In the spring of 1971 Roth began taking out small advertisements in the pages of the Luzerner Stadtanzeiger, a free pennysaver magazine in Lucerne, Switzerland. He published ambiguous aphorisms such as “Tears are a ship on the sea of tears” and “A tear is as evil as a good word.” The statements were sparsely formatted and, save for the initials D.R., contained no clues about the artist’s intentions or identity. Roth’s ads ran for over a year, until the publisher terminated his contract, reportedly because a significant number of confused and annoyed readers had complained about the mysterious statements. In 1973 Roth bound the sections of the Luzerner Stadtanzeiger that featured his ads; the result is The Lake of Tears.