Readers will probably understand from written instructions that the task of preparing lithography stones can be slow and physically demanding. A detail in the updated Tamarind Techniques for Fine Art Lithography also worth noting is that ‘careful attention is needed for this and all other aspects of lithography’ (Devon, Hamon, and Lagattuta 2008, p.126). Reflecting on the significance of this sometimes lengthy process, my tentative proposal is that, if understood as a form of contemplative labour, limestone graining may offer a way to think about the quality of the ‘careful attention’ needed for lithography. However, far from a silent meditative activity, graining stones is also noisy. Likewise, in this account attention and noise are equally present as the indivisible aspects of a mode of perceptual awareness that I propose is familiar to lithographers. This paradoxical coupling, I suggest, might also reveal the nature of the language engendered by the synchronic vibrations between inscribing flesh and limestone matrices