Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Drilled



MARSHALL McLUHAN: "We shape our tools. And then our tools shape us."

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: A moment of homage, please, for the utility of the thumb which came to us by way of the trees and gave us tools and the brains to use them and so brought us here to the wonders of 19th century toolmaking capped by 20th century button making that allows the thumb some leisure while the index finger alone stops the drill press. The hole is complete. The open door reveals a nest of copper shavings which accumulate by the ton and fill scrap hampers on there way back to Ansonia to be recast, and the flow of copper continues, while thumbs and index fingers everywhere are moving on to iPads and dissolving in cyberspace.