Dorian Gray, Pandemic Dandyism, Pleasureful Touch, Purity
“A world in which things would have fresh shapes and colors, and to be changed or have other secrets. A world in which the past would have little of no place, or survive at any rate and no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness, and the memories of pleasure their pain. It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray to be the true object, or amongst the true objects of life, and in his search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful and possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he would often adopt certain modes of thought, that he knew to be really alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences and then, having as it were, caught their color and satisfied his intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that is not incompatible with the real ardor of temperament and that indeed, according to certain modern psychologists is often a condition of it.”
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
People sew beautiful printed masks and donate them to hospitals. A few weeks ago I heard that wearing the masks doesn’t do anything in regards to protection, the molecules are too small. Before their main function was defined as protection from spreading Covid whilst infected, I began to view them as a gesture of security, a look, that pushed: I value my peace of mind. Which would be hot, if it didn’t have an overwhelming air of -don’t get anywhere near me- purity drama. Purity takes on a new meaning these days. “Mr. Purell’s daydream.” my buddy jokes. I struggle to re-hardwire my position against it, in favor of protection. The terms greater good, social responsibility, abstract and not at all. It’s hard to do what you’re told, even if you know you should, and you still do it.
Last week I went for a walk on a rainy day and bought iced coffee through the side window of a coffee shop. I had never noticed that window before. As I walked I listened to the audiobook of The Picture of Dorian Gray on 1.5 speed, beauty words clipping themselves. I stared at this house, sent a photo of it to my love: “is this what houses look like in Virginia?” He responds, “Yes, every house looks like that in Virginia.” I don’t know if he is serious or not. This one house is particularly beautiful, it has a door on the second story that leads to a ladder outside, reminds me of those windows, witch windows (a.k.a. Vermont windows, coffin windows, lazy windows.) But it’s a door! I take a photo of a hot boy’s face on peeling away wheat paste, I look at orange trees glowing against the heavy rain sky. I watch people get takeout from Dennys. I feel a deep satisfaction in this, something like that of jury duty, everyone is here alone without their friends and everyone does not want to be here. Being miserable in jury duty was the most faith I have ever felt in the judicial system. Buying coffee through the window is weird. I watch families, babies in strollers, couples holding hands with dogs stroll in the cloudy sun. They look happy. I entertain the fantasy that everyone says they are scared but they are really actually very happy, or both, obviously [it’s always both.] Although it is painful to have habit disrupted this rupture seems to have the potential to illicit a strange and floating joy, a connection (to what?), an indefinite glimpse to a new kind of routine, a continuity breach where all that is left after discomfort is affection for our surroundings. I see other punks walking around in the streets looking around, punks love a continuity breach. Punk can often be turned-up politically neutral voyeurism. Pandemic dandyism. I calm my nerves imagining a time for spring cleaning for relationship kindling, a time for experimenting with forming your own kinds of continuity, for exploring a relationship with worry, with pleasure. I worry about money, and then forget again, and then worry again. I listen to the exquisite bratty characters confide their deepest desires.
I miss touch. Something about this desire makes me feel guilty, immature. I lick this wound re-reading Annie Alber’s essay Tactile Sensibility; She’s smart and she likes touching things too. “We touch things to assure ourselves of reality. We touch the objects of our love. We touch the things we form. Our tactile experiences are elemental. If we reduce their range, as we do when we reduce the necessity to form things ourselves, we grow lopsided.” I could go outside and bury my hands in the dirt, but I still miss my boyfriend. Porn is at an all time high, free premium. I reverberate into myself when I look at my sex toys on the shelf in my closet, probably too many, but I choose to be okay with it. No use being guilty, I say again. I make out with my flesh light for long stretches of time, I take video. It’s fun, and gets old, and becomes fun again, like most things these days.
And while this moment in time exists at least one million universes away, considering an electrical aliveness of touch I recall David Velasco on David Wojnarowicz:
“David holds Bill. he puts his hands on the base of his skull and rubs slowly around his ears, behind his ears, down his forehead, over the bridge of his nose, under his eyes. No words for it. Just this way of being calm under the bomb for a little while. Hardly anyone knows yet that another bomb is coming, maybe already lit inside them, that will wipe out David and many of his friends and lovers and many of my potential friends and lovers. I hate them so much for dying. Nothing pre-invented about David and Bill’s holding pattern, it seems. ‘ It was just a gesture I was capable of making and I made it,’ he says aloud to himself to no one in particular.”
***
References:
The Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde
Tactile Sensibility, Annie Albers
No Motive, David Velasco
