Questions for a Found Object

What is this thing?
Who left it here?
Is it heavy? Is it attached to anything?
Whose is it? Is anyone looking? Where does it plug in? Can you pick it up? Where do the batteries go? How much does it cost?

Look at it now! Did it move?

What is it doing here? Does it belong to anyone? Can I carry it home? Maybe I can put it in a grocery sack… Did it come out of the river? Does it smell? Is it hollow? Is something inside it? Is it made of glass? Will it break? Can I pound on it with my fist? My shoe? Analog or digital? Was it made in China? What does it do? Does it light up? Will it clean my room? Does it reduce odors? Is it drying? Is it melting? Does it point to magnetic north? Can I show it to my mother? Is it alive?

Does it know we’re here? What is it thinking about? Is it thinking about me? Does it know I’m thinking about it? Will it make me smarter? What does it do? How did it get here? Who’s in charge?

Does it float? Have I got the scale all wrong? It looks like an iceberg. Will it ambulate? Is it fogged up, or is that just the way it looks? Is it warm? Warmer than my hand? Can I hold it? Will it like me?

Can it be my friend? Can I take it home? Will it fit in the cupboard? If I put it under my pillow, will anyone know its there? I want to hug it. Will it nuzzle me? Can I leave it in the yard? Will it get larger if left in the rain? Will the cat want to play with it? Is it sticky? Can I cast it adrift? I’m itchy. Is it making me itch? Is it better with chocolate syrup? Can I wrap it in a tortilla?

Don’t tell anyone its here. Let’s leave it on the railroad tracks. Will it shatter, or flatten out like a penny? Is it moldy? Maybe it’s rotten. Where did it come from? Was it stolen? Was it bought out of the back of a truck? Did it come free with a purchase of equal or greater value? Is it making me dizzy? Is it wet? Should I wash my hands?

Will it fit through the door? Will my co-workers be bothered? Can I wear it on my back? Does it roll, or slide? Is it self-adhesive? Does it take quarters? How do you turn it off? Is it getting hotter? Am I getting hotter? You don’t suppose it’s dangerous? Will it attract flies?

Will it make me attractive? Will other people want it? Will it increase in value? Does it improve my odds? Does it improve my outlook? Is it looking out for me? Will I need to comb it? Is it impressive? Where would I sell it? Can I slice it in two? Are there any others? Does it have intrinsic worth? Is it lucky? Will it deter ne’er-do-wells? Does it have structural integrity?

Will it stop the headaches? Can I keep it next to me? Is it broken? Is it art? Is it obsolete? Should I write home about it? Can we Google it? Is it meant to be experienced? Am I experiencing it? Is it experiencing me? What do you do with it? Can I put it in brine?

Let’s draw a mustache on it!

Are there instructions? Is it missing parts? Who can we ask? Will it fit in the palm of my hand? If I take it on the bus, will anyone notice? Will it fit in my pocket? Can I write a check? Should I apply it to my head? Should I apply to my life? Will it keep the swelling down? Can it be reheated? If I put it behind the tire, will it stop the car from rolling downhill?

Is it making a noise? Is it humming? To itself? Can I put it in the window, to keep the pane from falling? Is it sending signals I can’t detect? Who else knows its here? Should I report it? If I toss it off the bridge, will it try to fly? Can I lease it to my friends? I can sell it to you if you’re interested…

If I don’t like it, can I slip it under the table to the dog? Will it make me famous? Was it seen on tv? Will it make my teeth whiter? Will it make me whiter? Will it influence people? Can I fit it under my arm? Is it water resistant? Is it encoded? Will it grow? Will it accept my love?

So, can I just take it, then? Is it French? Is there a label? Is it lost? Am I lost? Is it binary? Is it inscribed with language? Is it infused with meaning? Is it pedagogical? Is it a sign? Is it waffled? Can I stick a fork in it? Does it have bones? An exoskeleton?

Is it a diversion? Is it a red herring?
Is it dreaming? Of me? What is it made of? How does it make me feel?

Is this some kind of joke?

What is it all about? What does it amount to?

Where does it lead? Is it all coming to a head?

