Imagine that there is a real location on earth which has been the home of Adam and Eve, the Eden garden: "A river rises in Eden to water the garden; beyond there it divides and becomes four branches... The name of the third river is the Tigris; it is the one that flows east of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates" (Genesis 2:10–14).
Imagine that there is a general who's planning to destroy this sacred Garden, between Tigris and Euphrate, because he is certain that many of his enemies hide there. This Garden is located in a wetlands region. The general drains 90% of this mythical territory between 1990 and 2000. His ennemies, supposedly hidden in the Garden were the Shiit rebels... and the name of the general is Saddam Hussein. Eventually, imagine what could happen if some fundamentalist Christians talk about this Eden mass destruction to a born again called G.W.
jeudi, juin 29, 2006
mercredi, juin 28, 2006
An excellent film about Irak; it's called "Irak, le chant des absents". As a DV movie, sometimes the sky is becoming too white and the sun looks like a neon volcano; but the aim of the movie wasn't to make un film d'esthète. It's a movie about the real Irak of today, from the south to the north. Amongst hundred of interesting informations, I was amazed by the presence of so many religions. Especially, 2 religions I had never heard about: the Mandeans and the Yazidis. Both are older than Jesus and Mahomet; the Mandeans are the last surviving Gnostic sect and perhaps, the lost Nazoreans, the last of the Essenes (Saint John the Baptist's sect). The Yesidis are very old too: "the Yazidi religion is a syncretic combination of Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Jewish, Nestorian Christian and Islamic elements." This is also Irak, the country where many of our civilization (Sumer, Abraham) was born.
mardi, juin 27, 2006
In 1993, when Marseille won the EU football cup, we went down to La Canebière to see the human tide... Marseille is a city of football, of muscles, of boobs and blood. We could hear the girls having (or faking) sexual pleasure from our appartment, this is how they signified to the man that he was a real one. We could listen to the football match development the same way, windows open. Now, the south seems to have reached Paris: every football action in the tonight match is followed by a huge rumour coming from everywhere. It sounds like a displaced reaction. So many people seem to have converted to football recently. Why? My feeling is that more and more people reject intelligence and culture and choose to go back to the circus maximus. This was my research in litterature at the Aix en Provence university in 94: humans going back to previous levels of civilization and they fail, because they are not owning the key anymore. On a gagné doesn't create reality, doesn't make a community. You're not making a nation by beast howlings. Prehistory didn't have football but already had some gods, already had the arts.
And probably some primitive football too... with the enemy's head.
lundi, juin 26, 2006
I spend time recording a song written in Marseille in 1993. It's a very simple song with the acoustic guitar. I cannot play the guitar very well... We moved to Marseille in 1991 and stayed there until september 1995. We lived 6, rue des convalescents and 13, rue mazagran, in the heart of quartier Belsunce. There is an excellent french rap song called Belsunce breakdown. People say that this area is changing; it was poor and warm, you could feel the poetry of the city everywhere. People were sitting outside to the sun. Rosting lamb heads were giving an eye to you while you passed by. You could have a delicious couscous for about 4 euros at the restaurant "Sur le Pouce". We loved Belsunce. I hope that Belsunce will escape the bobo fate that spreads like a disease in every big city of the world. Bye bye regular people, bye bye the artists, bye bye the soul, par ici la monnaie!
samedi, juin 24, 2006
En plein air, pas mal de concerts gratuits avec en plus un village de labels pour apporter timidement sa démo et acheter: Villette Sonique. Cherchez les stars dans le public!
Les stars: David Fenech; Olivier Lamm et Shinsei sont les stars que je remarquai. Matmos a fait du bon boulot sur sa scène aménagée sur un marécage en béton (Matmos played on a concrete swamp). J'ai acheté dans le Village label les disques Yupi de chez Plop; le nouvel Hypo (qui est génial de folie et d'inventivité); un LP de Gutevolk de chez Happy; le Pellicule de Davide Balula, chez un homme qui distribue des disques japonais en France (Mochi Mochi). Vu le Digiki dont le packaging sortait de la rangée de CD's. Achetez le magazine Standard, abonnez-vous. Le contenu est palpitant.
vendredi, juin 23, 2006
Henri Chopin at the Galerie Laura Pêcheur, yesterday evening for a live performance, thanks to his publisher Ikko. A 84 years old man who's still a jeune homme, who's having incredible stories to tell with his mouth, with his breath, with his body. A sound poet who says that he's not having a soul but a body. Later Henri Chopin went back to his hôtel and we went to a restaurant at the corner of rue Montmartre and Rue Lafayette. At 3 in the morning we witnessed a huge accident; I saw a motorbike flying in the air and put my hands on my eyes. Dancing couples with no music (OK).
jeudi, juin 22, 2006
I am working on the next Toog album. Goto will be a CD + DVD album. There is a new support called DAVD on which you can have the CD on one side and the DVD on the other. On the CD there will be songs like: are visages electric, my house, ébréché, la chambre noire, go to, alabama gay, plus songs taken from the book soundtrack: forfait, 52 jours pour Tombouctou, elle retire sa culotte. Most of the album is slow, dense, dark, low-fi, even if you sometimes have 70 tracks. How many copies of Goto will I sell? My first album "6633" sold environ 5000 copies worldwide, because we toured a lot with Momus and Kahimi Karie. The last one, "Lou étendue" with Asia Argento, only sold 1000 copies because there was no show. Conclusion: never release an album without live promotion.
