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”.
Films with gathered disillusioned friends?
(The Big Chill & Peter’s Friends to begin)
They were friends, they gather, they talk. Things burst. Disillusions. Memories. Mistakes. It’s a good subject, and I’d like to study the way writers treat this matter. Thus :
I had the idea to ask this question on a Facebook group page (“Cinema, mon amour”) then in another one (“The Empire Magazine Group”) and got a few answers. I present here the greatest ones (more than 7/10 on IMDB) :
The Big Chill (1983) : A group of seven former college friends gather for a weekend reunion at a South Carolina winter house after the funeral of one of their friends.
We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974) : Gianni, Nicola and Antonio become close friends in 1944 while fighting the Nazis. After the end of the war, full of illusions, they settle down. The movie is a the story of the life of these three idealists and how they deal with the inevitable disillusionments of life.
Peter’s Friends (1992) : Six former college friends, with two new friends, gather for a New Year’s Eve weekend reunion at a large English countryside manor after ten years to reminisce about the good times now long gone.
Career Girls (1997) : 2 young women reunite and rekindle their friendship after having said goodbye at their college graduation, six years earlier.
Return of the Secaucus Seven (1979) : Seven former college friends, along with a few new friends, gather for a weekend reunion at a summer house in New Hampshire to reminisce about the good old days, when they got arrested on the way to a protest in Washington, DC.
84 Charing Cross Road (1987) : True story of a transatlantic business correspondence about used books that developed into a close friendship.
We have many in France :
Le péril jeune (1994) : Ten years after their Upper Sixth, Bruno, Momo, Leon and Alain meet together in the waiting room of a maternity hospital. The father of the awaited baby is Tomasi, their best friend at that time, who died one month before due to an overdose. They remember their teenage, their laughs, their dreams, their stupid pranks… Through the pasts of the five main characters, a description of the French youth in the middle of the seventies.
Les petits mouchoirs (2010) : A near-fatal accident leaves one friend in the hospital while the rest go on their annual vacation. But their secrets and personal grief threaten to drive them apart.
Mes meilleurs copains (1989) : They are the best friends of the world. Five friends who shared everything: may 68, hippies years, the rock and their love for Bernadette. This Bernadette has left them to become a rock-star, and is back 15 years later for a weekend. Jean-Marie Poire describes with this movie the portrait of a generation with lots of humor served by excelent actors.
La quarantaine (1982)
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_
Some friendships don’t need any oath.
It’s just there.
These days I’m happy because I found the best thinker I could imagine.
Paul Valéry (1871-1945) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Val%C3%A9ry – a French poet, essayist and philosopher.
For me, he’s even stronger than Nietzsche!
In France, he’s known as a poet. That’s all…
Thus, I’m devouring his notebooks, his essays, his poetry : thousands of pages.
This guy is a genius! You can find his notebooks on the web. If you need seeds…
And, well, I read also books from André Gide (1869-1951) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Gide
Hence, I discovered they were friends.
I just ordered and got an almost 1000 pages book of their correspondence.
I was so glad to get it! As I was opening the box tonight, I thought : “Two of the best thinkers of their time!”…
…which I found on the back cover of the book :
“This friendship is a dream come true : two of the most gifted and most clever writers of their generation met at the beginning of their careers”.
A friendship.
Nothing, absolutely nothing (they were very different) could work loose or detach this friendship.
Valéry says it’s not about literature or common or complementary tastes. It was the faculty to follow each other, to instantly adapt, to guess each other with happiness…
In an article of Le Monde, the French newspaper, I found this :
“Leur dialogue de dandys supérieurs porte sur les moyens et la manière, jamais sur les principes et les fins”.
“Their dandy dialog is always about the means and the ways, never on the principles and the ends”.
Most of you will get it, right?
Well, that’s all, dear. I just wanted to share!
Thanks for reading!
Jean-Pascal
“…and nothing is more certain than an inclination which exist in itself, without any argument, without common feelings or ideas – like with no reason”.
P. Valéry
If I had to give a few words to define me, epistolarian would be in the list. Letters writer lover.
Old letters are as useful as old diaries. You can find back some old ideas you forgot, you can understand where you were – therefore where you are now, etc.
A real human being never trashes informations. The past stays in the past, and it’s interesting to have maps – for example : to find new paths.
So when an epistolarian meets another epistolarian it’s blissful. It can appear in the guise of twenty pages of “this is what happened” or one email of “kind but precise questions” or just like a slow paced tennis conversation, games and smiles, what ifs and helping hands, curiosity and musics or books discoveries.
