I worked very hard on this picture. I used Kathy as the model. Later, I got another model for the man. I did lots of studies, and soon the cost for the models was already eighty dollars. I didn’t care about the money; I liked the challenge of having to do a commission. Finally I ended up with a picture of a muscular man lying on a table with the slave girl massaging him: she’s wearing a kind of toga that covers one breast—the other one was nude —and I got the expression of resignation on her face just right.
I was just about ready to deliver my commissioned masterpiece to the massage parlor when Gianonni told me that the guy had been arrested and was in jail. So I asked the girls at the topless restaurant if they knew any good massage parlors around Pasadena that would like to hang my drawing in the lobby.
They gave me names and locations of places in and around Pasadena and told me things like “When you go to the Such-and-such massage parlor, ask for Frank—he’s a pretty good guy. If he’s not there, don’t go in.” Or “Don’t talk to Eddie. Eddie would never understand the value of a drawing.”
The next day I rolled up my picture, put it in the back of my station wagon, and my wife Gweneth wished me good luck as I set out to visit the brothels of Pasadena to sell my drawing.
Just before I went to the first place on my list, I thought to myself, “You know, before I go anywhere else, I oughta check at the place he used to have. Maybe it’s still open, and perhaps the new manager wants my drawing.” I went over there and knocked on the door. It opened a little bit, and I saw a girl’s eye. “Do we know you?” she asked.
“No, you don’t, but how would you like to have a drawing that would be appropriate for your entrance hall?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but we’ve already contracted an artist to make a drawing for us, and he’s working on it.”
“I’m the artist,” I said, “and your drawing is ready!”
It turns out that the guy, as he was going to jail, told his wife about our arrangement. So I went in and showed them the drawing.
The guy’s wife and his sister, who were now running the place, were not entirely pleased with it; they wanted the girls to see it. I hung it up on the wall, there in the lobby, and all the girls came out from the various rooms in the back and started to make comments.
One girl said she didn’t like the expression on the slave girl’s face. “She doesn’t look happy,” she said. “She should be smiling.”
I said to her, “Tell me—while you’re massaging a guy, and he’s not lookin’ at you, are you smiling?”
“Oh, no!” she said. “I feel exactly like she looks! But it’s not right to put it in the picture.”
I left it with them, but after a week of worrying about it back and forth, they decided they didn’t want it. It turned out that the real reason that they didn’t want it was the one nude breast. I tried to explain that my drawing was a tone-down of the original request, but they said they had different ideas about it than the guy did. I thought the irony of people running such an establishment being prissy about one nude breast was amusing, and I took the drawing home.
My businessman friend Dudley Wright saw the drawing and I told him the story about it. He said, “You oughta triple its price. With art, nobody is really sure of its value, so people often think, ‘If the price is higher, it must be more valuable!’ ”
I said, “You’re crazy!” but, just for fun, I bought a twenty-dollar frame and mounted the drawing so it would be ready for the next customer.
Some guy from the weather forecasting business saw the drawing I had given Gianonni and asked if I had others. I invited him and his wife to my “studio” downstairs in my home, and they asked about the newly framed drawing. “That one is two hundred dollars.” (I had multiplied sixty by three and added twenty for the frame.) The next day they came back and bought it. So the massage parlor drawing ended up in the office of a weather forecaster.
One day there was a police raid on Gianonni’s, and some of the dancers were arrested. Someone wanted to stop Gianonni from putting on topless dancing shows, and Gianonni didn’t want to stop. So there was a big court case about it; it was in all the local papers.
Gianonni went around to all the customers and asked them if they would testify in support of him. Everybody had an excuse: “I run a day camp, and if the parents see that I’m going to this place, they won’t send their kids to my camp …”
Or, “I’m in the such-and-such business, and if it’s publicized that I come down here, we’ll lose customers.”
I think to myself, “I’m the only free man in here. I haven’t any excuse! I
In court the big question was, is topless dancing acceptable to the community—do community standards allow it?
The lawyer from the defense tried to make me into an expert on community standards. He asked me if I went into other bars.
“Yes.”
“And how many times per week would you typically go to Gianonni’s?”
“Five, six times a week.” (That got into the papers: The Caltech professor of physics goes to see topless dancing six times a week.)
“What sections of the community were represented at Gianonni’s?”
“Nearly every section: there were guys from the real estate business, a guy from the city governing board, workmen from the gas station, guys from engineering firms, a professor of physics”
“So would you say that topless entertainment is acceptable to the community, given that so many sections of it are watching it and enjoying it?”
“I need to know what you mean by ‘acceptable to the community.’ Nothing is accepted by
The lawyer suggests a figure. The other lawyer objects. The judge calls a recess, and they all go into chambers for 15 minutes before they can decide that “acceptable to the community” means accepted by 50% of the community.
In spite of the fact that I made them be precise, I had no precise numbers as evidence, so I said, “I believe that topless dancing is accepted by more than 50% of the community, and is therefore acceptable to the community.”
Gianonni temporarily lost the case, and his, or another one very similar to it, went ultimately to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, his place stayed open, and I got still more free 7-Ups.
Around that time there were some attempts to develop an interest in art at Caltech. Somebody contributed the money to convert an old plant sciences building into some art studios. Equipment and supplies were bought and provided for the students, and they hired an artist from South Africa to coordinate and support the art activities around Caltech.
Various people came in to teach classes. I got Jerry Zorthian to teach a drawing class, and some guy came in to teach lithography, which I tried to learn.
The South African artist came over to my house one time to look at my drawings. He said he thought it would be fun to have a one-man show. This time I was cheating: If I hadn’t been a professor at Caltech, they would have never thought my pictures were worth it.
“Some of my better drawings have been sold, and I feel uncomfortable calling the people,” I said.
“You don’t have to worry, Mr. Feynman,” he reassured me. “You won’t have to call them up. We will make all the arrangements and operate the exhibit officially and correctly.”
I gave him a list of people who had bought my drawings, and they soon received a telephone call from him: “We understand that you have an Ofey.”
“Oh, yes!”
“We are planning to have an exhibition of Ofeys, and we’re wondering if you would consider lending it to us.” Of course they were delighted.
The exhibition was held in the basement of the Athenaeum, the Caltech faculty club. Everything was like the
