Chapter 2 Chapter 1 Anecdotal Self-Portrait

I know what I eat.But I don't know what I do. I have no luck being the man who, when he smiles, boldly displays that dreadful, disreputable vegetable scrap called spinach that hangs between his teeth.This is not because I brush my teeth more seriously than others, but because of an insidious reason, that is, I never eat spinach.In fact, I have generally always regarded all kinds of food, especially spinach, as having aesthetic and ethical value. diet. In fact, I only love to eat things that have a clear, intellectually understandable form.If I hate spinach it's because it's as shapeless as freedom.The opposite of spinach is crustaceans, which I love, especially all the little ones, really anything with a hard shell.As an exoskeleton, the crustacean implements this beautiful idea, which is essentially philosophical, by moving the skeleton to the outside and hiding the delicate flesh inside.By virtue of the strict size which protects their supple and nutritious delusions, they are enclosed in stately containers from external abuse, and only the removal of their shells exposes them to the conquest of our gustatory empire.How wonderful it is to crush a bird's skull with your teeth!Can people eat brains in another way?

Gum is our best tool for acquiring philosophical knowledge.What could be more philosophical than slowly sucking the essence of a bone that is still cracking between the teeth of the sun as you slowly suck it?The moment you get the marrow out of the whole thing, you seem to be in control of the situation.This is the taste of truth suddenly gushing out of it, this is the raw, fresh truth you have finally caught between your teeth, gushing out of the well of bones.Once the obstacle is overcome (thanks to it all self-respecting food "holds its form"), there is nothing to lust but the sticky glassy eyes of a fish, the cerebellum of a bird, the marrow of a bone, or the soft sensuality of an oyster It would be all slimy, gelatinous, quivering, murky and disgraceful.But I have a premonition of your question: do you like Camembert?Does it maintain form?Yes, I love it when Camembert is just starting to flow and naturally take on the form of my famous soft sheet.I should add that if someone manages to make spinach-shaped Camembert, chances are I won't like eating it anymore.

Don't forget this: to store the goose in a special way until it's a bit stale, to roast it in alcohol, and to serve it in its own excrement, is the custom in the best restaurants in Paris, and to me it's Always the most graceful symbol of a true civilization in the majestic field of gastronomy.The slender body of the naked goose on the plate seems to have achieved perfect Raphaelite proportions! So, I say categorically and relentlessly, I will eat this!I observed with even greater amazement the blasphemers around me who ate everything, as if they were merely doing what they had to do!I always know exactly what I want out of my consciousness.It was a different story with my frivolous, soap-bubble feelings, for I could never foresee the hysterical and grotesque course of my behaviour.Besides this, the final result of my various actions surprised me first.Just like every time, out of the myriad rainbow-like soap bubbles of my emotions, there's always one bubble rescued from the crash of death, miraculously making a successful landing, and suddenly becoming one of these pivotal actions, like a cannonball exploding scary.Nothing illustrates this better than the anecdotes that will come pouring in.I present these random anecdotes that sneak into my past out of chronological order.These scrupulously factual, straightforwardly narrated anecdotes are part of the exoskeleton of my own image, the calcareous material of my self-portrait.

I am five years old.It's springtime in the village of Gambrill, near Barcelona.I've just met a boy younger than me, with blond hair, and we're roaming the country together.He rode a bicycle and I walked, putting my arm on his back and helping him push forward.We passed a bridge that was under construction and the railings were not yet fixed.I looked around to make sure no one was watching us, and suddenly the boy was pushed into the void and he fell four meters onto the rocks.Then, I ran home to announce the news.All afternoon, there was a constant coming and going, and a general disarray in the family, and I got a sweet delusion from the phenomenon.I stayed in the little parlour, sitting in a rocking chair with frills and eating fruit.The lace of the chair back and armrests is adorned with plentiful plush cherries.This little parlor adjoined the entrance, from which I could watch the whole mess.The shutters were closed to keep out the heat outside, which kept the interior in a cool gloom.During the whole day, I don't recall ever having the slightest feeling of guilt.As I went for my usual walk that evening, I remembered the beauty of every herb I tasted.

