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COMING SOON
SOLDOUT
1992-2009 scripts, photos, articles, & the public and private controversy.
Evelyn Hartogh, Brisbane's most controversial artist tells all.
Collecting her scripts published in the 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999 & 2006 limited handmade editions of SOLDOUT , sold at performances and independent bookstores.
Expanding the Post Scripts into Memoirs of almost 20 years in the controversial Brisbane queer alternative arts scene.
SOLDOUT
1994 The Sermon
1994 The Compulsory Heterosexuality Supermarket
My Body Project
Starring Tampon WomanCopyright Evelyn Hartogh 1993
Is that you caller? I’m glad you waited, for only $10 lose all the weight you want at Jenny’s low price. I feel a better person, I feel a better me – just ask anyone. Excuse me, excuse me, explain yourself! Well, now my husband takes photos of me. If only I could look like that – without being dead. Beauty is only skin deep, but just how deep that skin goes is of vital importance.
THE FACADE STUDENT: My body project is due tomorrow. I got full marks on Advanced Soap Operas; my expertise at character’s genealogy amazed my lecturer. I received a distinction for Understanding the Market Potential of Size 10 and in a thought provoking speech I outlined, Danger of Failure to Exfoliate Your Skin, I sufficiently moved my class to chip in for an Epilady, for school day emergencies. I know all the rhetoric:
One: Examine with Dissatisfaction.
Two: Note Problem Areas.
Three: Conceal, Camouflage and decide on Strategic Action.
It’s simple three basic steps to successful completion of your Body Project: full marks for perfection, no chance for brush-ups, no clever lighting, this is live performance. Think not what you can do for your country girls, but how good you can look doing any old thing!
Oh no! Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, what the fuck can I do? How can I ever hope to achieve it? Can skin improve overnight? Looks younger firmer, with fine lines diminished. It’s not how the world sees you it’s how they see your knickers. Copying nature, I’d like to wear grunge but I know I’ll get bagged by all my friends. The girls in my group do dress in a similar way – but we all have our own style. Do you think I need more dressing on my lashes? Oh its’ no good – I’m losing in the supple skin department, barely there for longer, more luxurious, illegal lashes and they’ll need a searchlight to find my cheekbones! And I’ll never get completely exfoliated by tomorrow!!!
I need that confidence that comes from knowing you are secure, that certain unselfconscious carefree ability to wear white singlets with just a dab of lipgloss, above all I need to fuse the imagery of blue ink with menstrual blood. I need to truly believe that I too can be wistful when in excruciating pain. This looks like a job for Tampon Woman! [Remove Black PVC trenchcoat to reveal black 60s bathers decorated with dangling tampons).
TAMPON WOMAN: I’ll cut through all these problems with sanitary pleasure, armed only with the confidence that I ain’t gonna be the one to bleed all over the carpet and betray woman hood by nature, stainless steel and bleached cotton will make this Body Project a success, but first a word from our sponsor The House of Evelyn International.
EVELYN INTERNATIONAL: Here at the House of Evelyn International we believe nature is but a blank canvas for beauty, that everything can be improved upon with the aid of a scalpel. This top model came to us for a makeover [Slide 1: Barbie]. We took what she had and turned her into an icon of beauty [Slide 2: Evelyn squeezing breasts together with a screwed up face]. Thank you and now back to the show. [Replace black PVC coat]
Can’t you see her?
She is in the water, the water that the Lord tamed.
She is the force that led Eve to dare to be curious,
to question the word of the HOLY FATHER.
This INSATIABLE urge for knowledge,
this DESIRE to fill their gap,
is why we must SUBJUGATE the woman,
the BIBLE tells me so!
Woman is the passage for the LORD
– through her he can pass,
as the VIRGIN MARY allowed the opening for CHRIST to enter the world,
so all women must be the FORMLESS CHASM
through which HOLY MAN’S LIGHT can SHINE through!
This is the NATURAL order of things;
this is how the LORD formed the world!
We must RESIST the temptation of the whore,
RESIST learning,
and RESIST questioning if we want to be nearer to the LORD.
Woman must be especially careful,
she is the COMPLIMENT to man,
she is the other half of the GREAT MYSTERY
which is HETEROSEXUALITY.
If woman STRAYS from her place beneath man,
if she dares demand anything but MISSIONARY position …
She is DAMNED.
She is the WHORE of BABYLON!
Thank you, SATAN has left the building.
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