Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Reader Eleanor Rigby wrote in with the following questions:

"mr. silverthorne, please elaborate upon this notion of the inverted mirror. it is an allusion that i have never quite understood (Borges, Fuller, etc.). what does 'inverted' mean? upside down? inside out? is the notion of the mirror not already suggesting a reflection of sorts? is it the 'inversion' of subject and object? two subjects, one being illusory? the exact intention of the adjective eludes me.

also, in your address to what's-her-name's little cocktail, please clarify whether or not you intend to imbibe in light of your phenomenological criticisms. i maintain my original position: yuck."

Well, who can say what "inverted mirror" means, but in my reflections [get it?] I intended it to mean precisely the kind of thing various thinkers would have meant: it reflects the traditional in such a way as to "turn it on its head", as some people love to say. It would be difficult to explain how this happens or what it even means, so it's better for everyone if you choose a metaphor instead of an explanation. And that metaphor is the inverted mirror.

And I don't really need to answer that question about drinking the stuff. When faced with the primal "to ingest or not to ingest" question, I must merely concede that "alas, I am in New York, and cannot ingest even if I chose to ingest." But the question as to the relationship between art and volition we must save for another time.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would hardly feign to consider myself an art critic, but may I say a few words about this notion of ingestion, espeicially in relationship to alimentation? After all, in ingesting this vaginal concocktion, is she not thrusting something into us (albeit with out consent)? And in this process of ingestion, through alimentation, does she not (in a sense) become part of us? Do not its nutrients sustain us, promote our biological processes? And in these processes, is not new life brought forth, the strength to live even another moment, another day, another hour? And is this not another instance of gender inversion, insofar as I am a male consuming it and beer is commonly thought of as a male beverage?

9:22 AM  

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