I just came across this web site devoted entirely to “Understanding Duchamp,” called www.understandingduchamp.com, apparently by a guy named Andrew Stafford. You must go there, and here is why.

It has this fantastic animation sequence of Duchamp’s Large Glass, the pane of glass containing mechanical imagery that he also called The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even and wrote all kinds of pseudo-scientific explanations about, implying that if you could understand the scientific implication of the action, you could unlock the symbolism and the meaning of the thing. Ha! Everybody goes every which way talking about the Large Glass, very Keystone Kop Kritics. So clever, that Duchamp.

Apparently, Andrew Stafford is clever, too, and very deadpan. The thrusting, machine-headed golden bride cartoon spits her vapors and her messages down onto the Fate Machine and the Amorous Pursuit mechanism below. If you want to see which is the Fate Machine and which is the Amorous Pursuit mechanism, you can hide one of them by clicking on the “Hide Amorous Pursuit” or “Hide Fate Machine” buttons. The basic storyline is that the poor bachelor keeps trying, and mostly failing, to squirt something at the bride — either seminal fluid, a flirtatious glance, or a marriage proposal, according to Staffords’ earnest comments, based on Duchamp’s notes — and is blocked by everything from scissors to a boxing match to a little orange Juggler of Gravity. Duchamp would have loved this. If I could post a sample view here, I would.