mardi, juin 20, 2006
I have edited one hour of Goto. It's a movie I really wanted to see, so I made it. All the actors are amateurs because I don't like to work with professionals: the cactus are amateurs, the cities are amateurs, the people are amateurs, the food is amateur, the weather is amateur, the drive is amateur, the life is amateur. I shot 12 tapes; too excited by the idea of editing the last tape on imovie, I dropped it and it broke. Now it is on the way to Beaulieu-Images, a former Super 8 french factory (I bought one Beaulieu years ago) who repairs video tapes, amongst other activities. It is a good transition from Super 8 to DV. In the early nineties I shot many Super 8 after having watched the Jonas Mekas films in Marseille (1993). Mekas was working with a portable Bolex 16, a very nice looking cam. You don't know the Jonas Mekas diaries? One of the most influential piece of art I have ever seen, something that will last forever.
lundi, juin 19, 2006
Going to the cinema to see OK Corral wasn't a waste of time and money. First, because we saw the cactus hills you briefly see in the movie 2 weeks ago. In the Saguaro park near Tucson, we met a famous cactus who played a scene with Kirk and Burt; he introduced us to the stunt cactus that you can see in this image. Cactus have always behaved like the very professional actors they are; I regret that they are underused now...
The role played by Kirk's cleft chin in the film is extraordinary; you only understand at the very end that the guns were hidden in the depth of it. You can't figure it out since you have this white horses herd drinking around the shadowy cleft, which is also a pond.
You have the very young Dennis Hopper playing the role of Billy. While being dead, Hopper is moving 2 times his eyelids, due to very small noises. He is a very bad actor; the first thing that you learn as an actor is to not move your eyelids when you're dead. Even the children know that. Hopefully, he did extraordinary films as a director such as "Out of the blue", that I saw at the Etrange Festival in Paris, thanks to Asia Argento's choice...
After our cover version of Woodie Guthrie's "This land is your land" that we sang in New York with Florence, a cover that everybody seemed to enjoy (and that the amazing Fashion Flesh will produce during the summer), I would love to do the OK Corral song, which is very complicate. The legend says that OK comes from the civil war, it meaned zero killed; zero killed in a war day was a good day. In a time of peace, the real shooting at Zero Killed Corral is an extraordinary clin d'oeil à l'histoire.
samedi, juin 17, 2006
mercredi, juin 14, 2006
During the Controlling Tumble Weeds by the Power of the Mind annual Festival in New Mexico, I am proud to say that, for the first time in my life, I was able to control two tumble weeds in the same time from a small distance. Some young women in the assistance fainted while watching this small miracle.
Later the same day a journalist interviewed one tumble weed called Jean-Michel for the tumble weeds magazine. Jean-Michel answered some questions:
Who are you?
I am where I go.
What are you?
I'm what makes me go.
Where do you go?
I come from where I go.
Where do you come from?
I'm from where I go.
What do you feel?
I feel like I'm gonna go now.
vendredi, juin 09, 2006
Prada Marfa is incredible. It's not far from the Chinati Foundation initiated by Donald Judd in Marfa. For me, it means much more than the art by Judd and friends, an art turned into money & religion & museum circuit. This genuine Prada store along the road in the desert is the most moving piece of art I have ever seen (but the sceneries that surround it, mother nature still being artist n°1 in the South West).
At the Chinati, you have to be careful to not move any piece of dust in the Kabakov installation (a communist abandoned school) since it is there on purpose. You have to be careful to not touch the aluminium giant sculptures by Judd and to not move the stones by Richard Long. The people start to talk very carefully to not disturb the ghosts of such a grandeur...
Artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset present their newest sculpture, entitled Prada Marfa. "The work is located on the outskirts of Valentine, Texas near Marfa on desolate ranching land with no other visible trace of civilization. As one drives toward the artwork it appears to be a large minimalist sculpture; as one gets closer it looks like a luxury boutique where a display of Fall 2005 high-heel Prada shoes and bags can be seen through the store front windows. Yet, one cannot open the door, it is a sealed time capsule and will never function as a place of commerce."
lundi, juin 05, 2006
Quemado, New Mexico.
New York, Athens (al), Austin (tx), Fredericksburg (tx), Big Bend (tx), Presidio (tx), Marfa (tx), White Sands (nm), Truth or Consequences (nm), Chloride (nm), Saint John's (az), the petrified forest site (az), Tucson (az), Las Vegas (nv), San Diego (ca), Los Angeles (ca), Salt Lake City (ut), Wendover (ut), New York.
Thanks to all the friends (Joseph and Alton, Karin, Jen-Marie, Momus, Carolina and Juan) and people who made this trip a wonderful experience... Once we heard "you'll see a lot of nothing" and it was right: in 3000 miles, we saw a lot of nothing, but this nothing was stuffed with a voice from the everything.