Art Gallery of Ontario

3 Desk in Room 1219 and Cohen on Guns


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Desk in Room 1219
1968
notebook page with Polaroid Type 20 instant prints
Set against a deep blue wall a square plexiglass case displays two wall mounted items from the collection of Cohen’s personal journals displayed in this area of the exhibition labeled “Tennessee 1968”. On the left, at standing-height eye level, is a page from a tall and narrow lined notebook with five palm sized black and white polaroid photos stuck in it. Next to this on the right is a typed sheet of paper with a block of text on the top half.
The journal page will be described followed by a reading of the typed text.
Cohen on Guns
1968
typed page
Moving to the typed paper displayed alongside the journal page: The paper has yellowed slightly by time and the darkness of the letters of the text is slightly irregular as were the products of manual typewriters of the day. The handwritten number 88 is in the top right corner.
The typed text reads:
Nashville
December 20, 1968
My heart leaped up when I beheld the glass counter
With its magic row of revolvers in the Woodbine
Army Surplus Store. My eyes devoured the precious
machinery. I had to keep myself from laughing
out in joy. To be so close!
Magic moves from poem to gun.
I came close to loving the automobile but I never
quite succeeded. Watches and clocks have their
fascination but I am so uninvolved in the jewels
and the wheels. It is like watching fish in a
bowl, one cannot interfere, only behold. The
artifacts in museums interested me by the mere
accident of their survival. I never loved a shard
or a painting. I’ve walked through factories,
rebuking myself for my indifference, straining to
be a modern man who at least respects his utensils,
stifling a yawn. But these guns, I loved them
as my eye fell upon them, as one loves beautiful
women. I bought the tear gas pen, dreaming.
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