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Chapter Two Euclid's Asshole The Dream Life of Balsa Snell PROLOGUE In an unpublished short story entitled "The Fake," Nathanael West recounts the adventures of Beano Walsh, a would-be American artist living the life of a bohemian in Paris during the twenties. Despite his extravagant claims for his art, Beano is really more of a con artist than anything else. He has managed to convince a well-heeled philanthropic organization to fund his dubious aesthetic ambitions largely on the basis of his manic energy and charisma. Although the philanthropists are quite willing to indulge the whims and idiosyncrasies of their artists, as good burghers they also want to make sure they are getting their money's worth. Thus, before they will renew Beano's stipend, they insist upon seeing what he has produced thanks to their largesse. This creates something of a dilemma for our protagonist because, as it turns out, he has nothing to show them. The problem is that Beano cannot draw. He makes a hash of everything he does. Rather than admit defeat, Beano decides that the problem rests not with him but with the anatomy books from which he has been working. "I've found out what's wrong with these anatomy books, and therefore all modern sculpture," Beano proclaims. It seems that "the anatomy books are wrong because they use a man only five feet ten inches tall for their charts.... According to Beano they should have used a man six feet tall because the perfect modern man is six feet tall. All modern sculpture is based on these books and therefore all modern sculpture is wrong." Apparently, it is not just a matter of increasing the proportions in the anatomy books by an extra two inches. "A six foot man," Beano tells us, "is not only taller but different." 1 23 24 PART I Beano is determined to prove his thesis, but in order to do so, he must have a corpse. He manages to procure one from the morgue, "a dead sailor who has been fished out of the Seine." (As an aesthete Beano finds this corpse especially appealing for the way "the blue was just beginning to show through the [sailor's] sunburn.") In order to save money on an ambulance , the artist wraps him up and stuffs him in the backseat of a taxicab . Instead of going home, however, Beano asks the driver to stop at a popular cafe so that he can show off his prize to his expatriate cronies. The body creates such a stir that soon all the bandages have been torn off in an effort to get a peek at it. Having satisfied the curiosity of Beano's cronies, the corpse is left behind in the cab. Meanwhile, Beano is toasted all around. Of course, one drink leads to two, and then several more-until the revelry is ended by a scream. It seems that a tourist, who has come to gawk at the bohemians in their native habitat, has unwittingly climbed into the cab only to find herself side-by-side with Beano's dead sailor. The police are summoned, and Beano is thrown in jail along with his corpse. Undaunted, Beano asks for charcoal and drawing paper, and he instructs the police to call the philanthropic organization that is sponsoring his work. He hopes that when the philanthropists find him there, busy drawing his corpse, they will be impressed by his dedication. After all, Beano reasons, "A guy had to be a pretty serious artist to go to such lengths, and it would remind [them] of Van Gogh's ear."2 The philanthropists , however, do not need any convincing. They are so pleased by the publicity Balso's arrest has secured for their foundation that they renew his stipend on the spot. When Beano's friend comes to his cell the following morning to tell him the good news, he finds Beano lying beneath his corpse raving like a lunatic. Beano is subsequently diagnosed as completely mad-apparently beyond all cure-whereupon he is committed to an insane asylum. Perhaps this is just another performance on Beano's part. Perhaps not. Not even his friends know for sure. "The Fake," or "L'Affair Beano" as it was later called, is a marvelous comic send-up of expatriate life, which had already become something of a cliche by the time West himself got to Paris in 1926.3 Although Beano's antics seem harmless...

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