Incidentally
Philip Lamantia: View magazine covers (1945)
The term infrathin”first
appeared in print in 1945, when Duchamp conceived the cover of the issue of View
magazine devoted to him. For the front he created a photomontage of a bottle
suspended in space emitting a cloud of gas… on the back is an [infrathin]
aphorism…” And further, this: the “photomontage… resembles a glossary of The
Large Glass: the Milky Way, the gas of the Bachelors (the plume of smoke
emitting from the bottle), the breeding of dust (the dusty appearance of the
bottle), and the brotherhood of Uniforms and Liveries (the label on the
bottle…)” And still more: the “[s]moking bottle [bears] as label a page from
Duchamp’s military service record.”
Incidentally Philip Lamantia ol’ pal Redux
& welcome back NYC avant premier eds (see footer, pls)
It’s been decades (five)
that’s No. 5
Chas Demuth five-alarm gold-on-red
firetruck
Marcel served you all well
So what’s that number spell (you
say)?
the fire
in five, lit world lit canvas
& what’s that stuff — éruption Toy Boy the deuxième?
What a gas protégé Pip entrée surreal (at 16!)
That’s another money shot, captured by
Duch
no blocks for sure
It’s all self-referential aint it
Label this Marcel military service,
honour terminée
Thanks
for sharing: Book Cover for Breton’s Young Cherry Trees Secured Against
Hares (1946)
Jacket covers for André Breton’s book
of poems. Illustration of green robed Statue of Liberty with black & white
photo of the Surrealist poet’s head inserted in place of Liberty’s face. “As is
typical for Duchamp, it is a double image with multiple inferences. It connects
Breton to [Liberty’s] enlightened values… and alludes to his antifascist
activities… At the same time, Duchamp’s transformation of Breton into a female
allegory, though possibly a nod to his own Rrose Sélavy persona, was interpreted
by some of Breton’s friends as mocking the Surrealist poet for his rigidly
homophobic attitude.”
Most folks say surreal, clueless like they say howdy
Liberty unstable, need further family intervention
Hoy! let’s not repeat ourselves just string ’em up
* * *
Lot 424 (at time of writing):
Condition Report: Scattered blooming
foxing to the front and back hardcovers, dust jacket toned, time-staining, the
colors very slightly attenuated, minor skinning at the folds of the dust
jacket, very occasional minute paper losses and/or minute tears at the extreme
edges of the dust jacket (largest measures approx. 1/8 inch barely of note)…
* * *
Goodreads Report:
Sometimes, despite the mesmerizing
descriptions, one wonders what is the artist’s point, and what has one just
read.
— Evelyn, December 6, 2023 (1,432
reviews, 5 followers)
I have been meaning to read the poetry
of André Breton for years. It only took me about 10 years to finally get around
to it (pretty typical for me) but here we are.
I’m still a little unsure what Surrealism is all about but… [it] marked
a definitive cut from the past in terms of our obsession with depicting beauty
in various forms of art. For in the wake of WWI, mankind looked pretty bloody
far from beautiful. We looked awful because we were awful (and still are). Look
what we did to each other and continue to do today… André Breton is considered by many to be the
‘father’ of Surrealism and in a sense he is…
This volume is meant to be one of his more famous volumes of poetry and
some of the poems here are very powerful, even if I couldn’t completely get the
sense of what he was trying to convey.
— Mat, October 9, 2024 (607 reviews, 22
followers)
Our esteemed influencers, Mat &
Eve, & their scores of devoted followers say thanks for sharing…
Poke:
Please Touch (1947)
“Priére de touche (Please Touch), created for the catalogue 1947 exhibition ‘Le Surréalisme en 1947’, in Paris, Duchamp produced a foam-rubber breast with a red nipple mounted on black velvet [& glued to the catalogue’s front cover]. Both in its execution and its title, the work is a perfect example of visual tactility.”
What a boob, Marcel We’re not touching,
it’s a foam-rubber falsie
You’ve got your rubbers mixed up
& we aint pouring…
About as lame as a kid
itching to tell he “got tit
off a
girl”
(feels like touching yr own calf, bfd)
Gross laddishness the world
we came from (Jaysus!)
Duch, we’re in the bag here
Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 23 books and 6 chapbooks in print from Blazevox Books, Chax Press, Ekstasis Editions, Spuyten Duyvil, Thistledown Press, and several others. His work has also appeared as an Ebook (Argotist, UK) and in well over 200 literary journals in Canada, the U.S., England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Croatia, Finland, and Turkey, as well as in eight anthologies, on radio, and on YouTube. His personal papers are archived for scholarly use at Simon Fraser University Library’s “Contemporary Literature Collection.” His website is StephenBett.com