September 16, 1894 [Annabelle Serpentine Dances]

Annabelle is the first tinted Kinetoscope I've seen, the colors painted on in lazy waves, the colorist's brush racing with the successive images, dabbing at Annabelle's rushing form, keeping pace with the dancer as she spins, the long gauze of her garment streaming behind, marking her passage.

Annabelle seems at times a little child, especially when she smiles or circles on her tiptoes—not a ballerina by any stretch of the imagination, but charming me as my own little girls would, showing me some new dance they had invented. But she also moves me in her flourishes, her trailing veils circling like billows or rising like fairies' wings behind her. Again, the tinting, delicate and almost smudged in the effort to convey her motions, brings her closer—a transporting thirty seconds, a glimpse into something as close to beauty as this contraption has given me so far.

I am reminded of Muybridge's nudes, attractive for their own sake—but not beautiful, not more than themselves. No accomplished artists, Annabelle and those who photographed her nonetheless provide a glimpse into the possibility of something that is more than visual, more than dramatic. Perhaps I can for now simply call it an “experience of persistent impressions.” An awkward phrase, but I’ll hold onto it as long as I can.