I am six years old.The living room was full of guests.There was talk of a tube star, which could be seen at night if the sky was clear.Some assert that the end of all things will come when the comet's tail sweeps across the earth.I was terrified, and shuddered, though I sensed the irony with which they spoke of these subjects.One of my father's employees showed up at the door announcing that the comet had finally been seen from the balcony.Our guests all ran up the stairs, and I was left alone, sitting on the ground, almost immobile with fright.I finally mustered up the courage to run for the stairs, and as I was walking down the corridor I saw my little three-year-old sister crawling on the floor, and I stopped, hesitating a little, in the midst of that crazy joy (which had just At the mercy of my savage behavior), I kicked her hard on the head and started running again.But my father, who was standing right behind me, saw this, grabbed me, and locked me in his office, where I stayed until dinnertime.

This punishment kept me from seeing child actors, and it survives as one of the most traumatic things in my life.I cried out in such rage that I became hoarse.My parents finally panicked about it.Realizing that my father couldn't resist it, I later used this less-threatening tactic.The day I got stuck with a fishbone, I saw him leave the dining room because I couldn't bear the series of coughs and twitches that gripped me, and I exaggerated them in order to better attract the distressed attention of my family. About the same time, the doctor came home one afternoon and pierced the ears of my sister, whom I have loved more tenderly since the incident of kicking her.I found the operation a terrible outrage, and resolved to stop it at all costs.

I waited for the doctor to sit down, put on my glasses, and get ready to go to work; when no one was looking, I broke into the room and hit the doctor in the face with a marble.The unfortunate man began to cry in pain. He leaned on the shoulder of his father who pulled us away, and sobbed intermittently: "I really can't believe that such a thing can happen. I like him so much. From this day on." Well, I like being sick just to see the old man's face bent over my bed that I know how to make weep. Once again at Gumbril, when I was about five years old, I went for a walk with three very pretty ladies.One of the ladies particularly fascinated me.She was wearing a large hat with a white veil wrapped around it covering her face, and she took my hand.I found her really fascinating.We wandered into a secluded corner of the countryside, and the young women began talking and laughing to each other in a flirtatious way.Their whispers make me flustered and jealous.They persuaded me several times to play, but I did not go very far, in order to better spy on them, and I saw them make some strange gestures.The prettiest stayed in the center, her exhausted companion staring at her strangely.She lowered her head, spread her legs apart, put her hands on her waist, and gently lifted her skirt imperceptibly.Her stillness lived up to expectations.An urgent event is about to take place.For at least half a minute, a suffocating silence took over, until a forceful jet of liquid erupted from under her skirt, and soon a foamy puddle formed at her feet.The heated earth absorbed part of the urine, and the rest took the shape of little snakes that grew so rapidly that they stained the whitewashed shoes of the "veiled woman," though she Jump around and dodge.On the two shoes that had taken the place of the blotting paper, a light gray wet patch stretched upward and widened. The "veiled woman" was so engrossed in her duties that she didn't realize that I was staring blankly.When she looked up to see me, she gave me a mocking smile, made all the more distraught by her sheer veil.She looked at her two friends, as if she wanted to say to them: "Now, it is too late, I can't bear it any longer." The young women burst into laughter.This time, I understood, so my heart beat even harder.Two new jets of water hit the ground.I didn't turn my head away, but kept my eyes wide open, gazing into those eyes that were half hidden behind the veil.As my crazy blood ebbed and flowed, I developed extremely humiliating feelings.In the sky, the evening twilight replaced the bright red of the setting sun. At this moment, it was as if three cattails were singing in ensemble. The long-held, fierce and precious violent water column seemed to be boiling three savage Huanggong cascades in the air. gush.

