“Do you want plastic cutlery? Cutlery. Forks and Knives. You know…to cut?”

I’m sitting behind two poorly English-speaking gentlemen who don't know the word 'cutlery', in front of a bowl of half-eaten chicken noodle soup that tastes like salt, in front of a flashing illustration of the Titanic (not meant to be at all ironic). The diner has five of these types of paintings; three TVs. I drove a good 20 minutes to get here. It is a place where people believe in their Titanic decorations in the same way rural diners love to place fake flowers on their tables: because decorations are pleasant.

The two gentlemen are gone now, replaced by a couple. The man orders a milkshake. The waitress yells, “Can you get me ready a chocolate shake?”

I rarely feel the inclination to escape this. Whenever I happen to, I find the same scenario. Sometimes I leave for the reminder. It is why I never believe people’s idyllic vacation photographs. Anything can be made to appear attractive. The closest things to perfection are infants and packaged products, and both only briefly. That is why I love shopping for second hand objects: no contrived wrapping. In thrift stores and rummage sales, delicate things are rolled in expired newspaper.

It would appear that the process of familiarizing yourself with the world is the disenchanting act of unpacking it.

The guy at the counter can’t help but drift off and the waitress repeatedly yells at him to wake up. It is just after eleven. Regardless of the time, it is slow here every time I come. Each visit is the same summary: a blinking picture and slowness; repetition in the lights and sluggish customer rotation. Slowness is in contrast to the packaged. Packaged objects only function as ideals because they are so transient. They oxidize immediately upon opening, like a cut apple. I can hear the sound of cutting an apple. I can smell it. Thank god for teeth and knives, scissors and exacto blades: elements of unpacking. Thank god for cutlery.

ADAM BARTOS: "So THIS is America"

Paris

Venice Beach

I had a moment of complete clarity! Complete fucking clarity...as if suddenly someone ran a magnet in front of me and aligned all of the needles in my brain in the correct, front-facing position! I was looking over the galleries of Adam Bartos, and reading an interview with him in "The Morning News": The homes and streets of Adam Bartos’s Los Angeles have a still, reflective presence. These photographs challenge common assumptions about the nature of life in LA. Here we find spaces that are at once intimate and desolate. The work tells a story of Bartos’s moved to LA in the 1970s, when he arrived expecting Hollywood glitz and glamour and instead discovered the serene and all-American images in this series.

"intimate and desolate", "serene and all-American images"
You know what happens to me when I see these images? I feel almost as though I can smell them, and they reek of a certain undeniable mediocrity, of wear. I remember arriving in the States at night and being driven from Chicago to Detroit. I couldn't cope with how red and bright the night was. I had no understanding of light pollution. I woke up in the morning in America. Let me repeat: IN AMERICA. Everything smelled bad. The streets had pot holes. Then, in 2005 I went to Brazil. BRAZIL. Everything smelled bad. The streets had pot holes. God do the outskirts of Rio smell like shit. I hate postcards and vacation photos. They are so selective. But these places are jam packed with wonderful details- not pretty details, necessarily, but wonderful. In Paraty, a historical tourist destination south of Rio, Tony and I wandered away from the 'downtown' into a local outdoor bar and took shots of cheap cachaca and watched and laughed with some old guy who was petting a stray dog. In Hamtramck my 10 year-old buddies and I always hung out on what we called "THE HILL". In actuality "THE HILL" was a wheel chair ramp on the edge of the community center. I talked to my mother about that feeling of "Ah, so THIS is America". She said it dawned on her when she got her first paycheck from her 2 weeks at KDS Controls. It was about $290. Rent was $300. "AH! So THIS is America." Not that I'm complaining, but remembering that experience really clarified for me why I am so uninhibitedly fascinated by the banal and by residue. I simply believe that it is the truth.

Cheers.
-i.

SUSAN COLLIS

Wooden stepladder, mother of pearl, shell, coral,
fresh water pearl, cultured pearls, white opal, diamond

"The pieces all use different types of trompe-l'oeil effects in order to investigate issues concerning identity, craft, value and labour. Everyday objects, etched, splattered and stained with the marks of work and wear & tear, are seen, at a first glance to be the secondary results of a primary activity ­ seemingly worthless and easily ignored. I am interested in the shift in perception that takes place upon discovery that they are, instead, the primary activity themselves." Susan Collis