For those of us born in the 70s and 80s, who lived through the Aughts in Center City and West Philadelphia, our perception of Philadelphia will always be colored by the sexualized over and undercurrents which animated, charged, and lit the Philly arts scene on fire with sexual energy during that time. Many of us were annoyed by the misconception the media created of a not-fully-sexed Philadelphia; but we were disarmed on that level. I have said elsewhere, and it bears repeating, that if the city of Philadelphia has a sun sign it is Gemini. It is another way of saying this: Philadelphia from within looks and feels vastly different than Philadelphia seen in a cursory way or from a distance. The sultriness around our scene was warmer and more human than the scenes we had all read about in New York and L.A.: we weren’t motivated by money or fame as such, or the desire to create and maintain images of/for ourselves. The hot blood that ran through McGlinchey’s, Dirty Frank’s, the Good Dog, and all our other hang out venues, had some actual romance in it; we all went so far as to care about other people. We were a get-close crew. The Gemini twist, as ever for Philadelphia, is that if the seeds we plant ripen correctly, Philadelphia may go on record as one of the hottest scenes in the history of the arts, thus overturning a century of bad press, neglect, abuse, and widely spread misinformation, and a corrupt arts-dissemination system with it.
Art and life have a way of co-mingling which can be difficult to finesse for an author. Because I dared to place her image on the cover of this book/pdf, I might as well announce what will be obvious to those who knew me and the Philly scene during the Aughts: the female protagonist of
Trish is modeled on Philadelphia painter Mary Harju. The life I built with Mary (and with the Philly Free School) was highly unusual; we were artists without being rich kid dilettantes; lovers without being mutually exclusive; Penn students and graduates who went out of our way not to be academic; and human beings who tossed and turned on our own emotional waves without trying to fake balance or calm. It was a scattered life we had, and a haphazard one; but the love and affection we shared was genuine. In fact, if I have ever had a Laura or a Beatrice, it is Mary. The difference, of course, between myself and Plutarch and Dante, is that Mary and I consummated our relationship very fast. The heat we had for each other never quite let up, either. As per Mary’s house (4325 Baltimore Avenue), as is seen here, in the early Aughts
— it was an experience in itself, filled as it was, always, with artists, musicians, and other bohemians. On certain nights, everyone in the house would be intoxicated on something or other. Many nights I spent there, I felt as if the entire house had ascended into deep space, into some other, enchanted, sensuous realm. I have memories of floating down hallways and stairs. Mary was a wonderful playmate and an excellent mate in general. She was never boring. And, to the extent that I hope this piece conveys the intense electric excitement I felt in her presence, it is a reminder that these elevated feelings are always possible, even during a Great Recession. It is the Gemini stare of Philadelphia down the barrel of a shotgun.
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As feminists have duly noted, the archetypal figure Psyche
in Keats’ Odal Cycle is not exactly empowered. She provides fodder for Keats to
create a convincing imaginative vista from; her overt sexuality, her beauty and
vulnerability create a space for her to unite the Heaven and Earth. She is a
goddess who can descend to earthly tactility and palpability. As she unites all
realms, Keats’ reaction in text is intellectually, emotionally, and physically
satisfying for him; but we are never shown whether that sense of satisfaction
is shared by Psyche. We may choose to believe that Psyche, being a goddess, is
loftily sublime over the kind of impulses which create the congeries of Keats’
reaction to her; or it may be that Keats wishes us to believe that Psyche
mirrors him precisely, as a tangent (also) to Echo as a mythological figure. If
feminists disrespect Keats’ version of Romanticism, it is because, by not
granting Psyche a voice, he exudes a sense of supercilious condescension to her/
in her direction. Perhaps. But this is not an issue in Trish: A Romance. Trish is
introduced to us, in the poem’s opening sequence, as having painted a
masterpiece called The Vessel, which we see hanging in a prominent public
position. The Vessel is an imaginative vista opened by Trish herself; we
perceive her, instantly, as both having a voice and carrying the clout to make
it publicly heard. More than that: she is a creative artist of some stature; we
might call her, in the adumbrating of Trish mythology, a Creatrix. If the
Creatrix, or any Creatrix figure, is to take her place as a Romantic archetype
next to Psyche, and other passive Muses, the first recognition of how this may
happen is the recognition that the Creatrix has a unique will-to-power. She is able to unite the intellectual, emotional, and
physical compartments of her consciousness, by imposing her imaginative will on
the world. Trish’s Philadelphia
is specifically a stage on which she can act out the complex dynamics of her
will’s complications, intricacies, and idiosyncrasies. Mary Evelyn Harju herself was, indeed, a formidably dramatic personality.
