49 - § 1029 - at the invitation of the journal “Etant donné /
Marcel Duchamp” I meet with Jean Suquet, in his dwelling,
49 1 On the day after the eve before,
49 1 1 one of tomorrow’s thoroughly mapped regions:
they are indeed distinct from eves
49 1 1 1 which is why one says: “tomorrow is
no eve”
49 2 during which I delivered a second talk, rather orally
tiresome because the creakiness in my voice pained the
beginnings of my long, profound parentheses
49 2 1 always hesitating over how they might be spoken
49 2 1 1 and I fear I may have over
hesitated, saying I was hesitant, stating that I
had to return far into previous pages to locate
the point of the parenthetical insertion, which
is easily understood; but, by speaking in this
manner, I had hoped to impart the exact trouble
49 2 1 2 I can always test an other system
in a subsequent discussion
49 3 at the invitation of the journal “Etant donné / Marcel
Duchamp”, I meet, in his dwelling, Jean Suquet, the man who sought
49 3 1 as one pursues the Grail, or hunts the Beast
Glatisant
49 4 for the entirety of his life, in the most removed recesses of
the work, in the paintings, in the Boîtes, and in the Grand Verre,
the “amour de loin” of MD, that trobar clus poet, the evaporating-
blinding-luminous trace, that obscure triangle,
49 5 the wedded-Snark, the Lady of impenetrable senhal
49 3 1 the defining quality of all senhal
49 3 1 1 revealing to those who know what he
hides from the ignorant, all the while hiding
some thing other than what he reveals, revealing
some thing other than what he hides
49 3 1 1 1 the trobar always
undertakes ‘something other,’
simultaneously black within light,
luminous in obscurity
49 6 even self-same
49 4 1 even, even
50 - § 1030 - Intimidated as one is in the presence of passion and
a tape recorder.
50 1 Intimidated as one is in the presence of passion
50 1 1 and a tape recorder
50 2 I dare not ask him, prolonging the analogical rails into early
13th century Provence, if, within the climate of the trobar,
50 3 one could fairly characterize the famous célibataires as
lozengiers
50 3 1 the ‘naysayers’ who interrupt the canso’s
passage to its necessarily hidden addressee
50 3 2 even if self-same
50 3 3 a troubadour always already being a lozengier
to himself ....
50 3 3 1 and by kindness
50 3 3 1 1 a senhal to Joe
Bousquet’s detractor
50 4 Upon leaving I repent for my silence
50 4 1 rehearsing what I could have said better, more
completely
50 5 and swear to repair it swiftly, epistolarily
50 5 1 oops!
50 6 meanwhile I preemptively write answers to eighteen written
questions and
50 6 1 seizing the occasion by the locks that
question 5 offers me
50 6 1 1 respond, in fact, rather beside the
point, and yet
51 - § 1031 - On one occasion, I recreated, at length, a series
of remarks,
51 1 On one occasion, I recreated, at length, a series of remarks,
culled from the mass of poetic remarks I’ve been accumulating for
years, in slices of 317
51 1 1 ordered in a purely chronological fashion and
numbered like successive, instantaneous meditations
51 2 under the general theme ‘Duchamp and the Oulipo’
51 2 1 I limit my culling to the most recent remarks;
the earliest are not very removed from my moment of entry
to the Oulipo
51 2 1 1 at which time Duchamp’s absent
presence surprised me
51 2 1 2 the reader
51 2 1 2 1 I’ll profit from the
occasion
51 2 1 3 is hereby invited to consult, with
regards to Duchamp, (the Oulpian) Paul Braffort’s
work
51 3 reprinting the numbers from my register of remarks, while
prefacing each with letters, respecting their order in the sequence,
as follows
51 3 1 now interspersing
51 3 1 1 in writing, when there’s space or,
orally, as I present in the seminar
51 3 2 comments where necessary
51 3 2 1 clarifications, corrections if need
be
51 3 2 1 1 but without adding on
51 4 Some remarks
a - 3805 – The twentieth century harbored a dream, that of becoming,
all by oneself, the entirety of the avant-garde (that dream was
shared by Breton, Sollers, Debord, etc).
a 1 – and numerous others of greater or lesser note.
To be the avant-garde; to be alone as the avant-garde;
to be the avant-garde above all others. As noted by dada:
"there are those who antedated their manifestos in order
to have you believe that they had first come upon the idea
of their own greatness earlier than the others"
a 2 – it never hurts to reread the Sept Manifestes Dada,
from time to time
a 3 – besides, Duchamp was first and foremost dada; he
becomes surrealist
merely by convenience, idleness, and misunderstanding
b - 3806 – The means by which Breton (and others) articulated this
dream were naïve and crude. The more elegant expression was
Duchamp’s.
