“The Most Strenuous Intercourse”: Conversation

I just read a book from Michael Herr, an American writer and war correspondent, who wrote Dispatch, a great book about the Vietnam war.

He wrote a book, a “personal biography” about Stanley Kubrick. He worked for him for years as a writer (he co-wrote Full Metal Jacket).

Kubrick was exhausting, very intelligent, and constantly calling people on the phone. He was living near London but spent many hours a day talking to friends and collaborators. He stayed American all his life and stayed connected to his country all the time.

Herr writes that when Kubrick ended a conversation (called by him a “strenuous intercourse”) with you, he knew everything about what you had in your head about a subject. Devouring your brain…

• Well, I didn’t know this word, “strenuous“, so I found: energetic, vigorous, requiring strength. Also: unremitting, dogged, tenacious. OK!
• But “intercourse“, really? For me, it was about sex only, but I found: discussion, and this example: “The two businesses had a lot of intercourse over the years”. OKeyyyy!

I ADORE this ambiguity. If in this blog I look for structures, I can’t agree more:

A great conversation is very similar to great sex.

And it installs an “instant roof” over both persons.

• Listening
• Attention to the other
• Games
• Attempts
• Giving
• Deciding together
• Ecstasy
• Progress
• Talking
• Connecting
• Intimacy
• Exploring
• Laughing
• Staying silent together
• Pauses
• Going fast
• Changing rhythms
• Surprises
• Dancing
• Ideas
• Segments
• Communication
• Learning
• Listening!

Thanks for reading!

“Crosswords”

I spy on with my little eye on :

It’s a young couple, married since lessthan ten years.

Saturday night

After dinner, he washes things in the kitchen in a fever

He has something in mind He’s embarrassed He’s turned on

She is on the sofa with a crosswords magazine

She yawns a bit and she yawns again deeper

Here he is he sits next to her on his bent knee

He’s on her side and a little above her

Trying now to help her – with the crosswords

But inside he has something in mind an elesextricity it is

Exciting images flow inside him he can’t stop them

Belly, movements, dance, propositions, smiles

He thus doesn’t know what to do with his own arms, hands

Breathing louder hidden

Having to find a balance between genuine tenderness

(a hand over her shoulder and he should have put some music here)

and genuine horniness

(but not toofar not toofast because he thinks

she’ll beangry she’ll sayno, she’ll say unnodding :

“I’m tired”… “Not today”)

Therefore he asks himself where to put his ownhands

Hands in her hair seems awkward : normally he is not “this” tender, right?

Hand on her thigh could be dangerous triggering a nogesture, a closing

He needs to be on the exact border, between tenderness and his own need of

Belly, legs, movements, dance, propositions, smiles

She is like a weirdbomb for him

A dreamycomplex mechanism to put kindnesscoins in, delicately…

“Try this word, honey : g-e-n-u-i-n-e”

Hey it works! Bravo!

She smiles and writes the word andbut yawns and reyawns deeper

He’s embarrassed

Stares at nothing then yawns too

“Let’s go to bed”

(he’ll try there

kindly)

…Would I want to date her today if I had never met her?
…Would I want to date him today if I had never met him?

André Breton Poem : “The sexual eagle exults he will gild the earth once more…

The sexual eagle exults he will gild the earth once more
his descending wing
his ascending wing sways imperceptibly the sleeves of the peppermint
and all the water’s adorable undress
Days are counted so clearly
that the mirror has yielded to a froth of fronds
of the sky i see but one star
now around us there is only the milk describing its dizzy ellipsis
from which sometimes soft intuition with pupils of eyed agate
rises to poke its umbrella tip in the mud of the electric light
then great reaches cast anchor stretch out in the depths of my closed eyes
icebergs radiating the customs of all the worlds yet to come
bron from a fragment of you fragment unkown and iced on the wing
your existence the giant bouquet escaping from my arms
is badly tied it didgs out walls unrolls the stairs of houses
loses its leaves in the show windows of the street
to gether the news i am always leaving to gather the news
the newspaper is glass today and if letters no longer arrive
it’s that the train has been consumed
the great incision of the emerald which gaave birth to the foliage
is scarred for always the sawdust of blinding snow
and the quarries of flesh are sounding along on the first shelf
reversed on this shelf
i take the impression of death and life
to the liquid air

André Breton

Inventing Ecstasy? Inventer l’extase…

ONE

As a teenager, I was, for some months, fascinated by the idea of the “Perfect Moment”.

