Proust in disorder

A long time ago I read this phrase, and I never forgot it :

you can do what you want with a masterpiece, you will never damage it

Then you don’t care to put a moustache on La Joconde Mona Lisa,  you will never spoil, ruin or damage her!

Strangely, I had to find the same pattern for Proust. I once bought the book, which impressed me like a unreachable monument, until I read – in a procrastinating movement – a little one about Proust.

The author mocked me a lot in a chapter, saying that La Recherche is not a towering “cathedral”, and that I should attack it with a good food loving miscreant hungriness, instead of being a solemn idiot. Adding something like : “It’s a masterpiece and you will be struck and enthralled by it, whatever the tip you crunch”.

Solemn idiocy is the most ridiculous one, right?

Last week I talked with a grandpa who was a reaaal Proust lover. He said he bought a few different audio books in mp3, put them in his player and was often walking in the city listening to a few of the hundreds short chapters… by different actors…  and in random order!

We laughed. It’s a game for those who read it (to guess what part of the book is spoken here). It’s a constant delight because of the language (Proust is the most gorgeous French EVER). It makes you think and offers you seeds for the mind, in showers (Proust is very, very subtle). Etc.

No solemnity here. Only the necessary casualness (and gourmandise) in front of life, ideas, et cetera : life is serious, then, once you reached these high stairs of intelligence.

Good day!

 

“This Author? I have everything…”

A style, a mood, a spirit, ideas : some authors are a shock. Keenness. Grasp. You’re hungry!

There are many ways and paths here.

1. You can buy everything you find then swim into your new pool for months.
2. You can like it so much than you keep some unreadings to keep new things for your whole life (I do this with Faulkner).
3. You can explore it like malaria attacks, then let go (because it’s a too big continent).

William Faulkner. The Sound and the Fury has been the biggest book shock in my life. Haunting style. Liquor. Splendid.

Thomas Bernhard. Controlled methodical rage. Awesome. Unforgettable.

Anton Chekov. A doctor. The sweetest guy ever. Hilarious letters. Marvellous knowledge or human soul. Breaks your heart all the time.

Nietzsche. Toxic genius. Ideas at all stairs. Exhausting. Dense.

Paul Valéry. French genius of the highest range. The virgoest Virgo of spirits.

Ernst Jünger. The Goethe of the XXth Century. Generous, paradox between German spirit and big rushes of humanity. Warrior too.

Proust (rivers of words and intelligence), Kundera (smart and cruel), Yourcenar (cold adorable genius of Belgium), Giono (superb style), Bouvier (one of the best writer/traveler).

What do they have in common too? I want to have a conversation with them…

Have a nice day!

Proust was a blogger…

“Remembrance of things past
is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
― Marcel Proust

 

 

Proust is a well known French writer, renowned for his… difficult style. You’ll Google it if you want to try, OK?

Thus, in France (and probably elsewhere) you often hear this “I tried Proust, but I couldn’t finish it”, with a little funny face.

Well, OK, I never finished it either! Reading Proust is like eating a feast everyday. It’s exhausting!

• Worse : you can not really read something else, because every writer looks like a dumb moron after Proust. Too much intelligence pulls you in an awe, where air is rare.
• Worse : you want to grab anyone you know to scream “Read Proust, it’s amazing!”. No, come on, it’s impossible to read him.
• Worse : Proust’s style, made of long, complex phrases, with an absolute lack of concessions (for the reader), is like dive into it, or else…

Therefore : you have to make an effort. Each time you plunge in Proust you have to. You’re like “OMG it’s dense!”, then you find the marvels. A bit like opera, you see? If you don’t make an effort, an opera is a boring story with people singing like crazy about stupid dramas. Make an effort to find your own pleasure : voices, performance, music, comparing, etc…

Once you did it, here it is : Proust is a blogger.

One day I explained it to my best friend. She was like “Meh”. OK, I said. I picked up the book, read a page (randomly), and we found an idea. So good it filled the evening in conversations.

