o Santo Homem fez de novo. teaser dum projeto em que estamos trabalhando… ah, o gerúndio pode ser usado novamente-mente-ente…

sério.

em nenhum momento desses três últimos meses parei de escrever de facto. mas só na última semana voltei com as livres associações que são grande parte do trabalho de compor uma história visualmente.

algumas palavras: URSS, gulags, biofeedback, simbiogênese, Moreau, Poe.

hm. nomes próprios também são palavras, ficcionais ou não.

1 * Mez Drago : jdr entre le High Fantasy et la Fantasy mythique (conte), dans lequel 3 espèces profondément différentes vont se trouver des points communs lors du réveil des Drago’s. C’est un jdr qui se concentrera en particulier sur les secrets du monde. Cinq tomes sont envisagés :
- Mez Drago – le livre de base (Pj/Mj);
- Guerre Céleste;
- Nouvelles Alliances;
- Les Secrets Oubliés;
- Les Maîtres du Feu.

2 * Le second jdr produit par Bardaf! est ” Surgery Room “. Jdr contemporain (*) dans lequel les rôlistes incarnent des étudiants en médecine rêvant de pratiquer des opérations chirurgicales. Surgery Room va sans doute attirer un certain public habitué aux séries américaines hospitalières. Mais le public se veut large, et les termes médicaux seront expliqués simplement aux néophytes, y-compris le Mj. Le système tournera autour de 3 grands pôles: les compétences/connaissances médicales, le relationnel (patients, collègues, autres) et la mentalité du pj (détermination, peur, etc.).
* Si jamais on arrive au bout et que Surgery Room plait, on pourrait envisager la création de suppléments pour jouer à différentes époques, ou lieux reculés (style MSF).

3 * De nouveau un jeu dans un univers scientifique… sauf qu’on y ajoute un peu de fantasy animalière : il s’agit de ” Moreau Lab. “
Dans ce jdr atypique, vous incarnerez des animaux-cobayes échappés d’un laboratoire. Dorénavant vous êtes dotés de talents spéciaux qui font de vous des animaux uniques. On vous a humanisé, et votre destin est désormais entre vos mains. Ce jdr pourrait trouver sa place pour concourir au Demiurge 2009 si la thématique est en adéquation. Un jdr qui pourrait se montrer fun, un style de super héros/mutants mais animaux à la base.

Sous l’impulsion d’Erik, Bardaf! developpe ces 3 jdr. Si l’espoir fait vivre, l’un d’entre eux pourrait sortir au printemps 2010.

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) is probably the most famous of the Symbolist painters, despite having the nerve to let himself grow old. And for good reason. His paintings are full of androgynously beautiful men, dangerous women, images of decay and ruin.

'Salome Dancing Before Herod'

Salome is a classic femme fatale and Decadent icon, and she was frequently depicted by Symbolist artists. Moreau’s impression of her fatal dance is probably the best known.

Saint Sebastian and an Angel

One of Moreau’s beautiful boys. Saint Sebastian was another frequent feature in art of the period, possibly because he represented youth and beauty sacrificed to a unfeeling and ignorant society. Despite the fact that the real Sebastian would have been a mature man by the time he was shot with arrows.

The Suitors

Depicts the deaths of the young men who had been courting Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, upon the hero’s return from his travels. Interestingly, sympathy seems to be vested with the beautiful, vulnerable and broken bodies of the young man, rather than the married couple.

Galatea

Galatea was the nymph loved by the cyclops Polyphemos, in Classical myth. The ethereal beauty of the nude is unsettled by the menacing presence of the giant in the background.

Just a bit of an update from yesterday’s post. Dustin Penner skated on the left side with Shawn Horcoffand Ales Hemsky, J-F Jacques skated with Sam Gagnerand Patrick O’Sullivan, Ryan Stone played left wing withGilbert Brule down the middle and Mike Comrie on right wing and Andrew Cogliano centred Ethan Moreau andZack Stortini.

Also, Steve Staois is not expected to play and instead will be replaced by Jason Strudwick.

Hopefully the new lines will help the Oilers give the Flames their first loss of the season.

Arrivées :

Marzio Bruseghin ITA (lampre), Christophe Moreau FRA (agritubel), Mauricio Soler COL (barloworld), Juan José Cobo ESP (fuji servetto)

Départs :

Anthony Charteau FRA (bbox), Oscar Pereiro ESP (quickstep?), Marlon Pérez COL, Nicolas Portal FRA ?, Joaquin Rodriguez ESP (katyusha), Daniel Moreno ESP (omega pharma lotto)

Alors que le cyclisme français dans son ensemble n’est pas à la fête pour preuve les “descentes” à l’échelon inférieur de Bbox-Bouygues Telecom et Cofidis, l’invisibilité de l’équipe de France élite homme aux derniers championnats du monde sur route, il semblerait que le bon coureur français ait la côte à l’étranger. Voici quelques exemples pour illustrer cela.

Romain Sicard, tout récent champion du monde espoir à Mendrisio, et vainqueur du Tour de l’Avenir, qui évoluait jusqu’à présent dans la filiale espoir d’Euskaltel, à savoir Orbea va passer pro chez les basques oranges. Il est le 2e français à faire partie de l’équipe basque depuis Thierry Elissalde au début des années 90.

Geoffroy “Fashion” Lequatre va rejoindre le “Boss” Armstrong au sein de la nouvelle formation américaine Radio Shack, une sorte d’US Postal 2010. Il n’est pas le 1er français à évoluer aux cotés du Boss. En son temps, Cédric Vasseur ou encore Pascal Deramé ont porté les couleurs américaines de l’US Postal.

Les frères Feillu, Romain le sprinteur et Brice le grimpeur, feront partie de l’équipe néerlandaise Vacansoleil. Un choix étrange alors qu’on les attendait plutôt dans une formation française de premier plan. Ceci dit, Vacansoleil a fait une belle saison en révélant au grand public des coureurs comme Johnny Hoogerland à la Vuelta et Borut Bozic, excellent sprinteur slovène (sans oublier Clément Lhotellerie, enfin si on veut).

L’an passé, Sylvain Chavanel et Jérôme Pineau avaient fait le grand saut. Ils quittaient Cofidis et Bouygues (tiens, tiens), pour se frotter aux belges de la Quickstep. Intégration réussie pour Sylvain Chavanel qui fit belle impression cette année sur les classiques flandriennes aux côtés des Boonen et Devolder.

Christophe Moreau en quête d’une deuxième jeunesse rejoindra Valverde (et peut être Contador, ou peut être les deux, ou non …) et, pour sûr, l’armada espagnole de la Caisse d’Epargne. Le sponsor français a pour habitude d’avoir chaque année en son sein quelques coureurs français.

Pierrick Fédrigo veut aussi saisir sa chance. Berneaudeau a ouvert la porte à un départ de son protégé. Bouygues pourrait recruter Vogondy. Quant à Fédrigo, il est sollicité par la Caisse d’Epargne et les danois de Saxo Bank, qui avaient été également séduits par Dimitri Champion mais ce dernier a rejoint Ag2r la Mondiale.

Le français est donc à la mode.

The Saratogian, link to original post

The following events are scheduled at Moreau Lake State Park during October.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 2 — Red Oak Ridge hike. Moderate hike with some short steep sections.

6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Oct. 3 — Full moon kayak trip. See aquatic animals foraging for food.  Must have vessel and personal flotation device.  $3 registration fee.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 8 — Tree identification hike. Easy hike will teach basics to correctly identify trees and shrubs of New York state.

