In Jean Luc-Godard’s
La Mepris, Brigette Bardot runs a roster
of each of her body parts for Michel Piccoli, her
husband.

Do you see my feet in the mirror? Think they’re pretty?
Very.
You like my ankles? And my knees, too?
I really like your knees.
And my thighs?
Your thighs, too.

When every part of her body is done, she concludes, “then you love me totally.” To which
Piccoli replies, “I love you totally, tenderly, tragically.”

I want to extend from this love of body parts. For me, desire is not just for body parts
but the entire world through those body parts. It cannot remain hidden inside the body.
That desire creates an abyss and simultaneously leaps unencumbered like an apparition
springing a fountain of images.

The shape of a scar on a lover’s body may be like flowers, their eyes like lit-up buildings.
Cat, an animal that always stands behind people on raised parapets, is like the lover who
always follows us with eyes glowering with tapetum lucidum.
The shadow of an absent lover can be hairy and fanged like a dog, while the screech of
malignant birds at dusk as well
as whorls of dark clouds portend doom.

Desire supports the exercise of image-making because the other is
always exclusive. We know them only as fragments and we understand
them only through metaphors. As the Lady Day,
Billie Holiday, sang once, “I’ll be looking at the
moon but I’ll be seeing
you.”


I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 0
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 1
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 2
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 3
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 4
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 5
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 6
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 7
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 8
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 9
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 10
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 11
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 12
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 13
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 14
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 15
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 16
I’ll be looking at the moon 
but I’ll be seeing you 17