When the water-clock sounds three times, I realize it’s midnight
Lovely wind and cold moonlight everywhere in pine and bamboo,
we sit here in perfect idleness, empty and still, saying nothing :
just two people in the shadows of a medicine tree, just two people.
Meng Chiao
Some Picasso‘s exes were writing him letters, sometimes daily, for years. I read that he loved these a LOT.
I’m writing an article about “Types of Muses”, idea given by his life & wives. Instead of giving a list of names with a few labels on each (intellectual/innocent, tortured/happy, silent/talkative) let’s say he met very different persons – which is common, but means maybe a lot more for a artist.
Daily stories, thoughts, attacks, melancholia, gossips, hopes or life moments, anything : Picasso opened the envelopes and loved them all with gourmandise, like love of good food, it “made his honey”, like we say in France (“Faire son miel”) : He knew how to glean the best from these letters.
Why, what for?
This leads me to some ideas or tools :
It makes me wonder about the daily writers too :
(Hmm sorry I’ll be Picasso-ed for a moment)
Thanks for reading!
JP
Paul Valéry about “writing for someone”?
You’re great / You’re not great anymore
Picasso about Matisse :
“We must talk to each other as much as we can. When one of us dies, there will be some things that the other will never be able to talk of with anyone else.”
“Il faut que nous parlions ensemble le plus possible. Quand l’un de nous sera mort, il aura des choses que l’autre ne pourra plus jamais dire à personne”.
A boutique is a special place, the most various people come in and come out. Whatever its dimensions, its installation, or the place it’s located, there’s a common feature : an opened door on the road.
M. Bealu
ONE
Theater & Poetry represent 3% of the book market turnover in France.
Many students have to buy poetry & theater for school, therefore I can imagine that poetry alone embodies (can I say that?) 1% of all bought books in France. It’s bigger than I thought, haha.
A big part of this, consequently, comes from French old masters studied in classrooms : Rimbaud, Verlaine, Appolinaire, Hugo.
So I can easily say that 0.1% of the books are bought here by poetry lovers…
TWO
Some conversations between two persons raise instantly a common roof.
A few days ago a lady asked me about a French poet totally unknown to me : Marcel Bealu.
To work in a bookstore is a bit frustrating : you can’t have all existing books (unless you own a 8.900 floors skyscraper) right? Thus we booksellers often order books, and explain to people that we would LOVE to have this rare poetry book, waiting for its customer for 17 years in a corner…
We know that people are aware we didn’t read all the books and can’t have all of them. But there’s this little pinch here, though.
Bealu’s style : French, imaginative, fantastic, grim, cerebral. “Dreamlike prose”, said the lady.
“Oh, a bit like Reverdy, then”, I replied.
And instantly, her answer, in a smile : “Yesssss!”.
Her gaze changed in a second, “Exactly!”. The roof was raised…
THREE
I love Reverdy’s poetry. It’s… unique, and here, Reverdy become a key, a spark.
This roof is a very special thing. It’s not about “at least someone who gets you”, not that early. It’s this process, a key word -> the roof.
“We’re the same family on this topic, right?”
It can be done with two 8 years old kids with Star Wars, that’s normal. But it’s something when you get this roof with a microscopic topic, Bealu’s poetry or parturition in the Middle Age, Kurdish architecture, Jünger’s essays or mantis macro photography.
“Heyyyy you know this!?”
FOUR
L’araignée d’eau
“Et soudain, tandis que reprenait tout près, fragile et sonore à la fois, l’étrange suite de sons, je compris que cette araignée exprimait, par son chant presque humain, sa joie d’insecte.
Alors, dans la solitude nous entourant, il ne me parut pas ridicule de lui adresser la parole.
-Sais-tu qu’il manque peu de chose à ton chant pour que je m’en éprenne tout à fait ? lui dis-je mi-sérieux mi-badin. Avec une telle voix, ta place est dans le monde.
-Tire-moi d’abord d’ici, me répondit-elle, et tu verras comme je saurai te plaire.”
The water spider
“And suddenly, as the strange line of sounds started again, nearby, fragile and sonorous at the same time, I understood that this spider expressed, with this almost human chant, her insect’s joy.
Then, in the solitude surrounding us, it seemed to me that it was not ridiculous to adress her.
– Do you know that hardly anything lacks to your chant to be taken with? I said to her, half-serious half-playful. With such a voice, your place is in the world.
– Get me out of here first, she answered, and you’ll see how I’ll be able to appeal to you.”
Thanks for reading!
