(no subject)
"Weary had a block of balsa wood which was supposed to be a foxhole pillow. He had a prophylactic kit containing two tough condoms 'For the Prevention of Disease Only!' He had a whistle he wasn't going to show anybody until he got promoted to corporal. He had a dirty picture of a woman attempting sexual intercourse with a Shetland pony. He had made Billy Pilgrim admire that picture several times.
The woman and the pony were posed before velvet draperies which were fringed with deedlee-balls. They were flanked by Doric columns. In front of one column was a potted palm. The picture that Weary had was a print of the first dirty photograph in history. The word photography was first used in 1839, and it was in that year, too, that Louis J. M. Daguerre revealed to the French Academy that an image formed on a silvered metal plate covered with a thin film of silver iodide could be developed in the presence of mercury vapor.
In 1841, only two years later, an assistant to Daguerre, Andre Le Fevre, was arrested in the Tuileries Gardens for attempting to sell a gentleman a picture of the woman and the pony. That was where Weary bought his picture, too- in the Tuileries. Le Fevre argued that the picture was fine art, and that his intention was to make Greek mythology come alive. He said the columns and the potted palm proved that.
When asked which myth he meant to represent, Le Fevre replied that there were thousands of myths like that, with a woman a mortal and the pony a god.
He was sentenced to six months in prison. He died there of pneumonia. So it goes."
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5
The woman and the pony were posed before velvet draperies which were fringed with deedlee-balls. They were flanked by Doric columns. In front of one column was a potted palm. The picture that Weary had was a print of the first dirty photograph in history. The word photography was first used in 1839, and it was in that year, too, that Louis J. M. Daguerre revealed to the French Academy that an image formed on a silvered metal plate covered with a thin film of silver iodide could be developed in the presence of mercury vapor.
In 1841, only two years later, an assistant to Daguerre, Andre Le Fevre, was arrested in the Tuileries Gardens for attempting to sell a gentleman a picture of the woman and the pony. That was where Weary bought his picture, too- in the Tuileries. Le Fevre argued that the picture was fine art, and that his intention was to make Greek mythology come alive. He said the columns and the potted palm proved that.
When asked which myth he meant to represent, Le Fevre replied that there were thousands of myths like that, with a woman a mortal and the pony a god.
He was sentenced to six months in prison. He died there of pneumonia. So it goes."
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse 5