The only secret is this : do not take it too solemnly. It’s not a cathedral. La Recherche (“In Search of the Lost Time”) is just a huge great book. If you’re bored, breathe and pass a page. YES. Go on. You’ll find emerald & pearls. It’ll kill you (it’s soo good). One day, it’s enough. Read something else.

In each page you’ll find one or more ideas. Each one could let you thinking smiling watching the sky, like “Ohh, that’s true!”.

He’s a blogger. But he’s better than you, I warn you…

 

Have a nice day!

 

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.”
― Marcel Proust, Time Regained

 

 

“Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power … that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more.”
― Marcel Proust

 

 

 

 

From frowny eyes to hilarity : When you have to “find the fun” – Cioran & Bernhard

Emil Cioran was a Romanian writer and philosopher. He is famous for writing books such as The Trouble with Being Born. As you can guess, it’s very tormented and pessimistic.

William H. Gass called Cioran’s work “a philosophical romance on the modern themes of alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease”.

Thomas Bernhard was a Austrian “novelist, playwright and poet”. His style is mainly about monologues reported to a listener (you?). It’s very intense, full of anger and a bit disturbing. His books’ titles are like Extinction or Concrete.

“Bernhard’s prose is lapidary and translucent in its vocabulary, but sinuous and formidably dense in its phrasing”.

 

Yes, you can take all this very seriously.

I’ve known a couple of young men who read Cioran as an obsession, like a Master of pessimism : “The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live –moreover, the only one.”. And why not?

And I admit I read my first Thomas Bernhard with frowny eyes. “Very often we write down a sentence too early, then another too late; what we have to do is write it down at the proper time, otherwise it’s lost.”

 

Then… you grow up, you study the way they write (one in archipelagos, the other one in words rivers), you begin to notice their ways, their exaggerations, their… wizardry, their understanding, their contradictions.

Then you smile.

Then you LAUGH…

I agree, it’s a strange laugh. It would be a bit short to say it’s sarcastic, because it’s not. Sometimes humor sticks out with a whole harp of powers. You laugh but you think, you laugh but you sob, you laugh but you have empathy, you laugh but you’re deeply moved, you laugh and you want to get out of your house to run like hell out in the streets, full of seeds, anger, and new ideas…

You just needed to make progress until you have the capacity to “get it”.

 

Where does it happen, when you have to “find the fun”? How would you make it? When do things have like this, many doors? Why should humor move with this flag : “This is humor”?? Can (and do you need to) you invent and trace humor on something which is “obviously” not funny?

Isn’t it a lesson? Like… maybe we have to find a possible way to laugh after our months of deep despair?
Thanks for reading!

Have a nice day. Pardon my Frenchenglish, oui ?

 

Hey, it’s my article N600!

 

 

 

 

Bovary 2 #quotes

“At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“She wanted to die, but she also wanted to live in Paris.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

 

Instagram : sarah_feldmann

The Queeny Syndrome, according to Houellebecq

“Physical beauty plays here exactly the same role as nobility of blood in the Ancien Régime, and the brief consciousness that they might have at adolescence of the purely accidental nature of their rank rapidly gives way among very pretty young girls to a sensation of innate, natural, and instinctive superiority, which places them completely outside, and far above, the rest of mankind. Everyone around her having as their objective to spare her all difficulties, and to satisfy the least of her desires, a very pretty young girl effortlessly comes to consider the rest of the world as made up of so many servants, herself having the sole task of maintaining her own erotic value—in the expectation of meeting a boy worthy of receiving her homage”.

Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island

La Pléiade are great French books

The “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade” is a French series of books published by Gallimard. As says Wikipedia, the “entry into the Pléiade” is considered a major sign of recognition for an author in France (it’s pretty rare to reach this when you’re alive), though most of the catalog (more than 800 titles) is made of classics, from Jane Austen to William Faulkner, Joyce, Goethe, Kundera or Tanizaki.

