became comets, trailing long nebulous
trains, erratic members of the solar system. He gave only the silver scale of
their mermaid moods, the sea shell rose of their ear lobes, corollas, pistils,
light as wings. He housed them in facades of tent shelters which could be put
up for a moment and folded and vanished when desire expired.
“Nothing endures,” said Varda, “unless it has
first been transposed into a myth, and the great advantage of myths is that
they are ladies with portable roots.”
He often spoke of paradise. Paradise was a
distillation of women panoplied with ephemeral qualities. His collages taught
how to remain in a state of grace of love, extract only elixirs, transmute all
life into lunisolar fiestas, and all women, by a process of cut-outs, to
aphrodisiacs.
He was the alchemist searching only for what he
could transmute into gold. He never painted homely women, jealous women, or
women with colds. He dipped his brushes in pollen, in muteness, in honeymoons,
and his women were interchangeable and mobile.
He allowed space and air in their bodies so
they would not become too heavy, nor stay too long. He never depicted the death
of a love, fatigue or boredom. Every collage was rich with a new harem, the
constancy of illusion, fidelity to euphorias born of woman.
He took no time to weep over fadings or
witherings; he was always mixing a new brew, a new woman, and when he sat at
his large table, scissors in hand, searching for a new marriage of colors, a
variation in triangles, in squares and semicircles, interweaving cupolas and
breasts, legs and columns, windows and eyes on beds of pleasure, under tent of
rituals of the flesh, each color became a music box.
He canonized his women, they bore the names of
new brands of sainthood.
Saint Banality, who reigned over the artists
who could take everyday objects and turn them into extraordinary ones, like the
postman in France who built a castle out of the stones he found on his route
every day; the shoe cleaner in Brooklyn who decorated his shoe shine box with
medals, unmatched earrings, broken glass and silver paper to look like a
Byzantine crown; the mason in Los Angeles who built towers out of broken cups,
tiles, tea pots and washstands.
There was Saint Perfidia who knew how to
destroy the monotony of faithfulness, and Saint Parabola who decorated with
haloes those whose stories no one could understand, and Saint Hyperbole who
cured of boredom.
Saint Corona arrived at sunrise to wake him,
and Saint Erotica visited him at night.
The women were interchangeable and flowed into
one another as in dreams. He admitted and loved all of them except women in
black. “Black is for widows,” he said, for the severe women who had raised him
in Greece, for women in churches and women in cemeteries. Black was the absence
of color.
He saw women as feathers, furs, meteorites,
lace, campaniles, filigree; and so he was more amazed than other fathers to
find his own daughter made of other substances like a colorless doll lying
inside a magician’s trunk, with eyes not quite blue, hair not quite gold, as if
she had been the only one he had forgotten to paint.
When she was six years old he felt there was
yet time, that it was merely because he had never painted children, and that
his gift for painting women would become effective on the day of her womanhood.
At seven years of age she listened to his stories and believed them, and he
felt that with patience, luminosity and plumage would grow.
A tall, very strong woman came to visit Varda,
and the gossips whispered that she was a gangster’s moll. When she saw Varda’s
daughter she said: “Varda, would you mind if someday I kidnapped your
daughter?”
This frightened her and every evening before
going to bed she would ask: “She won’t come and kidnap me while I’m asleep,
will she?”
“No,” said Varda, “she can’t take you away
without my permission, and I won’t let her. She has tried to bribe me. She
trains, erratic members of the solar system. He gave only the silver scale of
their mermaid moods, the sea shell rose of their ear lobes, corollas, pistils,
light as wings. He housed them in facades of tent shelters which could be put
up for a moment and folded and vanished when desire expired.
“Nothing endures,” said Varda, “unless it has
first been transposed into a myth, and the great advantage of myths is that
they are ladies with portable roots.”
He often spoke of paradise. Paradise was a
distillation of women panoplied with ephemeral qualities. His collages taught
how to remain in a state of grace of love, extract only elixirs, transmute all
life into lunisolar fiestas, and all women, by a process of cut-outs, to
aphrodisiacs.
He was the alchemist searching only for what he
could transmute into gold. He never painted homely women, jealous women, or
women with colds. He dipped his brushes in pollen, in muteness, in honeymoons,
and his women were interchangeable and mobile.
He allowed space and air in their bodies so
they would not become too heavy, nor stay too long. He never depicted the death
of a love, fatigue or boredom. Every collage was rich with a new harem, the
constancy of illusion, fidelity to euphorias born of woman.
He took no time to weep over fadings or
witherings; he was always mixing a new brew, a new woman, and when he sat at
his large table, scissors in hand, searching for a new marriage of colors, a
variation in triangles, in squares and semicircles, interweaving cupolas and
breasts, legs and columns, windows and eyes on beds of pleasure, under tent of
rituals of the flesh, each color became a music box.
He canonized his women, they bore the names of
new brands of sainthood.
Saint Banality, who reigned over the artists
who could take everyday objects and turn them into extraordinary ones, like the
postman in France who built a castle out of the stones he found on his route
every day; the shoe cleaner in Brooklyn who decorated his shoe shine box with
medals, unmatched earrings, broken glass and silver paper to look like a
Byzantine crown; the mason in Los Angeles who built towers out of broken cups,
tiles, tea pots and washstands.
There was Saint Perfidia who knew how to
destroy the monotony of faithfulness, and Saint Parabola who decorated with
haloes those whose stories no one could understand, and Saint Hyperbole who
cured of boredom.
Saint Corona arrived at sunrise to wake him,
and Saint Erotica visited him at night.
The women were interchangeable and flowed into
one another as in dreams. He admitted and loved all of them except women in
black. “Black is for widows,” he said, for the severe women who had raised him
in Greece, for women in churches and women in cemeteries. Black was the absence
of color.
He saw women as feathers, furs, meteorites,
lace, campaniles, filigree; and so he was more amazed than other fathers to
find his own daughter made of other substances like a colorless doll lying
inside a magician’s trunk, with eyes not quite blue, hair not quite gold, as if
she had been the only one he had forgotten to paint.
When she was six years old he felt there was
yet time, that it was merely because he had never painted children, and that
his gift for painting women would become effective on the day of her womanhood.
At seven years of age she listened to his stories and believed them, and he
felt that with patience, luminosity and plumage would grow.
A tall, very strong woman came to visit Varda,
and the gossips whispered that she was a gangster’s moll. When she saw Varda’s
daughter she said: “Varda, would you mind if someday I kidnapped your
daughter?”
This frightened her and every evening before
going to bed she would ask: “She won’t come and kidnap me while I’m asleep,
will she?”
“No,” said Varda, “she can’t take you away
without my permission, and I won’t let her. She has tried to bribe me. She
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