– b1 –in a different register of elegance, more obviously
megalomaniacal to the cognoscenti, yet hidden to the
century’s ignorant, one might also
cite the general project envisioned by François Le
Lionnais,
- b 1 1 – whose name is absent from the
Robert of proper names and the Larousse 2000!
c - 3815 – Duchamp’s 1938 suit-case project (‘an album of
approximately all the things I have produced’ (Letter to Katherine
Dreier, 1935)) approximates the so-called Warburg ‘Mnemosyn’ project,
except his is an auto-Mnemosyn.
- c 1 – for more on the Mnemosyn project see, in this same
work, my own,
chapter 1 of branche 5 [(La bibliothèque de Warburg)]
d - 3816 - With the invention of the Ou-x-pos, F.L.L. (François Le
Lionnais) outduchamped Duchamp.
- d 1 – I don’t know if, for FLL, it was a conscious effort
of one-upmanship
e - 3817 -F.L.L. was a Duchamp-Douanier Rousseau.
- e 1 – in writing remark –e – I opted of the hypothesis
of a relatively naïve FLL. I’m less sure of that today,
being less naïve myself; hence d 1 .
f - 3818 -F.L.L = François le Duchampi.
- f 1 – same caveat as e 1
g - 3819 - That readymades are readymade-in-France or, more
precisely, in French.
- g 1 – now I would even say ‘Frenchglish’
h - 3820 – These remarks (3815-3819) are impropperizations of
Duchamp.
- h 1 – Popper, proper; propp; unfalsifiable propositions;
porno-flic poppers of stupefying images etc.
i - 3821 – “Duchamp” against the blowhards: abstract expressionism.
- i 1 – possibly excessive reflection; in fact, I longer
quite see the pertinence; and, there are so many other
contemporary blowhards
51 5
j - 3822 - Duchamp is not an artist; not a non-artist; not an
anti-artist. Duchamp is a non-non-artist.
- j 1 – I know I am contradicting the received doxa in
Duchampian matters, just as I am contradicting numerous
claims by Duchamp himself; but this hypothesis appears to
unique in aligning attitudes that otherwise appear to be
contradictory. I’m not saying that contradictions are
impossible in Duchamp. Indeed, we could allow for
variations over time. Nonetheless…
k - 3823 -What renders Duchamp relevant is never ex falso quodlibet.
- k 1 – anything but the ‘anything goes’ that some
néo-Duchampian artists have raised to the rank of dogma
l - 3824 – Rather, Duchamp’s art is une cosa tilleul-menthale.
- k 1 no comment
m - 3825 - Duchamp follows Alphonse Allais. And, going even further
back, he follows the poet fascinated with essentially bachelor
machines (the phonograph, color photography, and mechanisms for
communicating with planets), Charles Cros
- m 1 Duchamp’s well-known interest in Alphonse Allais has
been excessively linked the latter’s attention to word
games. But let’s not forget Allais the experimenter,
friend to the discoverer of fluorine and future Nobel
prize winner, inventor of monochromes
- m 1 1 which he treat ‘à la duchamp’ by giving
them titles
- m 2 as well as various machines, such as the one that
would eliminate rubber’s essential property, “the
elasticity that makes it improper for so many uses.”
n - 3826 - Readymades as incomprehensible without Rrose Sélavy
(works)
- n 1 coda on a theme I had already frequently evoked in
my previous remarks: the role played by language, more
precisely “Frenchglish”; and, in both cases, the
preponderant role accorded to fixed expressions, or
“langage cuit”
- n 2 statement of Duchmapian Desnos
- n 2 1 let’s not forget that Desnos is the only
Surrealist for whom Duchamp did not merely
represent a Press-book prop for the sect; Desnos
actually followed his example, in poetry
- n 2 2 these precise conditions were
reproduced for Roussel. Contrary to Breton,
Desnos took a passionate interest in what the
author Impressions d’Afrique wrote
o - 3827 Rrose Sélavy (sayings): readymades of speech.
o 1 – such manipulations of fixed expression (langage
cuit) approximates the material bricolage of manufactured
objects
o 2 an example, recounted by Mina Loy, appears in étant
donné Marcel Duchamp n°1 p.82 : One day, in 1917, Mina Loy
took a seat between, Arthur Cravan, whom she called the
Colossus, and Marcel: “Where the Colossus was heavy-handed,
Marcel possessed prestidigital ease; he knew how to
insinuate his hand under a woman’s bodice with utter grace.