La Pléiade offers high quality appearance : leather bound, gold lettering, and a small format which makes them look like small bibles. “The use of bible paper allows the books to contain a high number of pages; it is common for a Pléiade book to contain at least 1500”. I think you have a similar collection in the USA, called Library of America…

Many people collect these books, which, most of the times, are never opened. Each one costs around $70 : they stay on the shelves, sometimes behind a display case…

You can see them like precious untouched books to show you’re wealthy, or you can also choose to consider they are solid pocket practical books. I bought some on eBay for $9.99 : months of bliss! They are a bit torn, but who cares : they are compact, they smell good, they are generous, each book stays open when you let it go of, etc.

I took a few pictures. On the last one you see my pretty cool Ernst Jünger box, a diary written in France during WWII…

Have a nice day!

 

 

Sad Heart, Merry Spirit : Chronicle 9

I read in a Claude Roy diary, as he’s around 70 years old, that he would like to reach this season, this state : “Le temps du cœur triste et de l’esprit gai” – the time of the sad heart and the merry spirit.

Here I have a vocabulary problem : is “gai” happy, merry, gay, jolly? I don’t know. I chose merry.

But I’m very fascinated by this “goal”, from an aged author I liked very much. As if he knew he could never heal his heart. But, knowing this, building his own happiness, a “merry spirit”. This touched me, a lot.

 

Just read an article evoking Robert Osborne, a TCM Television Presenter who just died at 87 years old. It is told that Olivia de Havilland had with him :

One phone call a week, for decades.

Awwweeee! (-> this was the sound of my merry spirit). I wish I had a friend so close that she would call me once a week until I die at 87. Like a whatever-happens-I-want-to-talk-with-you. Awwweeee again (my merry spirit if very merried by this idea).

 

I read (but where, is it Casanova or Jünger?) about the Venice Purse, a knack which says that when you have to go to a “dangerous” place (which was Venice at the time), you needed to have two purses, one with a little money in case you’re robbed, attacked, knocked out, and another one with the main part of it – well hidden.

It’s just funny to know, but then you realize that when you travel abroad you really have to think about what you do with your passport, the amount of money you have with you, etc. I wonder what this concept can tell us about life in general : Be cautious? Watch the exits? Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket? But also : GO to places where you need to think about the Venice Purse, right?

Venice, in French, is VENISE. A perfect word to say : Venizzz. Elegant as a swan, right? Venice is more like braking at the end. No good. French better, sorry.

 

Elmore Leonard says somewhere about novels writing : “If it seems written, I rewrite”.

What a beautiful idea, right? Writing Style Dissimulation Efforts.

And a paradox many artists know well : work, work, work, until nobody sees you worked. It’s an interesting goal, and the path itself is enthralling too. How to reach?

There’s a balance to find, I suppose. It means you have the eyes to know when it’s not OK, when it is OK. Experience.

Well I have a vocabulary problem again. When do you use “enthralling“, dear? Can you say that about a person? How is it radioactivitied? Thrilling? Fearful? Exciting? Or more like “plainfully satisfying”?

 

I watched the Iowa episode of Aerial America yesterday. It’s amazing how many times I hear “French” in these. Detroits and Illinois were “frenchised” words, and how Iowa is a piece of this territory called Louisiana, the US bought to the French 214 years ago.

These TV programs tell me how BIG are the United States. Tonight I’ll watch Illinois, following the path of Bill Bryson’s book across America in car (cf Fixin’to traveling in the USA).

 

OK, it’s too long. I seize the run-up since a few weeks (is “seize the run-up” a good title?), like making the most of an epistolary energy…

I stop here. Next Chronicle next week. Here’s le hug by Ze French :

Have a nice day!

 

A woman’s hat on the table – Behaviorism in literature

In a Hemingway short story, the only visual information we have of a couple talking is that she took off her hat and put it on the table. Though, you can almost SEE them when you read the text, because of what they say.

Question :

In a book, do you prefer to read

1. “She was sad, and about to disconnect herself from reality”
2. An inner monologue as if she had a microphone in her head
3. A description of her movements, her mouth, her actions

…showing her disconnected sadness.

Well it’s the same for movies. Do you want to see someone act slowly, randomly and break something, or do you prefer a narrator explaining that “This day, she was bored, sad and electric”?

“Behaviorism is a school of psychology that studies that only behavior that can be observed or measured. It does not include the study of emotions or motives”.

