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If Nothing Really MattersTo Jonathan Penton's previous piece     God Is a Can of Zyklon-BTo Jonathan Penton's next piece


Color is a fiction
nothing more than a distraction
to keep us from noticing how things look in the light
In black and white, machines look like monsters
Automobiles are blights on the landscape

Color is a fiction
allowing us to fake emotions
with perfect gums
perfectly tanned skin
carefully applied lipstick
tattoos
In black and white, you can always tell when someone is really smiling
or just humoring you
The simplicity of the camera
forces us into honesty

listen:
There are no black or brown or Arabesque
men in black and white.
There are only gray men:
tired and terrified, in a baseball cap or a top hat.

again:
the latest fashions look passe in black-and-white
facades melt under the purity
and intensity of that image
eyes are still bloodshot;
but now you can see the lines behind them
the creases around them.
Everyone looks equally beautiful;
some in a terribly flawed way, of course,
but no one looks like a movie star
or a frat boy
or a junkie
but merely like monochromic human beings.

Color is a fiction.
When we look at things in black-and-white, we see ourselves
not as a brilliant potporri of visions
and cultures,
religions and heritages
or even as niggers and kikes and wops and micks,
but just as
one
failed
species.

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