George Carlin once said something to the effect of:
you can take two things that have never been nailed together before, nail them together and sell them at an Arts & Crafts show.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Time to vote. Where should Amir spend his testing resources?
- Thread starter Astoneroad
- Start date
you can take two things that have never been nailed together before, nail them together and sell them at an Arts & Crafts show.
OP
Astoneroad
Major Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #123
Yes... this was the work that Duchamps was referencing with his comment... the original was destroyed... a version of it last sold for $1.85M.
Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal
To celebrate the centennial of one of the greatest—and most amusing—controversies in the history of modern art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition on Marcel Duchamp’s legendary “readymade,” Fountain. Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal focuses on the spring of 1917...
Robin L
Master Contributor
Sometimes a banana is just a banana:Yes... this was the work that Duchamps was referencing with his comment... the original was destroyed... a version of it last sold for $1.85M.
Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal
To celebrate the centennial of one of the greatest—and most amusing—controversies in the history of modern art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is presenting an exhibition on Marcel Duchamp’s legendary “readymade,” Fountain. Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal focuses on the spring of 1917...press.philamuseum.org
I didn't have three assumptions just a simple question. I was wondering. Nothing more than that.
OP
Astoneroad
Major Contributor
- Thread Starter
- #126
phoenixdogfan
Major Contributor
Read GR about three times. Each time I take away a little more. Next time, it will be an electronic copy, I'm sure. Still can't believe it won the 1971 National Book Award and had it rescinded for being "obscene". By today's standards, most of the stuff except maybe the coprophagia (which is really symbolic if you think about it) is pretty tame.I just LOLd. I find Pynchon much easier going than Joyce.
View attachment 414743
I have a cut-out copy (no front cover) from the Johns Hopkins bookstore which I acquired in 1976. They used to put unsold paperbacks (sans cover, as the covers went back to the publisher or their middleman for credit, as I reckon y'all know) in cardboard boxes on their loading platform at lunch time now and again. Once I learned that, I would often stop by and check.
It probably goes without saying, but the agreement between publisher & bookseller was that those copies were supposed to be destroyed.
It was the '70s, and respect for authority (not to mention legal obligations) wasn't particularly fashionable.
I was ahem going to share my favorite lines from the book -- but the bookmark has apparently evaporated somewhere in the ensuing 48-plus years.
It's a bit difficult to find a couple of sentences by skimming Gravity's Rainbow.
Last edited:
Robin L
Master Contributor
Won the National Book award, it was the Pulitzer that got rescinded. I've read it more than three times, and there's plenty in there (beyond Brigadier Pudding) that can be considered obscene. And not in a symbolic way. Then again, it is about some of the most obscene days of a most obscene war.
From the New York Times, May 8, 1974:
" . . . All three members of the Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction expressed distress and bewilderment yesterday that their unanimous recommendation for a prize for Thomas Pynchon's “Gravity's Rainbow” had been turned down and that no fiction award was given this year.
The three jurors were Benjamin DeMott, professor of English at Amherst College, chairman; Elizabeth Hardwick and Alfred Kazin, all distinguished authors and critics in their own right.
All three said separately yesterday that they were particularly unhappy at having received no explanation for the rejection of their recommendation. Appraised of the jurors’ views, neither Joseph Pulitzer Jr., chairman of the advisory board on the Pulitzer Prizes, nor Prof. John Hohenberg, board secretary, would offer any comment.
However, other members of the 14‐member board, which makes recommendations on the 18 Pulitzer Prize categories in journalism, letters and music after jurors' reports, had described the Pynchon novel during their private debate as “unreadable,” “turgid,” “overwritten” and in parts “obscene.” One member editor said he had tried hard but had only gotten a third of the way through the 760‐page book. . . "
Similar threads
