"Les Treize" ..#23

During the seventies, I was a student in Paris, living in the Latin Quarter. In Winter 72 , a movie was released in the indie circuit called "OUT 1 spectre" by Jacques Rivette. It was a shortened version, though lasting 4 and a half hours, of a 12 hours long film. Rivette was some kind of heroe to me and to student friends of mine, specially due to a previous film he had directed , "L'amour fou", which had the same title as that André Breton book. We rushed to see the film and the 4 hours just vanished..we wanted more (I still haven't managed to view the full 12 hours version but I know that the video does exist...). Next day we went again to see the same movie and we were still fascinated.. It was loosely based on the story of the 13, a book by Balzac. The next step was to read Balzac's novel.. The introdutive sentences were the following :

"Il s'est rencontré, sous l'Empire et dans Paris, treize hommes également frappés du même sentiment, tous doués d'une assez grande énergie pour être fidèles à la même pensée, assez probes entre eux pour ne point se trahir, alors même que leurs intérêts se trouvaient opposés, assez profondément politiques pour dissimuler les liens sacrés qui les unissaient, assez forts pour se mettre au-dessus de toutes les lois, assez hardis pour tout entreprendre, et assez heureux pour avoir presque toujours réussi dans leurs desseins; ayant couru les plus grands dangers, mais taisant leurs défaites; inaccessibles à la peur, et n'ayant tremblé ni devant le prince, ni devant le bourreau, ni devant l'innocence; s'étant acceptés tous, tels qu'ils étaient, sans tenir compte des préjugés sociaux; criminels sans doute, mais certainement remarquables par quelques-unes des qualités qui font les grands hommes, et ne se recrutant que parmi les hommes d'élite."

With the book and the film in our minds, we met altogether in a brasserie nearby the Place Denfert-Rocherau, a place called l'Orientale.. in that place , before 1917, Lenin and Trotsky used to have discussions about their plans to sovietize Russia.

orientale, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

And there in 1972, we decided to start a secrete society called "Les Treize" which would use the lessons of the novel and of the film by the means of a fully surrealistic attitude. We were so serious about it that I cannot help smiling thirty years later , considering those student plays..which were of course a different way to know and eventually seduce the girls who were part of our group. We were three girls and three guys actually , we had got close because our tastes in arts and litterature were similar and not really shared by the remaining of the student community we knew...

The 13 society had rules like never say any predictable thing and try to distort clichés, also we tried to be on a different level of mind than the average regular one. We were elitists and dandies. It was fun really but people outside of our circle were considering us as perfect cases for heavy psychotherapy. I remember us having this poets in danger attitude and also enjoying life differently. This is the time where we visited "la promenade de Venus" where the surrealist group used to meet, another place which caught our attention was a small thriftstore with the beautiful name of "L'angle du hasard".

Our society lasted several years, love conflicts grew and everything ended the day V. one of the girls disappeared to never show up again.. This was a shock for all of us and my friend involved with her never gave us a coherent explanation of what had happened.. This vanishing bothered me for a long time. I did all kinds of enquiries to find her again ...it took me 15 years to meet V. again and understand why she had left the 13 so dramatically, and also to find out she had loved me.

Crébillon #22

The XVIII century French litterature is full of splendid writers, my own favourite author is Crébillon who more than others managed to describe love torments and pleasures , desires and frustrations through a wide palette of exquisitely nuanced touches. Something like a repetitive sensual symphony . I like "les liaisons dangereuses" from Choderlos de Laclos or Marivaux plays but nothing replaces for me "Les égarements du coeur et de l'esprit" from Crébillon. Here you have style, feelings and eroticism at his most sophisticated stage.
Just read how Meilcour falls in love ...