Like in tennis, it’s like having a respectful opponent who sends back the ball to challenge you. Oh OK it’s more like a dance…
It’s like a secret. It’s slow. It’s a common silence too. Written words.
Good epistolarians are rare. They have to love words, ideas, telling stories, sharing, but also the process of elaborating. And they have to like the pace of it, determined by the other responses too. It’s like a dance, I agree. A dance of spirits.
Sometimes we MEET someone with whom we shared letters for years. The person is likely to be very different from the Epistolarian Friend you played with before. It happened to me (almost 30 years ago). It was intense, interesting, very different, and it… supplied a great new blood to our future letters!
Epistolarians know something : No “in real life” meeting can change the person you danced with with letters. It’s the last phrase of this notebook page : “Rien ne peut changer ce que vous êtes à mes yeux” : “Nothing can change who you are in my eyes”.
Thanks for reading! Have a nice day!
“Quand on ne parvient pas à consoler”, we say in French. This alone is a problem to translate. “Parvient” is from the verb “parvenir”. Dictionaries translate it with :
But it is NOT that meaning. It is not a “success” (with what, a medal, a fanfare?) to console a crying person (it’s not fixable). And “to manage” (organize, control, etc) has little to do with listening to a terribly sad somebody.
So there’s a word lacking here. A mixed of “to reach”, “to achieve”, “to manage with invisible wills and means”, “to get through”…
Achieving comfort of somebody’s grief or sorrow need a whole harp : listening means, empathy, silence, freedom, focus, acceptance and maybe conversational skills…
Becoming a father I learned that children have terrible grieving moments. Despair which comes from the heart, in the deep. Kids need security, and when they are afraid to lose it, it’s terrible. It’s one great joy when you console your child, in front of a tree moving in the wind, or during a walk, or on a chair. Listen, talk, look, hug. As a mother, a father, you need to be here, and you find your own ways.
When I read books about self help, or psychology, or mental care, I’m always very interested by a passage or a chapter about “how to listen“. Specialists think about it very closely (maybe I’ll write about this alone, one day).
Sometimes, you don’t manage to console somebody. Grief and sorrow… Because…
Sometimes you think you fail. Even if we can’t talk about communicating vessels, you’ll catch a part of the sadness.
Well, I think the main thing is the fact… you’re here to listen, right? If we think we didn’t manage to comfort the other one, maybe we did. A little. Because we were there.
Have a nice day!
Instagram : teladipinta
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
A few weeks ago, sitting on a bench, I saw two male 15 years old students RUNNING from a small group sitting in a park. It was a chase!
The tall, big student caught the smart fast little one, and it began.
All cluttered with their bags, running. The tall one badly hit the small one in the back, gripped him. Shook him. Then with some judo-legged movements put him on the ground. Then put his fist against the cheek, crushing him strongly against the ground. He could have broken his teeth, because he was much stronger – and at this moment I was about to stand up and ask them to stop it. Like “Hey, calm down ,will you?”.
But they stopped. Stood up.
Then I saw something odd.
They both walked away, side by side, towards the group-with-girls. And the small guy was… like… comforting the tall one!
It’s been a little disturbing, but then the group was in the trees shade. It was a cool afternoon. Quiet. After school. All quiet.
I needed days to understand that all along, the small guy was the winner. He didn’t really fight back. It was NOT OK, right, I agree. Violence is bad. But I knew that the little student had triggered violence by what he said before. The other one was too kind (or too aware of the consequences of destroying his friend’s face) to really counter-attack. If you don’t have words (or the sense of repartee), you’re weak, even with muscles.
The small guy failed to regroup, to find back the tall one’s smile. “Allez, let’s be friends!”, he seemed to say with his gestures. But the tall one knew he lost. He was walking, in contained rage, with infuriated “NO. FUCK OFF” gestures.
Thanks for reading!
This is a word game for seed lovers, conversation connoisseurs…
You’ll probably find this article vain, or useless. I offer it to word gold diggers only.
OK. Definitions :
What I want to expose here is to remember that to refute is kind of serious. To recuse can be a game. You can recuse an idea, a statement… for fun. Or for the pleasure to examine the “other way”, the wrong one (why not) : just to see what can, could happen.
When I find a “smart quote”, I recuse it. I’m immediately searching for a way to say the contrary AND to show it’s true TOO.
A good conversationalist is a concept lover. Therefore, he or she is able to play that game. Pick an idea, recuse is. That’s all. Now you’re in front of an unknown territory.