At dusk we return to Gumbril.I didn't want any of the three young women to hold my hand, I was a little behind them, my heart constricted with hatred and sweetness.In my clenched fist I held a firefly I caught by the side of the road.Now and then I cautiously spread my finger a little to watch it glow.My hand was clenched so tightly that sweat soon wet it.Afraid of drowning the firefly, I kept moving it from one fist to the other.I've done this so many times that once it fell out and I had to pick it up in the dark, moonlit dust.A drop of sweat trickled down my hand and made a hole in the dirt, and the sight of the hole gave me goosebumps.Feeling panicked, I picked up the fireflies and ran towards the three young women who had gone away.Surprised by my running, they stopped to wait for me.The veiled one took my hand.I don't want this, I want to go alone.As we approached the house, we were greeted by my twenty-year-old cousin, a carbine with a sling slung across his shoulders, holding the thing up for us to see from a distance.Due to its height, we identified a small bat, which had bruised its wing.We went into the house, and my cousin put the animal in a little tin bucket, and since I wanted it, he gave it to me.I ran behind the laundry chute, one of my beloved places.Here I've got some little metallic ladybugs.They sit on mint leaves in an upturned glass.My fireflies join them too, and I put them all in this bucket where the bat is curled up.An hour passed dreamily before dinner.I'm talking out loud to this bat I've come to pet.I kiss the top of its furry head over and over again.What awaited me the next morning was a terrifying sight.The glass was poured, the ladybugs flew away, the fireflies were gone, and the bat was covered with crazy ants, panting hoarsely, with its mouth wide open, showing little crones' teeth. The "veiled woman" happens to appear at this moment, standing at the gate bar.I picked up a small stone and threw it at her with all my strength, but missed her.Startled, she cast a soft, curious look at me.Trembling, I stood there, and soon felt an unbearable shame, which caused me to make an incomprehensible movement, which caused the young woman to let out a cry of terror.That is, I picked it up hastily, swayed by pity for the bat, I actually intended to kiss its aching head, but instead I bit it with my teeth so hard I felt it broke into pieces. cut two pieces.In a panic, I dropped the bat in the laundry room and hurried off.The oval pool of the laundry room was filled with rotting black figs that had fallen from the branches of a large tree.When I ran a few meters from there and looked back with tears in my eyes, I could no longer make out, among the floating figs, the severed corpse of the unfortunate bat.I have never walked through this laundry room since.Even today I tremble with terror when some black speck reminds me of a fig in the pool that drowned my bat.

I'm thirteen years old and a student at the Mother's School in Figueres.From the classroom to the playground, we have to go down a steep stone staircase.One evening, for no reason, I couldn't help but want to jump down from the top of the stairs.But I was afraid, I hesitated, and I had to postpone the realization of this strong desire until the next day.The next day, I couldn't take it anymore, and as I was descending the stairs with my classmates, I jumped frantically into the air, fell on the steps of the stairs, and then rolled to the steps below.I was bruised and bruised from the fall, but an unexplainable great pleasure made me feel that the pain was insignificant.This incident caused a strong shock among the students and monks. Everyone surrounded me, treated me, and wrapped my head with a wet bandage.During this period, I was very shy, and the little things would make me blush to the ears.I was alone and spent my time avoiding other people.The throng of restless people aroused a strange feeling in me.Four days later, I repeated the same thing, which happened during the second round of cultural and sports activities, and the monk supervisor was not present.As I jumped, I let out a scream that drew the attention of the entire playground to me.Bruised but blissfully happy, I did it again.Every time I came down the stairs, my classmates were panting with extreme anxiety, waiting for something.I will always remember one evening in October.The rain had just stopped, and the playground smelled of damp earth and roses.In the sky, reddened by the setting sun, were clearly shown the majestic clouds, which seemed to me like some crawling leopard, like Napoleon, or like a galleon with its mast broken.The endless light of Fengshen illuminates my face from the sky.In the dead silence, under the dazed eyes of the students who had stopped playing, I walked down the stairs step by step.I will not switch roles with any god.

