Quand je pense que je suis né en 1966. 1966! 44 ans. Si le temps allait dans l'autre sens, je serais maintenant en 1966-44=1922. 1922! L'année de la mort de Marcel Proust. Il suffirait d'aligner 20 types comme moi côte à côte et tous ensemble nous aurions 44X20= 880 ans. Vingt types comme moi placés côte à côte égale 880 ans. Et si on enlève toutes ces années à maintenant, avec juste 20 types comme moi on retourne en 2010-880=1130. 1130! En plein moyen âge. Et dans l'autre sens, 20 types comme moi, on arrive en 2890. Presque en l'an 3000! En 1922 ma grand-mère avait 19 ans. Et 44 ans plus tard elle avait 63 ans. Comme elle était née en 1903, elle a eu 63 ans en 1966, l'année de ma naissance! Tout ça est incroyable. D'autant plus qu'en 1922, on a découvert la composition du nitrate de fluor. Si on a 44 types comme moi de 44 ans, alors on a ensemble 44X44=1936 ans et alors on est en pleine barbarie. On a inventé la poudre mais c'est à peu près tout. Et si on en rajoute un, juste un en plus, on est en 30 après Jésus-Christ, on peut aller voir et écouter le Christ en Israël. Mais comment aller écouter le Christ en Israël si on habite en Alsace en 30? Déjà, est-ce qu'on a entendu parler d'Israël? On risque de partir dans le mauvais sens, prendre un bateau et découvrir l'Amérique trop tôt et ça, c'est contraire à l'Histoire. Donc on attend que le message passe de la Gaule en Irlande puis revienne en Alsace vers l'an 500 par des moines irlandais. Et là c'est trop tard pour aller écouter le Christ en Israël. D'ailleurs ce n'est pas la peine: il est vivant.

Usually, I'm not feeling concerned about French politics. But what I have read today is not politics: it is human freedom. Even if some conservative French politicians disapprove the muslim burqa, the government has no right to prepare a law against it. To forbid the burqa today, comes from the same intolerance that obliged the Jews to wear a religious sign; it's a reversed yellow star.



Here are some traditionnal peasant clothing from France (Corsica). Some people have la mémoire courte.

Today I want to point to the debut album of Tolouse Low Trax, "Mask Talk", my best music discovery these last months. Tolouse Low Trax is Detlef Weinrich from the German electronic band Kreidler (Thomas Klein, Andreas Reihse, Detlef Weinrich). This album is a new Karaoke Kalk release and it is absolutely FANTASTIC!
The funny thing is that Detlef grew up in southern Germany, near the German and Swiss border, close to my home town. As a teenager, we were going to the same venues, such as Totentanz in Basel, a great place where you could see the best bands, listen and dance to the best music.
It was a surprise to chat with Detlef and see that we had friends in common, such as Bruno, who later was Ruppert Everett's homme de main or Pascal Imbert, who became a clothing designer in Paris. These people were en avance sur leur temps, regarding to the futuristic life energy they could spread.

You can order Tolouse Low Trax's album les yeux fermés.

Malcolm Mac Laren. Thanks, Momus, for the long and fascinating interview (27 pages). We were lucky to approach Malcolm and his lovely girlfriend Young a few times in Paris, thanks to you. He was a man you could listen to for hours. His approach of occidental culture was global and intelligent. He was enthousiastic, curious, polite, smart and generous. A 60 years old man becoming addicted to chip music, this is very rare I guess.



Meeting Malcolm was like meeting the man who changed my life when I was a teenager. I bloomed through the new wave culture, a slowed down branch of punk mixed with electronic sounds. Malcolm was already into proto hip hop at that time, with his amazing "Buffalo Gals" hit.

He was designed by a grand mother who told him to be mean not kind, to use cunning and malice, in a spectacular, humorous and sympathetic way. He had a reversed education, which had a big influence on him. He met the situationnism in the sixties and started to think about culture and medias. How to manipulate it. Eventually, he created the Sex Pistols: it had nothing to do with music, it was a situationnist event at a large scale. It was the birth of the DIY culture. Malcolm had a clear vision of the future we live now, where everyone has become an artist and manipulates cultural references.



I remember when I put headphones on Malcolm's ears at Café de Flore, in 2003. He was needing a French musician for his musical project "Diorama", a musical about the maison Dior. I composed one first song for him and it said "if I knew the rudiments of music, I could write a song for you". I thought he wanted me to compose music and write English lyrics. But he already had the music, he did it himself, he was a musician. He asked me to record as a singer and write French lyrics. We did one song together: "La beauté costumée".

The project was turned down, but we liked each other and he offered Florence and I a dinner in his favorite restaurant, very close to the rue des Martyrs in the 9th arrondissement where we lived. I think it was 2006 or early 2007. He spoke about his production part in "The Fast Food Nation", about his grand mother, about his children clothing project, about culture, over and over… And the risotto was famous.

This is not far from what the future cover of "Noël Jivaro", published by Le Clou dans le Fer and Michaël Battala should look like. If we are lucky, my book could be printed in june 2010. Here is the first poem from the first section "Mille colombes".

Quelle que soit l'ampleur du désastre
Les feux de forêt ont commencé feux de brindilles
Il n’existe pas de pompier de taille pour lutter contre
L’échelle est beaucoup trop haute
Impossible pour les Canadair de viser de si haut
Il faut attendre que les feux de brindilles soient devenus
Feux de forêt pour intervenir

Whatever the scale of the disaster
Forest fires have started fires of twigs
There is no sized firefighter to fight against
The ladder is much too high
Impossible for the Canadair to aim from so high
We must wait until the twigs fires have become
Forest fires to intervene

(Google translation)

LE CLOU DANS LE FER is a very interesting publishing company specialized in contemporary poetry based in Reims. The director of the Expériences Poétiques collection is the poet Michaël Battala. LE CLOU DANS LE FER is open to different poetic genres, which is rare. They are also open to different countries: the poetry catalog includes Italia (Andrea Inglese), Belgium (Vincent Tholomé), Spain (Ramon Dachs) and soon, America and Germany (Franz Mon). I'm very pleased to announce that I signed a contract with LE CLOU DANS LE FER for NOËL JIVARO, my first real poetry book (128 pages). NOEL JIVARO gathers 10 years of poetry (1994-2004), with 4 sections in it:

1. Mille Colombes
2. L'égalité des signes
3. People des gens
4. Low Frequency Oscillator

On the cover, a christmas tree decorated with Jivaros shrunken heads (drawing by Florence) without the tree.