Naked Chess: How to Win

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The only trouble was, I had been taking birth control pills for the first and only time in my life, and not only had I puffed up like a blimp but my breasts had swollen to look like two pink footballs. Plus they hurt. On the other hand, it would be a great contrast—this large, too-L.A. surfer girl with an extremely tiny old man in a French suit. Playing chess. It was hard to believe that only about 50 years earlier, in 1907, in The American Scene, Henry James had written: “I had the foretaste of what I was presently to feel in California—when the general aspect of that wondrous realm kept suggesting to me a sort of prepared but unconscious and inexperienced Italy, the primitive plate, in perfect condition, but with the impression of History all yet to be made.” Still, this was Pasadena, the home of gracious ladies painting watercolors on afternoon outings, so I said, “You better ask people, Julian, and make sure it’s okay.” So good for Nazi! Crushing it in chess, looking good doing it, and standing up for her gender like a boss. Have to love it. That’s partly why she gets the number 1 spot. But mostly because she is the hottest chess player.

George and I walked to Fred Segal’s, this fancy clothing store with a café inside. And sitting there, George told me Chico stories, the one I especially loved being about how, when Walter curated this huge California Art show in San Francisco, he wanted to go to the party thrown by the artists who’d been omitted—and George said he’d go with him as his bodyguard if Chico would give George money for his rent in exchange. Since Walter couldn’t possibly go into this room full of people he’d personally excluded without a bodyguard, he agreed. “He promised to give me the money before he left,” George explained, “but suddenly I looked up and he’d gone. Without paying me. The party lasted all night. The next morning, Chico shows up again ” While Anna here is not exactly my type, she gets huge bonus points for helping push Chess towards the “sport” it could be. Otherwise, I’ll just be “and friend.” Anyone who thinks the nude should have been thinner, or in any way different—to them, I’ll be a floating image of “elsewhere.” Billy Al Bengston: Walter was a wild guy, very interesting. You know he’d sleep in a rug like a taco? Yeah, he’d come over to your house and the next thing you know, your rug would be rolled up, and you’d say, “Oh, Chico’s here.”When the pictures were made, Babitz was a 20-year-old student at Los Angeles Community College. The daughter of a violinist and an artist, and the goddaughter of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, Babitz was already at ease in a sophisticated, aesthetic milieu. She integrated herself into L.A.’s slowly burgeoning art scene, partying with Billy Al Bengston, Ed Kienholz, Kenneth Price, and the men who’d become integral to the California Light and Space movement: Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, and Peter Alexander. Years later, she also became romantically involved with both Ed Ruscha and his brother. Babitz fully embraced her role as an art groupie. Well, here I was—in the gallery with no shoes on, prepared to make history, my feet growing colder in more ways than one. Larry Bell: Shirley and her younger sister Glo [Gloria] came in red, white, and blue outfits. They both looked very cute, especially Glo. Of course, by now even I have forgiven Walter for leaving L.A., and we are happy to give him any chance we can, and though most of those Ruscha fans probably had no idea the man sitting beside him was really the One as far as art in L.A. is concerned, we who were there realize that Ed couldn’t have happened without the strange days of long ago.

At the entrance to the show, there was an old photograph from a long-ago opening in Paris that showed Marcel and a woman as Adam and Eve. I noticed this as I went in, and it seemed sweet to me, they both were so young and French and skinny. For a long time afterward, I thought he might have been pretending to be surprised, but he told me later, “I had no idea. I came into the museum as usual, a few minutes before it opened, blind and cold. I could feel weird vibes in the air, it was so quiet. But then I go into the gallery, and there you both were.” By that time, I was living in this little paper bungalow—one room with a typewriter—on Bronson Avenue in Hollywood. I had a horrible old Chevy with stalactites growing down from the interior like cobwebs. I was writing my memoirs, of course, because I’d been to Europe (like Henry James) and wanted to write a book called Travel Broadens, about being Daisy Miller, only from Hollywood. Poor Europe never recovered was the point of my book. I thought of myself as extremely decadent and thought that anyone who had graduated from Hollywood High had nothing to learn. it seemed to me that there were things going on that I could pursue, that no matter what they thought in New York about everyone else being totally out of it and hopeless, on the West Coast things were happening and that it was art and that Walter was the One and these were the Times. Sitting in the audience, even though mostly I didn’t get it, I at least had the feeling there was something to get.

Billy Al Bengston: Was Andy intimidated by the L.A. artists? No, I think they were intimidated by him. Those California macho guys are intimidated by anyone who isn’t just like them. But I don’t remember any of the California guys talking to him, except for me, and I knew him from before. And Dennis talked to him, of course. You know how I knew Dennis? From when we were both kids in Kansas. His mother ran the swimming pool in Dodge City.

Eve Babitz was born on 13. May 1943 in Hollywood as the daughter of an artist couple. The mother of Eve Babitz was an artist, her father a musician. He played the violin and came from a Jewish family in Russia. Igor Stravinsky, a good friend of the family, was the godfather of Eve Babitz. Eve Babitz was born in Hollywood in 1943, the daughter of an artist couple. She partied in California bohemian circles and met many celebrities like Jim Morrison, Steve Martin and Harrison Ford. Babitz later published several books about his youth in California, as well as producing several works of art. George and I walked to Fred Segal’s, this fancy clothing store with a café inside. And sitting there, George told me Chico stories, the one I especially loved being about how, when Walter curated this huge California Art show in San Francisco, he wanted to go to the party thrown by the artists who’d been omitted—and George said he’d go with him as his bodyguard if Chico would give George money for his rent in exchange. Since Walter couldn’t possibly go into this room full of people he’d personally excluded without a bodyguard, he agreed. “He promised to give me the money before he left,” George explained, “but suddenly I looked up and he’d gone. Without paying me. The party lasted all night. The next morning, Chico shows up again….” But then in LA, we have no sense of history, which is why I am always writing my memories. As Duchamp himself said, “It is the spectators who make the picture.” Maybe it was the spectacle of Walter playing chess with Duchamp “for art” that gave Julian the idea. After all, by 1963 it had been about forty years since Marcel had retired to play chess (or so he wanted the world to think). For forty years someone could have come up with the idea of photographing the master of Nude Descending a Staircase playing chess with a naked woman. But nobody in Paris or New York thought it up.Pasadena, whose sole claim to fame was the Rose Parade, was now anxiously awaiting the Big Private Party at the Green Hotel before the Public Opening of the Duchamp show.