Literary Hub

room for a counter interior

room for a counter interior

what if there were a room. or if there weren’t. where violence, history
and euphoria met within and preceded a body.

to regard such a body would be to take up a series of imagined objects
and to imagine those objects as facts. you might hope whatever was
there carried to the end.

what if the room were a state in constant motion. as geography. a
receding afternoon. as singular desire. two ravaged hands to light an
obscured interior.

the room recognizable through uncoupling from the body. in relief. as
building.

during the first half of the drive to massachusetts, my lover and I argued
via text . this is ridiculous, she said, we can’t argue about a vibrator right
now.

harvard university’s carpenter center is the only building in the united
states designed by le corbusier. “because of this distinction, he strove to
incorporate each of his five principles of new architecture.”

principle one: the replacement of supporting walls by a grid is the basis
of a new architecture.

from south street station, I walked to club café for a three-whiskey lunch.
the fake plants and desperately lacquered tables felt appropriate. I
spoke with ariel.

I wanted the day to feel plain. even that desire expressed itself modestly.

principle two: the absence of supporting walls means the house is unrestrained in its internal use. principle three: by separating the exterior of the building from its structural function, the façade is free from structural constraints:

elbowed crease. grecian jaw. how the eyes fell—you may take these objects as facts.

further principals become unnecessary.

More from Literary Hub

Literary Hub6 min read
Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers
The Lit Hub Author Questionnaire is a monthly interview featuring seven questions for five authors. This month we talk to one author with a new book and four we missed the first time around in 2020: * Andrew DuBois (Start to Figure: Fugitive Essays,
Literary Hub4 min read
Poet Sister Artist Comrade: In Celebration of Thulani Davis
Thulani Davis has been my poet sister artist comrade for nearly 50 years. We met in San Francisco one night in either 1971 or 1972—young poets with flash and sass, opinionated and full of ourselves. We were reading at the Western Addition Cultural Ce
Literary Hub4 min readCrime & Violence
What Jeffrey Sterling Wants Americans to Understand About Whistleblowers
Hosted by Paul Holdengräber, The Quarantine Tapes chronicles shifting paradigms in the age of social distancing. Each day, Paul calls a guest for a brief discussion about how they are experiencing the global pandemic. On Episode 138 of The Quarantine

Related Books & Audiobooks