26 REDS & A BOTTLE OF WINE

My favorite story about Marcel Duchamp takes place in Paris around 1960. The beats (Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs and Gregory Corso) were staying at Mme. Rachou’s flophouse, famous for housing filthy and impoverished subversives, when they went to see Marcel Duchamp at the house of a wealthy patron.

First things first they get on the ground and crawl around. A attempt at surreal ritual that ends with Ginsburg licking Duchamp’s (now around 70) knees. Duchamp was apparently confused, embarrassed and pissed. The beats must have thought themselves on the verge of some amazing breakthrough, although somehow I can’t imagine Burroughs getting involved in this sort of shit. Maybe we’ll imagine him smoking a hash cigarette and watching with quiet disgust.

So next Corso gets a pair of scissors and these fuckwads cut the tie of Duchamp. They cut the tie off a seventy-year-old man. They must of thought they were genius. I’m sure the first thing Duchamp said after they left was “Who the fuck was that?”

As a side note to this story another of the beats famed flophouse shenanigans was when Ginsburg got a copy of Antonin Artaud’s 1947 radio play ''To Have Done With the Judgment of God''. Famously Antonin Artaud invented his own language for the piece. So here are their retards, getting high and listening to this gibberish going “far out man, this is wild!” Not realizing that they were running the reel-to-reel player backwards. Again, I imagine it was Burroughs who walked into the room and figured it out. He walks out muttering “numb-nuts.” Under his breath.

Here is a link to Duchamp's 1926 experimental film Anemic Cinema. It's in AVI format.

Here is a link to Barry Miles' book on Mme Rachou's flophouse.