20 july

Afternoon Gret

NO REPLY needed to this

Just a short note to keep you up to date
with bits and pieces that might connect
with your project. I am excited by going back to
old discoveries to see how far scholarship
has gone since I last looked.

1. Jarry, the Morgan Library exhibition link
showing how broadly AJ was operating
- news to me.

Jarry, Alastair Brioche book just arrived today
which is magnificent

2. Duchamp and Roussel . It suddenly struck me
that Roussel really was a liberating element
upon which MD built an entire non pigmental future.

3. The best book on Duchamp by far is that by
Linda Dalrymple Henderson
who appreciated Roussel’s liberating force.

I suddenly remembered Les Chants de Maldoror
by Lautreamont that generated so much heat
among the Surrealists. My school chum Phil Beard
smuggled a copy into the UK c1960 (in his underpants)
and we sat in lunch hours with a Collins Fr/Eng dictionary
translating a chapter. When we eventually found a
translation, it was miraculous that we got absolutely
nothing right. The spirit of Oulipo struck at Watford
Grammar School.

wuff wuff
the culture hound

Chris
xx