Notes Toward Flarf's Khurbn

"No use for Stein to fly to Paris and forget it. The thing, the United States, the unmitigated stupidity, the drab tediousness of the democracy, the overwhelming number of the offensively ignorant, the dull nerve—is there in the artist's mind and cannot be escaped by taking a ship. She must resolve it if she can, if she is to be." (William Carlos Williams, 1930, "The Work of Gertrude Stein", Selected Essays, p. 119.)

"Science has done little to help the artist, beyond contributing radio, linotype and the cinema; inventions which enormously extend his scope, but which commit him more than ever to the policy of the State and the demands of the ignorant." (Cyril Connolly (Palinurus), 1944, The Unquiet Grave, part II, p. 54)