Eager for progress

As a boy growing up on the streets of Paris the young Marcel Duchamp would sometimes venture with his playmates into the artistic district. It was on one of these occasions, as they ran back and forth across the road pushing a hoop and generally carrying on as children are wont to do, that a shot rang out across the neighbourhood.

In later years the now fully grown Marcel insisted that the bullet passed thru his hat and shattered the glass of a nearby window, but that is merely a matter of conjecture. In reality the shot was fired by the now notorious Alfred Jarry. This was many years since the demise of his unfortunate brother who had left behind the comforts of Parisian life in search of Pastoral harmony with nature, and ended up, as we know, falling foul of a pedestrian and a curb.

The young Marcel's mother, who was herself still lively for her years- upon hearing that crazed playwrights were now taking potshots at children in the artistic district, marched - and if the cliche' is not too onerous, with a rolling pin in hand to the doorstep of Jarry's apartment.

We can only imagine the remonstration received by Jarry at the hand of the young mother, as astonished Marcel stood by. Jarry's response has now become the stuff of legend- that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, " If that should ever happen Ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you."

Whether impressed by such a degree of provocation or simply deciding that it was safer to keep his enemies close at hand Marcel began following Jarry, taking notes on the collection of dust , the rules governing exceptions, and the difficulties encountered in proving through chance that alternate realities do exist- an obsession attributed to his love of chess.

Sadly Jarry passed away, perhaps before his apprentices training was complete- however the foundation had been laid and Marcel went on to infamy of fame, as the case may be- depending how you look at it