54. Marcel Duchamp's Front Door.

My art thoughts turn, and somehow end up with Marcel Duchamp's readymades, his Dada art of found objects, including street signs, bird cages, house bricks, le pissoir, but not his front door, so perhaps it's time to pay Duchamp's studio a little visit, it's at 11 rue Larrey, Paris.

So, it's taking the metro, getting to line 7, negotiating the tunnels, as the options narrow down to the Place d'Italie direction. Through Sully Moorland, then Jussieu, the pronunciation of which is yet another French word that I hopelessly mangle, but it flows from the mouths of others just as it should, then Place Monge, the deepest metro of them all, and yes, I adore Place Monge, it's at the top end of Rue Mouffetard, with it's Amélie associations and the Le Verre a Pied cafe, and yes, a cognac and Bretodeau just having miraculously found the tin box full of his childhood treasures in the telephone box that doesn't actually exist, but we're not stopping here anyway, one more metro station, and finally slowing into Censier-Daubenton, and here's where I'll leave the train. Out, following the signs to the Rue Monge exit, into the sunlight and the first intersection is Rue Mirbel, and crossing it, then to the right for a few paces into Rue de la Clef, and, as usual, I'm wondering which particular clef it might be, and as usual, I'm thinking the alto clef, the one like a backward C and a full colon, the one that only viola's use, and my mind travels sideways remembering some viola players I have known, most of them quite wonderfully strange people. Turning left into Rue Daubenton, and whoever Daubenton was I have no idea, but imagine whoever it might have been playing the viola, rehearsing by an open window that looked out over the rooftops of Paris, naturally towards the Luxembourg gardens, but the first rue on the left is Rue Larrey .. and we need .. number .. eleven .. it's there, the black doors with the four panels, and if you'll excuse me just one moment while I go to work with the skeleton key, the screwdriver, and the hammer, brought along just for the purpose, and it may take some time, as it's a really impressive and heavy wrought iron art nouveau inspired door ..

And while making the getaway, I have just declared Duchamp's front door a found readymade, and I may just sign my name on it with a readymade knife when I find one.