10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Oct. 9 — Bennie Brook Kayak Trip. Paddle up the Hudson River to a remote location of the park. The park naturalist will point out plants and animals. Pack a lunch for a wildlife picnic on shore. Must have own vessel and personal flotation device.

10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Oct. 16 — Spring Overlook hike. Short moderate hike with a few steep sections to the top of Palmertown Range. This overlook presents spectacular views of the Luzerne Mountains and Hudson River.

10 a.m. to noon, Oct. 17 — Map and compass course. Learn the basics of using a compass and then try the skill out with fun games.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 20 — Fall nature hike. Easy hike around the lake to view changing colors of fall. Guided by a park naturalist.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 22 — Turkey Trail hike. Moderate hike scales half-way up the Palmertown Mountain range.  Learn from the park naturalist on how this trail got its name.

4 to 6 p.m., Oct. 23 — Fall twilight hike. Stroll through the park just before dusk to take in fall colors and possibly watch some wildlife during their evening feeding time.

6 to 8 p.m., Oct. 24 — Haunted Halloween walk. Sponsored by The Friends of Moreau Lake. Take a haunted walk through one of the camping loops. Refreshments and activities available. Advance registration is required and a $5-per-car fee is required. Rain date will be Oct. 25.  Call 793-0511 to make reservations.  Proceeds to benefit park educational programs.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 30 — Mud Pond hike. Look for signs of wildlife.

1 to 3 p.m., Oct. 31 — Sherman Island kayak trip. Paddle up the Hudson River to a remote location of the park. The park naturalist will point out plants and animals. Pack a lunch for a wildlife picnic on shore. Must have own vessel and personal flotation device.

Programs are weather permitting and subject to change.  Call the park office to confirm event date, time and location. Participants should be prepared to spend time outside and are encouraged to wear adequate clothing and footwear.  There is a program fee of $2 for adults and children, and $1 for seniors.

Moreau Lake State Park is located off Northway Exit 17S. For additional information or to register for programs, call the park office at 793-0511. For more information about New York state parks, go to www.nysparks.com.

I’ve never seen Stephen Frears’ adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Glenn Close, so I can’t comment on its merits, but I just watched Roger Vadim’s 1959 version.  Aside from the suave and delightfully Gallic Gerard Philipe as Valmont, the movie really shines in every scene featuring Jeanne Moreau.  Adolescent boys can fixate on Brigitte Bardot or Vadim’s most famous wife, but I think Moreau speaks to men who know what they like.  And everything a man of some years might like is on display with Moreau’s obvious intellect, her capacity for subtlety, and the fireworks that go on when she eschews that self-same subtlety to get what she wants.  Although a relatively minor character in this adaptation, Jean-Louis Trintignant invests Cecile’s heart-throb Danceny with a nervous and earnest intensity which renders the climax nigh inevitable.

But Vadim does not rest there:  he suffuses both young Cecile and the older Mme Trouvel with real backbone and compels Valmont to work for his treats; watching the tug of war between him and each of his conquests really leaves the viewer in doubt whether he can prevail, regardless of whether one read the novel for class.

The other treat is the music. Much as Louis Malle snared Miles Davis to compose the score for Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, which came out a year before this production and also starred moreau at her most alluring, Vadim’s production sports music by Thelonius Monk and Art Blakely’s Jazz Messengers. I am not sure if it’s Art Blakely and company performing at the club towards the end of the movie, but it sounds about right.  In any case, the music is uniformly superb.

           Voici un petit bilan des championnats d’Europe. Au total quatre médailles ont été ramenées par la flotte tricolores : trois de bronze et une d’or. Est à l’honneur le 4-SHPL vainqueur de l’épreuve devant le bateau Allemand  champion du monde en titre. L’embarcation composée de la meilleure paire mondiale (Bette-Tiiliet)  et de la meilleure paire française (Solforosi-Moreau) s’impose en finale après 2000m de course bord à bord. Les trois autres équipages médaillés à ces championnats sont le 8+SH, le 2-SH et le 2XSHPL. Cette dernière compétition clôture la saison internationale de 2009 pour l’équipe de France.

            De mon coté je poursuis mes révisions en vu de mon examen au BEES 1 la semaine prochaine mais également de mes premiers partiels du 14 octobre avec l’école de kiné. Je commence un stage de 5 semaines à mi-temps à l’hôpital en temps que kiné lundi prochain. La pression monte !

            J’ai fait la connaissance de ma filleule lundi dernier suite à la demi-journée d’intégration. Un week-end d’intégration sera organisé prochainement pour faire connaissance avec les étudiants kinés de première année.

            Bonne journée.

Crédit Photo : FFSA

            La première journée de ces championnats d’Europe vient de se terminer. Au tableau des résultats trois bateaux tricolores sortent du lot en s’imposant avec autorité en série. Parmi eux nous pouvons nommer le 4-SHPL composé de la paire Bette-Tilliet nouveaux champions du monde en 2-SHPL et de la paire Moreau-Solforosi champions de France à Cazaubon en avril dernier. Le 2XSHPL composé de Pierre-Etienne Pollez et de Maxime Goisset remportent, eux aussi, leur série avec plus de huit secondes d’avance sur leurs premiers poursuivants. Le 8+SH composé de Julien Despres, Adrien Hardy, Pierre-Jean Peltier, Jean-Baptiste Macquet, Germain Chardin, Benjamin Rondeau, Sébastien Lente, Dorian Mortelette, Benjamin Manceau gagne leur course devant le bateau Polonais 4^ème au championnat du monde de Poznan : Encore bravo !

            Pour consulter les autres résultats de la flotte française vous pouvez consultez le site officiel de la Fédération Française des Sociétés d’Aviron.

            De mon coté je viens de finir la « Ronéo ». Le concept de la « Ronéo » est simple : sur l’ensemble de notre promotion kiné (environ 80 personnes) nous établissons des binômes. Ces binômes sont ensuite désignés par les deux chefs Ronéo (étudiants kinés eux aussi) pour assister à certains cours magistraux. Lorsqu’un binôme est désigné il doit se rendre en cours, faire une prise de note complète et claire du cours. Il doit ensuite le taper à l’ordinateur, l’imprimer puis le rendre à une imprimerie chargée d’en faire des duplicatas pour tous les étudiants kinés adhérents à cette Ronéo. En début d’année chacun est libre de payer et de devenir membre de la Ronéo. Nous ne payons que le papier imprimé. Même si ce concept est basé sur la confiance mutuelle lors des prises de notes, nous donnons néanmoins un chèque de caution au cas ou un binôme fasse une mauvaise prise de note, ou pire, qu’il oubli d’aller en cours. Ce genre de problème n’arrive presque jamais étant donné qu’il est dans l’intérêt général de rendre un travail soigné. Au plus la Ronéo a d’adhérents au plus la fréquence de passage d’un binôme est faible, logique ! Elle permet à bon nombre d’étudiants kinés de ne pas aller aux cours tout en les ayants et c’est pour ça que 98% des étudiants en font parti. Cela me permet de trouver des créneaux horaires pour m’entrainer pendant la semaine. C’est aussi grâce à ça que j’ai réussi à concilier l’an dernier aviron et études. Vous vous doutez bien que cette organisation est indépendante de l’école de kiné sachant qu’elle vide les amphithéâtres.

            Bon week-end !!!!    

Por fin he podido ver “La isla del Doctor Moreau”. Siendo la tercera versión cinematográfica de la novela homónima de 1896, obra original de Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), la película plasma excelentemente los temas filosóficos que plantea la obra fuente. Y, dejando a un lado la pobreza de los efectos cinematográficos    –descontextualizados por supuesto- y la abundancia de escenas un tanto morbosas, sinceramente me ha encantado su contenido tan filosófico, pero no lo hace de manera tan sutil como para que pase desapercibido, sino, todo lo contrario, es muy evidente de modo que te hace reflexionar.

