I took my students this morning to the SMU Bridwell collection which has a livres d'artistes selection that included Henri Matisse's Jazz and La Maigre (the waif) by Pablo Picasso. Arion Press in SF is also well-represented in the Bridwell collections, and works here included a delightful collection of SHAPED POEMS and a special edition of John Ashberry's "Portrait in a Convex Mirror" housed inside a large metallic, embossed film cannister. This last piece had sections of the poem printed on circular sheets of paper, interspersed with portraits of the author rendered by artists including Jim Dine, Larry Rivers, and Jane Freilicher. Amazing. It was exciting too to see Matisse's Jazz, only 350 copies were produced, one of which was owned by Stanley Marcus, a generous donor to the book arts collection at Bridwell. But he did not donate this particular edition of Jazz that we were looking at it, because the version he owned, he kept in his bathroom and had *LAMINATED*. Other great works represented in the collection included Jim Dine's Portrait of Dorian Gray and a collection on shape and color by Sonia Delaunay. I could see my French speaking students growing excited, getting all sorts of ideas for translation projects. Another student who's put up something of a fuss most of the semester re: visual/textual may have I think, "got it" - he very publicly announced at the end of the session that while he didn't personally prefer/connect to this variety of work, he could see it inciting and inspiring the group and I think this gave him some newfound respect though he was full of wisecracks this morning. It's kind of like announcing, I don't like Scott Turow but I love Michael Ondaatje. Personal aesthetics. Whateva. I told him he needed to get over Humument.