vendredi, octobre 31, 2008

Palombaggia tree

I always wear my ski shoes when we go to the beach, because having stopped skiing, it's the only chance to wear it. It's heavy to carry and it takes a lot of room in my luggage, but I usually go to the beach with only one tee-short, which is a tee-shirt with a short in one. And you can fill the ski shoes with a lot of useful stuff (tooth whitener, tooth paste, tooth brush, blue tooth, tooth picks, tooth fairies). When they ask me at the airport why do I bring ski shoes to the beach, I always say that it's very helpful when you want to observe fish and coral, it keeps your feet on the submarine ground.

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Tomorrow 1st november 3pm/5pm, I will sing one new song for France Culture (theme of the day: le théatre). There will also be a cover of Dalida "Mourir sur scène" (to die (1st november again) on stage), sung by Kumisolo! I asked the Chicken Orchestra to collaborate on this cover, so don't be surprised if you hear singing chickens in the Dalida song. Why chickens? Because of the beat of the song that sounds like chickens, and because of Harmony Korine, who explained that Mister Lonely wouldn't have been written without chicken nuggets and honey sauce, his brother's fuel. They shared the writing and Harmony appealed his brother to the computer by putting some honey sauce nearby.

I remember the lovely Harmony Korine song written by Momus, sung by the Kahimi Karie, 10 years ago.

jeudi, octobre 30, 2008



Suddenly I couldn't stand my headphones anymore and decided to go to the cinema, to see DE LA GUERRE (ON WAR, 2008), a Bertrand Bonello movie with Mathieu Amalric, Asia Argento, Guillaume Depardieu (†), Clotilde Hesme. I went to the cinema Racine Odeon, 30 minutes walk. In this movie, the main character played by Amalric is a film director who's fed up with his life and enters a community called Le Royaume, in which there's one only war to make: the one to gain pleasure. I loved the movie, Asia was great as the queen, but I couldn't see the pleasure & joy the film was about... It was cold outside, I lighted a cigarette and saw a poster with the new Harmony Korine movie, MISTER LONELY.



One A4 page was pasted on it and it said that Harmony Korine would be there for the avant-première one hour later! So I went for a walk, called Kumi and asked her if she'd like to sing a Dalida cover on France Culture with me on saturday and came back.



MISTER LONELY, surprisingly, was almost the same film as the Bonello one, but instead of a slow & intellectual community, it's the royaume of the impersonators. There's also his previous project in the movie, with the nuns falling from a plane in the jungle. Who drives the plane? Werner Herzog, of course. In this small Paris cinema, there was Agnes B, Harmony's producer, introducing him. Jonas Mekas, my personal cinema pope & supreme hero since 1994, was sitting in the same row as me. Gaspard Noe also and Bertrand Bonello himself was there too, he could see the other side of the mirror, the funny, colourful and lively side. Sorry, we're french. We didn't gave birth to pop culture, we complain, kill the king and love sexy knees.

genou

Harmony's talk after the film was an incredible show, so hilarious, moreover his translator was shy and couldn't speak english very well. HK said how the film was born from an empty leash barking in Panama* and Tennessee, how it was written with chicken & honey. Were his lies true? If they are true, this man is a pure merveille of poetry. Harmony, who I briefly saw ten years ago in our hotel room in NYC with Momus, asked me about him and I said that Momus has become berlinois. I asked Harmony to say hello to Joseph Whitt and Alton Harold when he's back in Nashville, our dear friends who came all the way from Alabama to our wedding the last year. Harmony looked surprised: how could I know Joseph Whitt? Harmony's going to have a show at the gallery curated by Joseph in Nashville, starting in february 2009.