Of course, there are behaviorist writers, who like to SHOW what’s happening instead of EXPLAIN the psychology of characters, as if they were a god.

Tool : What could YOU do about this tool, this pattern, in another field, in poetry, photography, marketing? Show or explain? Do you consider you audience as ignorants you have to tell everything to, or do you trust their mind, their intelligence?

she took off her hat and put it on the table – what does it mean?

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

#Books #Bag

Decorticate Genius & Laughing Ferrymen

One of the best things, in the world of books and ideas, is to hear a passionate lecture by someone who knows a style, an author, a field, a book.

Some writers are great teachers. Umberto Eco‘s essays are delicious (so Italian!). The literature classes of Nabokov are fabulous (so Russian?). Some guys have this talent to tell you how and why some classics are relevant, interesting and useful even in your little lives.

Le Misanthrope is a French play from the 17th Century. I just read a book from Fabrice Luchini (“Comédie Française, ça a débuté comme ça”), a French actor who tried to write his autobiography, but offered, in fact, pages of passionate lectures about French poetry (Rimbaud), theater (Molière) or prose (Céline), telling us how and why these authors are so enthralling (giving all details he learned as a skilled actor : rhythm, words, sentences, concepts – we French love words, you know that, right?).

Decorticate and peel genius, and offer the recipe to others.

Well, I won’t do it for you now, but I have a slicexample. Luchini evokes Le Misanthrope, a French play by Molière, 17th Century, and a dialog between two friends. One is the misanthrope, angry against humanity (the full text translated in English is here). The other one trying to tame… Let’s see :

Alceste : …times I feel suddenly inclined to fly into a wilderness far from the approach of men.

Philinte : …let us torment ourselves a little less about the vices of our age, and be a little more lenient to human nature. Let us not scrutinize it with the utmost severity, but look with some indulgence at its failings.

Sometimes with are Alceste, grouchy against fashion bloggers, or people with 4879 friends of Facebook incapable of communicate with real people around, and at other times we are more like Philinte, trying to understand that these people… do what they can, that they struggle a lot, they try to live, to love, to stand up alive. Maybe they’re unbearable, but they’re not guilty! It’s a balance, a swaying, wavering between both. Haecceity! This is life…

One of my pleasure these days is to discover these authors, I could call them the ferrymen.

Who are yours? Who do you lecture? Do you remember the way you laughed with jubilation? With who?

Thanks for reading!

“It is a fine but colourless morning” Virginia Woolf

It is a fine but colourless morning

Virginia Woolf, The Waves.

Proust & les Hirondelles : Chronicle 4

Absolutely no cunning could prevent a man
from being smashed against his dreams

 

I’m French, I’m sorry : my english is clumsy these days…

Have you ever visited the school you were in as a very little child, now you’re an adult? Among all the memories and the heartbeats you feel, you also find that… everything around is very little, right? You’re taller, now… you’re different. Perspective.

Today is the “braderie” in the city of La Madeleine. We love braderies in the North of France. It’s like your US garage sales, all along some streets : today was about 1.200 exhibitors (or displayers, how to say that?). I took a cool picture of motorbikes toys, you like it?

I’ve been asked one day about my “goals in life“. I have been very disturbed by this question, which is so… all about efficiency. I couldn’t think of a goal, even one. I feel like Cioran, in shock and in anger, after being asked about what he was “preparing”. If a French says he has “goals” in life, he sounds ridiculously Action Man, that’s it. The idea itself is a nightmare – at least when you’re more than 22 years old. I don’t want to be efficient, I just try to live, right? Dreams, maybe… Dreams, OK.

Absolutely no cunning could… etc…

I’m too lazy to find it, but the stupidest quote ever is something like “Give yourself a very high goal, then maybe you’ll reach a lower but good stage”. Of course there’s a more accurate one, saying that while you try to do that, you fail choosing the right path to achievement, you stay blind to feedbacks, etc. Typical Wrong Way Up. Well yes, these are words only, I know.

