Comments on: The Digerati Strike Back

By: Gary B. Fitzgerald

Gary B. Fitzgerald — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:47:59 +0000

Man…you guys can sure shovel it on.

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:44:13 +0000

& you sound so much like a garden-variety snide poet! Have you ever lifted anything heavier than an hors-d’oeuvres toothpick?

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:55:17 +0000

“I like shovels for shoveling”

Good for you! You sound like a regular Joe Six-Plumber. Are you running for president?

By: john

john — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:13:26 +0000

Henry — leave aside aesthetics for a moment, and think about ka-ching ka-ching — investment, yeah yeah yeah. A Duchamp signature is worth a *lot* more than a James ppbk.

Bringing aesthetics back — yes, there’s no arguing with one’s individual response. Like the old folks say, it’s all good.

“Duchamp” would be an *excellent* brand name for a fashion line, on the borderline between fashion and anti-fashion; the Duchamp designers would take any found clothing — Sears clothing, say, take off the labels, put new “Duchamp” labels on, and go to town!

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:29:21 +0000

Yeah? But it’s a shovel. Did Duchamp do any scrimshaw along the handle? I sincerely doubt it.

I like shovels for shoveling; that’s a wonderful thing. i have shoveled a great deal in my life, with a regular shovel.

If I had to choose between Duchamp’s shovel (& all the baloney shoveled around & about it) or one worn-out cheap waterlogged crumbling paperback by Henry James or [name yr poet]… now there’s an objet d’art.

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:21:06 +0000

So kindly Sir Uncle Kentameter abandones the field once more, with his sweet abject workingman’s solidarity tail tucked between his legs… Henry snarling in his quatrain cage…& as silence continues to reign on high, in the exalted American Fox’s lair of Professional-Conceptual Hobnobbery…

Happy Halloween!

By: john

john — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:10:39 +0000

Duchamp’s shovel *is* original — and very Romanticist in its elevation of the individual artist’s signature to being the guarantor of art. One might argue that Duchamp’s move critiques the Romantic fetishization of the individual’s signature, but the museums, Sherrie Levine (in practice if not in theory), and the art historians agree with my take on it.

When I was a teenager at the Philly Museum (largest repository of Duchampiana), reading the card describing how Duchamp enjoyed spinning the bicycle wheel that he had mounted on a stool, I gave the wheel a spin.

I got in trouble.

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:09:13 +0000

So let me ask once more to U.S. poetry’s leading advocate of literary “theft,” and then I’m out:

Why not post the PDF of “A” on UbuWeb?

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:05:40 +0000

Thanks for the link, Kent. To replicate myself : I’m not all that impressed by Duchamp’s shovel. Maybe it’s just me.

By: Henry Gould

Henry Gould — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:03:41 +0000

On the necessity for invention, and originality as its expression – full disclosure : my father is a (semi)retired patent attorney.

My brothers & I flew a prototype of the frisbee (from Whammo! Corp., one of my father’s clients) in the back yard, about 50 yrs ago.