Los símiles con la realidad humana y la “isla del doctor” aparecen en tropel delante de ti:

• El Doctor Moreau es el dios de la isla. Un científico obsesionado con su labor juega a ser dios, pretendiendo crear una “especie humana” nueva en la que no quepa ni la menor maldad. Sin embargo, todo sus planes fracasan porque las quimeras que crea son en el fondo animales con instintos. Este “dios pagano” es bueno, generoso, etc.… , pero también paradójicamente es la fuente del dolor de sus criaturas. Ha impuesto leyes “absurdas” a través de su propio “Moisés pagano”, las cuales tan sólo hacen sufrir a los “humanimales”, reprimiendo sus instintos, su irracionalidad. (Si esta irracionalidad está aplastada con el gran peso de la “ley”, ¿por qué entonces fueron creados con esos instintos tan “humanimales”?)

• Edward Prendick es “tan sólo” el naufrago que ve todo ese mundo y sin el cual no conoceríamos la historia.
• El Doctor Montgomery es el diablo de la isla. Es el compañero fiel de Moreau a quien el conocimiento de tu inmensa subordinación le lleva a la rebelión. Y además, no sólo se conforma con la desobediencia sino que incita a los demás hacia el “pecado”, al incumplimiento de las leyes.
• En el estrato de las quimeras hay dos clases, como “tipos” de personas hay en el mundo. Por un lado, están los salvajes que sucumben a sus instintos una vez que se han liberado del dolor. Además irónicamente son éstos quienes se preguntas por el motivo del dolor y por qué ellos no son iguales a su “amo”, y como no se identifican con éste, finalmente niegan su humanidad.  Por otro lado, están los más racionales que no solucionan los problemas con el derramamiento de sangre, sino de manera pacífica. A pesar de todo, estos últimos están destinados a un sino fatal porque a igual que los demás aunque pretendan ser humanos en el proceso de regresión vuelven en parte a su naturaleza original.

Si alguien ya la ha visto, espero que deje un mensaje plasmando su opinión respecto a mis cavilaciones en cuanto a la película. Y si no te has visto todavía la película, mírala porque es alucinante y luego dejar un comentario.

(Tan sólo por curiosidad, en ella parece junto a los bien conocidos Marlon Brandon –mi tocayo- y Val Kilmer, David Thewlis que ha trabajado en películas como “Vidas al límite” que cuenta la vida en común de los famosos poetas simbolistas Rimbaud y Verlaine, y en la mayor franquicia nunca vista, Harry Potter.)

Free hug for you, see you later.

From Jérôme Clément’s 2005 autobiographical novel, Plus tard, tu comprendras, Israeli master filmmaker Amos Gitai has made one of his most delicate, sensitive and dearly ironical works: Plus tard—literally, poignantly, Later. Written by Gitai, Marie-Jose Sanselme and Dan Franck, the film opens in 1987 during the trial of Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie; its radio coverage drones on in 42-year-old Paris Victor Bastien’s Paris office (the film opens with Victor’s visit to the Wall of Names commemorating French Jews lost to the Holocaust), while his elderly widowed mother, Rivka, in her apartment, has her face right up against the television set watching and listening, haunted. Rivka hides things: from her children, her cigarette-smoking; from us, with her hair in curlers, her smart elegance; from Victor, the fate of her parents. Rivka is also hiding from her family her rapidly deteriorating health. Meanwhile, Victor (Hippolyte Girardot, in his finest performance) runs down his own health rummaging through the family past, provoking a warning from his wife: “You are heading for a breakdown.”
     Hushed, dimly lit, Plus tard is an interior piece—a film lost in mental corridors, including for a nation. Victor’s children, like Victor, has been raised Catholic; but on Yom Kippur, Rivka takes her grandchildren to synagogue, mentions her Russian Jewish mother (her father was a Gentile), hands her grandson the cloth Star of David she had once been forced to wear, and draws a promise for undimmed memory.
     Two great passages follow this piercing climax; both involve a monetary reckoning. At a pre-gravesite gathering in Rivka’s apartment, an antiques dealer appraises—aloud—each nick-knack, piece of furniture and art treasure: the deceased’s bald worth that the diversity of those who cared about Rivka, including friends and family, contests. Flashforward: in 1995 Chirac became the first French president to acknowledge national responsibility for the wartime deportation of French Jews to death camps; thus in 1999, the process of fixing “symbolic” restitution is underway. Two bureaucratic women lead Victor down an exceedingly long hallway in the bowels of some official building in order to interview him in a small, seemingly secret room, passing the experience of his maternal grandparents through a series of dispositive criteria to determine the appropriate sum the surviving family members are due. At some point this is all too much for Victor; the camera follows the path of his flight and exit, back down the hallway, to a window revealing, outside, a patch of the real, familiar and digestible: the Eiffel Tower. But then, in a stunning reverse motion, the camera withdraws down the now vacant hallway in an expression of the pull of the past and the burden of French shame that has accrued to it: the second-most moving aspect of this extraordinary movie.
     The most moving aspect, however, is Jeanne Moreau, whose performance as Rivka confirms her status as cinema’s greatest living actress and possibly, the equal of Garbo, the greatest film actress ever. In reviewing Moreau in this film, critic Stanley Kauffmann wrote: “[Moreau] makes Rivka a woman whose idea of nobility is to enclose troublesome issues with elegance. As usual, she doesn’t merely take the role, she possesses it. As usual, she brings to it not only her talent but her career. As usual, she makes her performance seem the reason why she has done everything else up to now.” Kauffmann is expressing what Moreau means to him—what this brilliant artist means to all of us.

May seem strange that a pastor would say that there are times when God may not listen to us. Doesn’t the Bible say that God hears our cries? Doesn’t Scripture tell us that wherever we go God is there – and wouldn’t that mean God can always hear us? If so, why would God not listen?

This past weekend I was on a retreat sponsored by Servant’s Feast ministries (http://servantsfeast.org/ It’s a young ministry led by Rev. Elizabeth Moreau. She is formulating and publishing a discipleship process that has long been absent from the church). For me, the retreat was renewing and enlightening and engaged me with God in new and fresh ways. One of the things I learned was that God doesn’t always listen.

The insight came as we spent time alone with God in some guided devotion time. One of the stops along the journey dealt with the story of the Prodigal Son. You probably know that story. I thought I knew that story. The youngest of two sons demands that his father give him his share of the inheritance – yes, while dear old dad is still alive. The young man leaves home, has a big time spending his money, and then the bottom drops out as the money runs out. He ends up taking care of pigs who eat better than he does. So, he comes to his senses and decides to head home – not as a son, but to try and get a job at his father’s place. He knows those workers at least get decent food. He thinks long and hard about what he’s going to say when he gets there. He is very sincere and truly repentant for his actions it seems. Here’s what happens when he gets home:

So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.     (Luke 15:20-24)

Did you catch that? The son starts to give his spiel, his well-rehearsed, heartfelt, sincere confession, and his father doesn’t even listen. As the son gives his speech the father is busy talking to the servants – “get a robe, get a ring, bring some sandals, kill the calf!”

The issue for the father was not that the son was willing to confess and was willing to say the right things, the issue for dear old dad was that his son was home. The robe and the ring and the sandals and the party were not given because he had made ammends or promised to pay back the money – everything the father did that day was because this was his son and all that mattered was that he had come home.

