La rÔute du Monde

 

Désormais, on passe à l'anglais.

On March 3rd, I made the appointment to get my cat Mistinguett euthanised the next day.

 During that night, there would be a fire at the Maison André Breton in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie.

(The original without subtitles)

In January 2007, Guy Girard and Marie-Dominque Massoni sent out a questionnaire to the international surrealist community. It was named Au bon endroit (At the Right Place). Here are my answers.

Où se situe cette construction ? Dans un champ quelconque.

Where is this building located? In a random field.

Quand fut-elle bâtie ? La construction n'est pas terminée.

When was it built? The construction is not yet completed.

Dans quel but ? Il n'y avait pas de but précis. Les subventions pour la construction ne furent donc jamais obtenues.

For what purpose? There was no specific purpose. The subsidies for construction were therefore never obtained.

Qui a pu y habiter ? Voilà bien toute la beauté de la chose…

Who could have lived there? Here lies the beauty of it all...

Que pourriez-vous en faire et y faire ? M'y frotter.

What could you do with it and do in there? Rub against it.

Que serait-ce si c'était:

What would it be like if it were: 

• un animal ? (an animal) Un chat. / A cat.

• un végétal ? (a plant) Une laitue. / A lettuce.

• un minéral ? (a mineral) Clinkers.

• un poème ? (a poem) Non-cognitive aspects of the city, par (by) Joseph Jarman.

• une langue ? (a language) Volapük.

• un masque ? (a mask) L'étoffe des amoureux (Les Amants) de René Magritte. / The fabric in René Magritte’s The Lovers.

• un état mental ? (a mental state) Catatonique. / Catatonic.

• un symbole ? (a symbol) Jamais. / Never.

Des rumeurs font état de cérémonies secrètes, la nuit. De quoi s'agit-il ? Quels en sont les rituels ? Quel en est le déroulement ?

Des rituels d'une nouvelle érotisation. Les participants doivent gravir une échelle jusqu'à la partie ouverte et jeter des objets par cette ouverture vers l'extérieur. Le bruit des objets se fracassant au sol entraînent des réactions stimulantes pour ceux qui assistent aux bruits sans pouvoir constater l'état destructif de l'impact des objets sur la surface meurtrie.

La suggestion est encore plus valable du fait que les lanceurs d'objet sont encouragés à suivre des yeux la trajectoire jusqu'au moment ultime du fracas lors duquel ils doivent prestement couvrir leur regard et redescendre aussitôt. Seul le balayeur constatera l'état du champ.

Les spéculations entre lanceurs et entendants doivent être résolues dans une série prolongée de souffles et de frottements contre la paroi de la construction. Les vibrations produites par les coups de pelle et de balai sont amplifiées par une prise de son avec micros-contact et les couches sonores jouent en boucle et se superposent en un gigantesque bourdonnement qui accompagnera l'ascension du prochain lanceur.

There are rumors of secret ceremonies taking place, at night. What are they? What are the rituals? How do they unfold?

Rituals of a new eroticization. Participants must climb a ladder to the open part and throw objects through this opening towards the exterior. The noise of the objects crashing into the ground causes stimulating reactions in those witnessing the noises in the absence of assessing the destructive state left by the impact of the objects on the bruised surface.

The suggestion is even more potent as the object throwers are encouraged to follow the trajectory with their eyes until the final moment of the crash, at which point they must quickly cover their gaze and climb down immediately. Only the sweeper can notice the state of the field.

The speculations between the throwers and the listeners must be resolved in a prolonged series of breathing and frictioning against the wall of the building. The vibrations produced by the sweeping and scraping of the shovel and broom are amplified through sound recording using contact microphones, and the sound layers play in a loop and overlap into a gigantic drone that will accompany the ascent of the following thrower.

Au bon endroit presented us with a picture of a cloaked Tour Saint-Jacques during restauration works. At the time, the surrealist group were meeting at the Café de la Tour Saint-Jacques (just across the street) at 92 rue de Rivoli, and at the address next door (at 90, leading upstairs above the café) was where the alchemist Nicolas Flamel lived back in the XIVth century.

In 2020, Guy Girard wrote to me that the café was replaced by a "lingerie" boutique called Un jour ailleurs (One day elsewhere... in fact a general women's clothing shop) which in turn closed down due to the pandemic. Nowadays, at 92 Rivoli there's a Falconeri shop. When André Breton and Paul Éluard wrote L'Immaculée Conception together, they made a reference to a plate shop Aux lions de faïence located at 90, rue de Rivoli and 1 rue Nicolas-Flamel.

And that is the explanation if you ever wondered who are Les Alchimistes de la rue Pernelle who signed some of the tracts and public declarations of the Groupe de Paris du Mouvement Surréaliste, these were friends of the group who sometimes attended meetings at the Café de la Tour St-Jacques.

(The automatic English subtitles are not too bad)

But now let's learn about clinkers, shall we?

And learn about that poem by Joseph Jarman.

The poem was recorded on 20 October 1966, and appeared on the album Song For. A good example of the earlier works out of the AACM.  

Several of the AACM members would soon depart for Europe in 1969, and it's while in France that the Art Ensemble of Chicago would get its name. The Ensemble appeared in and recorded the movie soundtrack for Les stances à Sophie, in which Jarman trades a few lines about sexual freedom during a scene with Bernadette Lafont. Just pay attention to the words Fontella Bass sang on this one. Not your typical song lyrics, one might perhaps suggests they had encountered a bit of surrealist poetry. 

And of course, there was also that famous project with Brigitte Fontaine.