When I was 25 I talked with my friend who was 40 and she said :
“Love? It’s an everyday choice!”
What? At this young age you’re NOT ready at all to hear that, right? You think meeting, magic, bond, “the one”, etc. Choice sounds not romantic enough…
Well it’s a whole subject, you’ll find books and blog articles about that. Married couples can explain. That’s not my point.
Of course, she was right!
When I began to read the letters between Gide and Valéry, two big French intellectuals, I found this idea. These guys were very different, have very little in common, but they found a spot, a territory, and they stayed friends their whole life!
It was not about “good friendship”, best pals and laughing while having beers. It was not magic of eyes and long smiling walks. It was like some work. It was like… a choice.
You know me, I’m constantly flipping through many pages and many books. Today I found a chapter about Sollers and Barthes. Of course : I found the same idea, very clearly exposed : they needed each other, they ate each other twice a month, and they used each other, intensively. One published the other. The other wrote an article to defend his friend. One had more experience, but loved the rocketing ideas of his friend. Etc.
Explicit, and probably untold. Dance of brains. Hands given. Stairs.
I don’t know why. What I understood about love decades ago existed for friendship and I ignored it. Strange…
Have a nice day!
Instagram : _bodylanguage_
I have 5 or 6 friends with whom I have rare great bursts of emails.
An ex. A penpal. Or a friend. Some of them I’ve never met – only online. For one of them, I’ve even never seen her face, not a picture, not once. We call it “The meeting of spirits”, la rencontre des esprits…
You can stop writing for YEARS, and when you talk again it’s like it stopped the day before. You know, that kind of friend. Soulmates. It can be weaved with past love, but not necessarily. This strange friendship is a treasure, a connection, a link, a bond.
That makes me think, tonight. This kind of bond is delightful, because you both KNOW. You don’t have to say, to explain. It’s just there. You understand each other : “I know you”.
No news for years, and then an email, an answer, and often a burst : five or six emails. Long letters. One skype conversation in 15 years. One phone call in a year. Immediately it climbs to a secret good place you both know. We don’t have to explain. It ours. As if a myriad of appendages were connecting to each other at fast pace.
The link can be reactivated in a second. In many ways. It can be “I need you”. It can be “I have something to tell you”. It can be “I have a problem”. It can be “What’s up dear?”. It can be “Long time no see”. It can be “You seem to need some help”. Or “I miss you”. It depends! But it’s there. Whatever happens.
My soulmates. L. O. PdP. SL. JA. L. BE. ED.
Hey! I know you’re here. You know I’m here. Thank you!
Thanks for reading!
Paul Valéry, in his notebooks, wrote a little paragraph about conversations.
We all know what is a good conversation, right? Valéry throws some elements, like a puzzle (each one could become an article), to understand “this” type conversation :
What would you add? How is the subject of conversation chosen (or does it fall from the roof, pushed by mood, events, words)? How is it colored by wine, vodka, whatever? What would add, for this puzzle?
Thanks for reading!
JP
The King of Kings of the world, for this, is Marcel Proust.
Buy, one day, a good translation of “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” (In Search of Lost Time). If you want to explore Proust, buy first How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain De Botton, it’s a really great book, and a great key to this author. Buy it for your birthday! Say it’s from Jean-Pascal, OK?
I try, here, next to my little tools, to talk about “very little movements of the minds”, what we call here “Tropismes”.
There is ONE tropism you know pretty well, you blog reader, it’s this one :
When you read an article and you jump off you chair saying : “It’s true! I feel that too! Never seen it written though!”.
It’s lovely to suddenly see someone who struggles with the same tiny mind movements as you, right?
Someone wrote one day that
We read to know we’re not alone
Isn’t it true?
Jean-Pascal
I wrote thrice about this idea : it’s a bit too easy to put “mental disorders” labels on people :
I don’t mean you won’t meet any real wolves in the forest of people, but that’s not what I’m writing about here.
Merely, it’s some common sense to realize that :
I read a lot about narcissistic perversion personality, manipulative people who live on this pattern : finding a good person, seducing her (or him, but let’s call her a her), mentally make her crazy with paradoxical communication, then vampyring her – feeling joy over her perdition and destroyed life. Until the next prey.
If you want to know more, you can Google it, or read this thread in Quora.
I will write very soon about how they seduce their empathetic prey (there’s a trick about finding prey’s flaw). This article just describes how they FEED : seeing the other’s distress.