One might well say,he ventured, his beautiful aerodynamic
face pressed up against mine, Madame, you have pretty
satin panties [Madame, vous avez un joli caleçon de satin].
One might also say, he concluded with a naughty kiss,
Madame, you have a dirty slut’s slit [Madame, vous avez
un sale con de catin].”
o 2 1 - the permutations of consonants runs
as follows: c-s-s ---> s-c-c; thus, not a strict
spoonerism, yet the strategy is quite the same:
first what one may say, then what one may not.
51 6
p - 3828 FLL’s major creation: the Oupoumpo. Oupoumpo refers
(metaphorically and metaeuphorically) to the “inductive limit” (in a
purely metaphorical sense, I’ll insist) of the ou-ou-.... - x - ....
-po- .... - po for all “x,” (supposedly
managing adequate transformations from one “x” to another).
- p 1 I believe it necessary to modify the received
definition of the ou-x-po—recently laid bare—that the
Collège de Pataphysique seems intent on plying to its own
ends. In effect, for the varied and otherwise arbitrary
“x”s, that definition imagines the “ou-x-pos” as a disparate
collection in which the sole common feature is a rather
vague idea of potentiality
- p 1 1 - and often, as is evinced in the
Oucinépo, of a purely pataphysical character
- p 2 and the adoption, via simple transpositions, of
Oulipian techniques, mostly selected from the oldest and
simplest constraints.
- p 3 besides, it is clear that an ouvroir of “x” is of
interest if and only if two conditions are met:
- the practiced constraints must be chosen in accordance
with the specific needs of the “x” at hand
- the constraint systems of the ou-x-po in question must
illustrate, in the case of that “x,” the particularization
of a general and universal conception of potentiality.
- p 4 The principles of this conception, the future
foundation of the 0upoumpo, have not fully come to light.
- p 5 There is yet another condition integral to the
Oupoumpo, cast as the arch over the different “ou-x-pos,”
as the pillars that support and separate them (“coiffant”):
the “ou-x-pos” would be related via metaphors, interlinked
via “transitional morphisms.”
- p 6 The base material for a theory of Universal
Potentiality has, for the moment, only found expression
in the Oulipo, for the other ouvroirs, created later, are
still too closely its model. Today we have but crude
sketches of a possible Oupoumpo.
- q - 3829 “Duchamp” against the blowpopulahards: Warhol, for
instance.
- q 8 He takes himself far too seriously. He ought not be
taken seriously. Duchamp, au contraire, does not take
himself seriously, yet he ought to be taken seriously.
- r 3830 By “Duchamp” I mean a certain abstraction-modelization of
the well known Marcel Duchamp one rather removed from the darling of
contemporary art theory and marketeering.
- s 3831 I should also remark that I’ve begun writing “Duchamp”
as DuDuchamp (as, in French, one says Lalangue).
- s 1 - like LaLangue, DuDuchamp is hard to grasp; it has
boojum aspects; it reminds me of Duduche, my sister’s cat,
daughter of Duchat, Georges Perec’s pussy. When some
unauthorized hand stretched out to pet her, she did not
scratch, did not protest, but so severely raised her hair
and arched her back that it was strictly impossible to
touch her, a gesture she completed utterly dispassionately
and with perfect politeness: very Duduchampian.
- t 3832 (rem. 3825, 3828) The DuDuchamp heralds the Oupoumpo.
- t 1 the Oupoumpian project of Universal Potentiality will
need to account for DuDuchamp.
- t 2 that’s when pataphysics will find its real place
- u 3833 The Oupoumpisme implies a radical oulipisme.
- u 1 one aspect of a radical oulipisme: in examining
each constraint, separate the generalizable from the
non-generalizable in matters beyond language arts. More
particularly, for all specifically linguistic constraints,
examine which languages might exploit it, which not.
- u 1 1 the lipogram, for example, begs that
question; S+7 with yet more gravity
- v 3834 The Oupoumpo, completed and corrected by DuDuchamp, brings
into focus the quotient of naïveté native to the Oulipo’s first
conception (possibly influenced by the word “literature”).
- v 1 I cannot be certain, truthfully speaking, that such
a “naïveté” inhabited the cofounders. Yet it seems to me
that it is behind FLL’s methods. As a result, he overlooks
the reach of his invention.
