As Memorial Day weekend and the summer holidays draw near, we are finding ourselves in our cars for longer stretches of time. Why not while away the car ride with a pen and paper? (Unless you’re anything like me, and have to keep your eyes forward in order to keep your stomach in line. In that case, take mental notes for later.)
Sandy Skoglund, Pink and blue car from True Fiction Two series, 1986. Photograph. www.sandyskoglund.com
Elliott Erwitt, California Kiss, 1955. Photograph.
Alex Colville, Dog in Car, 1999. Acrylic on hardboard. Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia.
(Three Things will be taking a break next week for the Memorial Day holiday. See you in June!)
Early this past Saturday morning, I woke to a pat… pat… pat… pat… coming from the corner of my room. Rhythmic, foreign, and… a little bit damp. Groaning as I came to enough consciousness to realize that the sound was water dripping from my previously-whole ceiling, I stumbled around in the dark to find a pail (for catching said drip) and a towel (for muffling the blasted sound).
That incessant drip is this week’s thing. Will your drip set a melancholy scene? Will it foreshadow some very wet or very broken or very persistent thing? Will it, ever so slowly, drive someone mad? Here are three wet(ish) scenes to get you started.
Emma Brown, Untitled, 2006. Photograph. Via flickr.
Lee Price, Boston Cream, 2011. Oil on linen. www.leepricestudio.com
Sandy Skoglund, Revenge of the Goldfish, 1981. Photograph. www.sandyskoglund.com
Three Things: Animal Tracks Edition
Time for another imaginary word from Gershgoren’s The Extended Words. Today’s selection:
MEMEMEM /mə-mem’-əm/ n. 1. Bird prints as written language. “This strange dialect of mememem could be read only after the birds had left the beach for the evening, read by moonlight, forward and backward and forward and backward, monotonously.” Sounds of Moon and Surf. Amity Stills, 1938. 2. Intergalactic shorthand. “It was an obscure mememem, partially effaced through an imperfect transmission and a still more imperfect translation.” Listening for the Beyond. Shaker Lee Manaman. 1980.
I’ve decided to forgo the obvious sandy print images, and instead select three pieces of mememem in the act of being written. Not on a beach, per se, and not solely bird-writers; nevertheless, in each case there will be prints left behind for someone to puzzle over and attempt to narrate. Lots of ’em.
Lori Nix, Dodo, from Unnatural History, 2009. Photograph. www.lorinix.net
Sandy Skoglund, Fox Games, 1989. Photograph. www.sandyskoglund.com
Sarolta Bán, Untitled, 2009. Digitally manipulated photograph. www.saroltaban.com
P.S. Have you checked out the Holiday Sale yet?
