Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black – Old Paper & Cats, Reviews by S. Hargrave

Door-Dashing Returns

Bandersnatch is a relentless door-dasher in the warmer seasons. She doesn’t go very far, but she loves to dash out the back door and go hopping like an orange tabby Pepe LePew through our backyard, forcing me to chase after her. Usually I’m still in my pyjamas, and my hands are full of birdfeeders when she gets out, which means I’m out there looking like a loon chasing a very happy cat through the grass.

I know we’ve finally reached spring because she’s started to tentatively run outside once more. She hasn’t ventured off of the porch yet, and has expressed sharp disappointment over how muddy everything is, but she is interested in the world again. Feels hopeful about it. I guess I’m starting to feel that way too.

A sleepy tabby cat puts a paw out beside Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black.

Multiple Mediums

Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black is Semiotext(e)’s collection of the work of Cookie Mueller. This is a perfect sweep of all her work from personal essays to stories to a sampling of her journalistic work. One of the best parts of the collected editions like this (especially when they’re arranged chronologically) is that you can follow Mueller through her life and watch her evolve as a writer. She’s so entertaining and engaging that she takes you to all of the places she’s been and introduces you to all of the people she’s met. Across these different kinds of prose, an in-depth picture of who Mueller was and how she lived is truly brought to life in a way that wouldn’t be possible with just one form alone.

A tabby cat with a brown nose sits behind a paperback book by Cookie Mueller.

The Movies

Of course, as a classic film fan, I did enjoy the pieces that were about her work in John Waters movies including adventures with Divine and with Mink Stole. If you’ve never seen a John Waters film, you will not know what you are getting into. They are equal parts disgusting and fabulous, depraved and utterly silly. They are not for the faint of heart, but if you are ready to go there, then you are in for one hell of a ride. That being said, do start with Waters’ films. I would definitely not recommend his book, Liarmouth which I just finished and found a bit flat in comparison.

Mueller also details her time at The Berlin Film Festival in 1981, when she had to climb a wall to avoid a hotel bill and met some very famous names, including Udo Kier. There’s also an essay about her attempts to get a musical off the ground about Edgar Allen Poe in Baltimore. If you’re into film and culture, there is so much good stuff here and you will laugh out loud at the shenanigans a life in the arts entails.

A tortoiseshell cat sits on a rug, looking away. On the floor behind her is a paperback book.

A Time Capsule

Mueller is one of those people that become the embodiment of specific times, places, scenes, and stories. She’s in Nan Goldin’s beautiful photographs. She’s in underground films. She was part of the New York art scene. Reading Mueller is going back in time. However, that can be a harrowing experience. She writes about a sexual assault and the perils of hitchhiking if you’re a group of young women. She writes about being down and out and struggling to get by in the indifferent urban landscape. She lived fearlessly and went through a lot. She died of AIDS-related complications at the age of forty and the world still misses her — as the pull quotes on the back of book from John Waters and Gary Indiana testify to.

Specifically, knowing this, it is hard to read her medical advice column. She in no way is any kind of medical professional and her advice about HIV is completely untrue and not based in fact and, wow, it is terrifying to read that people thought that it was.

Cookie Mueller's Walking Through Clear Water is a softcover book. On the cover is a picture of a tanned light-skinned woman with long blonde-streaked hair and wearing heavy makeup. She is at a party, her arms are thrown back, and she is smiling.

Flowers Soon

The snowdrops are up, and there are some patches of green starting to sprout. The first signs of growth. I’m still experiencing a lot of anxiety over the rain, but I’m at least looking forward to the flowers that will soon be coming up and seeing all of the brush that has been dormant all winter becoming green again. I actually saw my first grackle yesterday, so I know soon the winter birds will be bidding us goodbye and the spring ones will be replacing them at the feeder.