Is this all there is?

Under My Closet, A Pointiallist Masterpiece

I've discovered the genius of a lost Master, under my closet floor. On ripping out dog-haired old carpet from my oddly built-in closet, I discovered the modernist masterwork pictured at right. Judging by the picture alone, you might be persuaded that this is merely some poorly selected linoleum tile, but I assure you, it isn't. The pattern you see here appears, bafflingly, to have been painted by hand on plywood flooring. Why would someone do this? And notice that it's fairly geometrically precise. Someone spent one hell of a lot of time doing this. The work of a misunderstood genius? I was reminded of those chambers of "psychotechnic" torture utilized by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/27/spain.arts ). Certainly, being trapped in this closet would leave one disoriented, and ready to confess. This potential use of the room is underscored by the presence of a now obsolete lock on the closet door. But mostly I'm stunned that someone has done this intricate piece of work by hand, especially given its location on the floor of a closet. At one time, closets were rooms intended to house shrines for private worship, but what kind of ritual would entail such an artistic effort, I can only guess. Perhaps the artist himself was trapped in closet, and worked diligently to keep the madness at bay. At any rate, the madness has now been let loose, and I'll spend my nights sleeping next to it. Let the nightmares begin!

Still Alive

A quick note to say that I still exist. I've been negligent of the blog because I've just moved into Minnesota's smallest house, and its requiring no small amount of dismantling, mantling, re-mantling. I hope to be posting more soon. A couple things to look forward to (or, at least, I'll be looking forward to them):
1) I won the bet, and perhaps I'll even be staging Zukofsky in the subterranean black box
2) A pointialist masterpiece underneath my closet
3) Gallery of floor-mounted heat registers as a timeline of bad taste
4) A new wager

Lounging in the Wreck of the New Order

Who's up for some lounging!? Well, you won't be doing any here, nor using the ladies' room. The lounge is locked, and appears to be in an advanced state of dereliction. A recent trip to Minnesota's North Shore brought me through the town of Cloquet, home of the Frank Lloyd Wright Gas Station. This was built in 1956, and supposedly still functions as a service station, though I wondered if it has been abandoned. The observation deck/lounge, pictured at the left, was inaccessible, and littered with gloves, tools, and gas station detritus. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed. I can't think of a better place to lounge than on a small town street corner in the Upper Midwest.


I did find the building to be quite intriguing, even if in need of some attention. The formal parallel with California Googie was really striking, though the materials were very different. The gas station was apparently derived from the Broadacre City Standardized Overhead Service Station project, from 1932, which I found suprising (though I should say that the Cloquet station doesn't feature the overhead gasoline delivery from the earlier proposal). Did Wright exert some influence on later Googie offerings, or perhaps the other way around? If anyone has bothered to research this question, I'd be interested in finding the answer, even though its a bit of a chicken/egg distinction. Whether or not any connection was explicit between Googie and Wright, something was certainly in the air.

Wright held the gas station to be a crucially important institution, specifically for its role in contributing to his Broadacre City ideal. He envisioned America becoming decentralized, cities disappearing into the prairie. The gas station, a seemingly insignificant vernacular structure, almost an accidental structure, would become an instrument whereby Americans can get back to an Arcadian ideal (or, put more properly, the Broadacre City was an Arcadia for the Modern Age - automobiles and atomic energy delivering us more intimately to Nature). With the advent of the service station, Wright declared, "The Old Order is Breaking Up".

Wright was correct, to some extent. Gas stations really did contribute significantly to the physical restructuring of the nation. And its delightful to think that by breaking up the old order we can get more directly to some lounging. Now, however, faced with rising gas prices and strip mall fatigue, Wright's ideal seems antiquated. Nevertheless, here in Cloquet, one can almost see what Wright was after. The gas station's observation deck, if one could get in, would display what once would have been a pretty nice vista, even if now the scene is muddied by encroaching urbanization.





As an aside, note the picture at left - the original gas station didn't really proclaim Wright's name. It advertised Phillip's 66.