I dug in my father’s shelves to find books, elements to think on.

It was from the Oriental “nirvana” and “satori” to the special moment in summer when all is quiet and you have the feeling that “all is in place”.

We all know this feeling, the “Perfect Moment”. After or during good linked sex, in a concert with choir, fireworks, or religion of course.

TWO

When you hear about that, there’s a danger : you wait for it, or more, you crave. You’re impatient. Rapture, you want do deserve it, to know what it is.

Problem is : the more you want the Perfect Moment, the less you have a chance to live it.

I heard about one recently invented Church, where you’d better be visited by God’s angel (or messenger whatever) to become a real part of the community. So your choices are few : you fake to be visited (that’s another article : Because there’s no god in the sky? Because god has other cats to whip? Because you’re not ready?), or you begin to think that all this stuff is a theater, or you run away over the hill to have a glass of French wine.

I can perfectly imagine a girl who hears about crying after an incredible orgasm, from a friend, and then feels nothing like that ever (because she waits for it too much?).

I watched one day a TV program about a grown up man who was in love with a painting (in a Russian museum, I think). Of course the TV team travelled and brought the obsessed guy, blindfolded, in front of the painting. The camera straight on him, watching out for… his emotions. Of course he cried, kneeled, blah blah blah.

Maybe it was real? It was not.

THREE

You can’t invent ecstasy and rapture. Perfect Moments exist and happen, and they catch you by surprise always. It’ll end in tears, most of the times. It’s marvelous!

FOUR

A wrong way up is to look for it, and another one is to fake it. One day, it’ll happen, though. It can be so quiet and peaceful, or you can feel like you’re in front of the Sun.

This feeling, when you feel it’s going away…

Thanks for reading!

Instagram : body_language

Embrace, Clasp, Sweet Immobility…

Nahhh it’s not a “hug”, it’s not sex, not at all!

It’s when you’re in bed with your lover. You hold each other.

Each couple has its way. You can hold hands. You can hold the other one like a baby. You can protect your lover. You can lay one next to the other, and hold hands only. You can stare at each other, or close your eyes. You can… spoon.

You know exactly what to to. And you know exactly when you both don’t move anymore…

Right?

Here you are.

Immobility

Then, after a moment, it stops. Your desire climbs. Or… you talk. Words weaving, words of love. Or you laugh – too much happiness!

 

Have a nice Sunday!

 

 

“Add some light in places”, or why to intellectualize will never kill the magic!

This is an old pattern many people use, like an old, useless dusty tool. This one says something like :

In front of beauty, don’t intellectualize too much or else you’ll lose the magic

 

In sex, art, photography, any place where magic is found, of course we can say that wizardry exists because it unfolds out of the words’s limitations.

Even in fields like poetry or novels (where words are used), able to catch you with style and stories, and bring you in the domain of dreams.

And I’m the first to tell – and repeat – here in this blog, that it is wise to stay out of words, these weak labels, in many articles about how photographers or painters don’t like to explain, etc.

In front of beauty, don’t intellectualize too much or else you’ll lose the magic

Peel and decorticate magic, and you kill the goose (with the golden eggs, etc).

Well : Okey!

I’d add this word : BUT. Or this word : ALSO.

But, also, and nevertheless, there are days you wanna do it.

