49 
gave the bourgeois a sense of confusion and distant, yet mighty rumbling, so 
that his bells began to buzz, his safes frowned, and his honors broke out in 
spots. “The Eggboard,” a game for the upper ten thousand, in which the 
participants leave the arena covered with egg yolk from top to toe; “The 
Navel Bottle,” a monstrous home furnishing in which bicycle, whale, bras 
sière and absinthe spoon are combined; “The Glove,” which can be worn in 
place of the old-fashioned head — were devised to show the bourgeois the 
unreality of his world, the nullity of his endeavors, even of his extremely 
profitable patrioteerings. This of course was a naive undertaking on our part, 
since actually the bourgeois has less imagination than a worm, and in place of 
a heart has an over-life-size corn which twitches in times of approaching storm 
— on the stock exchange. 
Talk 
When Dada revealed its eternal wisdom to man, man laughed indulgently 
and went on talking. Man talks enough to make the very rats sick to their 
stomach. While his voracity forces him to stuff into his mouth everything that 
fails to evade his claws, he still manages to talk. He talks so much that the day 
darkens and the night pales with fright. He talks so much that the sea runs 
dry and the desert turns to swamp. The main thing for him is to talk, for talk 
is healthy ventilation. After a fine speech he feels very hungry and changes his 
mind. At the same time he assumes the noble attitude of rotten meat. Man de 
clares red what he called green the day before and what in reality is black. He 
is forever making definitive statements on life, man and art, and he has no more 
idea than the mushroom what life, man and art actually are. 
Son of light 
Man hidden away in his vanity like a mole in his hill no longer understands 
the language of light which fills the sky with its inconceivable immensity. 
Man believes himself to be the summit of creation. The face of light does 
not perturb him. He confounds himself with light. This toad likes to call 
himself the son of light. 
Man owes it to his incongruously developed reason that he is grotesque and 
ugly. He has broken away from nature. He thinks that he dominates nature. 
He thinks he is the measure of all things. Engendering in opposition to the 
laws of nature, man creates monstrosities. He desires that of which he is in