godspeed you! yuri warrior

Landscapes and dreamscapes, towers, harbors, mountains, forests, icebergs, beloved anonymous houses, beloved anonymous pets, psychedelic visions and graffiti, diplomas, hockey jerseys, vintage bicycle parts, photographs of every possible object or being, doing every possible activity. A little pencil line drawing of Warhol’s famous Absolut vodka bottle, his signature scrawled at the bottom. A dentist’s certificate of appreciation for his work caring for “the oral health of Holocaust survivors.” An orange cartoon brontosaurus riding a tiny scooter through downtown Chicago. A pack of fierce-faced bicyclists racing along a cliff, in an advertisement for the 1953 Tour de France. Director John Waters grinning in his favorite pink Comme des Garçons jacket (“that looks like your aunt’s bedspread with the little balls on it,” he told GQ). A tasseled table-runner from Turkey, a Dave Chappelle poster, a disintegrating page from a 1904 Chicago newspaper found under someone’s bathroom floor during a renovation. Lots of Phish posters. An anonymous, headless female nude painted all in rich, egg-yolk yellow. An 1871 textbook illustration of a uterus embellished with flowers. A Japanese golfer painted in broad calligraphic black brushstrokes. A cowboy in full dress, rodeo number pinned to his back, standing on a diving board over a swimming pool. A child’s felt-scrap collage. Autographed photos of Billie Jean King, James Brown. An Alaskan indigenous formline hummingbird, a Hebrew mandala, a Frank Lloyd Wright window. An aerial view of Machu Picchu, glowing gold and black against a bright orange sky, as if the whole world is on fire.

When I get home at night, I collapse in a chair, mute and unable to move. The art feels like a tornado whooshing through me. I feel euphoric and empty, cleaned out. Words and thoughts blasted away. My eyes scoured clean.