two new pieces, free and loose, as women were meant to be

So it's August, and it's hot, and I have two new pieces in Filthy Gorgeous Things's "Nakedness" issue. One's called "Girls on Film" and I think the title rings with self-explanation. The other is an interview with my new BFF, Katelan Foisy, who is fabber than fab and twice as nice.

 

I believe both pieces are free and unlocked, though it's completely worth the price of admission to read Katelan's piece. My own essay "Girls on Film" is a thoughtful consideration of erstwhile French photographs and how I didn't pose for German Playboy. It is, I think, pretty spiffy. Here's an excerpt from "Girls on Film":

 

In 1994, a photographer asked to shoot me for German Playboy. Regrets, I have a few, but one big enough to mention is that I didn’t give an automatic yes to that offer. I regret not choosing to bare it all and lay about on a big, white, fluffy rug, scrunching my breasts together like pomegranates and gazing at the camera as if it were on the verge of making me come like a wildebeest in heat. I regret not having the cheesy photographic proof, my elegant body propped in a doorway, girlie lasciviousness on my lips, Tam o’Shanter all jaunty-like upon my head. I regret not having my genitalia splayed in shiny shell-pink glory across some seamed page. I regret it, regret that loss, and I turned it down because my boyfriend told me I should.

 

The girl on film holds a peculiar power—as does the boy on film, but I’m going to put him on a shelf, at least as much as I do a pedestal—because a photograph is a commitment to a moment that lasts a millennium. Once you’ve been photographed naked, you can never be unphotographed naked. It is not, like some spontaneous stripping in a summer storm, an act that can be relegated merely to memory. There is evidence, as long as there is a negative, and negatives last a really very long time.

 

And, speaking of a girl on film, here's the beginning to my interview with Katelan, who kindly let me borrow a self-portrait to accompany this post:

 

Katelan Foisy is a pin-up, a painter, a writer, a mystic, a gypsy and a muse. On paper, she’s the kind of girl I’d love to loathe: she went through a deep Anaïs Nin period and she’s big into believing that beautiful things happen for a reason.

 

And yet.

 

There’s something more than dermis-deep about the beauty of Katelan Foisy. She has skin like brie and lips like current jam, and you do want to eat her alive, but it’s not just that. She’s got this stupid infectious cackle and you find yourself rocketing along with the sheer velocity of it, but it’s not just that either. She’s wicked smart and crazy talented and greedily hedonistic, but it’s not just those sterling qualities either. She’s got that magic factor that makes people want to do right by her, to protect her (and I’m looking at you, fearsomeWarren Ellis), and to feed her wine.

 

Lots and lots of wine.

 

I got drunk with Katelan Foisy and incidentally did an interview. We talked emotions, jism, channeling Bettie Page, and kissing The Hedgehog.

 

And while I'm rolling the log of shameless self-promotion, I want to remind everyone in the greater Gotham area that I'm doing a reading at Audacia Ray's series The Red Umbrella Diaries. It's at perpetual hot, haute lit spot Happy Ending and it's tomorrow night, Thursday, August 5, starting at around 8:00. I’d love for you to come and listen to me read the piece that I have yet to write.

 

I think I’m calling it “The Last Days of FlashCo.” But maybe not.

 

As ever, FGT doesn’t have comments, so please read my pieces and then hop quick like a lemur back here to let me know what you think. And if you’d like to follow me on Twitter, I’m only 107 short of a cool grand. I need you. I really do.

Also, you should buy Katelan's book Blood and Pudding because it's really good and because reading it'll help you relive your teenage years' mortal and inexplicable passions.

Comments

[Pete]

CG,
Good reads! As always you have a way with prose. Even if you were drunk, the interview was written well. As for the photos, you can not go back, only age like fine wine and get better.
Pete

[Liras]

Chelsea, you write so well. No wonder why O adores you so much.

I bought "Blood and Pudding:, I think it will be a great read.

[Older Women]

That is an amazing description of your regrets. You missed your calling. You should be WRITING for Playboy.

[Dangerous Lilly]

"scrunching my breasts together like pomegranates and gazing at the camera as if it were on the verge of making me come like a wildebeest in heat."
This made me chuckle, that's an awesome description of the Playboy-style photos. Why do you regret it, though? Is it because you want photo-memories of your body at its best? I can appreciate that, if it's the reason, I wish I'd been more expressive with the raunchy pics when I was in college, when I looked my best.