let e = the thing Joseph Priestley held in 1770
he probably wrote it down somewhere
let e
= a small square of vegetable gum
warm from a coat pocket. brownish. a little sticky.
brought over from South America on a ship.
Joseph called it "rubber" because it rubbed.
he was charmed by this.
let m
= a pencil mark on white paper
a wrong answer. a crooked line. a word you wrote
when you were sad and didn't mean to keep.
the kind that bread crumbs couldn't fix.
let w
= the wish
you know the one. the one you get at 2am,
looking at something that already happened
and cannot be said to anymore.
↑ tap the letters ↑
· · · ·
∴ the question:
e
×
m
+
w
=
Joseph didn't know.
he was just happy the smudge was gone.
· · · ·
possible values for :
→ someone has to touch the mistake to make it leave
→ what Joseph invented was actually a kind of forgiveness
but smaller
and softer
and pink
· · · ·
∴ if he pressed it against the wrong line—
and the line went away—
what was in his hand?
=
Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) is mostly famous for discovering oxygen.
but in 1770 he picked up a lump of natural rubber — a strange gum
from the Amazon — and rubbed it against a pencil mark, and the mark
went away. he wrote about it in a small note. he named the material
"rubber" for what it could do. then he went back to thinking about air.
he did not know he had also invented the feeling of taking something back.
the equation is still open. you can try to solve it.
most people just call it an eraser.
the equation is still open. you can try to solve it.
most people just call it an eraser.
maybe the equation is unsolvable
because the answer keeps changing
depending on what you needed to erase
and that's okay
Joseph didn't know either
he just thought it was neat
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