You guys are sick…
You can practically see the lit-up eyes and the drool forming at the mention of a picture. I’ll bet it was mostly because I said my sister looked and it and declared she was going to be sick too. We study this fascination with gross-ness in cinema studies. Except we package it in a theory with the word “Spectacle”, give it a historical and cultural context by rooting it in freak shows, and just so everyone who didn’t pay to learn this won’t understand us, we call it “the abject”.
…and terrible!
Here I am, trying to do damage control after all the rumours that have been going around, and you keep posting up words like “bone” and “blood” and “stitches” in my chatboard thingy (I really should find out what it’s real name is). I’ve met a few people this week, and of course everyone wants to see The Cut. And then I watch their faces fall while they try not to act too disappointed. I guess I should have mentioned that my sister’s just really squeamish. But I’ve had my fun. People ask to see the cut, and you can tell they’re eager to see it, but a bit hesitant at the same time (after all, they’ve heard all these terrible stories). But it’s all about the abject, so they brace themselves and look… and their faces fall ever so slightly, and the thought bubbles form above their heads: That’s it?
I think it’s hilarious.
But anyway, back to The Cut. I took out the stitches 2 hours ago (Ming Lee, I didn’t forget) because it looked to the arts student like they just weren’t needed there anymore. I have to say, taking out the stitches hurt more than the sewing, which either tells you how little stitching hurts (with anaesthetic of course), or how skilled the nurse was. Maybe because the doctor did this weird thing with the skin (to minimize scarring he said) and the stitches were kinda hard to remove. Well, I hope it works.
