Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Back to America 181onstrations in the streets, which often turned into violent confrontations.Not until America entered the war against Germany didthe riots finally cease. New York was also nervous about bombardmentsat the time, and blackouts were commonplace. The Museumof Modern Art multiplied its safety drills. When AlexanderCalder, a close friend who put us up for a while, moved out ofthe city to Connecticut, I bought his furniture and took over hislease. Happily, I was once again in touch with several members ofthe surrealist group now living in New York-Andre Breton, MaxEmst, Marcel Duchamp, and the Swiss Kurt Seligmann. EvenYves Tanguy, the most bizarre and bohemian of them all, withtufts of hair sticking out of his head, was here, married to a realItalian princess who tried to keep him on the wagon. All of uswent about our activities as if everything were perfectly normal;Duchamp, Leger, and I even planned to make a pornographic filmon a rooftop, but thought better of it when we found out that thepenalty was ten years in jail.Among the people I came to know in New York were Saint-Exupkry, who always amazed us with his repertory of magic tricks;Claude Uvi-Strauss, who sometimes participated in our surrealistsurveys; and Leonora Carrington, who'd just gotten out of a psychiatrichospital in Santander where her English family had put her.Separated now from Max Ernst, Leonora apparently lived with aMexican writer named Renato Leduc. One day, when we arrived atthe house of a certain Mr. Reiss for our regular meeting, Leonorasuddenly got up, went into the bathroom, and took a shower-fullydressed. Afterward, dripping wet, she came back into the livingroom, sat down in an armchair, and stared at me."You're a handsome man," she said to me in Spanish, seizingmy arm. "You look exactly like my warden."(Years later, while J was making The Milky Way, Delphine Seyrigtold me that when she was a very little girl, she sat on my lap duringone of those meetings.)Dali was also in New York. For years we'd gone our separate