Untitled
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What you see is an artwork: black paper perhaps glued to off-white paper—or maybe it’s all just ink?—with the artist’s signature and some writing, some of which reads, “Mrs. Chas. Tobias Saratoga 26 Aug 1844.” The artist’s signature begins with “Aug” too—so maybe a month made this thing? Or a guy named Augustin/a gal named Augustine? I won’t describe any more. See for yourself. At least you have a page. I’ve been working off a screen, a PDF.
What you might not see, however—what no one else I’d forwarded the image around to has seen—seems obvious to me: It’s a visual representation of the Jewish Question—it’s that question, or an approximate interrogatory, turned into a child(ish) riddle.
I say this because I was told in advance—the only thing that Josh Lambert told me in advance—that this was a Jewish image. The people depicted in it are, or might be, or might have something to do with, Jews. But then, what’s on that chair between them? At first I saw a cock—by which I mean a rooster—a male chicken. On second look, it was a dog—a tiny little yapping doggie. Maybe a poodle. Maybe a toy poodle. Be impressed—mine is the first generation of the Cohen family that can name more than four breeds of dogs.
What had been the cock’s crown and beak were now decorative bows; its plumage was a pouf-tail. Also, cocks are bipeds, with wings, and this animal—this canine—clearly has more limbs, and is wingless. I count three limbs in total, meaning, if it’s a canine, that one appendage is either obscured or missing (“s/he answers to Lucky”)...
Was it the artist Aug’s intention that this image be (intentionally) misread? I’m going to say no, though I want to say yes. Because here’s the question; rather, here’s a questioning/questionable answer to that immemorial who’s-a-Jew-who’s-not-a-Jew problem—basically, here’s our Semitic Rorschach:
If you see a cock, you’re a Yid.
If you see a doggie dog, you’re a goy (like Rorschach was)—you’re an American or, even worse, a yecca.
As for the chair—it looks like one of those chairs that Kafka used to draw. [End Page 95]
Joshua Cohen has written novels (Book of Numbers, Witz, A Heaven of Others, Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto), short fiction (Four New Messages), and nonfiction for Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, London Review of Books, Bookforum, and others. His next novel, An Occupation, will be published by Random House in 2017.