I am twenty-two years old and studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.Before I won the painting prize, I bet on it when I painted the competition that didn't make the brush touch the canvas.I actually managed to paint the prescribed subject matter by throwing the splashes of color that make up a stunning pointillist painting onto the canvas from a meter away.The drawings and colors were so accurate that I won the first prize.In my second year, I had to pass an exam in art history.I took the exam with the intention of doing extremely well.And I also seriously prepared for this exam.Walking up to the podium where the examiners were seated, I pulled out the questions that fell on me.I was surprisingly lucky, and the problem was exactly what I wanted to play with.But suddenly I felt an overpowering lethargy; to the astonishment of the audience, I categorically declared that I was smarter than three professors put together, and that I refused to be tested by them because I had mastered the questions posed.

Has been at the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts.A constant and systematic desire to contradict everyone led me to all kinds of absurdities, which soon made me a real celebrity in the Madrid art world.One day, in drawing class, we were asked to sketch a Gothic statuette of the Madonna.Before the professor left, he also asked us to truthfully represent what everyone "saw".As soon as he turned away, I set about drawing a scale with the utmost precision, following a catalog of works in the grip of a maddened desire to fool.All my classmates were sure I was really crazy.On the weekend, the professor came to correct and evaluate our work. He faced the picture I handed him, with a straight face.All the students next to me fell into an uneasy silence, and I dare to say in a voice that is a bit embarrassed by my shyness, you may see a Madonna like everyone else, but what I see is a scale. I am twenty-nine years old, in Cadaques in the summer, and I court Gala.We had lunch with some friends by the sea, under the climbing grape bushes, the slight hum of bees was drowsy.I was blissfully blissful, and though the burden of mature love was on my shoulders, it was born and stuck in my throat like a thick golden octopus shining with countless gems of pain.I just ate four grilled lobsters, doused with local wines that don't make much noise; but they're made with the most wonderful secret recipes of the Mediterranean. The lunch had dragged on for a long time, and the sun was starting to set.I'm barefoot, and a girlfriend who has admired me for a long time has hinted at the beauty of my feet many times.That's the truth about La Paris, and I think it's silly for her to keep repeating compliments to me.She sat on the ground with her head lightly resting on my lap.Suddenly she put her hand on one of my feet and tried to touch it timidly with trembling fingers, and I jumped up, swayed by a feeling of fear of losing myself, as if I had suddenly become Gala.I bumped into the admirer, pushed her to the ground, and stomped on her hard.Everyone had to separate her from me who was covered in blood. I dedicate myself to all sorts of odd behaviors I want and don't want to do.I am thirty-three years old.I just got a call from one of the most brilliant young psychiatrists around.He had just read my paper on "Various Inner Mechanisms of Paranoid Activity" in the Minotaur, and he congratulated me on my correct scientific understanding of such a subject (which, in general, is extremely rare ) surprised him.He wanted to meet me and discuss this in person.We agreed to meet that evening in my studio on Rue Gauguet in Paris.I was so excited about this impending meeting that I spent the afternoon trying to draw up an outline of what we were going to talk about.In fact, I am satisfied that my various views (which even my closest friends in the Surrealist community regard as the product of contradictory whims) will be considered in a scientific context.All I wanted was to make our first exchange of views a regular, even somewhat serious affair.While waiting for the arrival of the young psychiatrist, I continued to paint a portrait from memory, which I was painting as the Viscountess Noël.This painting made of copperplate was very difficult to make.In order to see my sketches on the mirror-clean brown copper surface, I noticed that the details of my work were clearly discernible where the reflections were brightest.So I attached a three-centimeter square piece of white paper to the tip of my nose to draw on, and the reflection on this piece of white paper showed my sketch perfectly. At six o'clock, someone rang the doorbell.I put away the copper plates and opened the door for the visitor.Jacques Lacan came in and we immediately had a very intense professional discussion.We were surprised to find that, for the same reason, our views were opposed to accepted constructivist assertions.For two hours we talked in a really