It’s funny, when I get off track I get the idea in my head that I have to really show God how sorry I am. I talk to God about how I know what I did was wrong and how sorry I am that I disappointed Him or rejected Him or ignored Him. And as I reflected on this story I realized, God isn’t even listening. God is too busy celebrating the fact that I have turned back to Him, too excited that we are reconnected. I was floored to realize God doesn’t want my guilt or my shame or even my sincere words of apology. God wants me. God rejoices not because I understand my wrong decisions, but because I am his and I’m back with him.

We talked about this story in a small group at the retreat and someone asked if I thought the son went in and enjoyed the party. Did he put his hand out to get the ring, or did they have to grab his hand and put it on? Did he reach for the robe or did they have to make him put his arms in? Did he stand off on the side of the room and watch the party because he was too dumbfounded by his father’s grace, or did he dance and eat and enjoy the day?

It was then that I realized that for too long I have stood on the side of the room not sure how to respond to my Father’s grace. Today, I have decided to join the party. I mean, if God isn’t wasting his time listening to all my ramblings, why am I?

What about you – are you ready to party?

Holy high five to you, Mike.

So last Sunday was free museum day in Paris. (This would be the first Sunday of every month, and  on this day every national museum is 100 percent free for tourists, children, Paris natives — everybody). I had decided to hit up Musée Rodin, but fate had other things in mind …

That day, I met Mme Gaudouen on her way to the Musée d’Orsay. She explained to me that the Musée Rodin was better on a clear day (it was cloudy) because of the gardens at Rodin. I sighed and started to go back to the apartment when …

Mme Gaudouen came walking up the stairs to tell me that we should go instead to the Musée Moreau, a little Musée near métro stops Blanche and Pigalle in Montmartre. Happy to follow, I strapped on my latest pair of heels and headed out.

Only to find myself walking gingerly and concentrating on stepping first on my heels as we walked down the giant mount that is Montmartre. (I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The name does mean “Mount of Martyrs” after all.) Trying not to look bothered, I followed in line as we wandered around the district looking at addresses and the handy-dandy pocket map that all Parisians carry at all times and trying to avoid the stares of women inside the little pleasure shops that litter the area.

And then, as I walked behind Mme Gaudouen, she took a sharp turn. My first instinct was to stop her from entering someone’s home, but after a minute I realized that this was the museum.

Musée Moreau is named for Gustave Moreau, a painter who lived from 1826 – 1898. Upon his death he donated his house to be used as a museum for his own paintings — a pretty good scheme if you want to stay a well-known painter, if you ask me. Either way, the place is magnificent. There are two large rooms which hold nothing but his paintings and various drawings hidden away in cupboards that guests can snoop through at any time. Meanwhile, lower rooms show the artists’ furniture and bedchambers.

Moreau’s paintings are a strangely satisfying mixture of Pollock-esque paint splatterings and almost photograph-like accuracy. His subjects are mainly mythological or Biblical and yield darkly dramatic results. After the visit, I must admit that he is likely my new favorite painter.

So if you can, never pass up a visit to the museum you never knew existed. It might just be the best thing you’ve seen yet.

“I would live in a city, without trees or wind.” — Anne Desbarèdes

Alain Robbe-Grillet had launched the nouveau roman in France, and Marguerite Düras became part of that movement with her 1958 Moderato cantabile—her literary rebirth, since her previous fiction was conventional. Britain’s Peter Brook, of all people, directed the film version from a screenplay by Düras and Gérard Jarlot. (Düras had already written the story and script for Alain Resnais’s film of forbidden love and relentless memory, Hiroshima, mon amour, 1959.) The star, Jeanne Moreau, who herself would play Düras in Josée Dayan’s 2001 Cet amour-là, was named best actress at Cannes for her beautiful performance as a bourgeois wife who falls in love with a former factory worker. Moreau, the principal female icon of the nouveau vague, has remained cinema’s greatest actress post-Garbo. The title of both book and film, Italian, refers to a fluent, lyrical style of music: literally, “moderate and singable”—as piano tutor Mlle Giraud puts it, “like a lullaby at bedtime.”

In the spirit of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and goodness knows how many other fictions, Moderato cantabile relates class to sexuality, and vice versa, folding each into the other. Anne Desbarèdes, a perfect bourgeois wife, maintains a soft, tidy, agreeable appearance, defers to her husband’s contemptuous authority, and keeps herself occupied with their young child, Pierre (“l’enfant,” who is given a name in the film), such as by leaving their grand mansion on Boulevard de la Mer and taking him into the working-class district for his piano lessons in Mlle Giraud’s apartment. It is in the Café de la Gironde below and across from the spinster’s place, where Mlle Giraud’s tutorial authority compensates for a hollow, fastidious existence, that Anne will meet Chauvin, defying society’s classist design, which would have kept these two safely apart forever.

Bourgeois aspiration and consequence: as the film’s opening credits roll, we hear two things. One is the lovely, mature playing of a Diabelli sonatina; the other is the sound of children playing outside. The latter indicates Pierre’s exclusion from a normal childhood; the former is what he compensatorily gets: musical technique, after who knows how many relentless hours, indeed years, of practice. By indirection this implies the theme of memory; for the stage at which Pierre is able to play the Diabelli piece “moderato cantabile” is some time ahead of when the film’s action is initially set, and the difference in time indicates that someone, perhaps Pierre himself, is “looking back.” He is haunted by the past, including the childhood of which he was deprived in order to fulfill an image of bourgeois accomplishment. Or might it be Mlle Giraud who is looking back, recalling the price that she has had to pay to achieve her musical expertise—the lost childhood and, afterwards, no marriage and the status that attaches to being married?

When the film proper opens, Pierre is at Mlle Giraud’s piano struggling through scales (a most unpromising pupil!), not to mention the Diabelli piece, to which he stubbornly fails to apply the requisite style and tempo, while Mlle Giraud stands over him with a corrective air and his mother, inscrutable, probably zoning out (as is her wont, we will learn), sits off toward the side, a composed, dutiful image of bourgeois correctness, which her ridiculously sculpted hairdo sums up. These shots of Mme Desbarèdes are inserts, as befit a character whose existence has thus far consisted of inserts in her husband’s life, her son’s, her servants’, her own consciousness. Now we find ourselves believing that what we heard at the outset might have been Anne’s memory, even if in her case the memory is a fantasy—someone else’s life being the only life that Anne could possibly mistake for her own. Another sound, though, disrupts the lesson: a woman’s ghastly cry, combining moan and scream, down below. All three—tutor, tutee, tutee’s mother—hang out a huge window once Mlle Giraud opens it. A flurry of people on bicycles head toward the out-of-view café, from which the mortal sound must have emanated; a police car arrives. Anne and Pierre are at ground level now, having exited the apartment building where Giraud lives and works. How can they not look into the café, which for Anne, after all, is a same-class extension of Giraud’s apartment? I used to put it another way: Anne, for whom passion is a repressed dream, must look in to make sure it isn’t she herself who has just been murdered.

It isn’t. The corpse on the floor is boldly bone-structured and dark; although in other roles Moreau can seem larger than life, as Anne she is a small, wispy blonde. The woman whom the corpse was so recently is Anne’s antithesis—perhaps a projection of Anne’s repressed sexual fantasy. As if to make the point additionally sore, the lover who has killed gets on top of the corpse and caresses it, as though he never wants to part from his beloved, as though he seeks to revive her through renewed passion; has Anne ever known such passion? At home, we find Anne and her husband, by way of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941), sitting at opposite ends of a passionless dining room table that accentuates M. Desbarèdes’s coldness and condescension toward his wife. When Anne musters the boldness to suggest that their son may amount to something at the piano, her supercilious husband cuts her down with a single admonishing word: “Please . . . .” (It is as though he were saying, “Your son, madam, is incapable of talent.”) Moreau’s Anne looks incredibly small at table, like the child that her spouse treats her as, or as the possession he considers her; and Brook’s cutting back and forth between them at opposite ends of the table obliterates all sense of a loving connection between them. Anne hardly has a voice in her own home. But for all we know—for all she knows—she is as brilliant even as Marguerite Düras. Regrettably, Anne has been taught to feel otherwise about herself. Her brusque, paternalistic spouse represents the patriarchic culture that has steered Anne to her passive, submissive self-image.

