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Care Instructions I
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Care Instructions I

Matthew Spencer's avatar
Matthew Spencer
Jun 07, 2023

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Care Instructions I
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Denim is at its best raw, but if you absolutely have to wash your jeans—(a fungal bouquet around the legs)—then extra care should be taken to preserve the dye and fabric:

1) immerse the jeans inside out, in cold water, with as little soap as possible, and then hang them outdoors to dry. This is best done an hour or two before a strong thunderstorm, when the heat of the late spring to early summer is lidded by heavy black clouds and the curbside trees are set to gnashing, branch against branch, their limbs breaking against one another and falling broken on the cobblestones.

2) let the wind strip the jeans from the clothesline; let it send them flying. They should clear—at bare minimum—the fence of the neighboring lot, falling into the back patio, into the birdbath, marinating there with the standing water, filled algal scum and guano, while the rain, falling itself in heavy sheets, fills the bath, recharging the water, overfills the bath, and cascades down onto the patio concrete and begins to pool in great heavy sheets, mirroring the sky, around the clogged drain.

3) let the jeans continue marinating in this water, which, as the thunderstorm departs, stagnates again beneath the sun of late spring to early summer, breeding midges and other biting insects, a cavelike aroma developing, still fungal but with more complexity, the biota of the denim having been persevered and even diversified, provided care instructions are followed

A Storm by René Magritte (1939)

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Dec 13, 2022 • 
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An Unexpected Reunion by Johann Peter Hebel
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A review of Caspar David Friedrich's "The Monk by the Sea" which appeared in Kleist's newspaper, the Berliner Abendblätter
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Feelings Before Friedrich's Seascape by Heinrich von Kleist
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"I do not know what it is," Walt said, "but I find no true poem."
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Book of Hours I: Brimstone Flowers by Jean Paul
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