Tout entier à Madame de Lursay, je ne m’occupais que du chagrin d’être privé de sa présence, lorsqu’une loge s’ouvrit à côté de la mienne. Curieux de voir les personnes qui l’allaient occuper, j’y portai mes regards ; et l’objet qui s’y offrit les fixa. Qu’on se figure tout ce que la beauté la plus régulière a de plus noble, tout ce que les grâces ont de plus séduisant, en un mot, tout ce que la jeunesse peut répandre de fraîcheur et d’éclat, à peine pourra-t-on se faire une idée de la personne que je voudrais dépeindre. Je ne sais quel mouvement singulier et subit m’agita à cette vue : frappé de tant de beautés, je demeurai comme anéanti. Ma surprise allait jusque au transport. Je sentis dans mon cœur un désordre qui se répandit sur tous mes sens : loin qu’il se calmât, il redoublait par l’examen secret que je faisais de ses charmes. Elle n’avait pas en effet. besoin de parure ; en était-il de si brillante qu’elle ne l’eût effacée ? était-il d’ornement si modeste qu’elle ne l’eût embelli ? Sa physionomie était douce et réservée ; le sentiment et l’esprit paraissaient briller dans ses yeux. Cette personne me parut jeune ; et je crus, à la surprise des spectateurs, qu’elle ne paraissait en public que de ce jour-là : j’en eus involontairement un mouvement de joie, et j’aurais souhaité qu’elle n’eût jamais été connue que de moi. Deux dames mises du plus grand air étaient avec elle ; nouvelle surprise pour moi, de ne les pas connaître, mais elle m’arrêta peu. Uniquement occupé de ma belle inconnue, je ne cessais de la regarder, que quand par hasard elle jetait ses yeux sur quelqu’un. Les miens se portaient aussitôt sur l’objet qu’elle avait paru vouloir chercher : si elle s’y arrêtait un peu de temps, et que ce fût un jeune homme, je croyais qu’un amant seul pouvait la rendre si attentive. Sans pénétrer le motif qui me faisait agir, je conduisais, j’interprétais ses regards ; je cherchais à lire dans ses moindres mouvements. Tant d’opiniâtreté à ne la pas perdre de vue, me fit enfin remarquer d’elle ; elle regarda à son tour ; je la fixais sans le savoir et, dans le charme qui m’entraînait malgré moi-même, je ne sais ce que mes yeux lui dirent, mais elle détourna les siens en rougissant un peu.

Les égarements du cœur et de l’esprit, 1736

Of weather and semantics .. #21

I just noticed that there were so many names for cyclons according to the different parts of the world where they are observed. If the word cyclon itself obviously originates from the greek "kuklos" meaning circle, I discovered that hurricanes (carabeian sea) came from the god Hurrikan. What about typhons in China sea and baguios in Philippines ? They all sound mighty and dangerous. I am puzled then to learn that in Australia, cyclons are called willy-willies ... I say !

Two CDs from the 80's which I like ...#20

certgen, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

The missing link between garage and avant-garde ... Here is another stunner like some beauty anyone would like to meet one day. This is some lost classic, like the second album which never made it , and it better stands for this title than "these are the days .. " (1998-Fantastica). "An Introduction to war" contains two CDS. "Savage Young Generals" is the band live during 1981/82 and the whole set is there, the music is incredible, raw and is like some crazy electrosurfpsyche-music. Phil Gammage produces great surf licks with tons of reverb and still stays very modern in his guitar playing. All those songs have never been released before and it is amazing to see the inspiration Parker Dulanny was floating on. The other CD entitled "Dead rabbit gang" is that lost second album though "killer in the house" does not appear here unfortunately. But "In a bad way","the rain", "Nowhere" and other favourites are truly there in their first renditions which are easily the best ones I have heard.. The introduction song "Uptight" inspired by the reading of the Velvet Underground's biography with that title could have been as successful as "Maximum G", had it been released regularly. Here is a new chance to hear that lost nugget. Then "Keys in the carpet" opens by a dedication to Patti Smith, and Edgar A. Poe among others and they truly are good relays to Certain General works..There are even covers on those cds, and not the most predictable ones, "White rabbit" and "In-a gadda-da-vida" revisited in the shrieking surfy Certain General mould. From old modern writing to new one, from garage music to electronics, Certain General is the initiator of "Avant-garde Garage music" !!! Listen !! they were in NYC.

