Temple of the Gorgon

In upper class, invitation-only Europe, where G.H. Mumm the famous champagne maker puts on private shows as a sponsor of Formula 1, there are often performance artists in attendance, playing around with light shows, laser lights, dichroic reflectors, flourescent paints, millions of plastic balls - all that kind of thing. People move around in Missoni or Brioni tuxes. Flash bulbs glitter-pop everywhere. Wearing a Bushnel lensed, photochromic polaroid set of sunglasses is not unusual.

And the young punk who is spray-painting graffiti art onto a velvet roped-off special area of wall, is not unusual. Whether written openly or only visible through the sunglass's lenses, the words 'you are being watched,' are not unusual in that context.

A million plastic balls thrown down a street, a million yellow rubber ducks floating across the oceans of the world, a million stars in the sky – all of these are meaningless in their myriad number semiotic expressionism.

However, the person who might automatically be able to identify, for instance, a Russian Pavlovo Posad shawl from any other kind - off the top of their head in any given out-of-the-blue circumstance – whether of the boy painting on the wall outside the hotel, or of the artist in the private function roped-off, lobby entrance area, purposely set-aside performance art wall – well that person is just a coincidence or a very great rarity indeed. It is difficult for the unsuspecting to be alert to the meaning of such things 'accidentally' being present in amongst the mix of very important people.

Whether a Pavlovo scarf is a pun on a Pavlovian Dog or not, it does not really matter, in the end. The end is higher than the pathways there, they say.

Some cleverness and sophistication, lies in the performance artistry of truly high-grade assassination teams; who undertake their art for a very limited, a difficult, and a discerning audience.

There are a hundred thousand, a million – ways to elude the grasp of being understood by the wrong sorts – the stupid and the ignorant; which is what dominates most of the world today. It is only necessary to know that the clever, is on your side; you who are merely among the innocent.

When the screws are about to be put to the head of an old snake, the figure of the gorgon is an appropriate metaphor.

Here is the meaning of the gorgon. A gorgon is a mysterious creature, whose head appears to grow snakes when you look at it. But those snakes are the reflections of the observer's own inner wickedness, and that is why the direct observer turns to stone, and why a mirror faced to the gorgon disarms the being itself.

The gorgon is a metaphor of course - a metaphor used to describe something that exposes you to your own self-condemnation and your right to have earned perdition. If you are that bad! Some people are that bad and that is why there are gorgons, and whether metaphorical ones or real ones or simply only imagined ones. They all function equally well.

An 'ordinary' assassination becomes special, of course, with the added extension of the whole mythical drama of those poisonous fangs of the wanton gorgon being twisted into its victim's eminently merited veins, before they go... And the old men in the Turk's Hat buildings insisted upon knowing about that, in quite some detail. Personally I fear some of these current Lords of Ancient Ruhm may actually believe the gorgon herself to be a real being, that is, an actual thing. Which I suppose, proves the very validity of the metaphor itself. And partly too, I suppose, its enduring power throughout such a long history of the tale.

But then again, among the sceptical or the agnostic in those exotic Eastern-looking buildings today, are only those that have never met Valeria in person. Not forgetting that there were those who were agnostic, if not sceptical too, about the Jackal, in his day. Not to say he was an actual jackal!

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Valeria is not specifically a client of mine; the old men are, I guess. Sheer arrogant inquisitiveness on my own part was going to get me into a 'scene' with her. Maybe. Although I do have rich clients in Europe and Asia who are constantly asking me where are, or who is, the best at sex in the world.

I haven't established that answer yet. But I have a shortlist.