This was taken around a friend’s house in Starkville, a beautiful but scarred patch of land that has somehow become a dumping ground for broken college couches. The third Polaroid is my favorite. The sheets and the pattern of the mattress fascinated me.
I cannot say that I understand the subtleties of the conflict at Gallaudet University, and my understanding of Deaf culture is limited, but the steadfastness of the students in their quest for a better administration is extraordinary. I admire them so much for their fight and was elated to see today that they won.
Jim Roeg (at the newly-redesigned Double Articulation) wrote an interesting post on the etymology and signifiers bundled within the wonderfully creative site names of the comic book blogosphere. As always, Jim is kind to us here at Pretty Fakes, and if you leaf through the comments to that post you might find a bit of the origin of our name.
One of my favorite posts at Double Articulation—one of my favorite posts by anyone, anywhere—was the extraordinary “On Existentialism: Why Paper Dolls Do(n’t) Cry, or Steve Gerber’s Myth of Sisyphus,” an essay grappling with Steve Gerber and Sal Buscema’s Marvel Two-in-One #7. After several readings, I became enraptured by the subject matter and its (secret) depths and made “Paper Dolls Don’t Cry.”
By the by, if you find a six-foot high robot costume on the streets of Natchez, broken and battered, tin-foil “plating” ripped asunder, give it a pat on the back for me: XJ-9 Mk. 3.5 was the best one yet.
What, no fotos of 3.5? Love the shots that are here, though. This is some hardcore abandoning here—not just the couch but the sheet as well?
The sheets are killing me.
Knowing that for years I sat upon couches in my livingroom not better than these, (when the springs give and begin pushing the mattress up and out, one need only get a spool of baling twine and secure it in order to pilfer another year or two of uncomfortable seating) I wonder why anyone would abandon such fine furnishings. And the sheets! The sheets! I certainly hope you rescued those for, at least, a guest room.
Great photos and quote. Say not, I have enough. It sounds almost greedy, and yet, not for goods. That insatiable hunger of the soul. Ooh. I love that.
Starkville, eh?
They must put metaphors in the water down there, or something.
I think this is brilliant; there’s the abandoned couches, but no less abandoned are the couches that replace them back at the crappy student apartment, I think. Same difference; same environment. I feel a pang!