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| Joel Meyerowitz Jeu de Paume 1983 dye transfer print Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Kenneth McGowan Man near Window 1983 C-print Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Duane Michals The Spirit Leaves the Body 1968 gelatin silver prints Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| Francis Luis Mora Window Shopping 1934 oil on canvas Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Hamada Chimei From the Window - 'I haven't done anything' before 1995 etching and aquatint British Museum |
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| Peyman Hooshmandzadeh Untitled 2012 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| John Koch The Window 1947 oil on canvas Brooklyn Museum |
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| Wing Young Huie Marco by Window, Frogtown 1995 gelatin silver print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Alvin Lustig The Red Carnation by Elio Vittorini 1952 lithographic dust-jacket Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Mariano Fortuny Figure reading at a Window before 1874 drawing British Museum |
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| Jay Maisel Boy gesturing in front of Window 1984 dye imbibition print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Lewis Morley Portrait of Joan and Camila Wyndham 1955 gelatin silver print Yale Center for British Art |
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| Cayley Robinson The Old Nurse 1926 tempera on board British Museum |
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| Jo Spence The Highest Product of Capitalism (after John Heartfield) 1979 hand-tinted gelatin silver print Tate Gallery |
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| Walter Stuempfig Desolation ca. 1949 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| George Tooker The Window 1994 lithograph Milwaukee Art Museum |
Appeal to the Grammarians
We, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.
For speechlessness and all its inflections,
For up-ended expectations,
For every time we're ambushed
By trivial or stupefying irony,
For pure incredulity, we need
The inverted exclamation point.
For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
Or felt love or pond ice
Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
The child whose ball doesn't bounce back,
The flat tire at journey's outset,
The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
But mainly because I need it – here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, "See, that's why
I don't like to eat outside."
– Paul Violi (2007)