489

Drawing (489) from The BASIS of MAKE-UP

"Dial NERVOUS for the time, using sharpened pencils to operate the rotary dial on a black telephone, even though the heavy receiver is still on the hook. A view from the front room of our railroad apartment onto President Street, Brooklyn by night in winter 1975. The Northern Lights stick out into the image from the bottom left, shielding the telephone. The landlord had let us use his refrigerator, which was the height of a man, in order that the kitchen facilities were sufficient. While being transported, the fridge was dropped on the floor just before our front door while being transported, its door opening wide in the process and a horde of cockroaches streaming out from inside. Visible from afar, they scuttled over the snow and disappeared into various nooks and crannies. It wasn’t just for that reason that our Puerto Rican and Italian neighbors detested us. We lived directly on the dividing line that separated them and an additional ethnicity was not welcome. An anonymous letter that appeared in our postbox shortly afterwards began as follows: 'Dear Sirs ...'.” (From: arsenal, january 17).

(1984)

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