- v 1 1 we, his disciples, we see further? Hmm.
Perhaps that naïveté inhabits us.
- w 3840 The idea of the readymade anticipates that of potentiality
52 - § 1000 – The idea of the readymade was an ironic anticipation of
Oulipian potentiality
52 1 The idea of the readymade was an ironic anticipation of
Oulipian poetentiality
52 1 1 t That is, it already implied a critique of its
most demented hopes.
52 2
- x 3845 Duchamp’s “boxes” tend toward reproducibility. But not the
mechanical reproducibility Benjamin thought through. Rather a de luxe
reproducibility.
- y 3899 Above all, the Great Glass is a language-game.
- y 1 Welll, nearly. My remarks occasionally overstep an
all too clear thinking.
- z 3900 On Duchamp’s tomb: “Besides, others always die". The
operative word is “besides.”
- z 1 it enjoys the same status as “self-same”
- aa 3901 Neo-duchampians must be told: du champ! du champ!
- ab 3902 (rem. 3822; ici ‘j’) Reiterating: ...is not a painter.
52 3
- ac 3942 Duchamp works in language arts.
- ac 1 but that’s too weak: he works, above all, the art
of language
52 4
- ad 3943 Mr Tomkins (Duchamp’s biographer) does not know that
Duchamp is part of the Oulipo. He simply cannot understand Duchamp.
52 5
- ae 4081 - Duchamp: le title is the proper name of the work of art.
see remark on Laforgue.
- ae 1 somewhere he states that it is the titles that
most please him in Laforgue.
- af 4082 - Duchamp: what’s not moot in his work, I mean what’s not
yet claimed by art history, anticipates the Oulipo.
- af 1 and that which generalizes the Oulipo: the
Oumpoumpo
- af 2 this said, the works themselves are not “moot” by
mere fact of having been absorbed by the art movement.
I withdraw “moot.”.
52 6
- ag D, is a PL(agiarist)(by)ANT(icipation) of the Oulipo.
(he’s what I call a PLANT)
- ah 4083 - Ready-made: poetic genre.
53 - § 1033 - All words are ready-mades.
53 1
- ai 4084 – All words are ready-mades. Queneau underlines this fact
in Le Chiendent.
- ai 1 Dictionaries and catalogues of manufacturing: same
battle
- aj 4085 – Fixed forms of expression boiled hard in the cauldron
of poems. [Langage cuit dans le faitou des poèmes.]
53 2
- ak 4086 - Duchamp held an unassailable belief in the most
conventional idea of art and literature. To think that what he does
as an example of anti-art or anti-literature is utterly erroneous.
He furthers art and literature by other, newer means.
- ak 1 FLL and Queneau did not commit this error of
judgment. In truth, they had learned the lessons of the
surrealist catastrophe.
53 3
- aL 4091 – The all-made in the c-all-dron [Le tout-fait dans le
fait-tout (or faitout; word dated 1900 by the Petit Robert of 1970)]
- aL 1 Expressions as-phy-xiated. [langage cuit à
l’est-tout-fait.]
- am 4093 - Duchamp (DuDuchamp) puts literature (or, more exactly
literature under constraint) above art. He submits art to literature.
- am 1 see above
- an 4094 – MD: prefiguration of FLL.
- ap 4095 - MD: a bit dandy, a bit farce (dandy-Dandin)
- aq 4096 – From the stand point of tradition, meter and poetic
forms are ready-mades of poetry.
- aq 1 but what of a ready-made of an obsolete
manufactured object? Or, worse, entirely vanished? Such is
the state of abandoned meters.
53 4
- ar 4098 - (in a note from 1913 in Boîte Blanche: "can one
create works (œuvres) that are not art?") again, the vast idea of
art.
- ar 1 playing on the ambiguity oeuvre-art. The drift is
clear: all is art. Or else: nothing is art
- as 4099 - readymade: ‘raie des vierges’ i.e. the object that has
yet to be made (into a work).
- as 1 this is how I slip into wordplay, a practice
I would not recommend when talking about Duchamp is
at hand.
- as 1 1 similarly, constructions like ‘an x
is an x is an x is an x,’ ought to be avoided
when speaking of Gertrude Stein
- as 1 1 1 especially when it is
forgotten that Stein’s formula, ‘A rose
is a rose is a rose is a rose,’ boasts
three roses to the right of the
predicate.
