“There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”
— Leonard Cohen
Diaphanie in a dress made of solid gold — that’s how the light gets in. Its thread woven into patterns by an equally solid gold guitar. Draped delicately, see-through — that’s how the light gets in. Diaphanous. Barely there. Light and flowing. Sensuous — yes. Form-fitted. Clings to the naked skin beneath. One can see it because the light gets in. (But let’s avert our gaze. It is the dress that Diaphanie focuses on, and so shall we.) Weightless, the slightest breeze makes it dance. Like spider’s silk. It shimmers in the light that gets in.
Couturiers fuss about the details — “it’s simply too complex,” they whisper — but Diaphanie ignores their ignorance; instead she turns, poses, struts around the dressing room with confidence — the couturiers are dazzled by the images that zeotropically cascade from its fineness.
More light gets in.
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To read the rest of this review — and more by Steve Schmolaris — visit his website Bad Gardening Advice.
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Steve Schmolaris is the founder of the Schmolaris Prize, “the most prestigious prize in all of Manitoba,” which he first awarded in 1977. Each year, he awards the prize to the best album of the year. He does not have a profession but, having come from money (his father, “the Millionaire of East Schmelkirk,” left him his fortune when he died in 1977), Steve is a patron of the arts. Inspired by the exquisite detail of a holotype, the collective intelligence of slime mold, the natural world and the suffering inherent within it — and also music (fuck, he loves music!) — Steve has long been writing reviews of Winnipeg artists’ songs and albums at his website Bad Gardening Advice, leading to the publication of a book of the same name.
