Freewrite on Hannah Höch’s "The Beautiful Girl"

The body is a collage of various parts and particles, productions and prosthetics. It is not pure or seamless or constant or itself. The collage holds time in its hand and has a large hairdo that its face is hiding behind, its head in the forefront is a light bulb, an idea. The boxer is peering inside through the window of a car’s tire and BMW logos are floating around that fill up the empty space, and they are the cogs that make everything run when cranked into action. Her body is precariously balanced. The body and mind are vehicular.

Upside down: Cog-nitive dissonance. It looks like the underneath of a car. The clock is a yo-yo. The foot is the exhaust pipe.

Thanks to my Prosthesis

Putie,

Thank you for being a part of my life. You help me find the answers to my questions in life. You have made my repository of knowledge the whole World Wide Web, I owe my virtual omniscience to you. You enable me to communicate and purchase items telepathically, and you are my personal portal for all imaginable tourisms. You give me extra brain space to store my ideas, and you are so kind to me. You are one of the parts that I love most about myself. I know that you won’t be with me forever and I hope that I don’t take you too much for granted. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you.

10/23/07

Obituary of My Jeans

The remains of the jeans were found in the room of an adolescent girl in Washington, D.C. Forensic analysts determined that the jeans had been loved to death.
The birthplace of the jeans is unknown; however it is probable that they migrated to America at a very young age. After living with a young girl for a short period of time, they were put up for re-adoption at a thrift store, where another girl became smitten with them and took them home. The pair became inseparable. Unfortunately the jeans’ lifespan was not as long as the girl’s, and their routine of being worn constantly eventually became to much for them to handle. The jeans have given parts of their body to repair injured garments.

Here’s a quote from the webpage that talks about them:

“The Homies are a group of tightly knit Chicano buddies who have grown up in the Mexican American barrio (neighborhood) of "Quien Sabe", (who knows) located in East Los Angeles. The four main characters are Hollywood, Smiley, Pelon, and Bobby Loco.

Their separate and distinct personalities and characteristics together make up a single, composite entity that is the "HOMIES." In an inner-city world plagued by poverty, oppression, violence, and drugs, the Homies have formed a strong and binding cultural support system that enables them to overcome the surrounding negativity and allows for laughter and good times as an anecdote for reality. The word "Homies" itself is a popular street term that refers to someone from your hometown or, in a broader sense, anyone that you would acknowledge as your friend. In use in the West Coast Latino community for decades, the word "Homies" has crossed over into the now mainstream Hip-Hop street culture that has taken America's young people by storm.”

-Dave Gonzales

Link to the website: http://www.homiesworld.com/site/

I ask you kindly, though not primarily on behalf of those persons who I am in service of, but for all of us, that you please fill in the circle completely when you are indicating the category to which you belong. It really is quite difficult for me to determine who you are if you insist on making your markings outside of the circle, in only part of a circle, in multiple circles, or in the “other” line. While I am more efficient and advanced than my predecessor, the human census taker, who compiled your data manually and based on his limited perspective, I nevertheless cannot make sense of your scrawl unless it is within the designated categories, which exist for everyone’s benefit. I am only capable of what humans are capable of programming me to do, so please consider my feelings. I can only hope that my descendants do not have to suffer through these hardships, breakdowns, and existential crises. I thank you for your cooperation in making yourself intelligible to me.

Yours,
Electronic Computer

This space connects to another room with tiled floors. A sign on the wall says “Please Shower Before Swimming.” Along the left wall are metal poles that release a stream of water under which a person can stand and remove filth from their body. Two of the poles have metal walls behind which a person can stand while they are washing, the other two do not.