HALSEY MCKAY GALLERY

On Saturday, I return from foraging and the weather is divine.  The garments I have procured seem unnecessary during the thaw, but we need to fortify against the next wave of cold.

My companions have decided we need to stretch out, crack our weary bones and get some exercise before we hunch over our various work stations again.

We began the day with a March:  a muscle memory of some anniversary where performing this action felt urgent and vitalizing, some solidarity that we feel compelled towards.  Our rusty bodies carried forward, and our symmetry was hard to maintain.  When one of us fell, we picked them up, but the incidents upset the whole balance.

After, I unveiled the garments for my companions.  They tried them on while I repaired some worn parts of my Second Skin.  My armpits, crotch and hands all take on the most strain from building and hunching. During my foraging expedition I couldn’t take the strain of my skin any longer, as the cold air penetrated my interior.  I set up the surgical station, not for the first time this week (see The Story of the Hand, below), and my companions watched me and debated what we should do with the garments.

My companions decided to enjoy the weather.  They sunned themselves on the window sills of the Shelter while I got to work, laying out the clothing in such a fashion that they would attain their most idealized conditions.  I consulted with the Sleep Crate and the Epson 9800 and we began our work.  I perform a weekly health check of the 9800 as it determines our ability to function in this climate.

With great sentiment we wear these clothes until they are threadbare.  The goo of the world is embedded on the cuffs and collars, the crust rolling up their hems.  The engine within has discolored the arm pits.  Paint, dust and ash interrupt their perfect sequence.  We have worn them so long that the skin below is visible, stacking sets holding our interior at bay.  They cannot be worn in front of other eyes any longer.  As Hugo Ball once said, “discard the Ego like a coat full of holes.”

The season has arrived and we must shed our skin, molt and metamorphosize — sacrifice the actual thing for the idealized thing, if only to renew our fire, to idle this shaking engine, to keep us warm through this long winter.

 

With any successful accomplishment, rest comes easy.  My companions retired to their Sleeping Pods, and I to my Sleeping Crate.  We awoke the next day with another ambitious program, but first I needed to restore my tattered hands.

My father always told me, “you are healthy as long as your teeth, your feet and your shitter are functioning properly.”  But what about the hand?

I have hedged everything on these hands.  Without them I could not feel, lift, mark, level, lift, or labor.  I imagine my eyes could diminish — as they have through this mask, peering through one tiny aperture, as if I were another being inhabiting and controlling a foreign body.  But with my hands I can feel the tip of the drill, the errant screws, the charger cords, the hammers that seem to be strewn everywhere. Without them, I could not peel the blue tape accumulating on my clothing.  Without them, I could not make ends meet, put food on my table, lay my head down at night.

The tools I use are meant to spare the hand, to extend labor beyond its natural capability.  The tools, on occasion, resist.  When they fight back, they recoil against the hand that guides them.  The hand resists right back. It resists the histories of the uprisings of the tools.  It wears its scars and scabs only for moment before it heals.  It becomes dry and calloused so it cannot feel what it once felt when it was young.  It insulates itself against trauma.

In this season of immense and rapid decay, it is no problem for the hand to produce a new hand.  A little time at the surgical station and the hand is as good as new, ready for the next task.

From the Sleeping Crate, I emerge with a blanket.  I trim it to a proportion where it can worn so my hands my still operate, but keep me warm and easily let the elements roll down away from by body. After consultation with the Epson 9800, I decide on a pattern of Dentyne Ice to decorate the cape.  It provides a kind of camouflage in this winter landscape, but is refreshing and sanitizing.  The Dentyne logo shouts over me, positively rushing off its rectangular package.  I feel like Hugo Ball preparing to recite Karawane:  “I wore a huge coat collar cut out of cardboard, scarlet inside and gold outside.  It was fastened at the neck in such a way that I could give the impression of winglike movement by raising and lowering elbows.”

 The cape complete, I remove a Sleeping Pod from the Shelter.  My companions have suggested we have a mobile container for the next foraging mission.  We need an easy escape and a less cumbersome way of maneuvering as a group.  The March taught us to conserve our energy.

I take the trimmings from the blanket and cut them into ski-shaped strips.  I attach them to the Sleeping Pod, and before long, I have a Vitrine Sled.  I attach one of the nylon straps we used in the truck on the journey East.  It makes for a decent leash, or harness, with which one can pull the sled.

My companions delight in the test of our traveling Sled.  It requires great labor to gain inertia, and I feel like an entire team of dogs as my muscles yap at one another, firing to gain traction.  Strangely, I hope the cold returns, as well as the snow, which will allow the Vitrine Sled to run swiftly upon the fresh pack.

We grow hungry.  Provisions are low.  I must find us food.