heated dialectic.When Jacques Lacan left, he promised to keep in touch with me regularly in order to exchange ideas. After he left, I paced up and down the studio, trying to summarize what we had said, and to gauge more objectively the few differences that had come to light.But one thing that puzzled me was that the young psychiatrist stared at me from time to time, which disturbed me.As if a strange smile wanted to part his lips, and he refrained from showing surprise.Is he working on the morphological study of my features (animated by the thoughts that agitate my soul)?When I went to wash my hands (the moment when people can figure out any problem most clearly), I solved the mystery.But this time it was the mirror that gave me the answer.During those two hours, I forgot to remove the small white square piece of paper stuck to the tip of my nose, and in an objective and serious tone, I was very serious about transcendental issues, without realizing the ridiculous appearance of my nose !But what cynic mystic can play this role to the end? I am twenty-three years old.Living in the house of Figueras' parents, I am working on a large Cubist painting in my studio.I've lost the belt of my dressing gown, which always gets in the way when I move.I found a random wire and wrapped it around my waist.But this wire has a small light bulb on one end.Never mind!I'm too lazy to take it off and use it as a belt buckle.After a while, my sister informed me that there were some important guests who wanted to see me and were waiting in the living room.I shook off my dissatisfaction with the piece and went to the living room.My parents cast a disapproving glance at my stained interior, but they haven't seen the lightbulb hanging from my ass.After introducing each other.I sat down and the light bulb popped between the easy chair and the back of me with a bombing sound... That's it, coincidence loves to make the little things in my life strong and memorable.In others these smallest things pass by without notice. In 1928 I gave a lecture in my hometown of Figueres, which was presided over by the mayor and officials of the local authority.A group of unruly people crowded the hall, and I said angrily, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end of the speech." And so I finished my closing remarks.My tone was angry, almost defiant.The audience in the hall did not understand the end of my speech, and I resented that they were too dumb to follow my train of thought.However, as soon as I clearly said the word "end", the mayor fell dead at my feet! The excitement was indescribable, for this man was popular and loved by the people.The humorous papers insisted that I killed him by saying all sorts of utterly absurd things out loud in my lectures.In fact, it was nothing more than a sharp attack of angina. In 1937 I had to give a lecture in Barcelona on "The Phenomenological and Surrealist Mystery of the Bedside Table".On that day, an anarchist uprising broke out.Some of those who still came to hear me were local prisoners, due to the hasty lowering of the iron curtains of the glass windows facing the street.During my speech, intermittent bursts of gunfire and shell explosions could be heard from the SANAR ranks. During another lecture in Barcelona, ​​a white-bearded doctor, suddenly in a fit of madness, rose from the audience and tried to kill me.It took a lot of effort...to stop him, to get him out of the hall. In 1936, in our room on Beckham Street near the Sacred Heart Church.Gala was due to have surgery the next morning and had to spend the night quietly in the clinic.The surgery was difficult, but Gala didn't mind, and we spent the afternoon working on two surreal pieces.She was like a child who made astonishing assemblages of different objects and then destroyed them unconsciously.Later, I learned that her work is full of unconscious allusions to her impending surgery.The excellence of biology is evident in it: some metal tentacles ready to tear up some membranes, a bowl of flour softens the impact of those breasts, a rooster's feather grows at the teaching room.I myself made a "clock that is about to fall asleep": on a sumptuous plinth rested a large loaf of bread, and on the back of the loaf a dozen inkwells filled with Gannet's ink were neatly set.Each ink bottle is stuck with a quill of a different color.I'm ecstatic about the results. At dusk Gallas's work was finished and we decided to show it to André Breton before going to the clinic.We hailed a taxi and carefully put the piece in, unfortunately when shaken it fell apart.The bowl containing a kilogram of flour fell down.We see ourselves all white.From time to time the taxi driver looked back at us with equal parts wonder and pity in his eyes.He stopped in front of a bakery and we bought another kilo of fresh flour.In one accident after another, we arrived at the clinic late and appeared like ghosts in the courtyard, looking strange in front of the nurses who greeted