing imperiously through the belladonna’d eyes. Collaged from painted sculptures they are quite, quite cosmopolite. Their deportment (if nothing else) is ‘realness’ personified. Theirs is a proper false disguise, not a deception - they are not ‘passing’ for anything!. They have feelings with labels attached. One Apolline, the other very Dionysiac!. For today, Miss Verily-Existent feels like her “Grace de Vamp’ but Quite-Transcendent is L’Abesse’.

Elsewhere, Thessalian sorceresses perform Xtravagant catoptromancy, holding mirrors behind the bandaged eyes of boys and girls. Alas, this divine divination reveals no truth - reflected back are hyperbolic habiliments, mannered mores fashioned from decades of strict petticoat control.

Bandages mask bruised egos and burgundy mouths, covering decisions made and lamented. They may represent their House and their Mother, but at least they have choices!. These ladies have free will - their paths are not determined. They sashay along the bowery, stinking of mimosa and teeter down alleyways littered with rotting petals. Poised and particular, they could be players in katsuro mono, resplendent and transcendent in shimmering silk brocade. Their endless, studied re-posing is repetitiion for emphasis - coquettish and Cocteau-ish, they pierce the shell of the world’s contempt.

Susannah Thompson