Betting on Poetry

Louis Zukofsky's "A" is a set of 24 poems written over a fifty year peroid, totaling about 800 pages. The picture here shows just two of the multiple volumes. When I encountered a reference to "A" in the newspaper a few months ago, it caught my interest. It seemed like an intriguing read. When I mentioned this to Eve, however, she cast some immediate doubt on my ability to get through all of it. Not to be undone, we decided to make a little wager. If I manage to get through the whole thing, she'll bake me a cake! And I get six months! Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. Not only do I get to read an intriguing work of literature, I get a delicious treat for my efforts.

Well, it's been about five and a half months now, and I still have a volume and a half to go. Frankly, its been a long hard slog. Not that "A" isn't worth reading. Actually, I'm enjoying it immensely. But, well, its quite a bit to get through, and its written in something fairly akin to a stream of consciousness style. So, not only isn't there any plot, but its often hard to say what its really about at all. I'm not sure that it would be correct to say its "about" anything. But I'll say more on that in a later post, when I give this thing a proper review.

It occurs to me, in looking at the book jacket, that perhaps no one has actually read "A". Usually, when one looks at a book jacket, some synopsis of the book will be offered, along with a blurb about the author. None of the volumes I checked out of the library had jackets that actually referred to the contents at all. For instance, the second volume, which contains poems 13-21, refers to the work as "determinedly modernist", "Byzantine", and "ambituous". But nothing is said about what the poems actually refer to, what they're "about", or even what one might encounter in reading them. Anyone given a passing glance might have come up with "Byzantine", but did anyone actually read it? Am I attempting what's never been done!? I'm a trailblazer! A pioneer of poetics! The back of the cover doesn't even mention the book, but instead includes some advertisements for other offerings by Paris Review.

Even if I am the first person to do this, I'm certainly not in the clear yet. The poem I'm about to start is actually a play, though written in the same style. If I tell Eve, I'm pretty sure she'll make me do different voices for each part. Surely no one has ever staged a production of this work, which makes me a little sad. But am I obligated to do so? And the entire last volume is written as text accompanied by a musical score. What am I supposed to do with this? I can't play piano. Eve will want me to sing it, I'm sure. And if I don't, I'll feel I've failed somehow, not to mention that I'll owe her a cake.

Update! Tikis on the Move!

There's been a development in the Tiki War. I wandered past this familiar fellow a couple days ago - but now he's living somewhere else! Now he dwells on Harriet, just south of Lake. How did he get here? Was he offered to the residents as a gift (just as he was offered to me), or was he just deposited here in the dead of night? He's now partially fenced in by some tiki torches. Are they intended to keep him safe from passers-by, or to prevent him from wandering away? Its not clear.

He's definitely in good company. His current digs are a house I already held in high regard: The Lair of the Blood Gnomes. Its hard to see from this photo, but the door to this house is framed by some really excellent garden gnomes. They're gigantic, and one of them appears to have blood dribbling down his chin. Now that these gruesome statues have joined forces, the neighborhood may never be safe again.

Don't Stomp the Sculpture

Amasa and I wandered past this spare, abstract sculpture the other day. It sits in front of what I think is a bank, on Hennepin, near the river. I don't know what its intended to represent, or who made it. At any rate, it is apparently highly prized by the bank authorities. Amasa and I were ordered away from the sculpture by security guards. They may have been at least a little justified in doing so - the picture here reveals Amasa attempting to kick it to pieces. The guards also informed me that I can't take photos of the sculpture. So, here are some images, in direct disregard of the sculpture-viewing rules. I must confess that I find the photo ban puzzling. What harm is it intended to prevent? It seems to put the artwork in a weird limbo. Does the transfer of the artwork onto a secondary medium change its status? And if so, shouldn't we be allowed to touch it (as long as its not kicked to pieces)? For a four year old, this is the most primal and intense way to enjoy something - climbing all over it. But if we can't enjoy it as an "image" or as a jungle gym, just how should we enjoy it? As a holy relic? I was reminded of those religious rules against depicting the sublime. Does the artist want it so protected? Perhaps. But if so, that's too bad. Amasa probably had more fun with this thing than anyone has for years, at least until the guards chased us off.