Storyville

Circa 2008

A sketch made in Amsterdam, probably on a boat in a thunderstorm on some rain-crashed canal while on shrooms. If not shrooms then a hit of golden Afghan hash, the kind purchased at the drug bodegas of Amsterdam right before buying a bagel schmeared with chèvre and pear from a dread-headed vegan expat—at least that’s how it was circa 2008 the summer of American Boy and Back to Black, when lightning rocked the houseboats rolling on water, while pupils enlarged and houseplants had a way of looking back and also having things to say about the softness of concrete jungles, the recklessness of wars, and the coldness of cheese. It’s the only explanation for this woman’s peculiar pet, no doubt a chimera inspired by the Brothers Quay, the recumbency of the woman no doubt inspired by a trip to the Rijksmuseum, the head of the woman scratched out, veiled like one of the residents of Storyville photographed by Ernest J. Bellocq, whose faces were voided out after the fact. The reason for the scratches is unclear. Was it censorship, primal patriarchal rage, or something else?