How they do it is too long too describe, but let’s say they use paradoxes :
At the start the pervert is evidently very cautious, he is smiling, supportive, attentive, an ideal partner! The victim falls under his charm. Later, first incidents arrive, hurting remarks, aggressive looks, unexpected or violent reaction. But after that quickly come pleasant moment when the pervert reacts as if nothing had ever happened, and the victim often asks herself if she did not dream up the unpleasant scenes…
When his victim is powerless, lost, disoriented, they hit, and then comes this huge feeling of joy. And they need a witness : this nasty joy has to be expressed :
“He’s so weak! I’ve been such a BITCH! I massively injured his pride! He’s like a mouse now. You should have heard what I told him. He was like : << what did I do? >>. HAHAHA”.
This is a real source of joy and comfort for this person. “I hurt him – that’s great – listen!”
Low form of gaiety, I told you!
Tools :
What do you do about this kind of person? What if you were a wolf? Write a short story about this disorder? Do you have examples? What are others low form of gaiety? What happens when (and after) you realize you have jubilation in harming people? What do you do if you’re 15% NPD, if you’re 30%? Why does every article I read about this say that the Narcissistic Personality Disorder persons will never, ever accept and understand he’s like that, and thus there’s no cure ever?
Thanks for reading!
This one is interesting :
http://unisoultheory.com/index.php/2016/11/27/empath-loves-narcissist/
Yes, yes, it’s a mess. It hurts. Toxicity and boredom alert! She wants to find the “second wind” of your marriage, le “second souffle”. “Counseling?”, she says? Your answer is YES. You’d better!
Then you have to “tell your story”, then listen to huge bullshbleep from a “professional”, many times.
Then, home, you try to do “as if” – at least for a few exhausting months. You know your flaws, right? You’ll “work” on them. Be ready. You’re on a mission now.
Let’s make it short :
“Please become someone else”
So here you are, with a list of “things to change” for your wife. “People can evolve!”, she says! You have four choices :
Your choice?
Tools :
This was of course a sarcastic text. There are good professionals. Most of them are good listeners. They take big money to do that and that’s normal. Then, they will probably try to make you understand this : Your spouse won’t change, you have to accept your couple-dynamics.
“But wait, this means I should change myself ? You just said it’s impossible!”
Well : welcome into marriage!
In French we say :
Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop – “Shoo away your nature, it comes back at full tilt”
Well, I think you say “The leopard can’t change its spots”.
Can he?
Have a nice day!
<< Please become what I want you to be >>
This Sunday morning I was so… under, that I took my bag to – guess what – run some errands. You knowww… it keeps your mind and body a little busy. I’m aware it’s a low form of comfort, but we all do what we can, right?
I bought a bottle of Chardonnay, among little things I need home : tuna fish, tomatoes, coffee.
Was walking back home in the very quiet streets of La Madeleine when I overtook a VERY old lady, walking at snailspeed with the help of a metallic medical walker.
– “Hey mister?”, she asked. I stopped and of course answered her : “Do you need some help?”.
She showed me her untied shoe.
“Can you help me with that?”. Of course I agreed and we small talked while I was fixing it. Like : “I’m sorry to annoy you with that/Well, one day I’ll need it maybe too from someone else!”.
She was probably in her nineties. I felt her great and fast intelligence, completely slowed down by the age of her body. Sparkles in her eyes, in her smile. VERY smart, very old.
I imagined her at 17, vivacious and beautiful. I imagined her at 40, gorgeous and seeking the sense of love and life. She told me (with a winking smile) : “Dieu vous le rendra!” – “God will reward you”. The kind of phrase you get from a person who doesn’t believe in any God, but knows the deep meaning of that situation.
“Thank you”
She knew that I knew. I saw it in her eyes. We “clicked”.
I have a little tool for that :
Life IS short. Let’s find a way.
PS : “Dieu vous le rendra” is your “God will reward you”, so, OK. But if I rawtranslate it, you get “God will give it back to you”. It’s a bit different, right?
Oh, my, this needs a conversation. Again.
You’ll find dozens of articles about how stalking is baaaad. They are all made on the same pattern : “After a break-up, a good lady is annoyed by an evil ex-lover, who watches her life through Facebook, Instagram and whatever else social media”, blah blah. It’s bad for him too, say the articles : “he suffers and he’s jealous, instead of healing, oh this is so sad”, etc. Him or Her, oui? It works both ways…
Mutual stalking is something else. You stalk with a smile, and you begin to see signs that the other one stalks you too, awweeee! :
Well, not with him/her, that’s clear, OK? But not without him/her either, right?
Have a nice day!
