❝ Innocence, on the Bicycle of Propriety, carrying the Urn of Reputation safely over the Abyss of Indiscretion ❞⠀—Edward Gorey, The Broken Spoke

❝ A dancer dies twice—once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful. ❞⠀⠀—Martha Graham

❝ Get my swan costume ready. ❞⠀—Anna Pavlova’s final request before passing away

❝ The beauty of those swans! Of course, they’re angry beasts, like peacocks; but where peacocks are common, there’s nothing common about swans. The silence of their swimming... you don’t hear it, but you feel it. ❞⠀—Diana Vreeland, D.V.

❝ Ouspenskaya used to fix the class with a very stern, rather frightening look, a monocle in one eye, and tell us to imagine we were blades of grass on the ocean bed. And everyone swayed. ❞⠀—Helen Beverley, on Maria Ouspenskaya as an acting teacher, in Nazimova: A Biography

❝ Convulsive beauty will be veiled-erotic, fixed-explosive, magic-circumstantial, or it will not be. ❞⠀—André Breton, Mad Love

• 📚

❝ There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag—and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty—and vice versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you. ❞

• —Doris Lessing
  • The Golden Notebook

❝ I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompan...

• accessory ♡ chandelier earrings
• actor ♡ buster keaton
• actress ♡ greta garbo
• adjective ♡ amaranthine
• animal ♡ glasswing butterfly
• art movements ♡ surrealism ♡ magical realism
• authors ♡ angela carter ♡ isak dinesen
• book genre ♡ biography
• candy ♡ japanese kitkats
• city visited ♡ boston
• classical piece ♡ mystery! tango
• clothing ♡ cashmere cardigan
• coffee ♡ mocha
• colors ♡ peacock & jewel tones
• decade ♡ 1920s
• deity ♡ sipnget (night goddess)
• dessert ♡ baklava
• emoji ♡ 🦋
• fairytale ♡ fitcher’s bird
• film ♡

❝ Dreams are a time to be safely crazy, so that we can stay sane during the day. ❞⠀—Mrs. R. Cartwright, Director of Sleep Laboratory, University of Illinois*

❝ It’s well we cannot hear the screams / We make in other people's dreams. ❞⠀—Edward Gorey, Verse Advice

⇲

• ᴊᴜɴ 13 2025 ⭑ Descended to a subway station that felt like decompressing into an ever-expanding other-world as the doors slid shut & the trains moved in opposite directions. That other-world became a night-darkened empty theme park where I floated to the top of a roller-coaster & found Kate Bush posing down low in her red Wuthering Heights dress ▸ as she wielded a bow & arrow ▸ with colored paper streamers flying through the air. She transmogrified into a vaguely royal family whom I guided through an underground passageway, down winding stairs that were full of tumbled furniture, & back to the subway where I lost sight...

┊ I’m ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ! ┊

• Who are you?
• Are you nobody, too?
• Then there’s a pair of us
  • — don’t tell!
• They’d banish us, you know.
  • ⸻ ❀
• How dreary to be somebody!
• How public, like a frog
• To tell your name the livelong day
• To an admiring bog!
  • —Emily Dickinson

┊ ʜᴇʟʟᴏ. ┊

• a ʙᴇʀʟɪɴɢᴏᴛɪᴇ̀ʀᴇ is a special pair of scissors for cutting warm striped ʙᴇʀʟɪɴɢᴏᴛ candy before they cool into shape

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀❀

• reading 📚 ⤸
  • john william polidori
    • the vampyre
    • ernestus berchtold, or the modern œdipus
    • & other writings
• testing ⤸
  • prodigieux le parfum
    • nuxe
• drinking ⤸
  • blackberry
    • bubly

• conceits & trifles
• broken teacup
• flapping butterflies
• garter snaps
• gasoline rainbow
• inexplicable confetti *
• ladybug charm
• macaron crumbs
• pair of brown eyes
• paper puzzle purse
• perfume pistol *
• tinted emollients *
• tiny cordate grimoire
• vial of Q.ʀ.ᴠ. *

• somewhat inspired by ❀

what does your heart look like?