lyres, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Classyc rock from Boston golden age
While in Boston, when this first came out towards the end of the seventies it was only a vinyl EP with four songs..but it was a shock for me then when I listened to it, like we were having back our lost sound. I wanted more of this wailing Voxx keyboards a la ? and the Mysterians plus the Lyres shaped Mosrite guitars bringing again the vintage sound we had all been dreaming of ..- "buried alive" is the perfect example of this -.
We would have to wait two more years to enjoy "On fyre". In those 4 songs starting this cd, Jeff "Monoman" Connolly was demonstrating what would be the music of Lyres after his training years with the awesome DMZ. Until today, the Lyres have kept to their faith under the guidance of Connolly. This cd re-issue is a total piece of bliss as it includes the mandatory first "lost" album which never had a chance to be released. Here it is now making this object an absolute must to have. The early Lyres favourites are there from "Help you Ann" to "She pays the rent ", these first renditions of those classic Lyres songs are just fascinating,
The Lyres must have been a band with about a hundred different line-ups in their twenty years of existence.. Here you have the legendary line-up, maybe #2 or #3, with the great Pete Greenberg (ex-DMZ) on lead guitar and Howie Ferguson (on leave from the Real Kids) on drums. Of course all the Lyres records are good but this one is just perfect !! And see that Dan Electro guitar on Greenberg's knee, it was purchased by Jeff Monoman from Jon Richman !! Pokemonojeff had told me so two years ago and it was confirmed to me by Jonathan himself ... I love those factoids ...

La pensée du jour #19

Some beautiful things are more impressive when left imperfect than when too higly finished.
(La Rochefoucauld)

I have thought about this a lot lately and concluded that again La Rochefoucauld, apart from being a great author of style, had often found universal thoughts appliable over the centuries.
It seems so easy to agree with him .. I am dreaming now of all those imperfect things in my life and feel better.
les mots ont une puissance décapante et me poursuivent de leurs tours malicieux auxquels j'aime à me laisser prendre.. ne jouez pas avec moi please.. j'ai effroi.

Nymphées #18

For those who know me, it will not be a great surprise if I say I have always been fascinated by the XVIII century. In arts and litterature that century is to me one of the prominent ones. I am collecting books from that period , specially libertine novels which are so exquisitely written. There one can read the most erotic things as allusions and plots are described with such delicate manners..a real art de vivre.
In architecture, I have discovered recently the existence of early XVIII folies called "Nymphées", the place for nymphs, usually some spring or fountain is attached to the monument.

chatou, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Last week-end I went to see two of these folies which happened to be opened exceptionnally for visits. The first one was in Chatou, it is a huge kind of cave covered by a shell shaped roof and was designed by Soufflot. It uses many stones of different colours to compose a tectonic mosaic. Another characteristics of these nymphées is the use of sea shells of every nature that are incorporated in the walls and are also creating mosaics of shiny and coloured points. It is of course incredible to see.

nymphee, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

The second nymphée, I visited was in Viry Chatillon. There a whole room adjacent to a castle was like the boudoir one used to refresh itself after a warm walk in the parc before entering the manor. This one was really impressive, small shells stuck together on the walls were designed like grapes, the whole place was dedicated to Pan , so wine and love were worshipped there in representations of all sort. I stayed there dreaming of pretty marquises in beautiful dresses covering their milk like complexion from the sun... No noise from the nearby town could be heard, I was like back in the "Grand Siècle".

Words .. #17

Words were wonderful
pictures permanently powerful
What is the ideal formula ?

like trying to recognise someone on an old
black and white photograph..
the ingenuity and innocence of childhood
smiling nicely to the life to come..
she looked sweet in braids

This reminds me of James Joyce, of Raymond Queneau ..
Putting borders to the writing creates eerie effects..
the first line here had words starting with w, the second with p..
such borders.. symmetry games around letters
who cares ?

