Nice
When you pick up a piece of old crockery in a second-hand shop, often there is a
little
white tag on which the price is written, along with the phrase “as is”. “As is”
indicates that
the object, say it is a cup, has a flaw: a crack or a chip or some other anomaly
testifying to
past use. If the object in question is a textile, say a slip or a sweater, “as is” indicates
a rip,
or a stain. As is suggests the distance from perfection from which the object has
traveled
through the course of time, its fall from Platonic grace or virgin purity; “as is” is a
variant
of “as if”, the way in which desire ineluctably turns into fulfilment or
disappointment, and
in that turn, “something” is simultaneously lost and found. As has become
abundantly
clear, and not to overstate the obvious, contemporary poetic practice negotiates this
terrain and its
recapitulating dualities—- presence/absence, materiality/transparency,
text/performance,
and so on, more insistently than any other current human activity.…
– Ann Lauterbach
(Via the so fine Riley Dog.)
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