The first issue of TO is still available on FNAC online shop (worldwide)

Near the Galeries Lafayette, near Laetitia Casta's portrait, 500 steps from my studio, there's a hotel (76 rue de Provence) where the french government rents cheap rates rooms to gather african families, immigrates waiting for a visa. They have no kitchen and they are not allowed to cook, even when they have children, even when they must stay there for months. This hotel was totally burned out a few nights ago. More than 22 people died. Many single mothers with children.
The hotel faces a grand magasin that makes tons of money in an area that makes tons of tons of money in a country that makes tons of tons of tons of money and is not able to build houses for them. More than 10000 people live in the same conditions. Our very smart and sensitive mayor said: "now these people who survived deserve a visa". These people died because they were on waiting lists. Now I guess that they have found a better place to live, without filling any form, a place to live with no waiting list. This land is full of hope (thanks God, I am a VIP).

I'm making some research about spies and the 1917 spy-phobia in France. In an old bookshop at Puces de Saint Ouen, I met a man and spoke with him about it. He drew my attention to the relationship between spying and magic... which sounds very interesting.

The voice of the man sounded like a voice I could have heard in an old dream.

I have always been interested by the secret, all the kinds of secret, from illusionism to erotism (this is why I signed with Le Grand Magistery in the US). When I asked the man his name, I was stunned: he was the magician of my childhood, the one who was in every TV program: Gérard Majax en personne.

Edouard VII had a personal suite in a luxury brothel called "Le Chabanais", rue Chabanais (near rue Saint Anne, the japanese street in Paris). He had his habits there; he had this very special erotic chair made for him. Le Chabanais was a world famous maison close. All the french brothels were closed in 1946, since they were involved in collaboration (with the Germans) but also because it was out of fashion. Brothels are still allowed in Germany and Nevada.

I was born again musikanter in a time of grisaille générale (see the cover of faith by the Cure). Which also was a time of beautiful melodies. There is a Momus theory about the grey: when it's raining outside, you stay home and you work. This is why we do have so many exceptional pop music coming from Britain.

These two tracks by the Stranglers still sound beautiful to my ears. The Stranglers were probably my biggest musical impression, especially for their wunderbar melodies.

A very funny quote about the next Sofia Coppola's movie and "Air", a local band (from Versailles): "Air collabore à nouveau avec Sofia Coppola. Sofia Coppola, qui tourne actuellement "Marie-Antoinette" à Versailles, a choisi un groupe local pour signer la BO de son prochain film : Air, qui avait déjà collaboré avec la cinéaste sur ses deux premiers films, Virgin Suicides et Lost in Translation."

Panic in a Cage

John was quietly singing some morning cuicuis in his cage, outside, when he was suddenly attacked by a parisian pigeon. He lost his mind for a while plus four feathers.

To all the pigeons: you're nothing but flying rats (and remember this Toog song: "the general says")

We don't know anything about John Cage, but we do have a bird called John Cage since the last week. John Cage sounds like a toy. I recorded his cuicui and put a delay on it, then played it back to him. John was very excited by the crowd he made. It's a small bird from Australia, a diamant bichenow. The best place for birds in Paris is located métro Cité, near Notre-Dame. The people who sell the birds there really love them.

I was in Zürich, which is 120 km from my home town. Spiegelgasse n°1: this is where Hugo Ball launched the Cabaret Voltaire in february 1916 (Arp, Huelsenbeck, Janco, Ball, then Tzara). The same street, N°14: this is where Lénine moved exactly at the same time. What an incredible coincidence: two revolutions in this same small city's small street. Lénine played chess with Tzara and Tzara didn't really know who he was, who he would become. Lénine wasn't a monster. He didn't want to have Staline ruling the USSR after him. But it's Staline who turned communism into a Dada system...

On the french yahoo news today you can read that the pope is dead and you also have a mad horse who ran free in the streets of Paris for hours today, before being stopped Parc Georges Brassens (15th arrondissement). One mad horse, one dead pope: does it mean something? Is it an image of the future for the catholic trojan horse?

The pope was old and conservative but he had a real depth. He was paying attention to the invisible, which is rare. We can have a more open-minded pope; but it's impossible to have a pope with such a deep faith. Everyone was criticizing the pope for his position about condoms, but who asked him the permission before putting a condom???

It is a strange coincidence to have Jean-Paul II and Prince Rainier de Monaco who die simultaneously. Maybe they will go to heaven as Prince Jean-Paul de Monaco and Pape Rainier II.

The biggest sin of Rainier is to have allowed Stéphanie to sing "comme un ouragan" in 1986:

"Vision d'orage,
J'voudrais pas qu'tu t'en ailles..

Vision d'image
D'un voyage qui s'achève..."