Duchamp's Socks

"It is hard to pin-point what happened," wrote my friend Tourneau when I asked him what became of The Exhibitionist. "There are many explanations, and I'm not sure we have enough pins between us to lay out all the reasons why."

Tourneau was never explicitly involved with the journal, though I had reason to believe he might have published work there. He is, after all, known for writing under as many as a dozen pen names, one of which I know of but, as a condition of our friendship, have sworn never to tell. Because The Exhibitionist came up in conversation, it occurred to me to ask. But carefully, mind you, so as not to suggest I knew under which name he contributed and thus compromise another with a name he had entrusted.

"Like Ray Johnson," said Katerina Svoboda on the topic of Tourneau's terms, "but fairer, less paranoid. Johnson would invite you into the New York Correspondence School, only to tell you you could be expelled at any moment -- for indiscretions known only to him! With Tourneau, it's clear-cut: you either told someone or you didn't."

Katerina is satisfied with Tourneau's terms, but I am not.

"You say it's clear-cut, Katerina, but how can it be clear when there is no provision for disputes. Anna Ragovoy was cut off by Tourneau after Flavour Meade told Tourneau it was Anna who told him that Tourneau was hustling a piece under the name Hollis Brutus. But as we both know, Anna is incapable of lying because she has Asperger's and Flavour was acquitted of that contempt charge because he found a doctor to convince the judge that his lying is symptomatic of a mental illness. Anna can't lie, while Flavour can -- and does! Yet Tourneau won't consider any of this, and to this day he still won't talk to Anna."

Katerina wrote back: "There are extenuating circumstances. I can't tell you what they are because it is a condition of my own friendship with Tourneau that forbids me from doing so. But since we're on the topic, did you know there is another Michel Tourneau publishing cultural criticism? And that the journal, coincidentally, is a spin off of The Exhibitionist?"

"How do you know it's not Tourneau himself? Seems more than a coincidence to me."

"Exactly! Which is why I think it isn't. I asked Samia and she said she spoke to his mother who told her Tourneau's given up writing to live with the al-Howeitat in Jordan!"

"Bedouins! After all he's said against them!"

"I know! This is a man who, unlike Acconci, could never move his bowels in a toilet other than his own."

"So what's the name of the journal?"

"Duchamp's Socks. Samia and I have pieces in it!"