In trying to rediscover these ancient processes (specifically granulation) Corvaja has become an interesting mixture of ancient and cutting edge artisan himself. Though he alloys all his own metal for example and manufactures his own ingots, the studio equipment he uses is decidedly modern including a microscope, a super-charged water torch, and a host of self-designed items like a graphite crucible and a sapphire hammer and anvil. This combination of modern technology and ancient technique has allowed him to create work which in many ways outdoes his Etruscan predecessors⊕ and evidently pushed his materials to their limit. I’m fond of it in any case. For more images and info see: Galerie-Slavik, V&A collection, V&A audio, Abovo Gallery, and The Scottish Gallery.

It seemed very odd, my bulb not working, because honestly I liked this light. It’d been very reliable, illuminating the darkness for me hundreds of times… hundreds of thousands of times probably! Well, for as long as I can remember, let’s just put it that way. Since I was a kid… there was me, the darkness, and my light bulb. Simple as that. I’d be hanging around in some darkened, dim, dingy, drab, dull place, thinking about nothing or some synonym of nothing… and ZAP! the light bulb would go on, everything becoming perfectly and pleasantly clear. Good times… really good in retrospect. No more though.

I’m still here obviously, and so is the darkness. But the bulb? It just hangs there, dead and stubborn as all hell. 

I know what you’re going to ask and the answer is yes. I shook it… not even a hint of that musical “tinkerbell humping an ice chip” sound. The filament is fine. And yes, I checked the screw thread and the foot contact. I looked it over, wasn’t much else to do… I had to squint, obviously, but I looked, believe me. There was nothing wrong with that bulb, except for the whole “not working at all” thing.

Truth be told until today I had basically given up. I’d accepted that my light bulb wasn’t coming back. I’d sunk into reminiscences… all the good times we’d had… all the times we’d laughingly beat back the darkness, feeling clever and accomplished. I’d begun trying to conjure the bulb’s warm light in my mind. I ran down a list of all the things that made my bulb such a very great bulb. I did every pointless weepy god-damned thing a person does when faced with a feeling of inexplicable loss, and the bulb, like all dead things, didn’t notice or care. If it had had a gastrointestinal track (and wasn’t under vacuum) it might have farted a little.

Today though… today I looked at the bulb again.

I promised myself it’d be the last time, the casket viewing, because as much as I missed my light bulb I didn’t want to be one of those nuts who keeps a corpse in the house, all dressed up in an easy chair, with lipstick and a hat on, pretending the awful stink is potpourri. I had to let the thing go and accept my new seat in the shadows. So I approached the bulb (with a decorum befitting a one-person wake for an inanimate object)... picked it up gingerly, lovingly… I rolled it gently over my palm… and I squinted at it as hard as I could there in the dark. Which is of course when I noticed…

My light bulb was a HUGE dick.

Now don’t get all “uh-oh! I didn’t sign on for this!” I don’t mean that literally. I’m not trying to cleverly explain to you that I was standing there in the dark “gingerly and lovingly” rolling a huge penis over the palm of my hand. What I mean is that, standing there, squinting, I realized my light bulb was a HUGE dick… as in GIANT asshole… as in a schmuck, a creep, a real honest to goodness glass bastard.

Though it admittedly took me far too long, today, I finally noticed the not so subtle cues my light bulb had been offering me all along. Go ahead, take a look at the photo above and see for yourself. Can you believe the balls on that bulb?! Imagine me there in the dark, all sniveling… “oh light bulb, please don’t die, what good times we’ve had!  I can’t go on without you!” and the damned thing just sitting there, laughing at me the whole time… un-fucking-believable. 

Well I’ll tell you what, even without this prick light bulb I managed a little epiphany. It’s not exactly brilliant and shining, it hasn’t left me feeling “clever and accomplished,” but seeing as how it could very possibly be my last, squinting and in the dark as I am, I feel compelled to write it down-

Q: How many light bulbs does it take to screw a person?

A: Just one.