I have no goal, not one. It could be “to be happy” or “to be creative” or “to be a better human” or “to help others”, but I already failed in all these fields, obviously! And who will feed my cat, while I John Wayne?

If you want some fun, though, Google Image “Goals Quotes”. Plenty of orders in capitals. Like : <<DON’T LET ANYTHING STOP YOU FROM REACHING YOUR GOAL>>. Ohlalalaa, my French eyes are hurt! I need a beer, I think.

So I found a goal : stay zen in front of bullsh*t 🙂

It’s when the weather change (warmer air, higher sun, sudden showers) than you can have a rush of childhood memories. Or teenhood, say. Suddenly it’s HERE, you feel the same feeling you had in your mother’s arms, or at school when you were loving some shy redhead in silence, or when you were gathering interesting rocks under open sky. The idea of memories in Madeleines de Proust come from the food, but also from a smell (freshly cut grass, chocolate cake baking, little pot of white glue in kindergarten) or a sound (of swallows flying hunting between streets, or the familiar engine’s roar of you’re father’s car), but also from the light in the air, the clouds, a coming thunderstorm…

Marguerite Duras says somewhere that she can NOT write if the bed is not made. Strange thing is : I never forgot that, because… that’s true.

I bought a Raymond Carver book, “The American Chekhov”, as they say. I know Carver’s work pretty well, but I never read him in English. Good exercise. I can’t resist to a blurb on a book saying “The (Italian, Canadian, whatever country you choose) Chekhov”…

They have something in common, that’s right : they watch meticulously our little renunciations, our microscopic failures, our rushes never said, our words, spoken and immediately regretted, our love silliness, our boredom. But it’s not “laments”. It’s more like : “This is it, brother human, and it not even THAT dramatic”.

I found a rose, there. Is a rose, is a rose, Mrs Stein. Look where she is (“une rose”) :

In the shades of break-up moods, you have the yellow poison of jealousy, the dark corners of loneliness, the twinge of uncertainty and many more. The invisible bitterness of “having being loved and then not” is sometimes like swimming against the cold current of a long deep river.

In the shades of illness… Oh, another time, OK?

You can read books (or see a therapist, it depends on how you’re made), self help or philosophy : you’ll read everywhere that you have to find your happiness inside you, right? Again? I “have to”? The capitalized ORDER quote is <<BE HAPPY AND SMILE>>. Yes, each time, you want to punch the author in the face! Bim! Paf! Pouf!

Give birth to a dancing star from the chaos you have within

Strange star, but that could be my Nietzsche goal, maybe… Well, see?

Thanks for reading! Merci!

Arthur Rimbaud & Glenn Gould : The “Big Less” Temptation

Rimbaud was a French poet who had a huge influence on Arts and Literature, but stopped writing at 21. He became a merchant, mostly in Africa (in coffee trading, for example!), and died at 37.

Gould was a Canadian pianist who stopped giving concerts at the age of 31 and became an eccentric hermit in recording studios.

Different destinies, but a similar pattern : at one moment, they stopped completely something they succeeding in, they closed a door.

Rimbaud stopped writing. Many wondered why : The artist had said everything? He wanted to explore another face of his personality? He had a secret wound? Dead wordsourcespring?
Gould didn’t stop making music, but never came back playing in concert, and he explained himself about that.

I write this because I wonder if sometimes we should consider a similar flip. A combination of levers & dials, studying what’s good in our life, considering that insisting (even in different ways) could be, from now, a failure : it’s maybe time for a closure?…

 

The Big Less is about considering to close a part of you which… works. Why would you do that, like “I park it”? Why would you stop what works? You feel you miss something? It’s too easy? You reached a plateau? I works but the wrong way? You lost a goal? You need to experiment to enrich? Fresh air? You need to get smaller to go faster? A fresh start to go elsewhere? You’re afraid of some ticking-over routine? Is it a bad idea? Why?

And who knows what will happen after some years? Maybe you’ll realize you needed the big disturbance of it? Maybe a bigger room will open? A secret path will appear? Maybe you’ll make good Bach records, or trade coffee?

Have a nice day!

