[I also have all of this as a PDF.]
I. Writing Around Hannah Hoch’s The Beautiful Girl
(When viewed upside down, I see this extra thing I didn’t see before. At the very top is the high wall and receding tracks of an above ground train stop.)
The beautiful girl is a machine. She does not Talk or See or Think. She won’t have a face unless it is only a fragment of one with a single looming expressionless eye. The beautiful girl is German. She is white. Why do we love Germany for its beautiful uniforms, cars, and designs? Why do we sometimes love these things so much as to forget what certain ideas about cleanliness and industry have done to bodies – what it has done to girls?
The perfect (Beautiful) girl will move things along. She will attach things to herself so everyone knows that she is always trying to be beautiful for someone other than herself. She makes things happen. She won’t stop working. She is industrious/industrial. She is faithful. She makes a high, clean sound. She whistles like a machine.
She is replaceable when she is done. Over. Used Up. When there are no more babies to be had, dishes to be washed, smiles to be summoned, what use is she then? What do you do with her then? Where does she go? What happens when the Beautiful Girl can’t be wound up and made to totter across a plane?
Is this why we have mountaintops?
Is this why we have attics? Is this why accessory dwelling units are called granny flats?
II. How I Didn’t Notice That I Was In Love With This Prosthesis Among Many
You were
my friend
I swung you
around my wrist
I knotted up your long grey cord
just enough
so I could swing you
around and around
without fear of loss
or a hard fall to the pavement
We walked around
Clinton Hill together
We looked at
light
and shade
We counted
the stops in between
I really liked you
Your Lumigrid is the best thing ever
But I moved
I packed you in your box
and took you on the plane
I moved again and maybe one more time
I forgot all about you
Where are our buildings?
Where is the sun that makes piercing outlines despite
thirty degree weather?
What is the thing
that taught me that I could cut
shapes out of rooftops and sky?
What is the thing
that taught me
that I could make tones and colors
happen
however I wanted?
What happened to me that I could forget the feeling
of a smooth, smooth cord
circling, spinning around
that space between
my winter gloved hand
and my rolled up sleeve?
I don't know how I forgot
III. Barbie Karaoke Makes Dreams Come True
I am a pocket-sized Barbie brand karaoke toy. I am fairly small at approximately 5 X 3 X 1 inches. It has been suggested that, due to my appearance, I am similar to or some kind of predecessor to the original iPod. My job is to provide joy and entertainment to children (or really anyone who wants to talk, sing, do stand up comedy, or be a performance artist), but I have spent much of my more recent life traveling, having made stops at various homes and thrift stores for repurchase.
I am not sure about my body because I think of myself as a map of sound. But I’ve had a lot of spare time so I’ve tried to figure it out. My brain is an electronic board somewhere inside my white plasticy shell. My mouth is a pink, flower decorated speaker, which sits like a big, low belly. The mic plugs that reside in little notches are my ears. They take in sound (information) and let me dispense it back into my surroundings. I don’t have feet or legs so it works out that I look good leaning on things or lying down. Prior to it being broken off, I had a plastic clip that was like an arm for me to hold onto my companions.
I do have my limitations. There’s only a few phrases I can exclaim on my own and only so many beats that I can beatbox. I am at my best when there’s a mic plugged in and there’s a voice, someone to share a sound with, channeling through. If toy designers had gotten it right, I would have been made in 1988 instead of 2001. I think it could have been a less technologically demanding time. Did kids want different things? I could have been the highlight of many a play date. I could have spent a summer evening clipped to a pair of white jean shorts and riding on a pink and purple bicycle with two little mics tucked into the front basket.
