The Blue Angel

Marlene Dietrich is singing a lament for mechanical love. She leans against a mortarboard tree on a plateau by the seashore. She's a life-sized toy, the doll of eternity; her hair is shaped like an abstract hat made out of white steel. Her face is powdered, whitewashed and immobile like a robot. Jutting out of her temple, by an eye, is a little white key. She gazes through dull blue pupils set in the whites of her eyes. She closes them, and the key turns by itself. She opens her eyes, and they're blank like a statue's in a museum. Her machine begins to move, the key turns again, her eyes change, she sings. —you'd think I would have thought a plan to end the inner grind, but not till I have found a man to occupy my mind.