A sick mermaid bids an artist to paint her portrait “with the pus of seven colors" from her infected tumors. A gruesome, tragic tale about witnessing illness that's still somehow very fun. Camp, ecstatic grossness feels mostly surreal (though one person did walk out of our showing when the real worms started). Love the tenderness between artist and mermaid, and the familiarity that persists between them even as her body corrupts beyond recognition. When her scales began to flake away and sink into the bathwater, I felt a sense of loss.
