La prophétie d'André Malraux

bonne anniversaire. madame deneuve

Catherine Deneuve by Jerry Schatzberg

Going to see this in a few days:

Much as I love the city in September, precisely because I love it so much, I spent most of the month in Long Island, working on the novel, though I did go in to see the revival of Einstein on the Beach at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of the most incredible spectacles I’ve ever seen on stage. Glass’s music continues to impress, but that’s been accessible to all since 1976, when it debuted. The great revelation, even for those of us who have seen some of his other work, were Robert Wilson’s tableaux and his staging, the compositions, the lighting, and especially the repetitive, dream-like gesture and motion. Einstein has been hailed as the high point of a certain period, the masterpiece of a collective aesthetic hatched in downtown New York in the seventies, but it still seems utterly fresh; we still haven’t caught up with it.

via

Musikladen ROXY MUSIC (1973)

Doesn't Brian Eno -- with, y'know, all due respect to his avante cred, look kind of like an escapee from the set of Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Great stuff. Even with the execrable white suit.

Why it sucks to be an American man

I'm sitting at a table with four full-grown women.

The subject of perfume comes up.

Four of them say they don't own a bottle -- not one goddam bottle -- of perfume. Let alone, use the stuff.

Now, in many cases, that could be A Good Thing. But, in principle, it means they've forsaken one incredibly important element of allure.

I hate that.

Really hate it.

Happy birthday, Klaus Kinski

Crazier, maybe, but also more alive that nearly anyone: From Aguirre:

 


 And the first part of a cheesy documentary about him:

The cramps--Way I Walk---78'

photo by Willy Ronis

Willy Ronis

Reverdy: Outre mesure

Outre mesure

Le monde est ma prison

Si je suis loin de ce que j'aime

Vous n'êtes pas trop loin barreaux de l'horizon

L'amour la liberté dans le ciel trop vide

Sur la terre gercée de douleurs

Un visage éclaire et réchauffe les choses dures

Qui faisaient partie de la mort

À partir de cette figure

De ces gestes de cette voix

Ce n'est que moi-même qui parle

Mon cœur qui résonne et qui bat

Un écran de feu abat-jour tendre

Entre les murs familiers de la nuit

Cercle enchanté des fausses solitudes

Faisceaux de reflets lumineux

Regrets

Tous ces débris du temps crépitent au foyer

Encore un plan qui se déchire

Un acte qui manque à l'appel

Il reste peu de chose à prendre

Dans un homme qui va mourir

© Gallimard

American Playboy by Helmut Newton

American Playboy, Beverly Hills. Photo by Helmut Newton

DIE ANTWOORD - BABY'S ON FIRE (OFFICIAL)

Prevert question

Immense et Rouge 

Immense et rouge  

Au-dessus du Grand Palais  

Le soleil d'hiver apparaît  

Et disparaît  

Comme lui mon coeur va disparaître  

Et tout mon sang va s'en aller  

S'en aller à ta recherche  

Mon amour  

Ma beauté  

Et te trouver  

Là où tu es. 

Jacques Prevert

Okay, here's a question for you real Francophones. I like Prevert, but I feel kind of stupid for liking him. I suspect that if French were my native language, he'd be the kind of poet that 14 year old girls like for a while and outgrow.

But since French is my second language, I have to say, I find his simplicity powerful and beautiful. 

Or, this one:

Déjeuner du matin

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bu le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler
Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder
Il s'est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu'il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder
Et moi j'ai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et j'ai pleuré

Does this poem sound corny? Did you get too much of it forced on you during your middle school years (12-14?)

Anyway, he was hell of a screenwriter. 

Todd Hido

photo by Todd Hido

Memory

But what really interests me ultimately is not to record the past, so much as how people live with the past and get on with it. There’s a kind of fetishization of memory in our culture. Some of it comes from the experience and the memorial culture of the Holocaust—the injunction to remember. And it also comes from the strange collision of Freud and human rights thinking—the belief that anything that is not exposed and addressed and dealt with is festering and going to come back to destroy you. This is obviously not true. Memory is not such a cure-all. On the contrary, many of the great political crimes of recent history were committed in large part in the name of memory. The difference between memory and grudge is not always clean. Memories can hold you back, they can be a terrible burden, even an illness. Yes, memory—hallowed memory—can be a kind of disease. That’s one of the reasons that in every culture we have memorial structures and memorial days, whether for personal grief or for collective historical traumas. Because you need to get on with life the rest of the time and not feel the past too badly. I’m not talking about letting memory go. The thing is to contain memory, and then, on those days, or in those places, you can turn on the tap and really touch and feel it. The idea is not oblivion or even denial of memory. It’s about not poisoning ourselves with memory.

-- Philip Gourevitch

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Devo " Gut Feeling " first time in live in 1977