Withholding attention from one thing is what enables directing it elsewhere.

Evidence

Consider the sash. A flimsy thing. Not an obvious instrument of sabotage (a wrench comes more readily to mind). And given its traditional function as a blindfold, the sash may even appear to contradict our commitment to the freedom of perception. But the sash, like every tool, is mutable. It begs to be played with. And nothing could be simpler! With the sash about your eyes (your gaze thereby refused to the eyeball merchants), mark how your hearing grows more acute. Feel the rumble of the ground beneath your feet. Now remove it. Examine the back of your hand (that clichéd site of the always-already-known). Look weird? Unfamiliar? Maybe even…beautiful? … The sash stands for our ability to withhold our attention from one thing, and therefore, to direct it elsewhere. It represents the right to refuse the world as it is presented to us. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 254

Categorization

• XREF: The sash reimagining inverts the usual blindfold-of-impartiality reading, echoing prior chapters’ reworkings of Lady Justice.