Writing in another language

I’m French. I write in English. Why? Here’s what I see :

• Blogging in English forces me to me short and simple.
• So it’s like pendrawing instead of oil painting. Water instead of wine.
• I constantly check (and thus learn) vocabulary.
• So I have to think about the French vocabulary too.
• I am not distracted by any search of French “Style”, and it’s a relief.
• I quit my well known ground, to find another babyway to walk on another soil.
• Writing in French is like “too easy”, it flows fast (as I type) from ideas to words.
• Writing in English is more like building a little plane-model with unusual words. It’s slower, and a pleasure too.
• There’s a playing child pleasure into it.
• As it’s not my “tongue”, I feel really more chilled out when I write here.
• Therefore I can focus on my little tools, not “How to say that in French properly”.
• I invent words with a smile.
• I make mistakes on purpose… with a smile.
• I know and feel that I miss something, and I have to ignore it, and let go.
• I can speak English, but I’m also quite lost in it. I explore, then.
• I learn constantly about American culture, just by watching the way this language expresses things.
• Idioms are different, and each time it’s like finding a jewel.
• It’s probably an exercise for “one day write in French”, with new eyes and muscles-of-the-brain gained from writing in another language.
• It can also be a way to voluntarily lose bad habits in my own language.

 

Beautiful books are always written in a sort of foreign language, said Marcel Proust. That’s a great seed for the mind, don’t you think? It’s about style. When I’ll “write back” in French, I’m sure I’ll be richer, then, because of my English exploration years…

Merci!

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Fruitful Constraints & Creativity

It’s an old tool many artists know : many constraints are fruitful. Mainly because a constraint is a problem calling for a solution, therefore you have to move, to be creative.

All jobs and activities have constraints : budget, environment, other people, time, space, your skills, your tools.

If it’s too loose, though, you feel a freedom, which can be messy. You can not catch anything. Stuck. You maybe need to tight something up, to find “your” freedom within a new frame.

Brian Eno invented the Oblique Strategies (mainly for musicians) as a card game. You pick a card and you have to obey (sometimes it’s terrible!). Some directors are well known to tell the actors to follow precisely something (the dialogs, or the places they have to move on the set, etc) before shooting. Some digital artists sometimes go out in a park with a pencil and a notebook. A photographer can go outside with the limit of 20 pictures taken, not much. And G. Perec wrote an entire book without the letter “e”.

Constraints are fruitful. You probably have many disposable levers for these. A poet can obey : write something in alexandrine; without any letter “p”, in less than 5 minutes. You may have to present a project in ONE minute only, and… with no words. What are your levers?

You can pull a lever to Zero, it’s the Total Constraint. For example, you’re a photographer and you go out without any camera. Just your eye. You’ll feel the need, you’ll feel your brain simmering. As you can only watch and… think, you’ll maybe have bursts of ideas (instead of taking pictures).

Of course it’s an example of “Amor Fati”, being content with what happens to you, even if it seems bad. Embracing fate : every constraint, if you can’t avoid it, should (and will have to) be danced with.

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : f_pilvi

The Sylvia Plath syndrome is about #writing

When I read the Sylvia Plath diary, I was constantly irritated and I wondered why. Then I clicked :

Because she always and absolutely wanted to write a book… instead of writing.

So I invented the “Sylvia Plath syndrome”, it’s when a person absolutely wants to publish a book and barely never writes.

One possibility is that one day the book is there, the axis disappeared immediately : it leaves this person completely indifferent, and sick. We could call this the “So what” disillusion. This needs another article, right?

Tool :

Shut up, et cessez donc de vous plaindre ! Don’t complain about you can’t write, or it’s not the place, or it’s not the moment : write! Now! You go girl (and boy)!

Have a nice day!

Instagram : g.inevra_void

Umberto Eco & the Open Work

Umberto Eco wrote an entire book about the idea of Open Work. I just present you here this idea, as a seed, that a “work” has an openness.

A work “appears” like this or like that, but has a number of ways of being read (seen, viewed, watched, decoded, interpreted, appreciated, contemplated, analyzed). This seems obvious for the sheet music, the score, or for a play, right?