People all over the world ... #16

Through the years I have been suscribing to a few internet lists through which I had contacts with people who shared my interests. But there was - it does not exist anymore unfortunately for those of you interested- one list dedicated to Jonathan Richman which was not "just another story from America" (1).
There I made true friends, met some erratic characters too, but those friends stay unique to me.. funny how the community of this singer's fans made me know and sometimes meet people with whom there was nearly immediately a special link.. it hardly ever happened to me with anyone from another list...

This is how I met Ms. Xkwizit, a very good friend of mine. She has a contagious sense of humor and manages literally to translate the sound of her voice in the words she is writing. The faces she provides when wanting to express emphatically her feelings using her eyes rolling upwards and downwards are just irresistible. She is also a TV star as can be witnessed below .. Ahahaha !

Ms_X on TV, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

We have had some good laughs together and I appreciate the swiftness of her mind, not mentionning taht she is A stunner. The unpredictability in her tastes wins me all the time .. always a surprise to me .. For instance she still has not read the whole set of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu", on the other hand, right now, she is surfing on a little wagon in salt mines, an unexpected hobby.
When Xkwisit used to live in Az, I was always eager to get some mail from her detailing to me how her road-movie type of life was going on. I know her talents will provide more surprises in the future. Speaking with her is a good anti stress medicin. she is my friend on the West coast. I have other friends on the East coast as well as in the middle of the US, I'll try to write about them too one day. All of them have Jonathan as a common factor, he should not be forgotten for that very reason at least.

(1) Elliot Murphy

Having read "Da Vinci's code", I am now convinced that there exists in our world a conspiracy of people who are convinced that conspiracies exist.

Haiku #15

Silence , shhhshhhutter
ahahahahahaha , I am the madhatter...
were you Robin when writing ?
Hissing arrows flying
Krisssing stockings

There is an online game at donderevo.com
it's called :
Velvet Underground 3D Death Chase
Murder mystery again ....

Louis Welden Hawkins #14

Last week-end , my friend Gérard, the antique dealer, was coming from Britanny as there was an antique market organized in Paris and he had loaned a spot to dispatch what he had to sell. I met him on Saturday morning at the market and after had a quick look at what he was selling. He had brought the usual old Quimper plates, about half a dozen Gallé pieces , mainly lamps and jars beautifully made. There were also a couple of paintings and I started to get nervous. "Do you still have THE Hawkins ?" I asked him, not seeing that painting I have been fascinated by since I had been admiring it two years before in his shop. Of course here it is, he said pushing aside a piece of cardboard.. The Hawkins indeed.. still too expensive for me but at least I could still have another look at it. .. Louis Welden Hawkins was a painter from the end of the XIXth century aknowledged for being a symbolist and also as being the French link to the Preraphaelites. Some of his works are displayed in the Musée d'Orsay, I learned to know him and his paintings after my first encounter with "les Meules" in Gérard's shop. His paintings are of those who make me dream and ravish my attention. No need for a tv set when you have a masterpiece at home... Here is another example of Hawkins work :

LWH, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Gérard brought me out of my daydreaming saying that he had to consider selling the painting to me on a fifty months basis ... I asked him to come home for dinner. He showed up around 8pm and we ate a TBone steak I had grilled in the ovenand drank a vintage Burgundy red wine, something which we describe in French as "Jesus wearing corduroy pants"- yes E* I repeat myself here but it was so good- to express the quality , the length and the structure of a perfect wine. This was really the case with this 1996 Pommard bottle. I had put on the nuggets boxset on the cd player and "little black egg" from the Nightcrawlers made both of us smile with content.

Catleyas #13

Some books are just what one needs sometimes to find a new life direction, they are also a way to learn about oneself. By reading Proust's "La Recherche du temps perdu", I did find what used to be the ultimate book to me. The feelings, the impressions, the sounds, the colours, the paintings are there in such a delicate way one has the sensation to be travelling on an art Nouveau railway ... Here some excerpts about love and flowers ..not ordinary flowers, flowers of lust , libertines ...



