January 22, 1978
It appears that in the future, the world is inhabited by a strange race of bird people. I am a happy fellow indeed!
Lok-laach-do is my boon companion, though he is molting.
His teeth are the razors in my soup! His hat is silly! Most egregious is his mustache.
And now, I sing.
About the Photographer: Toulouse Le Grandfig was a surrealist painter, photographer and writer who never gave up dadaism. Also, his pate was paddled.
December 37, 1932
My voyage begins on the Ukranian Steam Ship, the Plotnik. On the first day, I met our captain. A diminutive, if stern fellow, by the name of Agamon Destroyer of Life. His constant companion was a mute who went by the name of Piffles. (Though he also answered to “Ahoy Gregor you great walloping pederast.”)
We set sail from Kiev, a week before I left Paris. The sea breeze! The flying monkeys of the Ukraine. Ah, it was a dream come true.
About the Photographer: Toulouse Le Grandfig was a surrealist painter, photographer, writer, and a tremendous watchtower, glistening in the fetid fields of the mind. He ate truffles, magnets and things that made him feel “squingy.” Also, he was a parakeet.
File #: 12-23571-X
Dr. Abe Cornelius
Bellevue Hospital — Psychiatric Triage Center
The patient was brought into the hospital by several co-workers, including his immediate supervisor at Vandelay, Alderson, Pentergrast, Ilterton and Deckard, a mid-sized advertising company on Madison Avenue.
The Creative Director, Mr. Hillary Scott, introduced Mr. Grandfig to me, and said he was not only a renowned Dadaist, but that he had been working at his firm since late 1949 as a graphic artist.
It is worth examining Mr. Grandfig’s work history to get a sense of the progress of his current disorder.
When Grandfig began working at Vandelay, Alderson, Pentergrast, Ilterton and Deckard (VAPID), he claimed to have arrived in New York from “distant lands” and needed to earn some money. He began working on the Petri account, which needed an “offbeat” touch. According to Mr. Scott, “Toulouse had a great feel for the material, and the odd touches tickled the fancy of our client.”
[See Figure 1:]
Mr. Scott added: “The Petri campaign was quite successful, though frankly, all those rodents wearing cowboy boots were kind of disturbing.”
Next Grandfig was put to work on the Arrow Shirts campaign, which was not as successful. Though he did not actually write the copy on this ad, Mr. Grandfig did inspire it with his artwork.
[See figure 2:]
According to Mr. Scott: “This ad was trying to show how free you feel wearing Arrow Shirts, but frankly, it just screams to me of repressed homosexuality. That’s probably why our client liked it so much.”
Side note for later: examine possibilities of paper exploring how psychiatric terms have entered common parlance to the denigration of our profession.
From there he was put on the Jantzen account, for which Grandfig painted a number of lovely women sporting Jantzen’s clingy (and to this psychiatrist’s mind) deviant bathing wear. This went well up until sometime late in January, when Mr. Grandfig replaced the copy on the ad with his own.
[See figure 3:]
What other survivors is he writing of? Survivors of the war? Are these troubling images the result of some kind of trauma suffered under the Nazis? I must explore this issue in depth.
After this gaffe, Grandfig was not given any more lettering work. Left with no actual language, Grandfig clearly subsumed his rage and paranoia into his actual artwork. One glance at these paintings for the Van Camp corporation will reveal the sinister and depraved undercurrent to his thoughts.
[Figure 4:]
None as alarming as this actual artwork, which Mr. Scott mimeographed for my records. [Figure 5.] Notice the label. Instead of saying “Van Camp’s Pork and Beans”, it clearly reads “Van Camp’s Long-Pork and Beans”. Luckily, Mr. Scott caught this artwork before it went into production.
“Actually, I was torn on whether to stop it or not,” Mr. Scott told me in our interview.
“Really?” I asked.
“Yes, I thought it would be amusing to see what would happen. To see if anyone caught the reference.”
“But you decided against that?”
“Yes, but I have the original hanging in my office. It’s quite brilliant.”
Putting Mr. Scott’s artistic proclivities to the side for the moment, it must be pointed out that long-pork is a reference to cannibalism. Has Grandfig been a participant or witness to such a morally proscribed event? Perhaps the other “survivors” he spoke of have done such a thing. I have heard it was difficult in Europe after the war, but I had no idea it was so serious. Perhaps it only happened in Belgium.
Next, he was caught sneaking into the lettering room to change the text on this advert for some grocery firm.
[Figure 6:]
According to Mr. Scott, the issue was brought to a head when this advert for a Chase & Sanborn product went to press, was put on the product, and very nearly went to market.
[Figure 7:]
Mr. Scott felt it was safest to bring Grandfig to the hospital for his own safety as well as that of his firm, VAPID.
According to Scott: “I’m pretty sure the copy writers were going to kill him if he changed any more of their work.”
He’d met her at a bar uptown, and she seemed like a classy dame, but there was something odd about her. When she’d said, “you know Lance, I’d really like to show you my sink, and you could play with the snake,” he thought it was just a euphemism.
But no. Horribly, no.
