Pete Monacelli has an art opening in Geneva tomorrow night. We stopped by his place after shopping at the Co-op and he gave me a new book he had just finished, Duchamp Takes New York, by John Strausbaugh. Pete said an artist friend had given it to him with instructions to pass it on to another artist. A review in the front of the book referred to Duchamp as having moved art “beyond the tyranny of good taste.” I’m thinking I’ll send it Duane’s way when I finish because I know no bigger Duchamp fan.
Pete and Emily packed up everything, sold their house, their cars—everything—and took the kids to Italy, where they have already bought a house. They rented a car, loaded it with their essentials, and drove to JFK. We’re gonna miss them.
We had been over there a few times during their sale, and on their last day here they texted to say they were getting ready to throw the rest away. We stopped by again and brought home a long 2×10, a pile of art paper and mat board, and a big fan. They didn’t have air conditioning either. Pete pointed to some drumsticks, but I forgot to pick them up.
he next morning, as we walked by their empty house, I poked through their trash—years’ worth of family photos on top—looking for the sticks. Larry walked by with Ernie and we got talking. Peggi told him we had tried to buy some ligularia like his (they do well in the shade), and he suggested we just stop by and dig up the ones that had spread in his yard.
Of course, any visit to Larry’s mandates time talking about and looking at art. Larry had just finished Life with P. Journals, 1966–1976 and offered to let me borrow it. I’m bad with real books because I can’t help circling passages I love and putting asterisks at the top of a page—or worse—so I might just buy the book. We told Larry we had seen the show in New York. We actually spent half a day at the small 18th Street Hauser & Wirth. I told him I would send him some pictures from the show.
It was a beautiful day on Friday, so the downtown library had us perform outside in the courtyard. Gary Geer took some photos.