Analyze the magic of a novel. Dissect a music track. Have a precise conversation about sex. Use the pause button on your remote control to understand how a scene is edited. Read articles about masterpieces, and prefaces of old classics. Stop eating this delicious meal and try to find how it’s been cooked. Wonder how your love story is evolving…

This IS what intellectualizing is, it brings knowledge, shows you new paths, increases your intelligence, draws new maps, enlightens your universe, gives you more energy to explore, to dive deeper the next time you’ll plunge into your next “not thinking too much” moments…

Do you really think it “kills the magic”?

What if it rather adds some light in places?

Thanks for reading!

 

#layers

Poumeyrol, French painter

Jean-Marie Poumeyrol was born in 1946. This French painter is said to be a “fantastic realist” (which probably must makes him smile). Symbols. Erotica. Lands. Boats…

I like him a lot for a couple or reasons : it’s gorgeous, but also enigmatic. Some paintings are like… games, riddles. You need time to see things, guess what’s happening (whose shoes are they, in the first picture?), etc…

But as usual with great artists, photographers, poets, painters : words are very, very weak to explain. So :

 

Follow Fallow & Charging Up, the other way of non-blogging…

There’s a type of weapon in different video games like Marathon from Bungie or even one of the first Star Wars game : Dark Forces.

This “pistol”, phaser, whatever, is empty. You have to pull the trigger, then you hear it CHARGING : PiiiuuuUUUU – you have to wait – when it’s ready, there’s a little light showing and you can shoot. Bang! (or PEWW!).

L’idée of pushing on something to charge up it until it’s “ready” is a pattern, a tool. Call it a structure if you want.

In special intercoursing inbedweekends, a smart lover is able to keep his partner on a high plateau for hours. He watches her closely, he charges her up – not constantly, but regularly – never reaching the explosion. When things become serious, she’s like a planet of high energy, ready to reach the stars…

OK let’s back to business! :

There are two ways of non-blogging.

1. You need sometimes to stop writing, that’s it. Most of the time, it’s because your mind is busy elsewhere : you’re sick, you fall in love, you’re out of good ideas, your gas tank is empty and your car stopped. This is really no big deal. You’ll find it back. Keep a white fragile string linked to it, ready to pull. It’ll come, you know…
2. The other way is… because you “charge up”. You stop blogging, but you feel that your brain stays “on” : you read, you think, you gather ideas, you write many drafts, you keep working! It’s about seeds, and energy. It’s not empty waiting : you write a paragraph or two, then you go to another draft, etc. It’s like the pistol in the games. Your don’t post, because your writing skills are charging up!

 

This little dial is interesting to find, then to watch. What, in your life, in your job, in your creativity, is charging up? How is it weaved with waiting? Can you work on something else while you do?

OK, now the pistol is charged, green lighted, ready to shoot. After a couple of days (weeks?) of non-blogging, here you are, looking like a sphere of pulsing magic energy : now you’re ready to post five articles a day. Ain’t it too much, silly?

Bahhh nope. Your followers will deal with your sudden generosity, don’t worry…

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

From Quarrel to Joust : Elevation process

When your couple needs to fight, you argue. You can stay at reptilian or prehistoric levels : you scream, play flying plates & slamming doors, scream louder, or you can try to move the cursor up.

If your quarrelsome mood – oh what a great word! – needs to unfold, there’s are some wrong ways up like becoming sarcastic or using bad faith, stupidity or violent communication (one define the other : “You’re like your mother”, “You’re lazy”), silence icy treatment or using poor innocent third parties (the kids?).

I propose to rise from these low levels of arguing. Of course you can use Reason. If you know Transactional Analysis you can begin to dissect your communication and try to put it on “Adult -> Adult” mode. That’s OK! Think. Or ask a intermediary (not your mother-in-law!) to play the diplomatic card.

My purpose here is to imagine another “Right Way Up” : Jousting. It’s a change of mood. You fight… with a smile for the other. It’s a sparkling competition. Emulation is the key. It can become a game. You can really invent rules like : “You can’t speak until you waited two minutes in silence after I did, I’ll do the same”, or “Argue on both sides of a table… with pen & paper” (find your own rules).

