tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post7543337758668722971..comments2024-02-11T09:55:50.468-08:00Comments on The Eastside View: Duchamp: Étant donnés…Charles Sherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-45884308670363380002009-09-17T17:41:28.820-07:002009-09-17T17:41:28.820-07:00As a boy Duchamp was fascinated by the huge chocol...<i>As a boy Duchamp was fascinated by the huge chocolate-grinding apparatus in a shop window in Rouen. (There is or was until recently a similar apparatus installed outdoors as a sculpture in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco, commemorating the original occupant of that real estate.)<br /><br />Duchamp's genius has many facets, of course, but one of them centers on his awareness of the difference between looking at and seeing — he prefigured John Cage's similar awareness of the difference between listening and hearing. <br /><br />I think there's something to be said for the idea that Modernism the beginning of the third of three great ages of human existence: the one preceding the awareness of consciousness, which Julian Jaynes puts at about the time of Homer; then a long age which is characterized by the long slow crescendo of human consciousness; and then a third age that begins with the awareness of the awareness of consciousness. <br /><br />Of course this third age, like all ages, has slippery end points (the final point not to be reached, I suppose, for several centuries); they overlap to a greater or lesser extent in various regions — geographical, cultural, political regions...<br /><br />I think you and I use the word "arrogance" differently.</i>Charles Sherehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-24268002555210154962009-09-17T12:11:13.698-07:002009-09-17T12:11:13.698-07:00Charles: I've been away for a week at the San...Charles: I've been away for a week at the Santa Monica book fair, doing a booth.<br /><br />Some day we'll have to have a talk about Duchamp. I got his Large Glass Notes 30 years ago in its beautiful first edition, later traded it away (idiocy!). I read everything I could get my hands on, but missed seeing the Spanish door. It always strikes me that Duchamp wanted everyone to be tarnished by the wicked irony of "peeping" through a privy door. The vicariousness of that act remains one of the central sardonic snickers in his metaphysics.<br /><br />There was always this "tease" quality to his work. "Come find me"--"but don't pester me with questions!" It's almost a Zen posture. He would play chess for hours, think hard for three weeks and then make a single sentence as a pronouncement, which we were all supposed to ponder. The arrogance! <br /><br />I see a convergence between Satie and Duchamp. Socrate, the theatre pieces. Something about the monotony crossed with intense patience (and watchfulness).Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com