Grok My Enthusiasm (19)
By:
May 18, 2016
One in a weekly series of enthusiastic posts contributed by HILOBROW friends and regulars.
I have an original butcher cover. I also have reproductions of it hanging in two rooms. I have it on a T-shirt. I can’t get enough of it. Why? Because nothing about it makes sense.
It doesn’t make sense that the cover appeared, or escaped, in 1966, not in 1969 or 1977 or 1984 or last year; or that every other thing about it, from “File Under” rack note to reverse liner copy (“This monophonic microgroove recording is playable on monophonic and stereo phonographs. It cannot become obsolete”) is exactly what and where it should be. It doesn’t make sense that it exists.
But senseless isn’t the same as pointless. There is a point to something that for nearly forty years has kept me looking at it. Only it’s not that decisional point where meaning is reached, or plausibly fashioned — meaning that feels reasoned and just, or even haunting and poetic. That point where wondering essentially ends.
The butcher cover doesn’t end, because it doesn’t begin. Normally the closer you get to an image, the more irrational it becomes; concomitantly, the farther you back off, the safer it grows. Try that with the butcher cover. Hold it, and bring any part of it next to your eye. Now place it in your lap. Now on the other side of the room. Distance has made it more violent, not less. Even at 15 feet, it’s a daemonic hole in your wall, a wound in the skin of your reality. Hide it away: it’s still there in your mind.
I tried to make sense of the butcher cover once, but all I really did was tell a story, dream a dream. Even now, I don’t know what to make of it. I simply want to stroke Ringo’s hair, tickle those ribs, kiss the doll’s head in Paul’s lap.
Thus the point, and paradox, of this inexplicable thing: to never resolve, mean, or even passively be, but to stick in the shank of the brain, an unhealed incision, active irritation, open pathway.
Look forever and you’ll never understand, subdue, or exhaust it.
It cannot become obsolete.
GROK MY ENTHUSIASM: Rob Wringham on THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LUNCH | Gordon Dahlquist on WEEKEND | Joe Alterio on MILLION YEAR PICNIC | Adrienne Crew on LA BARONNE EMILE D’ERLANGER | Josh Glenn on THE SURVIVAL SAMPLER | Alix Lambert on THE SKIES BELONG TO US | Adam McGovern on PENELOPE and CHAVEZ RAVINE | Rob Wringham on THE LYKE WAKE WALK | Mark Kingwell on NORTH STAR SNEAKERS & GWG JEANS | Gordon Dahlquist on FELLINI SATYRICON | Erik Davis on AH! | Devin McKinney on WHISPERING AFRAID | Mimi Lipson on 1973 SEARS ROEBUCK CATALOG | Jessamyn West on MOSS | Josh Glenn on THE SCOUT HOW BOOK | Brian Berger on SLACKER | Alix Lambert on ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS | Chelsey Johnson on MONOTREMES | Devin McKinney on THE BUTCHER COVER | Flourish Klink on ONE DIRECTION | Gordon Dahlquist on FULL METAL JACKET | Allegra Huston on CLOTHESLINE | Jenny Davidson on POWERLIFTING | Evan Narcisse on REZ | Deborah Wassertzug on VEGETARIAN MEATBALLS | Chris Spurgeon on WALLACE AND GROMIT | Mandy Keifetz on BENEFICIAL MICROBES | Annie Nocenti on MARKS ON WALLS | Molly Sauter on THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF | William Nericcio on LAND OF THE LOST | Dan Fox on “VOICE OF GOD” RADIO DJS | Brandi Brown on WIKIPEDIA TALK | Claire Lehmann on THE APPARATUS REVEAL | Alice Boone on COSTUME JEWELRY | Colin Dickey on WIDESPREAD PANIC | Anshuman Iddamsetty on THE FULL BODY PROJECT | John Hilgart on MAKING GRATEFUL DEAD ALBUMS | Rob Wringham on STEVEN UNIVERSE | John Overholt on DECKLE EDGES | James Hannaham on HABIT PATTERNS | Jessamyn West on THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM | Adam McGovern on THE SPACE GIANTS | Brian Berger on MEDIUM COOL | Chris Spurgeon on THE DUNNING-KRUGER EFFECT | Joe Alterio on TABLETOP WARGAMING | Mimi Lipson on TRASH PICKING | Jason Grote on CZECH CINEMA | Roxane Gay on AUTOMATED CAR WASH | Dan Fox on JULIA DAVIS | Amy Thielen on BINGO | Steph Burt on FEIJOA.
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