Do you ever feel that other people aren’t interested, at all, in the same things you are?
I do.
Recently, for example, I have breathlessly reported to several friends something like the following:
“I am completely obsessed with this South African woman I just learned of, now dead, named Helen Martins who was an eccentric and a recluse and built a place over the course of several decades called Owl House! Covered every surface with colored ground glass, then added mirrors, zillions of candles, and a weird mummy-like sculpture with one cloven hoof that lay on the floor in the middle of everything She had had two abortions which haunted her. Had a series of black workmen who helped her and carried on a decades-long affair with a married man who would not leave his wife. When she was finished with the house, began a bizarre sculpture garden with cement camels, cats, temples, mythical figures. Made a sign out of wire–“This is My House”–that she hung on the fence, then in her 80s drank caustic soda–lye–and killed herself! Wonderful book by Sue Imrie Ross that I retrieved from interlibrary loan. Fascinating! Female psyche that did not quite become integrated”…
Now if someone told that to me, I would be like, “Oh excuse me I have to use the bathroom” and would be in there madly scrolling through my phone to get more info and at the soonest possible opportunity, would read/watch every single thing about such a compelling, bizarre, paradoxical, tragic, mystifying figure that I could get my hands on.
As is true of much of what I breathlessly report, however, I have not been able to drum up much interest.
That’s okay! It is good to have our own little things that set us on fire.
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