1. There’s maybe an “obvious” openness, a prescribed way to read a work, but it can be a little more vague, like a set of possibilities – until complete crypticness : find what you can, if you dare to do it, then.
2. Some elements are often chosen by the artist to let the audience appropriate the work their way, but not “that” their way. Symbolic novels are obviously made for this purpose (Kafka is an example given by Eco).
3. Opened or not, some people do what they want with a piece of work. It’s a whole decision, it requires culture, or tools, or ways of finding things.
4. Some works, this way, can be enriched by a clever spectator, who would be delighted by elements, details, structures… the artist himself ignore!
5. In classical music or theater, there’s a place between the work (the score) and the audience. The players (or the actors) have a big role about “how they see it”. But after that level, the audience will also interpret things…
6. We probably want to find bonds between the work we study and our own searches, flaws, experiences…
7. Add yours in the comments, please?

 

Tool : If you work out of the “artistic field”, in blogging, marketing, conversation, fashion, coaching, I’m sure you consider many parameters. You can make a list, right? Timeline, colours, variety, energy, waits, etc, there are many levers to pull. But have you considered the “openness” of what you propose?

 

Thanks for reading!

“Nommer un objet c’est supprimer les trois quarts de la jouissance du poème, qui est faite du bonheur de deviner peu a peu : le suggérer . . . voila le rêve”

“To name an object is to suppress three-fourths of the enjoyment of the poem, which is composed of the pleasure of guessing little by little: to suggest . . . there is the dream”

Mallarmé

Instagram : jacopo.rigotti

Keep a part for later – Masterpieces from Masters

If you’re an explorer, you sometimes discover an artist you… adore.

It’s so good that you can’t resist : here you are exploring the whole chest, pigging out the whole thing. We are all lost souls, craving for…

But sometimes you climb “one more degree”. It’s so good that you decide something.

Keep a part for later. More in reserve. Some gas left in the tank.

This is what I did with a few masters : Puccini, Chekhov, Faulkner, Borges, Jünger. Who are yours?

I know Manon and La Bohème by heart, and pretty well some of other Puccini’s operas, like Tosca or Butterfly, and one third of Trittico. Each time I listen to a part of Turandot I’m floored… but I keep it for later!

Chekhov wrote hundreds of short stories. I have shelves of that guy! But I never read “everything”. It’s the same for Jünger or Borges, or Faulkner.

• Keep the pleasure to discover something new from a Master you love.
• One day it’s maybe to late : you’re dead. Or you’re not interested any more.
• You sometimes don’t remember if you read this or that. Even better, right?
• There’s a middle choice : listen or read once, and then wait for years.
• Years after, you read or listen… another way.
• Choose an infinite area. Restaurants in Paris for example. Hmmm?

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Instagram : hallieartwork

Fighting Quotes part 1 : Game for your Mind

It’s a game, an exercise. It’s a tool to think, to invent, to move your mind.

Go on Google Images and type a word, then “quote”. Chose inspiring subjects, like Desire, Love, Inspiration, Flowers, Choice or Change. Voilà. You’ll find plenty of easy quotes. These are the seeds.

I already did this exercise with Nietzsche about music. “Without the music life would be a mistake”, hahaha. This is so… OK, whatever. See my point.

I pick “Desire”. Desire Quote. Or better : “Motivational Quotes”. These are good!

“Desire, the starting point of all achievement”. Well said, buddy! Could be the contrary, the starting point of all failure, no? What to they want us to think?

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less”. Hmmmm? What does the author want, again?

OK, let’s go on.

“Believe in yourself”, which is typical stupid “positive” psychology, right? Who will suddenly believe in oneself after reading this?

“A comfort zone : nothing ever grows here”, ah yeah? Why not?

Appreciate these three quotes together :

Tools :

Try to find what does the author want. Try to write the quote-contrary, the opposite view. Try to find the stupidity, and the truth too, in each quote. Try too separate the “idea” in many more concepts (life is always more complicated, blablabla), like an exploding sheaf of ideas. What else?

 

Tools of the mind become burdens when the environment which made them necessary does not exist anymore