by Mary Ann Hushlak I do a Google search. I do several Google searches. On different days, no less. As if typing in the same or similar keywords will suddenly slip through a crack in the automated “crawlers” and “spiders” and get past popularity. Alas, not. I’m looking for a book title or articles about the human back, something akin to Claudia Benthien’s Skin: on the cultural border between self and the world or Steven Connor’s The Book of Skin with its sources from literature, non-fiction and medical texts as well as art, photography, film and folklore, popular song and language. Alas, I can’t find anything. And so I leave the convenience of computer search engines and head into Central London for the pleasure of a bookshop and the possibilities of references that might exist in a chapter or in footnotes. A more elliptical approach. The excursion begins to feel like a kind of field trip. My first stop is the specialist Wellcome Collection bookshop. True to the
writings from and about this strange and necessary business of making performances.