cat2, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

"Elle tenait à la main un bouquet de catleyas et Swann vit, sous sa fanchon de dentelle, qu'elle avait dans les cheveux des fleurs de cette même orchidée attachées à une aigrette en plumes de cygnes. Elle était habillée sous sa mantille, d'un flot de velours noir qui, par un rattrapé oblique, découvrait en un large triangle le bas d'une jupe de faille blanche et laissait voir un empiècement, également de faille blanche, à l'ouverture du corsage décolleté, où étaient enfoncées d'autres fleurs de catleyas."

cat, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

"...on the following days he used the same pretext. If she had catleyas on her blouse he said : " It is a shame, this evening, the catleyas do not need to be arranged, they haven't been displaced as theyhad been the other evening ; it seems however to me that this one is not very straight. Can I see whether they smell better than the others? Or, if she did not have any: " Oh! no catleyas this evening, no reasons for my small arrangements " So that, for a time, the order which he has followed the first evening remained unchanged, beginning by contacts fingers and lips upon the throat of Odette, and it was in thisway that, each time, the caresses began; and much later, when the arrangement (or the ritual show of arrangement) of the catleyas had for a long time fallen in disuse, the metaphor " to make catleya ", become a simple term which they employed, without thinking, when they wanted to signify the act of the physical possession." (Marcel Proust.)

The Preraphaelites ...#12

Joining a community type philosophy of life to setting the rules of new way of painting, Rossetti, Hunt and Millais started their brotherhood using Ruskin's advices. I can stay for a very long time infront of their paintings, they are so rich and meaningful, though I doubt I would have one in my living room. They opened really new ways as William Morris created the arts and crafts branch and Burne-Jones did painting which were announcing cubism, specially Duchamp's "nu descendant un escalier" being to my feeling correlated to BJ's "golden staircase". I like the way they fought conventions during Victorian times, in their love lifes as well as in their artistic goals.

iza, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

"We cannot censure at present as amply or as strongly as we desire to do,
that strange disorder of the mind or the eyes, which continues to rage with unabated absurdity among a class of juvenile artists who style themselves PRB." -- The Times, 1851

PRB, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

The first painting Millais exhibited reflecting his new beliefs was Lorenzo and Isabella. It was received well by the Academy.The mysterious letters, PRB (standing from the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood) were included on Isabella's chair in the lower right corner and by Millais' signature. They can be seen above. I always wondered about the attitude of the guy left with his stretched white stockinged leg, a bit weirdly erotic with the phallic symbolism in contrast to Isabella's rather shy but bold expression. This scene is totally unreal.

Stuck #11

This Blog was stuck some hours ....
I was going to write about Preraphaelits...

beata, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

"We begin by telling the youth of fifteen or sixteen that Nature is full of faults, and that he is to improve her; but that Raphael is perfection, and that the more he copies Raphael the better; that after much copying of Raphael, he is to try what he can do himself in a Raphaelesque, but yet original manner: that is to say, he is to try to do something very clever, all out of his own head, but yet this clever something is to be properly subjected to Raphaelesque rules, is to have a principal light occupying one seventh of its space, and a principal shadow occupying one third of the same; that no two people's heads in the picture are to be turned the same way, and that all the personages represented are to have ideal beauty of the highest order..."
John Ruskin

Old recordings and Boston memories #10

It all started with a live recording of the Modern Lovers at the longBranch saloon. These were the cleaned up live tapes coming from Ernie Brooks. They were also issued as "precise Modern Lovers". I had dreamed for so long to hear a live set from the Modern Lovers ... and eventually it was even better than expected. Some songs were interpreted as crucial evidences of a teenager rebelling against the obvious underground culture of the Woodstock nation. Those were words of pain mixed with tears and frustration. But also some jolly good fun as from the regular Beach Boy fan point of view. "I'm straight" and "the mixer" are pictures of both tendencies. But we all knew there was more unreleased stuff and the bootleg market was a bit empty with ML items...just had to wait.

