On VOLKS Dolls
Ever since that bittersweet day when I first saw a VOLKS doll pictured at the glorious journal called Blastmilk (a journal with all the intoxicating ambiance of a secret salon tucked away down some labyrinthine street in a mythical city) I have been musing and pondering upon the emotional impact of that first sight. It was love, unquestionably. Not, I am sorry to say, the sort of love that will end up in a cosy ménage -- alas, no, this is a forbidden love, and one, moreover, destined forever to be unrequited.
I simply can never have one of these dolls.
The reader must not suppose that I quarrel with the rather celestial price. No, in all truth, if Super Dollfie were a courtesan, then she would be a courtesan of princes. She is no common girl, to be had by the masses for the price of a crust of bread and a bottle of cheap wine. She is far too exquisite for that. She is to be courted and fêted; one waits for her, week after week in cold anxiety, and if she does not arrive for the assignation at all, one blames oneself for one's own unworthiness.
Here though -- in the hinterland -- in a place, might I add, where we actually have white nights in summer -- there can be no hope of such an exalted lady ever deigning to take up residence. It is too bleak here. There is no society. No marvellous little dressmakers. No velvets. (It is cause for celebration here if one manages to find a spool of THREAD.) One would destroy one's heart trying to give this doll the life to which she was born.
The tears fall upon my hands as I write. I am thinking of her -- naked -- rudely detained by heartless Customs officers whose grubby fingers dare to snatch at her ice-white skin. (Only the iciest, whitest skin would do for me. Also the milkiest hair. You see? In my soul I am already ordering her. It is a nightmare I awake from screaming.)
I would probably return to poetry-writing if I got a Super Dollfie. I would have to. When I look at her, my heart jumps so violently that only the composition of an Ode (in Byronic style) can ease it.
But enough of my love problems. Let us muse together for a few moments.
After I first caught a glimpse of this doll, and began to see the full extent of her admirers by excited rovings over the 'Net, I was dumbfounded with delight. It was clear to me, as I visited site after site, that those who take these dolls as companions (I could never say that one "owned" a Super Dollfie) really do treat these dolls as persons. They provide for them. They take great pains to ascertain what the doll wants and needs. Yes!! Yes!! This is exactly how it should be. These dolls are like totem spirits. They are something like the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Companions, eidolons, manifestations of our deepest dreams.
I seized a book from the shelf and began to search for a passage I had read years before. (The book was The Kabuki Theatre by A.C. Scott.) In a chapter about the Ningyo Shibai or Bunraku, I found my quotation. It comes from a section about an eighty-seven year-old artist named Yoshiro Bungaro, the leader of a doll theatre troupe:
"To him they are living beings, and indeed this applies to all the people of the doll theatre, for whom the dolls are alive and possess souls; they judge others by the respect shown to their charges. Bungaro's favourite doll never leaves his side, sleeping or waking she is always with him."
When I look at these dolls, the ghost of an old love revives. It is painful, as so many of my happy memories are, but I return to Blastmilk's journal every single day, to catch a vicarious breath of that remembered perfume. Even if I can never share my life with a Volks doll, I wish somehow to return to the world that dolls -- however humble and worn -- inhabit. This dream will inspire my thoughts now, until I arrive at a solution and can make a beginning.
(Dear Kallisti, I hope you will forgive me for mentioning your journal here. It is done with deepest reverence.)
I simply can never have one of these dolls.
The reader must not suppose that I quarrel with the rather celestial price. No, in all truth, if Super Dollfie were a courtesan, then she would be a courtesan of princes. She is no common girl, to be had by the masses for the price of a crust of bread and a bottle of cheap wine. She is far too exquisite for that. She is to be courted and fêted; one waits for her, week after week in cold anxiety, and if she does not arrive for the assignation at all, one blames oneself for one's own unworthiness.
Here though -- in the hinterland -- in a place, might I add, where we actually have white nights in summer -- there can be no hope of such an exalted lady ever deigning to take up residence. It is too bleak here. There is no society. No marvellous little dressmakers. No velvets. (It is cause for celebration here if one manages to find a spool of THREAD.) One would destroy one's heart trying to give this doll the life to which she was born.
The tears fall upon my hands as I write. I am thinking of her -- naked -- rudely detained by heartless Customs officers whose grubby fingers dare to snatch at her ice-white skin. (Only the iciest, whitest skin would do for me. Also the milkiest hair. You see? In my soul I am already ordering her. It is a nightmare I awake from screaming.)
I would probably return to poetry-writing if I got a Super Dollfie. I would have to. When I look at her, my heart jumps so violently that only the composition of an Ode (in Byronic style) can ease it.
But enough of my love problems. Let us muse together for a few moments.
After I first caught a glimpse of this doll, and began to see the full extent of her admirers by excited rovings over the 'Net, I was dumbfounded with delight. It was clear to me, as I visited site after site, that those who take these dolls as companions (I could never say that one "owned" a Super Dollfie) really do treat these dolls as persons. They provide for them. They take great pains to ascertain what the doll wants and needs. Yes!! Yes!! This is exactly how it should be. These dolls are like totem spirits. They are something like the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Companions, eidolons, manifestations of our deepest dreams.
I seized a book from the shelf and began to search for a passage I had read years before. (The book was The Kabuki Theatre by A.C. Scott.) In a chapter about the Ningyo Shibai or Bunraku, I found my quotation. It comes from a section about an eighty-seven year-old artist named Yoshiro Bungaro, the leader of a doll theatre troupe:
"To him they are living beings, and indeed this applies to all the people of the doll theatre, for whom the dolls are alive and possess souls; they judge others by the respect shown to their charges. Bungaro's favourite doll never leaves his side, sleeping or waking she is always with him."
When I look at these dolls, the ghost of an old love revives. It is painful, as so many of my happy memories are, but I return to Blastmilk's journal every single day, to catch a vicarious breath of that remembered perfume. Even if I can never share my life with a Volks doll, I wish somehow to return to the world that dolls -- however humble and worn -- inhabit. This dream will inspire my thoughts now, until I arrive at a solution and can make a beginning.
(Dear Kallisti, I hope you will forgive me for mentioning your journal here. It is done with deepest reverence.)