Jousting is a clever way to quarrel. It’s like when you play chess with a friend, emulation is the key. You want victory but you help your opponent to climb too.”Right Path Up”. Finding solutions… and at the same time satisfy your need to fight. Joust!

 

Of course if you read my blog you know that there’s a pattern here, a tool for other situations : Elevation. When and where (and how) do you realize that you’re on a low level? Gaiety? Entertainment? Sex? When you’re in a useful place but you should maybe stop, think and push a lever. Which lever is it? Subtlety. Right?

This pattern is described here : https://afrenchtoolbox.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/a-matter-of-levers/

Thanks for reading!

 

Instagram : such_a_pretty_crazy

Wealthy Valet

A few days ago I talked with an aged funny married couple, who explained that they have two divorced daughters, in their thirties, complaining that they don’t find any suitable guy to date.

Both told me something like : “OK, the guy must be : handsome, interesting, wealthy, great in bed, protective, obedient, kind-hearted, with feminine qualities, while giving them big space when then need it”.

“Where is my Prince?”

Then they finished by : “Well, my dear, this kind of wealthy valet doesn’t even exist!”.

Who knows, though? How to lower expectations in love or marriage? What kind of doors/choices are dancing here? Can we cross out some qualities in the list? Why? What if the wealthy valet type says “No”? Why would men be frightened by such a program?

By the way, is “to make do” really a verb?? (question from the French). I found :

“We’re striving to make do with less”.

Bonne journée !

#bogue or #feature? #cemeteryinautumn

#spiderwoman #waiting

The Tenderness Agreement

There are many ways to make love, and it’s interesting to watch the levers you can activate, from 0 to 100 :

• Energy from 0 (cuddle and no movement) to 100 (ecstatic fast ending)
• Words (from 0 – a silent intercourse, to 100 – a conversation sex session)
• Time (from quicky to three-days non-stop dance)
• Giving (from “I give” to “you give” and all shades between)
• Tenderness (from 0 : technical ways kama sutra exploring, to 100 : eyes, words of love and attentive caresses).

I’m sure you will find dozens of others dials to watch, risky or not, with or without music, with or without light, etc : the “consenting adults” concept is very powerful, opening doors and paths and windows, destroying inner and “rules” cages.

Today I’m examining the Tenderness Agreement. It’s very soft and sweet. It can exist between husband and wife, or friends, or exes, or siblings, three people, anyone. It’s an agreement, which means you freely both DECIDE (you’re adults, right?), that it’s “only about that”.

Invent your own rules, then :

Underwear only. Skin, but no more. Spend a night together, or one hour. Whatever : you decide before. Cuddling. Caresses. Nothing more. Just being together, listening, breathing, soft caressing, no more. A night, an hour, whatever. It’s about tenderness. “I care”. There are SO MANY ways to say I love you, right? Sex without “sex”. Yessss you can.

So I go back to the levers I wrote at the beginning, and with my partner-of-tenderness (“la tendresse”, en français), we choose. Slow, no light, few words, one night, hands and kisses, keep underwear, tenderness. Then, go to bed, skin touching…

It can trigger some desire? So what? We have an agreement, right? No intercourse and no touch of some strategic places, as we said. It’s interesting. Listen to breathechanging is good. We will respect our agreement.

Or not. Whatever.

Thanks for reading!

 

Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable

Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable (MAYA) is a Raymond Loewy‘s principle about Design. I like this idea for many reasons.

It speaks about a limit, a frontier : your object, your “invention” tries to bring something new, but… if it’s too new, you lose the audience, you irritate people.

It’s a concept you can use on other territories. Web Design, of course. But also in many forms of Arts.

This “Tool” is a combination.

• Lever (from simple to complex)
• Dial (measuring where the audience is, from bored, to interested, to irritated or lost).

Who grasp this idea? Designers, Web Designers, Architects, and all artists who take care about the audience, of course.

