I posted an earlier version of this document on
Facebook but left out some details. Like how when Louise Brooks was a
girl in Kansas
she and I used out make out in the haystacks on summer nights after the
baseball games. She was totally undomesticated and she stayed pretty
much that same way even when – like the divine Myth of Amherst – she didn’t get
out much anymore. And also like The Little Wren, Louise managed the chess game
of her life with a queen sacrifice so that her incorporeal legend would, in the
words of George Gordon, Lord Byron, “breathe when I expire.” It’s still
breathing. When I visit her grave I think of Durer’s epitaph: “Whatever was
mortal of Durer is in this tomb.” Not much in Louise’s grave either.
Notice the transformation in Louise’s hairstyle over
the years. The sages of Kabbalah teach that hair is a conductor of cosmic
energy. Plugs you into the supernal power source. Louise had heap big mojo and
I'm sure she understood that her hair had a lot to do with it. I wish I could
ask her about that. In the interview I saw with her on Criterion DVD, the interviewer never mentioned her hair!
"That was her torrid an inflaming time" -->>
"Now is her tolerable tropic clime" --->>
My colleague Cher Li of
Toronto has, in a labor of love, extracted many screen captures from Louise’s
film “Pandora’s Box.” You can see them here and you should --- >>
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2559403&id=28114248&l=387d615ed1
