Robert Bittenbender

The only people interested in visiting Dead Horse Bay are European tourists, who are only as interested in New York as they are in America, hoping that one will stand in for the other. Dead Horse Bay is, of all the garbage-strewn beaches in Brooklyn, uniquely encrusted with trash so thoroughly washed it bubbles up from the sand as smooth as reptile scales. Tourists like to go there, like they like to see familiar graffiti patterns and sun-faded places where famous people once were, a palimpsest of American culture. Walking tours of new street art in once-industrial areas. We watch the waves roll over detritus, voiding its commercial gleam until it is stony and grey.

Americans born in America, on the other hand, like to go to restaurants that look un-American, reminders that nothing is as all-American as a Greek diner.

In a bathroom shared by a few roommates and sometimes their partners or guests, a collection of eight shampoos, three conditioners, four bars or soap, three body washes, one exfoliant scrub, a toothbrush, a foot brush, a pumice stone, an empty glass jar, six disposable razors, a squeegee, and a bottle of Tilex litter the wired shelves that hang from the shower head and the edges of the tub, but the last time someone showered, a brand new bottle of conditioner appeared.

A chandelier is a symbol of wealth and class, no matter how tacky it is. Strange that anyone would try to make an ugly chandelier, since it is impossible. Neon sign stores in the city are like flower gardens in the country, nice to stop and take in for a few moments before continuing on.

It was so cool when that guy made a half pipe in his art studio; everyone loved it and came over all the time to skate on it because there were no other half pipes for miles, much less indoor ones. Everyone saw that guy’s art all the time because they were at his place, it was like he was getting studio visits constantly and some great feedback sometimes, and the studio became a functional public space, a gallery, a park.

The mess inside a body—a car, a computer, a manual—is frightening, even if it is the mess inside our own bodies, especially then. Imagining the way the body works, in the abstract, and then applying it to real insides, wet guts that slip out heavily if someone is surgically sliced open? Everything is perfectly hanging in a balance, not pinned or stitched but floating. Everything is deteriorating, waiting to be moved back into place or washed away.

- Natasha Stagg