“Without music, life would be a mistake“, says Nietzsche. OK. But wait : NO!
The tool is : Find a person you want to play with, pick an idea which seems… obvious, and… recuse it! Say no! “Nope! It’s the contrary!”. Then, have fun. Talk about sex, love, art, war, business, everything anything. Have fun, and send me a kiss.
Bonne journée ! Have a nice day!
Jean-Pascal
Instagram : hornsarahberlin
When you meet a friend, you can say “What’s up?”.
It’s clear and simple for a French, with the fascination we have for English’s conciseness : what is “up”, after all? 🙂
I think there’s a slightly different color in “What’s up with you?”, saying “What have you been up to?”, which is “How have you been busy these days?”. I’m good?
Well, we say in this case “What’s new?” : Quoi de neuf ?
After a long-time no-see, we often say : “Qu’est-ce que tu deviens ?“, which means “Who do you become?”, or “What are you turning into?“.
Yessss you see me coming, there’s a cultural difference here showing on the surface :
USA asks “What have you been up to?”, France asks “What are you turning into?”. One friend is asking about your actions, the other one is asking about your inner transformation. Isn’t it revealing? I don’t know, it makes me think, in any case…
Thanks for reading!
Instagram : clairemahoney
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.
Roland Barthes wrote this about his friends :
“All of them like me well enough, no doubt, but only some know the precise map of my wounds.”
What do they do with this map?
Painting : V. Giarrano
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 had a friend, she said to me one day : “I fell from horse”. It was a metaphor, of course, and I liked it. You’re stopped, hurt, maybe wounded. You have to slow down, and wait for the moment you’ll go horseback back, haha.
Well, you can try other moving devices metaphors. If you fall from a boat, it’s like more dangerous. You could drown ! And drown your sorrows in the same time…
Yeah, you need a lifebuoy. How will you do that, and what kind of buoyancy (oh this word!) do you need, little soul?
Watch, remember and think. Watch people around you, watch your past, your parents, friends, colleagues, stars : what king of lifebuoy do they use when then fall from horse into the water? From boat, sorry. Or plane?
Keeping yourself busy is a good buoy. Finding a new domain to explore (learning a new language, a new art) or being creative (begin a blog, a novel, painting, photography?).
What will be YOUR buoy?
Friends are important. Some of them are sweet and clever enough to “help you with your buoyancy”. One knows how to be there, listens, avoids giving “advices” (“Smile, move on”, etc) and cares not to pierce your temporary, weak and thin buoy. One can ask about it, how you found it, how you use it, how it is important for you…
Then you eventually could go back on horse with this helping hand.
And take your orange lifebuoy off you : you don’t need this on horseback, you silly French!
PS : What if your buoy becomes permanent?
Thanks for reading!
Instagram : let_you_sea
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!
from Instagram: http://ift.tt/2onpojl
The idea of texting (which is : “words, on phones, between two persons, in real time”) has some consequences.
Emojis help you to color/read sentences, but not all the time.
Beware of arguments in textings!
Texting contains a whole bag of possible problems.
It’s fast : you write and send, you don’t have the quiet comfort of emails, which you can polish for hours or days before sending.
You miss the context, the sound of voice, the eyes, the gestures.
Emojis are false friends. They indicate when it’s humor, for example, but they don’t say about the subtilities. Is the fun colored by sarcasm? Alcohol? Nonsense?
So, as a reader, you often guess well where’s your conversation partner – “He’s drunk, let’s take this in consideration”, or “it’s 3 AM there, I suppose she’s sleepy”. But sometimes, you don’t, you just DON’T!
Someone’s sad. Or had a drink. Or just learned really bad news (but can’t tell you). Etc.
You just have to guess. Build, in real time, your own dials.
The tools are easy to define :
Etc. Have a nice day! Follow me!
There are some moments in life where you really need to “stop and think”. Armies of difficulties or huge boredom, impossible choices or stupid auto-illusions : you need help, obviously!
You can ask your best friend or a specialist, your sister or anyone :
What should I do?
This is a good question, and you’ll probably listen carefully…
But there’s another way to ask, which is :
What would you do if you were in my place?
And this is a totally different question. You should, then, listen closer. Your partner will maybe ask… “Really?”. Then the answer won’t be the same…
You can ask the two questions in a row, asking for both.
Then you can follow, or not, but the second question requires your attention : your interlocutor will probably watch your next steps. It’s a question of trust, an intimate process.
Thanks for reading!
Instagram : thepoby
a french toolbox 