Lobster, that's right, a post about food finally...sort of

So today after yoga and my rockin' 85 minute run around Reid park I decided to burn some time at Barnes and Noble before picking up baby G.  Stinking of high heaven I'm sure, though not like a sweaty, rental ski boot like the dude next to me in class, I meandered through the cookbooks (poor selection at Broadway) and finally to the magazines.  People- if you gotta look through an ENTIRE mag you ain't gonna buy, have some class and GO.TO.THE.LIBRARY.

Anyway, I picked up a mag named Gastronomique Fall 2009 with a beautiful orange glowing pumpkin-like orb on the front.  The article that caught my attention was the first I saw with pictures and it was Dali's Lobster phone.  If these links don't work you can google these:

And apparently he drew the lobster on this dress too.  How random right?

Dali was one of my fav artists along with Picasso, beginning in college.  I know embarrassingly little about them but I am fond of many of their most popular works like many many other people.  Until my friend JW shared a book with me this summer on Dali.  Even.more.interesting!  He has some great quotes which you can just google but here are some:

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.
Salvador Dali 

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali.
Salvador Dali 

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
Salvador Dali 

The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.
Salvador Dali 

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.
Salvador Dali 

I think I like the last one the best!!!  So I am beginning to chew through this.  He thought the phone and lobsters were sexual.  Time to work on thinking more like an artist.  I'll get back to this when I have something original to discuss about it.  Fascinating!

More info on the phone.  From:

http://nga.gov.au/International/Catalogue/Detail.cfm?IRN=2607

...also called the Aphrodisiac telephone at the time, a title in keeping with Dalí's wicked sense of humour and desire to baffle his public completely...Dalí's Lobster telephone was not 'absolutely useless', however, but was in fact a perfectly functioning telephone. Edward James purchased four Lobster telephones from Dalí, with which he replaced all the original phones in his country retreat.

And from:

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=2988

Lobster Telephone  1936
Téléphone - Homard

Plastic, painted plaster and mixed media
object: 178 x 330 x 178 mm
sculpture

Purchased 1981

T03257

In the early 1930s, Dalí promoted the idea of the Surrealist object, of which this is a classic example. The Surrealists valued the mysterious and provocative effect of such unexpected conjunctions. Dalí, in particular, believed that his objects could reveal the secret desires of the unconscious. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for him, and he drew a close analogy between food and sex. He made Lobster Telephone for Edward James, the British collector who was the most active patron of Surrealist artists in the 1930s.

 (From the display caption July 2008)

From:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A585344

Influences on Dali's Work
Freud
Dali was a great believer in the theories of Freud, and especially took to heart his sexual representation - that vessels were feminine and wild animals were masculine - and incorporated them into much of his work.
...

The Telephone
One of Dali's most famous works is his Lobster Telephone, a telephone with a lobster in place of a receiver. Dali saw parallels between the lobster and the telephone, and included the telephone in many of his works.