I don’t indulge, myself, though a young man I know (hi, Mr. Hat!) has recently had some acquaintance with the stuff.  “Lucid” is a cute name, and if you say “I got so pellucid last night!” that’s kind of cute, too.

Again, it’s one of those sideways fin de siècle frissons.  What is it about the louche, the torn and lush, the beautifully transgressive, the arch – oh, the arch! -  the frankly and unapologetically other, that murmurs so vividly in the current moment?  It speaks in every culture, in varied voices, and it speaks in every time, but it seems more insistent today, at least to this cultural observer.

Deeper, beyond the hectic current of the mainstream, with its safe pop flash, is this fecund, sexy undertow where fashion, art, music all intersect like guests at a speakeasy party, to throw down, and burn holes in the veil. . . It’s exhilarating, isn’t it? With or without the (representational) Green Fairy.