One of our favourite Flowers, Count Eric Stenbock, turns 159 today. Thanks to Meelis Rondo for alerting me to the video below of David Tibet – the foremost expert on the count’s life and work – talking about his past and future Stenbock-related projects. In the background you may notice a naive drawing which ran here when David kindly dropped into answer a few questions.
I am currently reading the anthology featured, Of Kings and Things, and I highly recommend it. Even at their most outlandish and provocative, stories like the Wildean ‘Narcissus’ have a haunting quality that will not be denied. A few days ago I ventured out to a musical instrument museum here in Berlin, as winter offered its last resistance on storm-lashed streets that looked like they’d been swept by an angry drunk. There I encountered, for the first time that I could recall, a viola d’amore, or viol d’amor. That night I turned to the next story in the book which was – ‘Viol d’Amor’ (and if you think that’s spooky, you should read the story – yikes).
Strange Flowers 
James fantastic, entry. I wonder if David has found out any more about Mary B and iTatti? What were the dates for the idiot’s club? There’s more to Mary and I wonder if she and Romaine and Natalie talked about the occult and astrology with each other. I wonder if Jean Chalon who just passed his 83rd birthday would know?
I am giving a Proust interview relating to Proust’s real lesbians at the Proust Society Thursday. We are going to try and video it. Celebrating women’s month and lesbians.
Trust all is well with you?
Have you seen Jamie James’ new book on Capri called Pagan Light. May be of interest to you.
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Hi Cassandra! I so enjoyed The Glamour of Strangeness so I am very much looking forward to Pagan Light – it seems an ideal combination of author and subject matter. Re Stenbock and Mary – I’m not entirely sure but I can get back to you when I get a chance to dig. And Proust’s real lesbians! What a great topic.
Hi James! I need your help to solve a mystery: Eric Stenbock wrote about Trieste in his “The True Story of a vampire” as a place “memorable to me chiefly for its necktie shops.” Trieste is my home town and I never heard about that, I mean I never heard it was famous for necktie shops, not even during the Nineteenth century. I supposed he used a special code to speak about the real reason why Vardalek moved from Styria to Trieste, that is to meet croatian boys (“cravate” is the french word for necktie and it results from “hrvat” = croatian, because of the scarf worn by croatian knights) but, as you can see, this is an hypothesis very hard to support. Please, help me, if you can! Thank you in advance 🙂
Thanks for your comment. Sadly this question surpasses my slim knowledge of Stenbock’s works, but perhaps someone better acquainted reading this could help out?