To the invisible accompaniment of the Diabelli, played again as well as with the opening credits (and which continually crops up on the soundtrack throughout the film), mother and son, en route to a piano lesson or perhaps returning from one, cannot help but pause at the café; Anne is drawn by fascination with the spectacle she witnessed on the floor of the café the other day. Chauvin had noticed her then; each now notices the other. “I was just passing by,” Anne explains to the proprietor—as though she must “explain” herself. Can everyone see just how unfamiliar with passion—how starved for it—she is?

Anne adores Pierre. This is why Düras this time has given the boy a name. In the novel, his namelessness—part of a fabric of anonymous characters (including the narrator)—belongs to Düras in pursuit of a dreamy mysteriousness as well as the reduction of a child in the bourgeois scheme of things; but in the film “the child” would appear to reflect an absence of warm maternal love on Anne’s part, and since this is not the case he had to be given a name. It would be too queer for him not to have one, whereas his not having one makes perfect and pointed sense in the book. I have referred to Pierre’s stubbornness at his piano lessons; but he is not being rude so much as he is contesting the image into which he is being shoehorned in light of his empathy for his mother, on whom patriarchy has imposed a similar fate. He is expressing his young desire not to become his father. When Anne tells her son, “Sometimes I think I invented you, that you are not real,” she is giving back to him his bias in her favor. She is excluding Pierre from the “reality” of both sex and patriarchic prerogatives, claiming him as her son, not her husband’s. It is a heartrending statement inasmuch as Anne rarely asserts herself or declares her own importance, let alone superiority vis-à-vis her spouse, in any venue or regard. But something else attracts us to Anne’s relationship with her son. Given the dissatisfaction that her marriage generates for her, we are likely to find it nothing short of heroic that she refrains from subjecting Pierre to exaggerated, compensatory maternal attentions. She is no Mildred Pierce (Mildred Pierce, Michael Curtiz, 1945); she does not make herself too much of a mother to relieve the personal agony of her feeling too little a wife. To do so would objectify Pierre in yet another way, and she will not add to her husband’s objectification of him (and of her). Anne is one victim who will not victimize—not her Pierre; not her soul-mate. On the other hand, Pierre cannot always feel secure with his mother, who at least as often occupies a dream space of her own as a social space with him (or others). At one point, after telling her something, he feels compelled to ask, “Did you hear me?” We realize what an exquisite balancing act that Anne is doing her best to maintain when she gives Pierre an immediate account of what he has just told her.

Wet, wintry scenes of snow, bedecked with bare trees, project Anne’s emotional barrenness—and also her feeling of sexual barrenness, which lies behind her remark that she thinks somehow she “invented” Pierre. It is in hopes of overturning such feelings that Anne pursues her relationship with Chauvin. The crux of the relationship is that Chauvin becomes her source of information about the murdered woman and the murderer, the woman’s lover. He has promised to find out as much as he can. (We see him do this without success.) Is he deceiving Anne, even betraying her, by spinning his tales when he cannot possibly know what lies behind the murder scene? No. Anne’s desire to know is merely the pretext for connecting with Chauvin on the sly; his “invention” of the story is fine with Anne, who tells him at one point, “Tell me more of what happened, even if you are not quite certain, even if you have to make it up.” She is asking for a bedtime story—but one about grown-up things: love; murder. If her husband treats her as though he is her cold, disapproving parent, Chauvin becomes Anne’s “good parent,” the one who treats her warmly and dreamily, the one capable of satisfying her curiosity and sparking her imagination. Unfortunately, whereas Anne is sensitive with her son, she is merely self-sensitive with Chauvin, failing to take into account how her ignoring the class divide between them will ultimately participate in his destruction.

Anne’s inquisitiveness bordering on childlike wonder moderates the pathos of her desire for a touch of adult warmth in her life, and Chauvin responds with exquisite tact. (Not once do we feel that he is “leading her on” and exploiting her.) Chauvin spins a tale of how the anonymous couple came to be, beginning, “It started between them like any other love story.” When Chauvin is finished, Anne is still drawn to the ultimate point of passion. She asks, “Why at the end did he kill her?” Chauvin’s tact maintains its grip: “I think that she asked him to kill her. He could not do otherwise.” This extracts the bitter from the bittersweet. This makes the couple a couple in all things—loving accomplices to the end. Brook follows Chauvin’s extraordinary surmise with a long-held shot of Anne. We can make of this what we will, for the shot is ambiguous. Has Chauvin’s surmise stopped time for Anne? Is Anne’s sustained impassivity a projection of Chauvin’s desire for her receptivity? Is Anne again zoning out, retreating into a dream where she imagines herself occupying the anonymous identity of the murdered woman? This shot recalls the famous one of Garbo at the end of Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933); its ambiguity holds us in its grip.

The possibility that Anne may be imagining herself into Chauvin’s dreamy account of the crime suggests an extension of this possibility. Chauvin is among the crowd outside the Café de la Gironde looking in as the police, with the killer in tow, stage a re-enactment of the crime. Is Chauvin imagining himself the killer? (The same actor, wonderful Jean-Paul Belmondo, had already played Michel, the cop killer, in Jean-Luc Godard’s A bout de souffle, 1959.) In the space where his and Anne’s imaginations conjoin, are the two of them also “a couple”? Having dreamt together an impossible version of the crime, are they imagining themselves into each other’s spirituality and sensitivities? One notes that Chauvin is even more of a “wanderer” than Anne is. He is unaccompanied by a son—except for Anne’s, who, being in some sense Anne’s “invention,” is as much Chauvin’s son as the son of his biological father, who has (as far as we can see) nothing ever to do with the boy. Who knows? Perhaps Pierre is Anne’s son from some other relationship—an earlier marriage; an adulterous affair.

The action of the film lasts seven days and seven nights—a highly charged week that sparks enough suspicion on the part of M. Desbarèdes that he arranges for his wife to be driven by car for Pierre’s appointments with Mlle Giraud. (We never learn the first name of either Anne’s husband or Chauvin.) Anne’s commitment to Pierre’s piano lessons has been decided for her. This is something that the boy is supposed to learn, although the cruel authority that Mlle Giraud wields, as though she is determined to crush the boy, chafes the boy, precipitating his mother’s “zoning out.” Why then does Anne herself not contest the piano lessons? Divided, she simply lacks the radical perspective to contest the storm of authority arrayed against herself and her son. Yes, this is not right; yes, Pierre must learn to obey Mlle Giraud. On their last night together, Anne tells Chauvin at the café, “I think I’m in love with you, but I’m never sure of anything.” And she never is, in large measure because she has been trained to discount her own feelings and to obey authority, as Pierre now is being asked to do.

