The Tears of Things: Introducing <i>Portraits Of Catherine</i>

November 10, 2005

Introducing Portraits Of Catherine

by Jerome du Bois

In "Love And Fashion, Phoenix Style," I responded to a hateful email by a troll calling itself jwrock. My response contained this passage:

He hates that I love Catherine, and admire her many talents, and carefully share some of them with the world. Why would I do that? Because I think her behavior is worth emulating; because she embodies the archetypal American and the archetypal Woman: always working, do-it-yourself, demand the best, figure it out, overcome obstacles, keep improving, never give up, and never give an inch. Unsinkable. Unstoppable.

I add here that she looks gorgeous in magic ensembles she assembles in her bedroom-sized wardrobe, some from scratch, and her talents show up as beautiful outfits. And now I have discovered that my continuing recent images of her on the internet are talismans against evil envy. That is partly why I'm selecting them out for the top sidebar, crowned by the glorious emblematic sentinel I am proud to share my life with.

I protect her, she protects me.

And here I celebrate her. Every time we go out she looks, at the very least, photogenic. And the thing is, I'm always walking beside her, so I don't get to see how great she looks as one approaches. With the photos, I do. That she keeps custody of her features on the internet is simply another emblem of The New Formality, and a sign of strong personal control in a world where such control is shrinking. Catherine King has more power over her images than any queen on Earth.

It started with Carmen. Once we decided to go to that opera, Catherine set aside several other ongoing projects to finish The Psychedelic Leprechaun in time. And since we had posted about this dress in progress months ago, I decided I wanted to document its triumphant debut. So we posted about it.

Well, it was lightning and a lightning rod. The sitemeter went north, labelhorde went south, freaks came a-calling. We were used to the latter, little nattering ankle-biters with the sniggering imaginations of stunted sixth-graders. But Catherine called my attention to something more interesting.

"They're reading more," she said. "Our page views are through the roof. That's not from looking at pictures. It reminds me of that recent Camille Paglia essay about The Magic Of Images: 'The only antidote to the magic of images is the magic of words.' And maybe vice versa."

I think she's right. So let's add to it. As you see above, with Cosmic Western, and on the sidebar, with a small version of an ensemble you can pop up right here (all rights reserved; do not reproduce in any form):

El Leprechaun Pscicodélico Con Bolero Aleman.

Isn't she beautiful? and isn't she powerful?

Yes to both.

And many more images to come.

Posted by Jerome at November 10, 2005 01:30 PM | TrackBack