• a bird struggling to get loose

what detail from the garden of earthly delights are you?

• owl sitting on egg from which loads of human legs break free

come to my tea party & i will give you a gift

• a glass vial of poison

come to my masquerade & i will give you something you need

• a shapeshifting cleaver

which shakespearean method of dying are you?

• death by swallowing fire

which virgin martyr are you?

apples & oranges & fanciful dichotomies

• sunrise or sunset
• early bird or night owl
• dragonflies or butterflies
• poppies or tulips
• lilies or orchids
• daisies or buttercups
• snow white or rose red
• cockle-shells or silver bells
• cochineal or viridian
• glass quartz or obsidian
• onyx or mother-of-pearl
• faux pearls or bakelite bangles
• bohemian chic or dollybird mod
• heart-shaped or cat-eyed glasses
• rhinestones or sequins
• strawberries or blueberries
• raspberries or blackberries
• pomegranates or figs
• lime or lemon
• lemonade or iced tea

┊ ↻ rewatched ┊ ᴛᴄᴍ: turner classic movies ┊

• medea (1970) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• howards end (1992) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• metropolitan (1990) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• sylvia & the ghost (1949) sylvie et le fantôme ∙ ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• the prime of miss jean brodie (1969) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• three colors: blue (1993) trois couleurs: bleu ∙ ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• three women (1924) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• a room with a view (1985) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• sisters (1972) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• vampyres (1975) ᴛᴜʙɪ
• us (2019) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ғx/ᴅᴠʀ
• the ceremony (1997) gishiki ∙ ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• fig leaves (1926) ʏᴏᴜᴛᴜʙᴇ
• the white sister (1923) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• party girl (1995) ʜᴜʟᴜ
• hot water (1924) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ

┊ found on ᴋᴀɴᴏᴘʏ unless otherwise stated ┊

• merchant ivory (2024) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• garbo (2005) ʜᴜʟᴜ/ᴛᴄᴍ/ᴅᴠʀ
• garbo: where did you go? (2024) ɴᴇᴛғʟɪx
• catching fire: the story of anita pallenberg (2023) ʜᴜʟᴜ
• nature (2025) ᴘʙs
  • s43 ep13: hummingbirds of hollywood
• american masters (2025) ᴘʙs
  • s39 ep3: art spiegelman: disaster is my muse
• anna may wong: frosted yellow willows: her life, times & legend (2007) ʏᴏᴜᴛᴜʙᴇ
• love, cecil (2017) beaton
• pompeii: the new dig (2024) ᴘʙs
• mystique of the pearl (1996)
• quant (2021) mary ∙ ᴄʀᴀᴄᴋʟᴇ
• ballet 422 (2014) ᴛᴜʙɪ
• poetry in america (2024) ᴘʙs

┊ neat ┊

• wings (1927) dolly shot

┊ lovely ┊

• pavlova: a woman for all time (1983) anna
• the color of pomegranates (1969) sayat nova
  • poetry
  • more (⚠ blood drip)
• russian ark (2002) run
• marie antoinette (1938)
  • birdcage hair
  • masque madness
• marie antoinette (2006) cake & candy
• watership down (1978) bright eyes
• dancing dreams (2010) tanzträume ∙ cute
• the red shoes (1948) dance
• puce moment (1949) dazzle
• blood tea & red string (2006) idyll
• who are you, polly maggoo? (1966) qui êtes-vous, polly maggoo?

• attention
• intro illustrata
• dulcimer queen
• fog in march
• skirt, jacket
• sea spa
• lemonade
• butt song
• daisy, daisy
• chick rock
• magical
• catwalk
• doll valley
• tingel tangel
  • based on ❀
• cherry: youtu.be/vOID2_-qt4c
  • the link breaks on listo, so just copy & paste it
• a historiscope