Pierre and Chauvin both in turn confront Anne to contest her bourgeois example. In the forest after Pierre’s piano lesson, Pierre asks his mother about the stags that are being rounded up. What will happen to them? Anne spins a fairy tale, telling Pierre that they will be set free in other forests, in Germany. “That’s a lie!” Pierre explodes. “They will be killed!” Anne lamely attempts to reiterate her soothing version of reality and ends up on the ground under a tree as Pierre goes off on his own. One of the most moving passages of the film follows. Pierre re-enters the frame, having found a way to apologize to his mother for his rudeness without sacrificing his sense of righteousness (to which, of course, he is entitled): he covers and crowns her in forest brush. At their last meeting, Chauvin tells Anne that he is leaving the next morning because of her: “We never could have loved each other.” So powerless in so many venues, it hadn’t sufficiently occurred to Anne—it certainly must have occurred to her to some degree—that in relation to Chauvin she was the one, by dint of class, who wielded power. To translate his declaration, what Chauvin means is this: “We never could have loved each other in reality, in time, despite the fact that we may have loved each other.” Like Pierre earlier, Chauvin explodes: “I wish you were dead!” He, too, leaves the frame—but, in his case, never to re-enter it. Anne falls to the floor of the darkened café, letting out a series of piercing animal moans: an artistic aural match for the visible human animal deaths in Laurence Olivier’s Richard III (1955) and Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds (1958). When her husband arrives to collect Anne and take her home, we wonder, perhaps for the first time, whether he is used to performing this service, bearing this cross as part of a bourgeois martyr-complex, needing at all costs to maintain the fiction—this is a film about maintaining fictions—that his marriage is a “perfect” one.

Throughout the film, Anne “zones out.” Eventually, images become correlative to these psychological events. Usually they involve a tracking shot in darkness surveying the Desbarèdes mansion and forested grounds through the bars of their enclosing fence: the illusion of freedom—the tracking camera—and the reality of confinement.

I do not care for Brook (although I would love to see one day The Beggar’s Opera, 1953, starring Laurence Olivier), but I moderately (and singably) enjoy this one film of his. And Moreau is out-of-this-world magnificent and thrillingly complex. There is also the moody, melancholy black-and-white cinematography of Armand Thirard, whose work we associate with Julien Duvivier and Henri-Georges Clouzot.

ME & WHY
What is there to truly tell, I am here.. In Kingdoms, be me mere figment, real or judge of where reality starts or ends. I truly know not … cackle cackle.

I guess I first remember some form of horror, for I can sense no other reason to be as I am. This EVIL form of myself seen each day, reflected back. I can feel that reflection writhing within me even as the days pass. It is another form, eager … sloppy … messily vile … the best part of sliding down the blunt blade of horror induced dementia. I can feel that rounded point each waking moment. Penetrating deeper in my mind, as I try and make sense of this charade I am becoming. Why do I bother, truly, for my blackened soul screeeammmms at me….

HER & BELOVED

Experiment each day I do.. seeking a better replacement for my beloved. In Fifi I find solitude of a sort, but she will not let me toil with her. In fact, I fear, mayhap she surpasses me in cunning evilocity. I have caught her numerous times sighing my name as her hands softly caressed my sharp playthings in the manses vast dungeons.. I think perhaps I must keep a closer watch of this ‘solitude giver’.

Some may ask if I “love” my Fifi, and the answer most assuredly is yes.. but there is a difference between ‘love’ and the life-functioning, overwhelmingly lusting, heart-throbbing thrust of adoration I experienced with my beloved. May all that is evil rest within her soul…

SLINE & MINE

And so toil I must, from Rayneballs to Trollogna.. my evilocity, really, truly, knows no bounds. It is a gift to be the evil character in this realm. To buck each moment and caress each dig, knowing I need not censor .
EXCLAIMER: We here at Sline & Mine would like to point out that this lack of censoring does not include, A) Foul language. Of the swearing , banning sort. B) Sexually explicit comments, of the banning sort or C) Anything truly evil enough to hurt your feelings unless well deserved. Review sections c-103 of the Evilocity handbook and search Otaku, Rogue or Hitler.

Yes, it is nice to know Sline & Mine is around each corner, providing evil services to all. What would we have done without Rayneballs. We have put a bit of Rayne’s realm in every corner of Kingdom’s.  Granted, litigation has emptied our coffers 10 times over.. but what is gold when you have happy shiny, glowing populaces everywhere… sigh..

MY FRIENDS
EXCLAIMER: The word “friends” is a loose association. We are claiming, a friend, as someone not yet betrayed, knifed, clubbed, run through, walked on over 211 times, killed, maimed under angry circumstances or having shared some form animal husbandry with.

And so we come to a brief encounter with the folks I call “friend”.

Brave (word smith , advisor & keeper of the M&T), Lady Jerrica (the only one I will bow to, keeper of this realm), Sline (business partner and owner of the toe), Rayne (silly fun that makes me laugh greatly and the namesake of Rayneballs), Moreau (smelly orc brother, man of wit and where I began in all this), Meataxe (minstrel, Meat sauce and compatriot), Dritz (of the imaginating sort & competing corporation to S&M), Mme E (fifi my current love), Pimpin (Mabel’s ghost, Hero muncher and blood brother), Miranna (friend and intelligent wit), Glendora (Arch cheerleader, good heart) , Duke of York (the good, powerful, steadfast), Haydos (the watchful eye), Antu (of the friendly greeting) & of course, my evil nemesis and alter ego… Archon (hiss, boooo, hiss, booo… ).. and all the others, I apologize if not mentioning your name.. there is but only one finger and a flipper typing this….

To you all, I wish you evil thoughts, slimy feet and overwhelming gas….

THE ENDING

And where does one end from there, but to say good day and may all your wounds suck wind….

The sun was setting, bathing the sky in a brilliant artwork of colors. Dritz lay atop a bluff on Lookout Peak scanning the horizon. This was the highest point along the southern border.

He sensed rather than heard someone approaching. “Aedon, your skill of stealth is improving. I couldn’t hear you coming this time.” Aedon was always trying to sneak up on him.

The lad came shuffling over with a melancholy demeanor. “Aww, Dad! Will I ever catch you unaware? I have been practicing by tracking animals in the forest. This morning I was able to slap that trophy buck on the haunches before he knew I was around!” he said as a look of pride brightened his face.

Dritz rolled over, sat up, and looked at him. Aedon came and sat by him. He had his mother’s mischievous smile that brightened Dritz’s mood whenever he gazed upon it. He also inherited his mother’s red hair and stubbornness. That was where the resemblance ended though. For Aedon was a unique child, being half drow and half human. To most he appeared as a surface elf at first glance though with a darker, olive colored skin, no doubt due to Dritz’s ebony skin. He had also inherited the pointed ears, slender build, and high cheekbones of the elves. This was attributed to the distant relationship between the drow and surface elves in the distant past. The stares of any who gazed upon him though were immediately drawn to the eyes. They were a deep shade of violet, just like his father’s.

“Aedon, the key to catching a seasoned opponent off-guard isn’t only with silent feet. A skilled opponent will have developed that extra sense. It is that feeling that someone is watching you or drawing near. To overcome this you must wait to approach until he is distracted. This can be due to him concentrating too deeply on his thoughts instead of his surroundings or something as simple as a rabbit’s swift appearance that startles him.”

“What are you doing here anyway father? The moon now rises and casts eerie shadows on the ground. Shouldn’t we be heading back home?”

Dritz looked at his son with a heavy heart and stood. “I have seen movement to the south. It appears to be the human-orc alliance mustering forces again.”

As they started walking back down the trail to the base of the peak, Aedon took Dritz’s hand and gazed up at him. “Father, why do they hate the elves so? What has any elf done to anger them and warrant this persecution?”