*Panama is a link between the two films, since Mathieu Amalric plays the villain in the new 007 and they shot there.

lundi, octobre 27, 2008

toog & flo

Eat & write bio

Toog was born a baby, but this small insignificance didn't last long. Indeed, Toog became a child. After having been a child for about 12 years, Toog slowly moved to his teens. Suddenly, his voice went deeper and turned to the actual Toog's voice. Toog's teens ended up when he was around 18 and the young man started to approach adultness, a long lasting period where he still stands now. Something that Toog is aware of, is that english singers sing much better in english than french singers do. He assumes that english teachers are much better in Britain and America than in France.

dimanche, octobre 26, 2008

vannier amalric

Yesterday on France Culture I had to make one song about lawyers, so I wrote this song called LE PROCES (the lawsuit) in which the devil's organizing a BBQ in his garden. And there's this guy called JC, almost bald, who's getting his two last hair burnt while trying to light the fire. JC is sueing the devil since he wants him to pay him full hair implants. I'm the devil's lawyer in the song. You can listen to it in the program archives (check the link on the right), it was around 4PM.

We saw this extraordinary film by Dennis Hopper at the french cinematheque, THE LAST MOVIE, a movie that's entering my top ten pantheon (I don't say my top ten pantalons, I have less than 10 pantalons). Hopper is having a full retrospective at the cinematheque (built by FRANCK GEHRY), with an exhibition accompanying the retrospective, since Hopper is an art addict since the 60's, an artist himself and an excellent photographer. THE LAST MOVIE is probably one of the most crazy / arty / free movie produced by the Hollywood studios. It's a gold mine for amateur gold diggers.

Lucky week since an other incredible moment happened with the MELODY NELSON (1971) live performance played by a real orchestra and conducted by Jean-Claude Vannier, who co-wrote and arranged this incredible OVNI (UFO). I was so moved that I could cry and in fact, I cried. I cried silently which is something you can do in english. BRIAN MOLKO sang the first song and his performance was very intense. Then Brigitte Fontaine, Daniel Darc, Matthieu Amalric, Alain Chamfort, followed. For us, MOLKO and DARC were the best. Also the reading by the french actor MATHIEU AMALRIC was excellent. But the hip actor Clothilde Hesme did not have the MELODY NELSON vibe, she's too conventional and it was a mistake to invite her. I regret they didn't invite BENJAMIN BIOLAY, Gainsbourg's closest living ghost and biggest fan / connaisseur. J.C. VANNIER also played his composition L'Enfant assassin des mouches (1972), an other master piece. It's worth living if you have the chance to witness such incredible pieces of art.

mardi, octobre 21, 2008

realisateur

People seem to have enjoyed my first film "Prélude au sommeil" (Prelude to sleep) as we enjoyed Jean-Jacques Perrey and David Chazam's show at the LUFF Festival. In the room near the show, they were playing Richard Kern movies. It was funny to jump from the naïve pop atmosphere of Jean-Jacques Perrey to the sarcastic and trash images of Richard Kern 80's movies, beautiful on a big screen. Earlier, when we got to the Lausanne station, there was no chauffeur as announced on the info sheet. In fact, the chauffeur drove a guy to the LUFF headquarter and introduced him as mister Weinzaepflen, coming from Paris. The silent man then said: I'm not this WZZFL?!!! guy: my name is Richard Kern... Jean-Jacques stopped smoking after 65 cigarette years; he's healthy again.

jjpetg

vendredi, octobre 17, 2008

boots



She's got new boots.
We got a new bird.

canarichan2b

mardi, octobre 14, 2008

MOTTE2

The motte de terre trick, in which you throw a motte de terre upon your head and try to not be underneath when it falls down. Not easy (advanced beginners).

FLO LETTERS2

And here is Flo resting in the O of her first name.

lundi, octobre 13, 2008

toog at the Camp Dolphin

Here is a picture my friend Stéphane Bérard took in a place I'm working near Paris, called Camp Dolphin. Don't do that trick if you're not trained!

dimanche, octobre 05, 2008

cagesan at hi-nu

We are very sad today because the little bird Cagesan died this morning. We were spending a few days in Corsica and Cagesan stayed in Beauvais. It's during his trip back to Paris early this morning, in a truck full of birds, that the young artist caught a cold. Florence kept him in her hand to make him warm when I noticed that his little heart didn't beat anymore. It's very sad because his morning chanting enchanted every day. The little bird Cagesan leaves this life after a short music career with one only and remarquable album: "I love machine" (Beaubrun, 2006). He also had a wardrobe released for his dream body and a fashion video made by Elisabeth Creseveur. His music website has been designed by Antoine Bédard in Vancouver.