53 5
- as 4100 - when classifying readymades, André Gervais
differentiates between the ‘titled’ and ‘untitled.’ But they are
always titled by their generic name. If there is a specific,
explicit title, then readymade is always the subtitle. The title
might well be oblique (c.f. bottle-rack or hedgehog). The same
conditions apply to the sonnet; and, to all poetic form.
53 6
- at 4101 - MD’s defintion of the readymade - May 1960:
"A ready-made: first, this is the word I’ve taken to designate a
work of art which isn’t one; in other words, that isn’t a work made
by hand, by the hand of the artist. It is a work of art that becomes
a work of art because I, or the artist declares it a work of art
without requiring the slightest intervention by the said artist’s
hand.” This is not true. The hand of the artist is in the title,
in the signature, it is everywhere. Le rest, the object, enjoys the
same status as color in easel painting.
- au 4102 Definition of the readymade – Oct. 1963: "... not the act
of an artist, but of a non-artist, an artisan if you want". Certainly
not ‘a non-artist.’ ‘Artisan,’ of course, see the Oulipo.
- au 1 - it’s reference to the Troubadours, and to the
Rhétoriqueurs, who call themselves ‘facteurs,’ makers.
Ouvroir, ouvrage d’art. [Workshop, work of art].
54 - § 1034 - Gargantua’s ass-wipes, are they readymades?
54 1
- av 4103 - Gargantua’s ass-wipes, are they readymades?
- aw 4104 - (4101=at) Besides, Duchamp describes the title as
‘invisible color.’
54 2
- ax 4105 - A photograph is a readymade of a piece of world: the
artist’s hand is decisively implied in choosing the piece.
- ax 1 The manufacturer is implied in the arbitrary cut
of the negative
- ay 4106 – Duchampian practice is a belated response to the
invention of photography.
- ay 1 we have seen, we can see: photography’s imitation
of art; art’s imitation of photography; photography’s
imitation of art imitating nature; nature’s imitation of
photography, and many other methods. Duchampian strategy
consists of taking photography as creating ready-mades of
the world.
- az 4107 - The moment of shooting the object that becomes a
readymade is an illumination. Having become a work of literary art,
the readymade bears the worn shadow of that illumination. That
shadow follows it for the course of its life’s work. Photographs can
seize it in one of its states. (see the note on Boîte verte)
- az 1 i can’t remember which. But it’s there.
- ba 4110 – When, speaking of Bicycle wheel, the first readymade to
be recognized as such, after the fact, when, much later, Duchamp
says, “I had not intended to make of it a work” or again “I did not
call it a work of art,” he merely indicates that perhaps he
continues to conserve the received idea of art.
- ba 1 and in any case, if that had really been his
intension, he not succeed.
- ba 2 and it is perfectly normal to consider a
ready-made a work of art.
- bb 4111 - The familial resemblance of Duchamp’s readymades: they
are material artifacts
-bb 1 Duchamp, in an interview from 1965 (in Fin 6
[June, 2000]): “in sum, all these ready-mades are fairly
different one from the other… so different that there is
not, if you will… a familial air between them …” Well!
To the contrary, I would say there is an overtly designed
resemblance between them: the ‘ready-made’ family. There is
more resemblance between them than between two paintings,
even by the same painter, even by the same painter depicting
the same ‘subject.’
- bc 4112 - (generalisation of a remark by H.P. Roché). Readymades
are objects of meditation.
- bc 1 - the difference between the word in a dictionary
and the same word in a poem
54 3
- bd 4112bis Extending the domain of the Oulipo: Readymades, for
example. How? By considering that readymades are Laputian.
- bd 1 Swift is un PLANT (Plagiarist by Anticipation) of
Duchamp
- bd 1 1 I’ve chosen the abbreviation PLANT in
order to indicate that plagiarists anticipation
are put where they are while waiting to be
recognized for what they really are: Oulipian
works.
54 4
- be 4122 When Duchamp is working for surrealism, from the thirties
to the fifties, he really is on his game. Why? Because he takes works
that have nothing to do with surrealism, like the ready-mades, and he
turns them into surrealist art. The same gesture that transformed the
non-artistic object into art becomes a gesture that renders banal the
act of inventing the ready-made.
