Tuesday, October 12
AN ABRIDGED HISTORY OF BUTTONS
The first were made as ornaments. A mud disk, spun until it buzzed. Then, a method of adherence. This to that, a coat closed tight against the wind.
Bone, shell, and vegetable ivory; knobs of knotted rope. To be tight in the right places; to suggest their own undoing.
Some, containing tiny iron needles pointing north to guide in war. Or punched from the mother of pearl dragged up in Muscatine,
stripped of meat in chemical baths, workers paid by the blank until the strike and town-wide riot. Before the ubiquitous toggle,
a simple switch. Then affixed to lettered slugs. Then digits and a circuit. A keypad and cash register. Pressing and depressing.
Color coded to avoid grave error. A badge of counter-culture. Then mass produced in plastic. 50,000 migrant workers, slap-bang
in the middle of nowhere. A thing that can be pressed toward irritation.
Or with quotation marks to emphasize the consequence.
To give illusory control at crosswalks and office thermostats. To drop the mustard gas and then to fire the Tomahawks.
To begin and end the sanctions. To dial and to hang. To eject or power on. Pause and rewind. And then a flat graphic. A coded event.
A box with a thin gray shadow. To login, reset, delete. To give consent. Click submit. Click to like. To enter the site. To go back home.
Do you want to stay on this page? Do you want to leave without finishing? No, Sometimes I wish to unknow North. Sometimes I don’t want to be a form
so easily undone. (Tracy Fuad)