LAS VEGAS, May 22, 2001/ FW/ --- The purity of line, the love of a woman’s body is seen in Pablo Picasso’s Nude, 21 Mai 1919.

Martin who has nine linear feet of books on the topic of Picasso and who is mesmerized by this artist tells us, “Here he succeeds in uniting two subtly different styles into one human form, while retaining the allure of the female body. I like the edge of daring he infuses into this simple drawing. Imagine it different, and you’ll know why we are us, and Picasso is Picasso.”

In Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a young woman, Suzanne, who has slept with Picasso, says to Einstein, “Want to see a drawing he gave me?” Einstein, “ I never thought the twentieth century would be handed to me so casually…scratched out in pencil on a piece of paper. Tools thousands of years old, waiting for someone to move them in just this way.”

In 1973 the wine makers Mouton Rothchild used a watercolor and gouache dated 22.12.59 by Picasso for the label of their Premiere Cru Classe. In the book Mouton Rothchild, Paintings for the Labels, 1945-1981, Picasso is quoted, “Nothing can be done without solitude. You’d never know how much I have to shut myself off….” (Pablo Picasso to Teriade, 1932). Even Picasso sometimes had to be a Lonely Guy…

Martin alludes to the hours spent in college libraries and museums studying art on his own, as he traversed the U.S.A performing his comedy act in nightclubs, colleges and folk clubs. He used his time to create a database of knowledge, for his ‘private collecting’.

I identify with this, as libraries, museums and bookstores give me a purpose wherever I travel in the world. You aren’t an oddity when you are traveling alone if you have something to research (in my case mannequins, which makes some people such as businessman Al Checchi, say I am weird. Unlike Al I haven’t spent 40 million on a political campaign to become the Governor of California. Who is weird?

But then again, would California be in the same boat regarding electricity if Al was now Governor?).

I realize how lucky I have been to experience the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, or the British Museum Library or the Colindale Newspaper Library of London etc. Once, I was having lunch by the river Thames at a pub in Pangbourne, England, across from a tiny train station.

I asked my friends how long it would take to go to the University of Oxford…a few minutes later I was on my way to Oxford, having my photo taken for a library pass, to do a bit of research. At the time the card catalogs were still handwritten!

I wonder what libraries Martin has studied in? Where did he find the choicest of books? What is his favorite museum? Subliminally, in his movie L.A. Story, he mentions, Victoria & Albert, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hollywood Wax Museum, L.A. County Museum, and MOCA. Video tapes labeled with these museums sit on top of a puppet like TV theater titled Harris K. Telemacher’s World of Art for viewing his performance art.

This is in a scene in which he is visiting his neighbor and best friend Ariel, to edit his performance art pieces. In the catalog for his private collection at the Bellagio, Kindly Lent their Owner, he mentions a visit to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Just think, soon he will only have to hop over to Las Vegas to view pieces from the Hermitage, now that it will have a satellite museum as a part of the new Guggenheim Museum being built at the Venetian Hotel to open in the Fall of 2001. I have sent in my CV to the Guggenheim to see if there might be a spot for me, to give me a ‘raison d’etre’ in Las Vegas.

Edvard Munch’s paintings as somber as they can be, do not disturb me the way Freud’s, Study of a Girl did.

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