jeudi, mars 31, 2005

sanmarco

The cafe you drink in the morning is very important, especially when you quit smoking. It determines what direction your mental energy will take, what sort of creation energy you will follow. Café Jacques Vabre is bad for inspiration, but San Marco has positive results and also tastes good.

mercredi, mars 30, 2005

kerala

"Ballet d'ombre des pêcheurs remontant de légers filets, plongeant à la recherche de coquillages. Un signe de la main pour souhaiter au visiteur une douce journée... Comment en douter? Les escales, agrémentées de dégustations de chips de bananes et de jus de fruits frais, permettent, entre autres, d'admirer un antique bouddha en granit noir. Les paysages défilent derrière de larges fenêtres conçues comme un écran 16/9."

This french/fresh article is about tourism in Kerala (India). With such a photo, it's like holidays in our ancient colonies with beautiful slaves. This kind of poésie du voyage, in 2005, drives me crazy. When will the tourists understand that they are wrong making this world sounding wrong, twisting the vision. The best (and probably the only) way to travel is to have to do something there... Taking the oar, for instance.

mardi, mars 29, 2005

boardsofcanada

echo's answer (broadcast, the noise made by people, 2000), roygbiv (boards of canada, music has the right to children, 1998), love without sound (white noise, an electric storm, 1969), thatness and thereness (Ryuichi Sakamoto, B-2 unit, 1980). Echo's answer thanks to montag, roygbiv thanks to an american music lover, love without sound thanks to asia argento, thatness and thereness thanks to tatsuya ito.

Music is thanks to.

Yesterday while walking to the forum des images cinema for the sunday night movie by Ousmane Sembène... the cinema was closed: we were monday... I was thinking of movies as pilgrimages, like Werner Herzog doing a long walk from Munich to Paris to see a sick friend in the hospital. A movie which would be a long walk along the Sumatra coast, for 275 km. One meter for one people who died the last december. When I came back home I heard that a new earthquake happened, an other thousands of victims.

lundi, mars 28, 2005

capote

I had my first contact with adult sexuality through pornography when I was a child, 11 or 12 years old. We had a neighbour who was a porn addict. He kept his doors open. He offered us to read and watch some porno books and magazines. Hopefully he wasn't into real pedophilia.
When we became teenagers, we only had to sneak into his house when he wasn't in, and steal all the porno mags we wanted. Huge stocks everywhere, it was about to fall from the top of the cupboards. But why stealing? The porno house was open all the time; it also was full of banknotes and coins lying around on the floor, under the tables. Sex and money everywhere...
When I was 15, my neighbour offered me and my best friend Stéphane to loose our pucelage with his girlfriend. She was very pretty, only 2 years elder than me. I was watching her secretly from my balcony, when she was lying naked in the summer, sous le soleil exactement. We drew lots and I won. This was a generous and naive gift: the neighbour lost his girlfriend.
Now the same man talks to the birds in the street. And my friend who lost at the sex-game, commited suicide. Nevertheless, madness and death have nothing to do with sexuality; but sexuality has a time, its own time, and adult people should respect this.

The image was stolen from John B. Root's blog.

samedi, mars 26, 2005

marceldzama

It was a big surprise to see Beck's new album cover by Marcel Dzama. We have seen his incredible drawings on a corner in a gallery wall in the 13th arrondissement (rue Louise Weiss, the street where many contemporary galleries relocated). Dzama comes from Winnipeg, like the notso underground film maker Guy Maddin.

Momus and Toog visited a Henry Darger exhibition in Atlanta, back in 1998. The night before, after the show, we went to a strange strip club and one of the girls tried to sell her poems to Momus. I think he bought it since he was fearing her giant breast... I'm also fearing big breast, it looks like yoghurt packaging.

Henry Darger seems to have been one of Dzama's influences. Darger, the mad genius (America loves mad geniuses in folk art) who wrote the story of the Vivian Girls. I wrote a vivian girl song, one song about a Darger's vivian girl, sung by Kumi from The Konki Duet.

Henry Darger

Today is Pâques. Momus post about the kidult culture (26th march 2005) is very challenging. And thanks to David Fenechfor all the good music he shares.

vendredi, mars 25, 2005

devolution

I really like the idea of the Bible lovers in America saying: Darwin is wrong, let's go back to the fairy tales, let's go back to the man with a leaf and an apple.

It is like poetry: the poet pretends that his words are beyond reality, they force reality to question itself.

Don't miss a chance to make a fortune!!! Win a Toog silver coin! Original and limited edition of 50, only 50 remain!!! Send us your self portrait as Adam or Eve or both with apple and leaf. Put a decor behind: if your photo wins you will appear on this blog and you will get your Toog silver coin.

mardi, mars 22, 2005

Keaton

Le printemps s'appelle revient.

(give it back to me)

It's time to build a new house, una casa assimetrica come la casa di Buster Keaton (One Week).

There is also this festival called ATP and curated by a brown bunny...

vendredi, mars 18, 2005

tooth paste

My brother Julien self-portrait with tooth paste florence the vision of snow in Paris from my window the park near the house where l grew up in Mulhouse.

mardi, mars 15, 2005

villanueva

On my friend François Brunet proposal I wrote a synopsis for his movie producer, about the famous architect Carlos Raul Villanueva (Venezuela), whose Cité Universitaire in Caracas is very renowned.