In 97, I am in Boston for the first time. I am staying at friends' house in Sommerville, they are linked to the local music scene and I manage to go on Jonathan Richman's tracks.. The Commons park where the Modern Lovers used to play live, a place also glorified by the Real Kids in their beautiful "Commons at noon". I go on route 128, I find Filene's and that Howard Johnson..
I visit special record shops and there it is, waiting for me that collection of early demos and live ML recordings.. this "songs of rememberance for old girlfriends" CD. On the booklet Jonathan looks very young , he is looking upward with his face down, the position of a not fully grown-up teenager still unsure of himself. John Felice is wearing those awful glasses which gives him a Gloria Steinem look when he is two years younger than Jonathan. This CD is a marvel, some of the songs found here are given a subtle and dramatic treatment like the title track, "S. of R", "A plea for tenderness", "Such loneliness", or "I'm dropping my friends" .. It will be quite long before Jonathan reaches these peaks on records again .. the innocence and the gravity. This is the definitive Modern Lovers record, a rare wine to savour slowly but eternally.

Songs of rememberance

ML2, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Antonin Artaud est sublîme

Arto, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Le Point Sublîme #9

Le Point Sublîme is the place over the Verdon canyon where you get the best view on all this incredible geological curiosity. By extension, André Breton tried to reach some kind of point sublîme in each of his books, and the geographical spot got associated to the surrealism inventor. Now, you have a third element, a woman cinema director in her twenties in the 50's and she tries to shoot a documentary about Surrealism including splendid views of the Verdon canyon as seen from the Point Sublîme... she meets Breton, he has a crush on her but it is not reciprocated.. These projects and encounters are told in a book called also " le Point Sublîme" published in the 70's. This book has been sold out for a long time .. I found it recently and through the delicate relation betweeen Breton and his young admirer, I could see another Point Sublîme appearing under my eyes. The magic started to operate, I wish I could manage to live myself such a perfect balance.

"J'avoue, j'en ai bavé for you l..." (Serge G.)

La disparition... #8

This is going as a try : managing writing constraints without giving any information about it.
Tough difficulty, just any thought would do, but words, oh simply words !
Mind you, I got thirty words right NOW. What is it ? you ask, lost in crazy brain storming ..
What is it ? Fa fa fa fa .... psycho motor.. on highway 61.
Shshshhhhhh..

(inspired by Georges Perec's la disparition. This novel worked on two levels, the obvious one in the story telling about someone missing , the second one being that the letter "e" was never used in the whole novel. Perec did not say it, he was sure something unpleasant would ooze from that missing letter. The few words above were my try to compose without an "e"...

Rose poussière et autres citations... #7

What used to say the shadow mouth
Asphalt Jungle qui chantaient comme si leurs vies en dépendaient
It is 10:15 in the evening, down the rue Saint Jacques nearby Notre-Dame
Je suis rêveur devant les traces lumineuses des véhicules serpentant la voie
They have revamped the old joint from my student times, it is still called
Polly Maggoo...y avait-il Zouzou ? probablement oui
Et là je comprends cette chanson de Asphalt Jungle, "commando Polly Maggoo ".
It's through being that colours reach the heart
Voilà le rire et pourtant l'amertume veille
Bill Burroughs used to live nearby, rue Git-Le-Coeur,
Where the heart lays, yes I wish to sing the electric rock
Mais demain voit l'apparition d'un autre éphémère.
Free fate and dusty boots.

Praha magic city #6

Prague former capital city of the Bohemian kingdom.. Prague the magic city.. where the alchemists tried to find the eternal life elixir, their tiny houses still painted in bright colours in the "street of gold" just beneath the Castle.. Never have I seen such a castle, so huge, there is a cathedral inside the walls which looks like a chapel in comparison to the fortress. I understood there how Franz K.composed his master novel. On Charles bridge, leering statues are glancing mischieviously to passers by, they know their time will come. A maze of narrow streets and corridors are linking the avenues downtown, when the fog is coming down at sunset the poetic behaviour is to lose one's way and feel the oozing pressure of ancient history.. rabbi Laue's Golem..
Art Nouveau buildings are spread over the town, fifteen years ago they were considered as decadent now they have been revamped and Klimt's golden mosaics shine on the walls up to the sky somewhere.
I was told that in some places I went to, I was the first ever French person.. Bohemia, Praha, Viserad, the wizzard heart of Europe.