I was reading Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana when I took this photograph. I was between chapters, but close to the end. I had some idea of what was about to happen, some idea of how the book was to end, though some questions remained. Like all great writers, Eco constructs stories that rivet and engage, and occasionally tickle. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is no exception. It riveted, it engaged, it became impossible to put down once a particular shift took place within the narrative, a shift that foretold some small element of the overall ending. I hadn’t quite reached that shift, when I took this photograph: but I was close. I saw this off-center bat (along with other intriguing things) pasted to a garage door, a rather green, cracked, weathered garage door—of the sort common to municipal garages. I saw this off-center bat (along with other intriguing things) while thinking about Queen Loana’s mysterious flame, and what it actually had to do with a novel by Umberto Eco. The novel itself is an intriguing, multi-media experience: well, it’s all print, but a prodigious number of images live within the 449 pages of that brisk-paced tome. The book, though fiction, is an extensive slide show of sorts: a series of images that serve as sparks of memory. The book is fiction, the memories are probably real: Eco’s own memories, fictionalized. The images are of historical importance and they provide an odd, subjective representation of Italy during a particular span of time. The images I captured on the day that I found this (photocopied?) bat are strange—for me—as they bear something in common with the images imbedded within the structure of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. As with all images, this one is associated with the day on which it was taken: a summer day. And yet, it stands outside of that particular time-frame as well. There are other memories associated with it, particularly the memories of the artist responsible for creating the initial image (and then gluing it into place.) There are particular City-memories as well; I’m sure something noteworthy happened in Chicago on the day that this image found its way into camera memory; I’m sure that newspapers from the following day would give a somewhat skewed snapshot of that particular day, though they’d surely make no mention of Corey meeting me after work, or the smell of horse stables not far from my place of employment. And yet… …and yet… I’d planned on posting this a bit sooner than now, but it seems that other things conspired against that plan, and so I’m posting it today. As you can see, it’s a picture of a picture, glued to a municipal garage door. It’s something I saw between chapters of an engaging book with an intriguing cover. Though there are multiple editions of The Mysterious Flame…, I was lucky enough to snag a mint-condition (though used) copy of an early edition: the cover (featuring the detail of a rather improbable beast) is what drew me, and though the bat in this particular image bears nothing in common with something derived from an old Italian poster/book cover, there is an association, and I rather like that. And so here it is: the image of a bat, glued to a green, crackled garage door. The image of a bat, glued to a green, crackled garage door in Chicago, sometime last summer. It’s a memory of sorts, and it’s the seed to something else…fictitious memories as well, and I wonder what interactions a fictional character might have with a fictionalized version of this image. Perhaps I’ll find out…later. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week/end.