Blindman and Blast

 For this post, I've found a page from Blindman No. 2 that depicts a somewhat animal type figure with a vaguely human like head. The poem underneath says, "Recharge, please, recharge/ avec la chimie de ta salive/ l'accumlateur de mon coeur." This translates to mean, "Recharge, please, recharge/ with the chemistry of your saliva/ storage battery of my heart." I thought this poem along with the image made quite the comparison of a human to an animalistic being and then of a human to a machine. By implying that the heart is a battery that needs to be recharged, and that said battery needs to be recharged by someone else, the author creates the notion that the human is the victim of someone else- of whoever the poem is directed at. The human is both morphed with the machine and perhaps that causes the animalistic representation above the poem- because they are not entirely human. 

In reading the poem, I was immediately reminded of the cover of the war issue of Blast. The people depicted on the cover are drawn using very harsh lines and look almost as though they are made out of metal. Then, they are shown in a line and their arms are pointed out, at which point it appears that they are morphed into guns. This creates a very strong image of the human being one with the machine, like the poem I mentioned above. Because this depicts France during wartime, I think it suggests that French citizens at this time act like slaves to the machine. They go out and fight not because they want to, but because they are told to and they have these guns that they must use. The individual does not matter after he has picked up a gun and joined the armed forces. Then he looks like the men-machines depicted on the cover, like every other man, and he has the main purpose of fighting. 

http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=114459533...

http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/blindman/2/07.htm

Comments

 In looking at the picture again, I've changed my mind and decided that the picture looks like a human head on a piano. I think that makes more sense with the poem in the sense of a human morphed with a machine. It still doesn't quite explain the battery thing, though.