For a modest trade, I got six color images from the Allen Ruppersberg exhibit currently at the Santa Monica Museum, "You and Me or The Art of Give and Take." Ruppersberg is giving away new photocopies, a particular edit of a specific collection of found photographs. I chose my favorites, six glossy pages from "The Never Ending Book Part 2/Art and Therefore Ourselves," by Allen Ruppersberg.

Six Pages

1. A scratch in the print from across a parade marshall's shoulder to the eyes of twenty-seven women. A turned over table... Ohio? Fedoras, ties, light in the grass, the tops of men's heads cropped out.

2. CONTENTS (These songs checked off with a pencil): Beautuiful Ohio; Come, Josephine, In My Flying Machine; That's Why They Call Me Shine.

3. A reunion photograph at #708... The twelve dressed-up women are all the same age, all around 80.

4. I creased this page, the circle in the middle of the record, Columbia Gramaphone Company: “Your Boy Is On The Coal Pile Now.”

5. A label on four photographs in an album: "Here is farm Mom wanted to buy. You will note Don headed for the wood shed for ‘sumptin.’" Four photographs on one Ruppersberg page: the truck, the farm, the horse, and the shed. Standing in front of the truck, tonight, the circus?

6. A woman, cropped at the bowtie, thin gold leaf arcs enshrine her; she has a look like she is watching the second hand move around the face of a clock, or maybe she has just remembered something only vaguely amusing.

The Same Six Pages Reshuffled

1. Goodbye, Beautiful Ohio. To California in my flying machine, past the lines of farms and farmers. I left my hat on the leg of a turned over table. Nevada? Coal piles, letters, light in the grass, a shingled roof, and slatted w ooden fence.

2. Another parade down the street, shutters, the bushes need trimming. One woman at the back of the crowd wearing a glowing white dress catches the eye of the camera, full toothy grin.

3. I creased the bottom right hand corner of this page, the circle in the middle of the record, Columbia Graphophone Company: I've Waited, Honey, Waited Long For You.

4. There is a photograph of the reunion. There are three sides with a white margin around the photograph; there are three sides with a black border (light blue grid inset). The copier imposes a white border.

5. I am happy here in this house, you holding the reins, a peppermint candy for Rose tucked in the breast pocket of your leather jacket. You pet the dog. I won't marry you, but I love you. This our farm, Honey.

6. A soundtrack of ukulele. Piano arrangement by [page cropped here].

- Marcus Civin

(Images courtesy of the Santa Monica Musuem and the artist:Allen Ruppersberg, The Gift and the Inheritance (Les Fleurs du Mal), 1989, pencil on paper, 58.8 x 66.7 cm, Collection of Christine Burgin, New York, Photograph: Bruce Morr; Allen Ruppersberg, The Never Ending Book Part Two/Art and Therefore Ourselves, Detail, 2009, Mixed Media, Dimensions Variable, Photograph: Bruce Morr)