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“A Heart Cradled in the Theater of Ribs”
Introduction by Benjamin Weissman

1.  Perhaps it’s a blessing for the acute self-examiner, but it seems more like a curse, that the anus is so far away from the face and eyes. Maybe god assembled the human body this way for just that reason, so you could never set eyes on your own anus.

2.  And because of where the anus is situated on the body, you can’t see it without the aid of a mirror, which of course is used whenever necessary, or a camera that could take a picture for posterity. The anus, which rhymes with famous, is a downward facing asterisk, and it is used regularly, thank you, god, thank you.

3.  The crotch or groin, words that rhyme with botch and coin, are theaters of constant mirth. Balls that clank spiritually, not literally, are an essential part of the party; they are the chorus, they are the high notes and the low. Falsetto and baritone all in one. Such versatility is a marvel.

4.  With no reflecting glass, imagine your own eyes, or try to. You don’t know where to begin, other than recollecting the last time you looked in the mirror while getting a haircut several months ago and the hapless face that glowered back at you like the hunted man in a police lineup: vacant, bleary, and watery mess. Unfortunate to be sure.

5.  But there was also a morning more recently, brushing your teeth, but you were not really looking at anything specific, just the head in general. The eyes took stock of the mouth, tongue, and teeth; and above and below the lips and on both sides of the cheeks, stubble (shave before it gets too itchy); and the nose and its few rogue strands that have grown when no one was looking and have rudely called attention to themselves. Hideous and embarrassing.

6.  Your brown eyes, a source of heat, which had been so beaming and bright, turned empty and smeared, as if the dimensional you had packed its bags and left town, leaving behind eyes that restricted entry, deliberately holding back all your charm, showing glimpses of it during unavoidable lapses.

7.  Later in the day, a single hair falls into your eye and plays havoc with your senses. You pull the eyelid out and move it left and right, up and down, in an effort to rid the eye of the lash, but it doesn’t help. The hair has moved and irritates in a new way. Your life has stopped with this tiny problem involving your eye and a single hair. The good eye, the one without the hair, stands by fully functional but of little use without its partner. They are a team or they are nothing.

8.  The uses of a man’s nipples are numerous and rarely discussed. They harden in cold temperatures and alert other mammals that something keen is forthcoming and a sweater is needed. Man nipples poke through tight clothing and insist attention be paid, warnings be heeded. They are decorative and function as display ornaments and kindly request a pinching. Their symmetrical placement orchestrates a grand unfurling of swirling chest hair, where coiling ribbons of fur spiral upwards out of the groin and onto the torso.

9.  A noisy stomach blathering about supper.

10.  Entertaining and so pleasurable it is to drop your head onto the belly of a person and listen to the sounds emanating from the abdominal caldron. It is like a witch’s kitchen gurgling away. A vat of bat stew simmering beside two battleships lobbing and exploding heavy ordnance as if at war. Other sounds: rusty pipes bending, molten lava churning through layers of skin and flesh, muscles and liquid, loud as a factory at full production level.

11.  Other words for buttocks: the keister, the tush, the rump, the round mound, the back door, the fanny, the caboose, central headquarters.

12.  The planet Uranus, a planet far away from Earth, was not named after the anus, a cactus flower protected by little baby hairs.

13.  The toes have a secret life, they pose as innocents but they are not. They are complex fellows, so many of them, a gang on each foot. All of them sworn to secrecy, regularly called on to ambulate. But, oh, so sensitive. The big toes are the bosses of left- and right-foot operations. The baby toes are little wizards dictating new schemes.

14.  Hair where you least expected it: on the tops of toes, sideways out of ears, tufts of hair sprouting downwards from the nostrils. Hair growing in such abundance that it takes on a spongy quality.

15.  The ribcage is a personal cathedral where forgotten prayers are remembered and echoed long past the oxygenated life of you.

16.  You’re not supposed to hear your own heart beating. It’s supposed to go on silently. The chest is designed to muffle the sound. Hearing the beating of your own heart is a horror movie. But it’s also a sign that you’re alive, not dead. As long as you’re alive, you can experience the horror that is your life. In the horror movie, there are many happy moments and good times.

17.  Fascinated by the body’s resilience. Who knew the body had it in him? Admiring the body’s stiff upper lip.

18.  You only go outside at the latest time of night,or rather the earliest time of pitch black morning, rendering the world less visible, knowable, complete. The ground is barely visible and tree shapes and cars appear like ghosts. In this way, you are able to walk around like a floating mind.

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Naotaka Hiro began the process of making his Polar Star drawings by pressing paper against his skin and tracing his body parts and movements. The drawings were then printed full scale as double-sided posters. Asterisks on the eyes, nostrils, nipples, and anus mark fixed points, like guiding stars, on the artist’s body.