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Even with its shitload of artifacts, the everyday

is radiant, while the banal is opaque and often

obscure. I prefer the latter, with its murky

agate, mushroom, ochre background music -

its corridor of lurk. One hardly knows where

one stands with/in the banal. Walls come

together with hardly a seam. Wherever we are, we

feel we have always been. Poe, for all his special

effects, is rather banal in his approach to the

supernatural, i.e. overly familiar. Against the

inarticulate velvet of this mood, one grasps at

the everyday for relief. Thus any object can

bring us back with the fast-acting power of

aspirin. Any object shines.

The Banal

Elaine Equi


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