(A rare English version only available on a Japanese CD reprint from 2016)

(The better-sounding original)

Clinkers are used to make cement, going through a process of extreme heating.

Since we are in Namibia, a place very rich for its minerals and loads of Sable.

Speaking of which, let's meet Volapük.

(The automatic English subtitles are reliable, although incomplete, but fuck it) 

****

Let's have an intermission before resuming the presentation. Take this opportunity to stretch out, drink some water or even... dance, perhaps? Yes, unplug your headset and power up your speakers and dance. Your downstairs neighbor will thank you for it. 

****

Around 2011, I met Jasa Baka. She was working on a film based on a story she had written. She had shown me her colorfully illustrated script, which I've read in her company. She also uploaded an excerpt of the work-in-progress on my shitty computer from a USB flash drive for me to watch later, but this will be the first time that I finally watch the completed Smile Stealers (she would call "cheese doodles" cheesy smiles). I've read in newspapers that it did pretty well at independent film festivals.

Coming from Halifax, she was in Montréal with her sister Tyr Jami. Their parents are also artists and they had legally renamed their daughters with names such as these as part of their "artistic output", if I remember correctly. I recall conversations about her Icelandic ancestry and the family's friendship with the Canadian composer Christopher Butterfield (whom I was familiar with).

This was filmed on my 35th anniversary at the famous Music Gallery in Toronto.

On the day of the Full Moon of November 30, 2020, following a new message received from Guy Girard announcing that Clément Sachot (a mysterious young man whom had approached me via Etienne Ruhaud’s pseudo-surrealist facebook private group) and himself would be meeting for the first time this week (for a private visit of La Photographie Surréaliste en 2020 at Saint-Ouen’s Amarrage closed due to the COVID public health measures), I started musing about the wanderings of the Nguni people, whom also speaks Xhosa (another language of "clicks"), and I felt the need to compose this poem:

La migration débute

De la douve que trace le cercle de ton ombre

Il y a un champ de pions pour jouer au jeu de la bave

Extrait le poussin de son œuf, sur ses tiges palmées

Il défait les mailles et dépose ses écailles

Devenant l’arche qui mènera au toi tout de sable

La lecture du tamis des grains de ton appel

Ton corps se tordant pour mieux laisser voir son squelette

Qui filtre ainsi ces deux masses se touchant au crépuscule

Qui éteint cherchera la composition du faisceau

Dans les particules des gestes abandonnés aux calendes

The migration premieres

From the moat tracing the circle of your shade
There is a field of pawns to play the drool game
Extract the chick from its egg, on its flippered stems
He untangles the meshes and lays down his scales
Becoming the ark that will lead to the all sable you

The sieve reading of your call’s specks
Your body twisting up to better let its skeleton be seen
Who thus filters these two mounds rubbing at dusk

Whoever turns off will look for the composition of the beam
Through the particles of gestures relinquished to the calends

In heraldry, Sable is referencing the colour Black and has a connection with the planet Saturn. In French, sable is the word for sand.

While touring with Stereolab, Thurston Moore and Laetitia Sadier stopped in front of a pastry shop. In French, what English speakers call a Napoleon is a mille-feuille. Literally, a mille-feuille translates to a "thousand leaves". Pointing to the thing, that's how Laetitia refered to that particular dead emperor pastry in the shop's window, and that stuck into Thurston's mind so he named their following album thusly.

That 2005 BBC Sun Ra documentary was realised by Don Letts.

Which leads us to the interesting last half of the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, released on the first day of this month.

The same day the newest MCU movie was released for streaming. I was much surprised by the themes covered in both these projects. They are coincidentally both linked to the stuff I was alluding to when mentioning Serge Fiori in my last publication.

Which led me on the night of July 2nd to finally watch the much anticipated and genuinely awesome Sinners. I had it uploaded on my computer for a while by now. Not quite left on the backburner but I was waiting for the proper moment to enter it.

Its director, Ryan Coogler, had previously directed the MCU "afrofuturist" smash hit Black Panther and its follow-up Wakanda Forever, introducing the Riri Williams character starring in Ironheart. But this here is on another level entirely.

And there's just so much...

... in this movie to unpack. I'm just beginning.

If you must go looking, you can find special pictures of Clarus Polaris here and there, but let's instead stick with Vivian on the wheels of steel with some of the greats.

 And when I write "some of the greats"...

... I'm not joking. 

We're no longer riding aboard Amtrak, it's always about something else.

When that electric guitarist from the future appears (I think that' Eric Gales, am I wrong?), many viewers will believe that character to be modeled on Jimi Hendrix, but it's clearly based on P-Funk costums... for all those hanging around and too scared to ever go anywhere else.

(With the Brides of Funkenstein on vocals)

When her head was on tight she was

Anything that

Anyone could be

So goes the story...

(Music from the Highlife World Series)

****

But as is now our ritual, we resume our coverage of Stereolab's new album.

The Groop receives the assistance of Marie Merlet on backing vocals and of Ric Elsworth on vibraphone.

Fully human, fully divine, entwined

Through our bodies, through our senses

Accessing spirituality, humanity

Tell me, tell me what do you see

Through the eye of the heart

What do you see through the eye of the heart?

Where the soul sees from

And all it sees is love

A time that lifts the veil

Riddles revealed

The bygone days remedied

Fully human fully divine

Standing resolve

The receiver, the transmitter of higher frequencies

To root

This light through

Clarified heart

Tell me what do you see

Through the eye of the heart

What do you see through the eye of the heart?

Where the soul sees from

And all it sees is love

Fully human, fully divine

Entwined, entwined