Today I learned an english word : “Suitor“. In French we say “Un prétendant”… isn’t it a bit strange?
Immediately I wondered : is it always masculine? What would be a “female suitor”? A suitress? Nahhh…
Big Love (capitals, please) and Passion, we need to cross this in life, right? But when you become an adult you’re more interested by spending quality time together. You are quieter, you share, you think about this thing which is called : INTIMACY.
Tonight I thought about this, thanks to a New York Times article, a letter from a couple : the husband was explaining that his wife was ill and tired, just out of hospital, so he began to read books to her.
THAT is intimacy, that is love, the love I love.
Maybe I’m too French romantic, but watching an Art Book with the woman I love has been a totally tender and satisfying experience. Weirdly, I would remember these moments more than sex.
You don’t need 142 suitors. Just look for a man who is able to have a ten hours conversation with you (seems like ten minutes, right?). Just look for a girl who will REALLY be interested in watching some Art book you have on your shelves, asking, talking, smiling, turning the pages, initiating conversations, etc, etc, etc.
You know that kind of intimacy, right?
Thanks for reading!
Pictures : Poumeyrol
If you don’t know my field
And you’re clever
Let’s talk :
you will maybe have good questions
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!
I’ve been years without a cellphone, until my daughters became tall enough to go to school and the city alone, by foot, bus, tramway. Then I got one for obvious reasons.
Until then I sarcastically invented the laws of cellphone :
Today I propose an exercise. Go out, for a walk or to work, without your phone. YES it’s possible. Try it. Go erranding without your phone.
Then, mindfully, realize your sense of panic “at the idea”, and when you do it. For real.
Then… Whatever. Think about it!
Have a nice day, though…
This evening I talked for 10 minutes with a photographer. He’s interested in the concept of “perception” in Arts. What do people see? What is to be an artist? How to surprise the audience? To make “beauty”? What is a good picture? How to avoid people to drain into assessments, in Art? What is to be anecdotal? Questions and concepts were like a firework. It was GOOD.
I left this guy, riding my bike, with a smile on my face. He had the same smile. This smile said : “I shared ideas with an interesting person”. It’s almost a relief, right? It’s good, because both of us found ideas into this conversation. We climbed.
When you find an intelligent conversationalist who likes to play “this” ping-pong with you, it gives you a smiling string, an energy, all day long. You now have an interlocutor, a conversation partner. At least!!!!
Jubilation, it’s the word.
OK. Next step now. Imagine one found another.
We can talk in many ways. In real time, man to man, or with Skype. We can text. We can talk/collaborate, write articles, a book. There are many ways to live a conversation-bond.
When you find a “mate” like this, you can struggle for years before you find the right way to communicate. You have to find a pace, too. It’s sometimes difficult to find it but you insist, because you know there’s something.
Maybe you have to slow down? Shut off everything and go to snail paper mail, or “twice a month email”. Etc. Meta-talk about it, it’s interesting! Why?
If you’re fast : text. If you’re near : have a glass of wine and talk for hours. If you need quiet : email.
I like emails. It’s quiet, slow, you can read, re-read, make it grow, garnish, then read over, then again, before you SEND. You can perfectly invent an agreement with your mate : “Don’t write before you get my answer” (which is great : you can decide to stop this for months if you feel like it), or “Two emails a month”. Invent yours!
In our times of speedy communications, everything quiet, drawn up and slow is seen like a treasure. “Keep pace with” because it’s worth it. Slow it down, underwater. Make each sparkle a gold nugget.
What do you think? Who wants to try?
Thanks for reading! Merci !
“I like your last name, can I have it?”
There are so many possible bonds between two people. Friendship, marriage, siblings, parents, etc…
One string is made of this :
When you see something beautiful or interesting – a movie, something in the garden, a sky, a picture, a painting, a concept, a discovery, a dotless ladybug, a music, a struggle, an idea, etc…
You immediately think to this person (your friend, your husband, your soulmate, your sister), and you want to say :
This is the best bond : when you want to show, share, point out.
It’s a surgerush, right? What does it show for yourself? What if the wisdom was not to?
Thanks for reading!
Instagram : bodylanguage
When someone you know says something dramatic or excessive, there’s the possibility to be more dramatic, to unsheathe swords and cut your partner in two (or three, ouch).
Or else, you can use these two lovely words : defuse and forestall. Add a smile, a pair of kisses on forehead, and a few kind words, and hopla, done!
You’re funny, were you out of your mind or what?, let’s forget it, come here you silly!
a french toolbox 