They walked in silence for a minute. “Son, that is a difficult question to answer. I believe that there are many elements to this puzzle. I will start with the orcs first. They are a war loving people and require little encouragement from the humans to do this. I believe that they are also bitter. The All Father didn’t bestow the same gifts upon them as He did on the elves. This bitterness can be seen in their own tale of ‘Why the Orc Fights’. For this most of them resent us out of jealousy.”

Just then Aedon squeezed his hand. “Moreau and Pimpin don’t hate us and we don’t hate them. How can you explain that?”

Dritz chuckled. “No, they don’t hate us. Though Pimpin did try to eat my hand once, but that was just part of an orc tradition of adopting a blood brother. The answer about them, my son, just so happens to be my saving grace as well. Have you not witnessed what most do when they see me for the first time?”

Aedon stopped in his tracks. “Yes, Father. They are surprised and scared to see a dark elf in their streets. I must confess that it has been amusing, at times, to watch their reactions. Especially that time when the farrier lost his grip on his hammer and it hit the mule he was shoeing! That mule must have kicked him a good twenty feet!”

“Aw, my boy, it may be amusing now but it wasn’t always so. The hatred and animosity to the drow runs deep, and rightfully so. The drow hate everyone and constantly wage wars and raids on the surface. I’m afraid that they have earned this reputation for the most part. I was taught by two great mentors however, that it isn’t your heritage that makes you who you are but your heart. After time and many valiant deeds, I was able to win over the trust and friendship of many, even being a drow. It hasn’t been an easy road though. I’m sure that Moreau and Pimpin have faced the same challenges and prejudice in their lives as well.”

“Mother wasn’t scared when she first saw you. I’ve heard that story many times.”

Dritz chuckled. “That is true. Your mother was an amazing woman. She was taught by Bruenor to look at a person’s character and not their appearance. When she first gazed at me, it was with a child’s innocent eyes and an insatiable curiosity. She was special. The world would be a much better place if all children were taught as she was.”

Aedon dropped his head a little. “I miss her.”

Dritz searched his son’s face for a moment. “As do I, my son, as do I. she was a remarkable woman. She hasn’t truly left us though. I can see a little of her in you. I can also feel her all around us watching over us.”

Dritz began walking again and little Aedon paced him by his side once more. “But Father, why do the humans hate the elves? You haven’t explained that yet.”

Dritz kicked a rock off the path. “That’s because I’m not sure if I fully comprehend it myself. It is much more complicated. First, I must point out that not all humans hate the elves. Many coexist in harmony in their dealings with one another. Some seem to be envious of our long lives while theirs is so brief. Others are jealous of the accomplishments that we have achieved in knowledge and the arts. Many, I’m afraid, are just plain evil and will do anything for money and Pork Pie pays well from what I’ve been told.”

They rounded another bend in the trail and started to enter into the deeper woods. It was very dark, but both father and son had the gift of excellent night vision. This was one of the only good things of having drow blood in one’s veins. Aedon was silent for a moment until he had to ask the question that all in the lands were pondering.

“Why does Pork Pie hate the elves so? No one has told me a reason for that yet.”

Dritz shook his head slowly a moment before he spoke. “I wish I could answer that for you but I’m not sure if he even knows why. He feels wronged by the elves and speaks of elves esteeming themselves above the other races. Unfortunately, it is true that some elves exhibit this haughty attitude, but that seems to be the exception and not the rule. It is still not reason sufficient to call for their eradication as he seeks. Perhaps it is just a mental illness that afflicts him. The world may never know.”

By then, they could hear the tinkling laughter of elves, orcish guttural guffawing, and even a cackle. “It sounds as if the Complete Nutters Theatre Club is performing again tonight. Let’s hurry to the campfire Father! I want to watch.”

They picked up their pace as Dritz spoke, “I agree Son. Perhaps I may play a part in tonight’s antics. It is truly one of the bright lights in this gloomy war-torn world.” With that, they broke into the clearing bathed in the fire’s light and received many a heart-felt welcome. They took a seat side-by-side surrounded by all of their friends. The feast was looking good tonight.

Chronicle 3

The boat crashed landed upon the shore, throwing her off into the cold water. She landed in the wet sand with a taste of salt in her parched mouth. “Nasty” she says as she gets up and tries to walk to shore. She is tired and worn and has not eaten in about 4 days. She collapses.

The all mother, sees this sad and lowly figure lying on the sand and tries to figure what she should be. Normally, it would be easy, but as she looked up toward the heavens she saw that the angles were also watching this figure with sadness and worry. The all Mother thought, “They never come here, this is our realm, why do they care about this figure.” One of the angels came down to her in full angel glory, white on white wings, and a white gown that flowed with the movement of the wind.  “Please spare her, and give her purpose. If possible make her sing and dance again, so we can rejoice in her song and sweet soft steps.”  The all mother thought “if the angels came here, she must be special.”  So a curious all mother asked “who is she, why does she command the heavens?” Marcus, the angel said “she is Dancer, and our realm she sang and danced so well she moved heaven and earth. The humans would come from all around the world to be lulled in to peace by her song, and serenity by her dance. We above were so moved by her magic we had to take shifts to watch over her.” The all Mother asked “If she was so loved by all in your realm, why is she here?” “Well,” Marcus said, “a rogue, I think that’s what you would call him, came to her, as she was gaining knowledge of her gifts. He taught her how to bring out each note, and each step as if they were that of an angel. She learned fast, and became world known for this. She also fell for him, not in love like that between a man and a woman, but that of a close friend and confidant. This rogue, however, had the pain of past relationship, one that plagued him, no matter how much joy her song and dance would bring.” Marcus’s face began to frown, “one night after one of her best performances, she rushed home, to her house overlooking the Bay, to find it empty. There were empty wine bottles everywhere, the fireplace was going full blast but no one was in the house. The glass door that lead to the balcony was open, the breeze from outside was flickering the candles. She went to balcony, and there he was standing on railing calling “Sarah.” “Sarah” he said “I am sorry, I am so sorry, I lost you, and nothing I do will ever bring you back.” Dancer stood there horrified, she knew what was next, and nothing she did would change the outcome. The rogue, the one who taught her how to reach the heavens, threw himself off the balcony and into the bay. She ran to save him, but was not fast enough. He flew off the balcony like a bird taking his first flight only to land in the bay and then washed out to sea. He was gone, and he took a piece of her with him. She became so depressed that even she stopped singing, and in a last ditch effort to find her friend, she boarded a small boat, and well ended up here.” The all Mother was sad. She had never heard a story of such pain and heartbreak. The all Father was just coming in from watching the wars with Humans and Orcs. He was tired and cranky and wanted some bunny stew. He was just about to surprise his beautiful wife, when he saw the angels and wondered what was going on. The all Mother looked at him with love that spans the heavens. “Hello, honey” he says with a look of question on his face. “Hello, darling” she responds back, “the angels are here about the new form that landed on the beach, and they want to know what we will make of her.” The all Father smiled, “well, she is too small to be and Orc, and to nimble to be a Human, so that leaves and elf.” “Make her an elf” he says emphatically. Marcus smiles and asks, as that thought resonates with him “well, what kind of elf?” The all Mother thinks, “Well warriors fight with strength and power and rogues fight with stealth and speed, but mages fight with words and magic. She possesses mage abilities, she sings with a beautiful voice and her magic is in her dance. She does both with passion and fire unmatched by either a warrior or a rogue.”  “ I will make her a mage,” the all Mother says. The angels were pleased with this choice, and told Marcus to say that this would work, but they did have one small favor. Marcus knew this might be big, but he had to ask anyway. “Is there anyway we could listen to her sing, and watch her dance? We understand that we have no power here but we really miss her, and since she has left our realm it has saddened many an angel.” The all Mother was shocked by this request, and just as she was about say no to the angels, the all Father pulled her aside and reminded her how helpful the angels were with the Orcs and how to deal with them, so that they kind of had no choice but to do what was asked. The all Mother thought, “Well, we could give her a name so that when the angels call her, she would perform for them and it would be her choice to do so.”  “Hmmm, what name, it had to be beautiful, and fluid and different, not like Sarah or Mary or Jane or Tammy as those are common. We will call her Rhiannon or Rhia for short.”

