For Esmé–with love and squatter
J.D. Salinger's toilet à la Duchamp
Duchamp’s Fountain is signed “R. Mutt,” arguably an alter-ego, though others consider it code for “Ready Made utt [eut été in French],” which would read “Readymade once was.” His work, and titles, were never forthcoming, so the interpretations and word games will go on. J.D. Salinger’s toilet, auctioned on eBay for a million dollars, is no longer available, meaning someone may have bought it. The former dadaist ceramic conceit may have been lost on Rick Kohl (a collectibles dealer who bought the toilet from a couple who now own Salinger’s old home), who placed the auction. Oh Esmé, how I wish it were you.
You take a dead man, Esmé, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his plu– with all his p-l-u-m-b-i-n-g intact.
The Onion has still got it
Although the sole film made from Salinger’s work, My Foolish Heart, based on his short story “Uncle Wiggily In Connecticut,” was considered by Salinger to be such a bastardization of his prose that he never agreed to another adaptation, he now states that “if McG wants to do any of my stuff—’A Perfect Day For Bananafish’; Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters; hell, all of Nine Stories—he has my complete permission. Anything. Anything he wants.”
Read it all here, and deal with how comparatively unfunny we truly are.
eShame Contest Winners
When did we stop caring?
There’s this great scene in Basquiat in which Basquiat (portrayed with real beauty by Jeffrey Wright) and Andy Warhol (who is best portrayed by David Bowie) are painting some corporate logos on a studio wall. Warhol finishes a blue, winged horse. Then, inexplicably, Basquiat takes a paint roller and runs a swatch of white through the middle of the painting. They stand together and look. Perplexed, Warhol says, “I don’t even know what’s good anymore.”
The scene portrays real friendship.
Here are the results of the eShame game: READ MORE >