Genesis : 1 : Beret Shit

 

_{Julia Gutman, Untitled, from the series "Decrotivas," 2017, found scraps}

In the beginning a shit beret lay dormant on the side walk. Someone had worn it once. Regrettably. A freshman’s first poetry slam. The freshman traded it in for an ironic dad hat when they realized Kerouac died a long time ago.  And other things were there, old scraps without form, void; and darkness was upon the face of the stuff. A dilapidated couch. An old bathtub. Pastel pink leather gloves, retired from a life of charity events and dinner parties, forced to live out their days as thrift store ornamentation and understudies in B Grade theatrical costume depositories.

And there were softballs, fraying from contact with the striking of fierce women. And there were New Yorker Totes, so many New Yorker totes. And they had been sent to New New Yorker subscribers and OldNew Yorker subscribers who had decided to Unsubscribe. And they heaped in piles, piles of shirts and shoes and hats and scarves, of all American things made in China.

And they all started to fuck each other. And It was good. They grew new limbs, new sounds, new teeth. And they became the Decrotivas. And the Decrotivas said ‘let there be softness.’ And they stuck back together the light and the darkness. And they took what was the day, and what was the night, and sewed it with yarn to create the in-between. And in the in-between they lived. It was soft and terrifying, seductive and gross. And it was good.

_{Julia Gutman, Untitled, from the series "Decrotivas," 2017, found scraps}