us.Gala and I slapped our bodies, and a cloud of flour wafted from our clothes and hair.I left Gala at the clinic and went home quickly, while continuing to slap me nonchalantly.I had a delicious dinner of oysters and roast pigeon.After drinking three cups of coffee, I resumed the work I started in the afternoon.From the moment I left it, I was eager to get back to this extreme work, thinking about my work, and I was a little surprised by my indifference to my wife's surgery.But even though I tried my best, I couldn't feel the slightest bit of uneasiness. Like an inspired musician, I felt ideas churning in my mind.I added sixty figures of inkwells, and on top of them stuck penholders drawn in watercolor on small squares of paper, and hung the figures by a line under my bread.I gazed raptly at the utterly real yet absurd shape of my work, and then, around two o'clock in the morning, I lay down and fell into an angelic sleep.At five o'clock, I woke up, like a devil this time.The greatest troubles of my life had pinned me to my bed, and after a long time, I finally threw away the quilts that suffocated me.I was covered in cold sweat of regret.Its daybreak.The wild singing of the birds woke me up. Gala, Jialulaika, Jialu playing Kinida!My tears welled up, and they were as hot and painful as birth twitches.Once the tears have stopped, I renew the image of Gala leaning against an olive tree in Cadaques, and revisit the late summer stooping to pick up a glorious piece of mica among the rocks of the Cruz Sea Shi's image of Gala, revisiting the image of Gala who swam so far that I could only see a small smiling face.My tears came quickly again from the revisitation of the above-mentioned scene, and this time they flowed more vigorously, as if the mechanism of emotion pressed the muscular membranes of my eyeballs to drain them.Every splendor of my love is packed in the livid limes of memory. I rushed to the clinic, clutching the surgeon's coat with wild agony, which made him treat me special.For a week, I was crying and the whole surrealist community was stunned.Finally, on a Sunday, the danger passed.Death hastened meekly away.Galula smiled.I grabbed her hand and pressed it against my cheek, thinking tenderly, "After this, I might kill you." I have traveled to Vienna three times, and the three trips are very similar in one point.In the morning I go to see Vermeer in the Cernan collection, and in the afternoon I avoid Freud for a good reason, the reason being that every time I am told that for health reasons he stays in the countryside.I recall melancholy eating chocolate tarts, visiting antique dealers, and wandering through Vienna.At night, alone, I had long imaginary conversations with Freud.Only once did he condescend to accompany me back to the Thatcher Hotel where I was staying, and got entangled in the curtains of my room, where he spent the night with me. A few years after my last attempt to see Floyd, I was having dinner with some friends at a restaurant in Sens.When I was eating snails, my favorite food, I looked over the shoulder of my neighbor and saw a picture of the master on the front page of a newspaper. I immediately got a copy of Freud from this newspaper. Samples coming to Paris.His skull was like a snail from which brains could be picked out with a pin.This discovery deeply influenced the portrait I painted of him a year before his death. Raphael's skull is completely different from Freud's. It is octagonal like a cabochon diamond, and its brain is like the veins on the stone.Leonardo's skull resembles a walnut, that is, it appears more realistic. I finally met Floyd in London.I was accompanied by Stefan Zweig and the poet Edward James.As I walked through the courtyard of the building where the old professor lived, I saw a bicycle leaning against the wall.There is a red rubber hot water bottle tied to the seat, and there is a snail moving on the hot water bottle!We didn't talk as much as I'd hoped, but we all stared greedily at each other.Freud knew nothing about me except that he loved my paintings, and I tried to appear to him a "knowledgeable" dandy.I later learned that I had made the exact opposite impression on him.Before I leave him, I want to give him a magazine that contains an article I wrote on paranoia.So I opened the journal, turned to the page where my work was printed, and asked him to promise to read it if he had time.Floyd continued to stare at me, paying no attention to what I was showing him.I explained to him that it wasn't about the whim of the Surrealists, it was about a treatise in which those aspirations were actually scientific.I pointed to it and repeated its title to him several times.Facing his unwavering indifference, my voice became more and more shrill, demanding.Freud continued to observe me, as if his whole being had been devoted to capturing my psychic reality, when he suddenly called out to Stefan Gervig: "I have never seen such a perfect Spanish type, how much?" Crazy.