Crackers

by Edward Ruscha

Publisher: Heavy Industry Publications

Edition size: 5000

Ed Ruscha’s self-published artist book presents stills from an amusing film based on Mason Williams’ essay How To Derive The Maximum Enjoyment from Eating Crackers in Bed, which reads as a set of instructions for a man and his dinner date. In Ruscha’s iteration, actors follow Mason’s script. A man makes a giant salad on a hotel room bed, complete with vinegar and oil, and invites a woman over for a dinner date, encouraging her to climb into the prepared salad. In a final act twist, the man leaves her to fetch a bag of Saltines so that he may eat alone in a nicer hotel suite elsewhere.