Of course you have in mind the “pure artists” who are stubborn geniuses (or stubborn lonely “under rated”, haha). They have their own mind, their creativity. They create. Take it or leave it, guys! Their work falls, for a given audience, in these 4 categories :

1. Boring simple zone “Whatever, it’s nothing new!”
2. Comfort mainstream zone “Cool, I like it”
3. Waow zone “This is new and great!”
4. Failing zone “It’s weird, I don’t understand!”

Of course you have to consider the idea of being ahead of your time. Then it becomes Most Advanced, Unacceptable… but Acceptable one day! Well, maybe!

Tool/Lever/Dial Questions :

Where do you put your own lever, from creativity to take care of the audience? What can MAYA mean to a photographer? A poet? Could you apply that to your life? Where? Sex? Parenting? Where do you want to be ahead of your time? Where is the “risk” dial? Where can be the danger of “taking care too much” about the audience? Where’s the danger in Screen-Tests, in the movies? What about nuggets of Advanced/Unacceptable elements in a mainstream work? What is Avant-Garde? What if “You don’t know your audience that much”?

 

Sorry for my English. Thanks for reading!

 

Don’t think about the color “Blue” for a minute…

ONE

Let’s imagine I dislike George Michael. I hate his music. So here I am building a web page about that : “I hate GM !”. I write daily articles about everything I hate, his nose, his voice, his life, etc.

Until I realize I hate George Michael and I’m thinking about him all day long. I harvest things for my blog. I hunt. I spit words. I am obsessed by someone I don’t want to think about. Smart !

TWO

Don’t think about the color “Blue” for a minute…

Mmmhhh ?…

THREE

As I’m constantly reading slices of books, I one day read something in my sofa, from Nietzsche, and two hours later, in triangles of sun (see picture below), from André Suares (I will find the quotes soon and put it there). Both were talking about people banning sex from their life. They were both noticing that when you do that, you have like a black hole in the center of your brain, thinking about sex constantly.

Work for a Temperance Movement, become an activist : you will be in a position where you talk about… alcohol and sex constantly !

Tool :

If you hate George, just don’t pay attention to him. Breathe. If you want to think about the color blue, think of it, it’s not that dramatic. If you want to have a drink, just relax and have a glass of wine. If you need peace, don’t build a block castle : listen to some Royksopp and dance with what’s around. Dialog. Or not. Solemn drama or dolphin casualness ?

I suggest Coming Home.

The Flight Excites the Hunter

 

 

A Matter of Levers

The writer Borges once said that simplicity was senseless and that secret and modest complexity was better.

Therefore, if that is true, and you are wanting to change something – in your life or in your Art, here are two choices of levers to explore with.

•    Increase intensity
•    Increase complexity

Imagine you’re a rapper. You’re entering into a very coded universe with its characteristic ways of putting words to music, but you also want to be interesting.  How do you do it?

Pushing the intensity lever can drive-up your style to: Yelling Rap (decibel voice lever), Hyperfast Rap (speed lever) or Deep Loud Metal Rap (“Let’s choose an anvil sound on the beatbox”). It seems a bit too easy and… nobody does that in rap.  Why?

Pushing the complexity lever leads you to dissonance (Bartokian Rap Music), complex rhythms (I imagine a Rite of Spring Rap, don’t you?), or in voice to change the constant monotony (sung parts, tripled voices, sudden incantations, rages preachoïd, etc), or maybe even evolve into a surrealistic, avant-gardist narration.

Of course you could complexify the complexity by pushing the lever of variability of all the above by adding complexity or adding dissonance throughout the track.

OK.  Let’s move away from music levers and into relationship levers.  Imagine your sex life is becoming a bore.  Which lever will you pull?

Intensity Lever?  Stronger?  Faster?  More frequent?  More partners?  More pain?

Complexity Lever?   Subtlety?  More magic? More dimensions?  Funny tools?  Words?

Tools:  It’s fun to learn what levers the great artists chose in their changing periods of life.  Maybe Intensity and Complexity are helpful levers to everyday problems and in the Arts because they both work to revive stagnation and creative blocks. But which one ?