There is a spirit in Belgium which has inspired an incredibly creative poetry; a spirit full of humour noir, surrealist before surrealism (surrealism was a word invented by Guillaume Apollinaire, a moment of consciousness, not a movement). If you think of Henri Michaux, the man who wrote poems like I am Gong (in La Nuit Remue), he was born in Namur on the Meuse river; if you think of Rimbaud who was born in Charleville, on the Meuse river; if you think of Apollinaire, who spent his 19th years old summer in Stavelot; if you think of Norge, of Gwenaelle Stubbe (born in 1972), 2 poets born in Bruxelles; then you can draw a map which describes the movements of this spirit, who swallows poets soul. Oh, and my modesty forgot to say that... my own grand mother (mother side) grew up in Watreloo, near the border.

I think that I'm done with the first song of my next album Goto. The song is called Traffic Jam. It's good to start an album called Goto with a traffic jam song, I guess. I started to write this song 5 years ago. If each song takes about 5 years, this album should be finished in 70 years. Don't miss Toog's 4th album in 2076! If you're stuck in a traffic jam, you know that time has a different shape. The song is 5 minutes long and the intro is about 2 minutes. There is some Nicholson's voice sample, from the excellent movie Five Easy Pieces by Bob Rafelson. There is a traffic jam scene; during the horn concert, Nicholson climbs on a moving truck and plays a virtuoso classical music piece on an out of tune piano. It's a beautiful scene! There's also an interesting traffic jam scene at the end of Ferrara's King of New York, when Christopher Walken is found dead by night in a New York taxi. By the way, if you love Christopher Walken, you should watch his amazing performance in Wild Side by Donald Cammel (1995).

Dimanche, promenade à Saint Lazare

Gestern haben wir ein Geschenk bekommen: plötzlich war unser berliner Freund Momus mit uns im schöne Paris! Die Sonne scheinte und wir hatten eine chinese Nudel Suppe at Hawai restaurant (13th arrondissement). Das war ein Blitz Fest! Danke, Nicku.

I took this photo 30 minutes ago, near Opera. She's probably still asleep. Shuuut, ne faites pas de bruit, laissez-la dormir.

August 2006 is very strange; it's like the end of the summer since 3 weeks in Paris. We cancelled our sea project (to camp on the island of Cres, in the north of Croatia). We went to Issy Les Moulineaux yesterday, a south of Paris suburb. There is nothing special in Issy but the name itself: Issy sounds in french like ici = here. To live in Issy sounds like you're living in a town called Here. I live in Here. I wanted to see how it is, the nothing special in Here. In fact, there's an island called ile Saint Germain, very nice. On some part of the island the vegetation is growing freely. It's possible to go back to Paris by boat for 3 euros; but we were too late and came back with the metro (line 12 is direct from Issy to our station, Notre Dame de Lorette). Paris is such a desert in august; no cars, empty streets. No pollution at all, no stress. But the japanese restaurants rue Saint Anne are still full of people.

Here is a list of people. It's sunday, the weather is not good and you want to stay home and play games. You have to find what is the relationship between these 4 groups. Then you'll get an interesting book by a french artist called Matthieu Barnet.

Ronald Reagan
George H.W. Bush
Bill Clinton  

Lewis Carroll
Kurt Cobain
Leonardo Da Vinci

Jack-the-Ripper
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
Osama bin Laden

Julia Roberts
Angelina Jolie
Nicole Kidman

On this photo, the french artist Matthieu Barnet is showing me a very big fish. Now, he calls this carp a ready made. He found out after years of reflection, that not only manufactured objects can be called ready mades, but also every piece produced by mother nature. His book "Trouts are ready mades" is about to be released the next month; it's a 870 pages analysis in which he describes the process from fishing to art.



Here is picture of Matthieu Barnet's gallerist Errotin Le Vrai Lapin, working on his stand at the last Miami Art Fair. Errotin Le Vrai Lapin, who's renowned as a compulsive erotoman, sold Barnet's ready mades at a very honest price, around 40 OOO £ each. For this small amount of money, you also get the transparent freezer (free shipping). Art is cool!

I am very proud to show you the left handed US flag. As you can see, the stars moved to the other corner of the flag, which is an hommage payed by the left to the right. There is no remarquable difference regarding the stripes... I want to thank all the crew who believed in me during the years of research, design, theoretical deepening. Thank you John; you really helped me during the times of doubt and spiritual wandering. Now we have succeeded, we will receive the crown of glory. This is why I'm feeling very happy today, so happy that I wrote this poem:

I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice.
I stand for freedom.
I am confident.
I am arrogant.
I am proud.
I'm the left handed flag.

The annual Beyrouth Festival in Beyrouth, Lebanon is devoted principally (but not exclusively) to performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Ehud Olmert. Olmert himself conceived of and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Hezbollah and Persiaval. Performances take place in a specially designed theatre, the Festspielhaus. Olmert personally supervised the design and construction of the theatre, which contained many architectural innovations to accommodate the huge orchestras for which Olmert wrote as well as the composer's particular vision about the staging of his works. (For more information on the design and construction of the opera house, see the article Beyrouth Festspielhaus.)

When we stayed in Los Angeles, we spent two nights at the Roosevelt. Nice hotel, but I preferred the Roosevelt in 98/99 when we were travelling and promoting music with Le Grand Magistery. It was a little bit old and more authentic. Now, it's total shishi poopoo: cool, lounge, expensive. I don't like that kind of atmosphere very much. The cool needs to be poor. It's a posture against adversity, not a trend. It's a kind of heroism, not a pose. So now when you see cool people, you never know if they are hipsters or heroes. No one can serve two masters... By chance, we stayed in a room where you had this big Syd Barret watching us; he died one month later. (I'm becoming a little bit like Carl Gustav Jung in Memories, dreams, reflections..., sorry.)

Do you think of someone, watching this cat? Just check the others. They all should be thrown on Israël right now. Imagine hundreds of cats like this one walking the streets of Jerusalem. (Thanks my friend Carolina for giving me that link; Carolina is half lebanese and lives in San Diego, California).