So, if Trish becomes a Creatrix, we may see her as an
empowered version of Psyche. She is post-Odal; sexualized, a figure of myth,
vulnerable, down in the dirt, but an active, passionate player in the world
nonetheless. There is no room for a Creatrix in the Odal Cycle; Keats needs to
keep Psyche in place, and his starry-eyed Romanticism and spontaneous overflows
of powerful feeling center on a version of the feminine which poses no threats
to Keats’ masculinity. Keats, with Psyche, can afford to be androgynous; sex
with her can be “sweet,” “tender,” and “quiet”; because she, as an archetype,
cannot speak back to him. Trish is a back-talker, who assumes parity (or superiority) to the males of the species,
always. Trish, being self-made, will not brook interference, either with her
art or what happens in her boudoir; and the protagonist of Trish accepts this,
even as it lands him in deep water when he falls head over heels in love with
her. The Creatrix is thus involved in complex intimacies.
The complexity of Trish’s
character, and the intimacies attendant on it, is involved with trying to balance a creative and personal life; how
to be impersonal and personal
simultaneously. Such is the way of the Creatrix; an archetypal figure who
achieves states of balances by imposing her creative will on the cosmos. That
feature of Aughts Philadelphia: a shared supposition among creative
participants that women have as loud a voice as men, and the chutzpah to make
these voices heard on high public levels: is one that Trish goes out of its way
to reinforce as more than mere myth. So it was. That’s why, at the end of the
day, feminists should have reason to be satisfied both with Trish and with
Aughts Philadelphia. The arrival in the world of several formidable Creatrixes
coincided with so little resistance to their status as powerful presences that
sexism in Aughts Philly was a no-go. Our Romanticism, which was also a kind of transcendentalism
against mundane reality, was a collective embrace of complexity, as well as a
sustained attempt to create a shared imaginative vista, all through the Philadelphia and West Philadelphia houses, bars, galleries, coffee shops, and the rest. What we created
has many things in common with the imaginative vista opened by Keats’ Odes— a
sense of cognitive enchantment, and a recognition of the mind’s capacity both
to discern enchantment and then to re-create, in imaginative ways, what we have
discerned— even as what a Creatrix is takes the Odal Vision, Odal Cycle, and
Odal Stage, and utterly transforms it into a realm in which women, as well as
men, can express how their own personal version of enchantment descended upon
them.
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Ironic, in a piece about luxury, sensuality, and ease, that it’s taken me so long, until 2024, to finish Trish: A Romance. The portion of the Aughts Philly dream which has remained crystalline over twenty to twenty five years— emancipation from limiting belief systems or creeds, freedom to live expressively, and, most importantly, manifestations of extreme, libertine-worthy excess— are not difficult to define or express. The difficulty in the Trish: A Romance textual journey, which began in 2009, is to render luxury, sensuality, and ease, while remaining faithful to complexities built into myself, Trish (Mary) and Tobi (Abby) as characters. Not all libertine models are complicated people; we were. Also worth noting about 2009; the last real chunk of time I spent with Abby Heller-Burnham, in the 23rd and Arch apartment (Westminster Arch), involved Trish: A Romance. I wanted to tape Abby talking about Mary, narrating their friendship, to see if I could use it. Thus, one section of the book (I thought) could be Abby-on-Mary. Didn’t work. When the tape began to roll, Abby wanted to talk about herself and her travails, which were gruesome in late-summer ’09. Abby was not a happy camper then, and all the ease, the bliss of the six, seven, eight years before were gone. I was never to interact with her significantly again.
Yet, Trish: A Romance remains, a testament to a period of time with many miracles built into it. Like the travelogue writings of Christopher Isherwood, the text dwells on a surfeit of characters who don’t just dream but live wild adventures and romances. The bizarre formality of the piece— seven sets of six sonnet-length stanzas— was invented so that the action could be conveyed in a vessel (as Mary would say) lean and mean enough to make the ride a brisk one. The miracle isn’t just in fornication and carousing— it’s the fact that said fornication and carousing was done in a spirit not just of affection but of love. At the end of the day, these are characters who love each other. This, notwithstanding the concluding revelation of the protagonist— that Trish has remained at lease partially unknowable to him. The point is, the characters in Trish: A Romance are not scallywags. They have, and notice, their own emotions. Even as accusations of self-indulgence are not necessarily misplaced. People will take Trish: A Romance not just to Christopher Isherwood but to Brett Easton-Ellis; that much sex, drugs, youthfulness, and rambunctious indulgence does form a sense of symmetry with Less Than Zero. I would only choose to say that in Trish, a sense of emotional/spiritual engagement, rather than dispossession, takes all the Philly-L.A. energy and harnesses it into a form more human, more likeable than the Easton-Ellis book. Remember: the three protagonists are all artists, creative types. La Boheme? No. Something unique, that’s just what it is. See for yourself.
