Subject: Cunning Stunts
From: "Akiko Nakata" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 01:00:26 +0900

Dear Don,

This could be the biggest find we made. BTW, I found it funny that the word
"cul" was not a proper word to print even in 60s.
I think "quelle" in the blurb should be "quel," right?

Best, Akiko

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This is Tadashi Wakashima's thought: *Cunning Stunts*, the title with a
spooneristic obscene joke, must be a parody of *Oh! Calcutta!* The title of
the revue originated from *O! quel cul t'as!* a painting by Clovis Trouille
(1889-1975). The surrealist contributed the painting for the revue.

From the blurb on the back of Kenneth Tynan's *OC!* (New York: Grove, 1969):
In Oh! Calcutta! Mr Tynan has assembled a group of sketches which deal with
almost every conceivable erotic fantasy and sexual reality that Western man
has dreamt up or experienced. The distinguished roster of authors includes
Samuel Beckett, Edna O'Brien, Jules Feiffer, Leonard Melfi, John Lennon,
and, not to be outdone, Kenneth Tynan himself.
The title of this revue, which is taken from the title of a painting by the
French surrealist painter Clovis Trouille, contains a phonetic French pun:
'Oh! Quelle ... t'as!' Or, freely translated: 'Oh! What a lovely ... you
have!'

Brian Boyd kindly reminded me of a brief exchange between VN and KT. In the
summer of 1969, KT invited VN to "contribute to an anthology of anonymous
pornographic pieces to be commissioned from well-known writers. . . Nabokov
replied curtly: 'I have no interest whatever in pornography and cannot
imagine myself being titillated by what I write." (VNAY 569).

*OC!* was first performed at Eden Theatre off-Broadway on June 17, 1969.
"'[I]n the radiance of an Edenic simplification of mores" (as R. wrote in
another connection)" (Ch. 11) is a broad hint.

Akiko Nakata