The President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez seems to have high ideals: to spread the bolivarian revolution all over the country, which is not a project that the US and madame Rice enjoy very much.

lundi, mars 14, 2005

1972.Deliverance2

"Deliverance" is a John Boorman movie from 1972 with Burt Reynolds. Like Aguirre (1972), we see men (4 men with no women) going down a river and encountering the savageness of the wild. On the bridge you can see the retarded kid who played the banjo to the future victims... It's the beginning of the movie.

In 1994 I graduated in Aix en Provence (master's degree in litterature) after having written a short essay called "L'échec originel" based on (amongst others) The Lord of the flies by W. Golding, in french, of course. My subject was: what happens when civilized people are left alone in the wild? Do they keep the rules or are they overwhelmed by the wilderness that surrounds them? Boorman answers to the same question, Herzog also answers this question.

1972.Deliverance

vendredi, mars 11, 2005

Jeanne Mas

Coming back to la maison de l'enfance as it was a moor, the only friend to make was a huge Lowrey organ in the living room. This was mes années new wave and we could still hear the last echoes of Punk (Cräsh in Fribourg Germany). Totentanz in Basel, Schwitzerland was the best venue/club for new wave kids like us. White tiles everywhere. I was wearing woman pants, listening to Magazine and Gary Numan; my elder brother was into Malcolm Mac Laren and Grace Jones; other friends listened to Echo and the Bunnymen and The Cure. My brother organized rock concerts and festivals, Gun Club in Mulhouse, Stray Cats in Strasbourg with his associate, who later became Patricia Kass découvreur/manager. After having lost money and destroyed (sorry it wasn't him) a beautiful venue, my brother went back to jewelry. I was a barman in his shows. I must confess that I gave a free beer once, since this ugly punk was pointing a true knife at me. Then Jeanne Mas came and she sang toute première fois, dressed as a new wave idol. This really was the end...

In wolof (Sénégal), toog means "to sit down".

mardi, mars 08, 2005

stacked churches

The old man rue du Roule near Les Halles wanted to sell us his old bar. 30 years from 8 am to 12 pm: he feels tired et je peux le comprendre. But I told him the area will have a long sleep when they will start to rebuild the quartier des Halles. The Tokyo exhibition at La Samaritaine is a foutage de gueule. Next to it, we love this small pet shop called Oisellerie du Pont-Neuf, 18 quai Mégisserie. They have quantities of small fishes, wunderbar. Many birds, but only the kawai sort of birds: the singing of the amadine perlée who came to the closest perch to sing us a beautiful song. The parrots are free and one of them kept attacking the others. A bum bought a rat for 12 euros he put it on his shoulders and the rat already felt home. I went alone along the river Seine and spoke with a worker who told me that the river is almost clean; he saw perches near Paris, in Colombes. I went two times to swim in the river and NO spots: it's cleaner than the river Gange. Place Vendôme: I stayed there for a while since the night was coming and it was possible to watch inside the offices and appartments. I saw a secretary who took of her shirt and changed clothes. Going back to my place I saw a man stealing a whole bucket of tulips in front of a flower shop. This robbery was poetic, it wasn't blamable. Rue Laffite: there's always this strange view when it's dark of two stacked churches: Notre Dame de Lorette and Montmartre.

lundi, mars 07, 2005

power.of.a.cat

Sometimes I miss a mass movement like mai 1968 to renew all at the same time. Paris sounds like a living museum for rich people. We are not a cliché. Parisians sometimes feel like extras, when their image is being stolen. We love to be actors. We would love to be able to choose the role we play. Pretty girls are the new. Their pretty curves make this land new. Roundness against flatness. The new: we have the fashion here and its permanent changing. We have people from other cultures who live here, to make it all new.

Just red this article about Julie Delpy and Comtesse Bathory.

vendredi, mars 04, 2005

ILLUMINATI

Having met with DJ-Asia near Opera she called me my ghostly friend my friendly ghost I said I am not a party people I asked her would you like to play a role in a movie called Lou étendue a movie in which you would be spanked by a poet the beautiful DJ said yes my friend Thomas from Big Pants lost his bonnet Hirolyn said that my kaballa number is 4 which means concentration I offered Asia a drink Parisians smoke too much but I prefer a club with too much smoke than with no smoke the day after went to Alsace to see my father in the hospital walked alone in the deep snow in a forest tried to find la neige vierge followed my own track couldn't catch up with the animal tonight at the Cosmic Wonder fashion sh-n-ow Place Des Vosges a lot of snow but they stupid closed the garden the show was called Magic Village I love their work I love them they are japanese artists making fashion business I have been modelling naked for their 2003 performance seating hiding now I am writing a poem about Visage not the band stupid the face want to do a poetry reading with music.

mardi, mars 01, 2005

image

I would love to do something about érotisme one day since l'érotisme est un des beaux-arts. Of course it's more easy to go straight to pornography but l'érotisme possède la poésie des chemins d'approche. La vue lasse très vite alors qu'on ne se lasse jamais d'approcher. (the view leads to wearyness while one never gets tired of approaching)