- be 1 what the surrealist are capable of admitting in the
ready-made is the avant-gardist act of destruction; that
is, the element of the practice that is most passée today
- be 2 perhaps I am being excessively severe. We might well
also reflect that Duchamp makes due with what he has—that
is, the support of the surrealists, even if they do not
really understand the deeper sense of his practice
54 5
- bf 4123 A poem I wrote, inspired by Duchamp:
Poem beginning *
- bf 1 in the OULIPO-Compendium, the smart presentation/
anthologie of the Oulipo in English (eds. Harry Mathews of
the Oulipo and Alistair Brotchie), there is a reprint of an
Oulipian prose poem by Duchamp, The, ‘written directly in
English,’ and followed by this set of instructions: "replace
each* with the word: the”
- bf 2 voici le début du poème:
- bf 3
“The
If you come into * linen, your time is thirsty because *
ink saw some wood intelligent enough to get giddiness from
a sister.
- bf 4 only the title makes it into bf 4123; the text of
my poem results from substituting * for every occurrence
of the letters t-h-e in a poem by Zukofsky. I hereby offer
you lines 1 through 7
- bf 5
1 *
2 Voice of Jesus I. Rush singing
3 in * wilderness
4 A boy’s best friend is his mo*r,
5 It’s your mo*r all * time.
6 Residue of Oedipus-faced wrecks
7 Creating out of * dead
..............................................
- bg 4124 The effect of distance, of imperfection (4122) is
accentuated by Breton’s veritably bovine incomprehension. For him,
Duchamp works only as a commercial (advert).
- bg 1 (on 11/18/2000) Jean Suquet rightly points out
that I’m engaging in crude, primary, and summary
anti-Bretonism.
- bh - 4125 ready-once-made
- bh 1 after so many years, ready-mades are like
Cléopâtre’s combs: so distant, so strange
- bi 4126 rm (ready-made)=photo in 3 dimensions
- bj 4127 The ‘ final millimeter,’ where is art: the signature.
- bk 4128 who says Duchamp says ready-made; reciprocally, who says
ready-made says Duchamp. Are there rm s other than Duchamp’s?
- bk 1 project: turn all objets in the monde into r.m.:
entitle & sign.
- bL 4129 In law, all rm s are Duchamp’s.
- bL 1 as we can say: all sonnets are Petrarque’s sonnets
- bm 4130 Duchamp appropriated the world of the manufactured, as
composed of works of art.
54 6
- bn 4131 The polemic over Duchamp’s massive authorization of
replicas of rm s is comical. But his
answer, or his refusal to answer, is also comical. In fact, he did
not know how or did not want to answer seriously. Duchamp had to
replicate his rm s. Otherwise, over time they would cease to
conserve (4125) their distinctive properties, which is contradictory.
- bo 4132 Either little-a: an object from the manufactured world.
Or rm(little-a): its ready-made; in other words, ‘little-a
+ authenticator.’ Rm(little-a) is a work
of art. But, according to Duchamp, it is also a non-work of art.
He is right. But if non art, one can ready-make-it. One needs only
replicate. It is therefore replication (rm(little-a)) that becomes
the work (devient oeuvre). The operator rm can be applied
several times. The rm must be replicated. Otherwise, it is but a
work of art.
- bp 4133 Prior to being replicated, an rm must be duplicated: its
property as a non-work of art warrant it. An authenticated duplicate
becomes a replica.
- bq 4134 The replica, arising
from the ready-made treatment itself as a object manufactured by the
intermediary of the duplicates (which must be numerous), is not the
contrafactum, itself a new version of the ready-made.
- br 4135 The rm evinces a hatred of photography.
- bs 4136 No ready-made is flat.
- bs 1 to my knowledge
- bt 4137 In surveying the list of ready-mades, I see neither
typescript, nor print media.
- bu 4141 j’apelle [I caul] (sic, not a spelling mistake) that
ready-made.
- bv 4142 Nevertheless, nothing so ‘manual’ as signature. It’s
literal opposite of ‘curtailing one’s hands’ [‘se couper les mains’].
It’s keeping the absolute minimum, and in this respect Duchamp proves
that he cannot ‘withdraw his hands’ [‘oter ses mains’].
- bw 4143 In the infrathin slips the toungue.
- bx 4146 Gilbert Lascault: "who speaks of Duchamp aught never
refuse a possible play on words.’ Humm. To the contrary "... would
be best advised to admit wordplay with extreme precaution.”
- by 4147 Thierry de Duve’s definition of the ready-made: "It is a
work of art reduced to enunciation: ‘ceci est de l’art.’” No. It is
an artwork of poetry.
- by 1 not of literature: of poetry
- by 2 poetry must take as its source practical truth