Thursday, July 16, 2009

Prows

Photographs by Man Ray 1920 Paris 1934 (1934; rpt. New York: Dover, 1979, as Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934), image 43:


the woman's head coming toward you like a prow.

"The Locomotive," 1923. Edward Hopper Etchings (New York: Craig F. Starr Gallery, 2008), n.p.:

the intelligent-looking boiler of the steam engine, preparing to leave its audience of tinies behind when it rolls forward into that low tunnel, headlight and running lights followed by smokestack followed by sand dome followed by bell, all entering the tunnel in sequence above the busy machinery below::

how did we grave the human and make it steel? How could steel assume the shapes of motion and prepare to live?