Why Eve Babitz played naked chess with Marcel Duchamp
Eve Babitz was Los Angeles' greatest bard. Promiscuous but discerning, the bombshell with a brain bonded with Joan Didion and bedded Jim Morrison. A writer first and party girl second, Babitz presented in reverse until she sickened from what she called the "squalid overboogie." People took her penchant for presenting herself as trivial seriously; her books went out of print, and an accident that left her with serious burns over half of her body turned her into something of a recluse.
Babitz is finally getting the literary comeback she deserves, but she's still best remembered for posing nude with Marcel Duchamp while they played chess. She was 20, and he was 76. And in this interview with Paul Karlstrom for the Archives of American Art in June 2000, she explained why she did it: to punish her married boyfriend Walter Hopps for not inviting her to a party.
Duchamp won several times, but she didn't care. In fact, she was kind of over it.
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This descriptive lightness and jolly insistence on her own frivolity make Babitz a pleasure to listen to when she's speaking off the cuff (and an absolute dream to read, where she sneaks in structural flourishes that knock you silly with their unsuspected lyricism). If you're up to it, read the whole oral history; it's a marvelous thing. Better still: Read her books. On Aug. 30, Slow Days, Fast Company will be back in print.
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Lili Loofbourow is the culture critic at TheWeek.com. She's also a special correspondent for the Los Angeles Review of Books and an editor for Beyond Criticism, a Bloomsbury Academic series dedicated to formally experimental criticism. Her writing has appeared in a variety of venues including The Guardian, Salon, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Slate.
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