38. 1962, Oklahoma

The MiraculousFebruary 2023Music

A teenager in Oklahoma City who is destined to become one of the most respected guitarists in the world but also fated to die at 43 from a heroin overdose in a Los Angeles laundromat covets more than anything else in the world a 1954 Fender Telecaster sitting in the window of a local music store. Year after year the unsold guitar remains temptingly on display and each time he drives past the store he is compelled to go in and play it for a few minutes. Finally, at the age of 18, he is able to afford the $209-plus-tax price tag. By now, the guitar has been sitting in the store window for eight years, but it is still essentially brand new when he takes possession of it.

(Jesse Ed Davis)

Raphael Rubinstein is the New York-based author of The Miraculous (Paper Monument, 2014) and A Geniza (Granary Books, 2015). Excerpts from his recently completed book Libraries of Sand about the Jewish-Egyptian writer Edmond Jabès have appeared in Bomb, The Fortnightly Review and 3:AM Magazine. In January 2023, Bloomsbury Academic will publish a collection of his writing titled Negative Work: The Turn to Provisionality in Contemporary Art. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Houston School of Art.