Your a Dead Man 2001, Ed Ruscha
A friend contacted me to spend a day in Chicago at a symposium the Art Institute is having for the opening of their exhibit, Ed Ruscha and Photography! on March 1. We have had a terrible, long, cold, snowy winter (oh joy, winter storm watch for tomorrow night) and I will be taking a long weekend in Florida. Airline tickets and condo on the beach have been paid for. Man I hate wanting to be in two places at one time. If you're able, go to the symposium for me, and then tell me all about it.
Here is something that Daniel Shea posted back at the beginning of January:
“…I had a daydream once not long ago about an imaginary person known as the Information Man, and I wrote it down. Let me read it to you.
The Information Man is someone who comes up to you and begins telling you stories and related facts about a particular subject in your life. He came up to me and said, ‘Of all the books of yours that are out in the public, only 171 are placed face up with nothing covering them; 2026 are in vertical positions in libraries, and 2715 are under books in stacks. The most weight on a single book is 68 pounds, and that is in the city of Cologne, Germany, in a bookstore. Fifty-eight have been lost; 14 have been totally destroyed by water or fire; 216 books could be considered badly worn. Three hundred and nineteen books are in positions between 40 and 50 degrees. Eighteen of the books have been deliberately thrown away or destroyed. Fifty-three books have never been opened, most of these being newly purchased and put aside monetarily…
Of the approximately 5000 books of Ed Ruscha that have been purchased, only 32 have been used in a directly functional manner. Thirteen of these have been used as weights for paper or other small things, 7 have been used as swatters to kill small insects such as flies and mosquitoes, 2 were used as a device to nudge open a door, 6 have been used to transport foods like peanuts to a coffee table, and 4 have been used to nudge wall pictures to their correct levels. Two hundred and twenty-one people have smelled pages of the books. Three of the books have been in continual motion since their purchase; all three of these are on a boat near Seattle, Washington.
Now wouldn’t it be nice to know these things.”
The Information Man is someone who comes up to you and begins telling you stories and related facts about a particular subject in your life. He came up to me and said, ‘Of all the books of yours that are out in the public, only 171 are placed face up with nothing covering them; 2026 are in vertical positions in libraries, and 2715 are under books in stacks. The most weight on a single book is 68 pounds, and that is in the city of Cologne, Germany, in a bookstore. Fifty-eight have been lost; 14 have been totally destroyed by water or fire; 216 books could be considered badly worn. Three hundred and nineteen books are in positions between 40 and 50 degrees. Eighteen of the books have been deliberately thrown away or destroyed. Fifty-three books have never been opened, most of these being newly purchased and put aside monetarily…
Of the approximately 5000 books of Ed Ruscha that have been purchased, only 32 have been used in a directly functional manner. Thirteen of these have been used as weights for paper or other small things, 7 have been used as swatters to kill small insects such as flies and mosquitoes, 2 were used as a device to nudge open a door, 6 have been used to transport foods like peanuts to a coffee table, and 4 have been used to nudge wall pictures to their correct levels. Two hundred and twenty-one people have smelled pages of the books. Three of the books have been in continual motion since their purchase; all three of these are on a boat near Seattle, Washington.
Now wouldn’t it be nice to know these things.”
-Ed Ruscha as quoted by A.D. Coleman in Light Readings: A Photography Critic’s Writings, 1968-1978
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