Music instruction books pack their pages with notes on how to stand and how to arrange your face—Christopher Reeves listens instead to an array of modernist artists who resist this “meticulous meshing” with the instrument in favor of experimental performance.

Benjamin Williams reads through a state document designed to “assert authority and avoid responsibility”—then shows how artist Pablo Allison flips the page back to humanity and agency.

Melissa Monroe’s poem offers a playful, curio cabinet introduction to the history of trepanning, the procedure of opening up a hole in the skull for therapeutic purposes.