As it was dawn and Dancer was still lying on the beach, a form appeared out of nowhere to offer her some food, water and comfort. “Rest my child, for some elves from the east will come for you and they take you to safety.”  This should keep warm until they get here. A fire appeared and alongside was some blankets and food. Dancer was able to move herself over to the fire; she then grabbed the blanket, and ate some of the food. Still tired from the journey she fell asleep by the fire and as she started to dream the name Rhiannon surfaced and that brought her peace. When the sun came up a small group of elves had arrived to take her to Evendar for rest and relaxation. It was led by Miranna, a mage known for her kindness.

About a month later, Dancer would leave Evendar to make her own way in this new land, using knowledge from other realms she quickly amassed land for profit and weapons and more magic for protection. Along the way she has made many friends including Moreau the Orc, Lady Jerrica, the just, Brave, a bard of vast talents, and The Duke of York, defender of all. She also has a new family including Forgwai, Rayne and Miranna. She is happy here, for here there is peace, and the towns’ people are pretty nice.

The all Mother is also pleased with Dancers adjustment to living here.

Some nights when the sky is clear, the angels call her, and yes, she performs for them by choice, because she knows that’s her gifts should be shared with everyone from humans, to Orcs, to angels.

Voilà la suite de ma visite au Luxembourg à l’occasion du mois de la photo qui se terminait début mai.

Le MNHA présente des collections historiques couvrant l’antiquité à nos jours. En mai, il présentait aussi “Entre le Sacré et le Profane : Chefs-d’œuvre de la peinture italienne du XVIIe siècle dans les collections des banques italiennes“, une exposition qui valait le déplacement.

Mais bien entendu c’est surtout “Positions photographiques contemporaines sur le thème du portrait”, qui s’est achevée le 21 juin, qui motivait ma visite avec quatre artistes présentés.

On ne présente plus Pierre Gonnord (vu en Belgique à l’espace DEXIA et avant à Arles – billet ici) avec ses photos de clochards d’une grande dignité, sur fond noir. Cette fois il y avait aussi un jeune homme blond avec plein de piercings, un travail plus ancien que je n’avais pas encore vu (Série Regards, Grand Delfin, 1999). Je ne peux pas hélas linker vers son site (ici) en flash (beurk) où on voit cette œuvre.

Mari-jo Lafontaine (déjà vue sur le stand d’André Simoens à ArtBrussels) montrait deux travaux. Elle présentait trois portraits immenses cadrés de très près sur des fonds de couleurs (Série Babylon Babies de 2008).

Elle montrait aussi, dans une petite pièce, 7 jeunes baigneuses en pied, en noir et blanc, plus grandes que natures qui font penser à sa série ‘Les bains de St-Josse’ (2008) mais je n’ai pas retrouvé les photos de l’expo sur son site (ici).

Valérie Belin (qu’on ne présente plus – billet ici) montrait deux mariées mexicaines et trois portraits de femmes noires. Comme d’habitude, les photos sont très contrastées, très noires et les fonds tout blanc. Le site de Valérie Belin (ici) est bien fait et montre bien son œuvre.

Luce Moreau montrait aussi son interprétation du portrait avec des diasec ou des acteur en costumes, dans la pose la plus distinguée, se font asperger brutalement anéantissant la vocation du portrait bourgeois. je n’ai pas trouvé son site web mais on parle d’elle sur le site du festival de photo de Lodz qui s’est récemment terminé (ici) et d’où est tirée l’illustration ci-dessous.

What I found fascinating in Martin Provost’s film about celebrated neo-primitavist Séraphine de Senlis was neither Yolande Moreau’s performance nor Laurent Brunet’s cinematography, but simply the sense of wonder it engenders in the painting. Had I been presented with one of Séraphine’s bustling, verdant works before watching this film, I’d probably have been non-plussed. That may betray a lack of imagination on my part – I would have had a similar relation to Renaissance works from Flemish masters, or Vincent van Gogh, before watching films about their painting. There is something to entertaining the propositions of a fiction about the creation of these works, about viscerally imagining the artistic process, which helps unlock the meaning and all awe and wonder which follows.

In the small town of Senlis, 1914, a middle-aged cleaning lady and washerwoman spends her free moments collecting brush and seeds, animal blood and church candle-oil, and communing with nature to inspire her art. Rather than chase causal chains through her life, Provost elects instead to tease out threads of her mental state across the span of key events which led to her painting and its publicisation. We begin when Séraphine is around 50 years old, already absorbed in self-expression under the guidance of her guardian angel. Séraphine Louis seems to suffer some form of autism which eventually descends into schizophrenic dementia. But at first, her eccentric obsessional personality is controlled and channelled into the most beautiful paintings of flowers, leaves, and fruit: wild, livid flowers of her imagination. One viewer of these paintings describes them as in terrifying motion, as fleshy, open wounds. Séraphine remarks that her work scares her too.

By chance, German art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde comes to lodge at a house in which she cleans, and discovers Séraphine. So begins a long but deeply troubled relationship between artist and patron. Repeatedly, turns of fate throw up insurmountable obstacles to success. Between the First World War and the Great Depression, Séraphine narrowly misses achieving public recognition and wealth before descending into senility. This is a majestic performance from Moreau, but to me, the film belongs to the paintings.

It has enjoyed success in Frace, winning the big prize at the Césars, but seems to be receiving a less warm reception from the public overseas. This is a terrible shame, but unsurprising, given the strictly old-school art-house sensibilities of Séraphine. It demands patience, and meditative consideration. But it is presented on these terms, and it’s unfair to arbitrarily expect something else. Treated like a painting in a gallery, Séraphine is a really touching and exquisitely made film. This is an analogy which seems oddly compelling while at a film festival, because only when it is possible to see so many great films so freely does film start to draw such comparisons. I am a much better appreciator of film than of painting, and so it is a real luxury to be able to enjoy the kind of range and depth of art in this medium that one takes for granted in a gallery.

Séraphine, Dir. & Writ. Martin Provost, Star. Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, France, Belgium, 2008

Consider the Orc 

Consider the orc. First, orcs tend to be bigger than the other races. Second, fighting comes as naturally to orcs as breathing. Third, orcs possess amazing recuperative abilities. Fourth, they can (and do) eat almost anything, and amazingly find nourishment from most of it. Yes, orcs really ought to have conquered the other races. But to understand why they haven’t, let’s dig a little deeper. See number two there, perhaps it should have been number one, but I’m numbering things here, not you. Anyhow, number two creates problems not just for their neighbors, but for the orcs as well. Right from the beginning (whatever that means), orcs fought. I sometimes think that orcs would even fight over who gets to jump off a cliff first, presuming two of them felt this was a good idea (in fact there were two such orcs, but that is a different story). Orcs fight over who takes out the garbage, who needs to cook, what they should cook, and, of course, who has to mow the lawn (ok, so they don’t really have lawns). While all this fighting makes them pretty good at it, it also acts as population control mechanism. If ever the orcs would stop fighting each other, they would probably, no strike that, definitely start mopping the fields with the humans, and the forests with the elves. I feel safe in declaring this for one simple reason, I’m the author. Now consider what this means for orcish society. The best fighters are the ones who get the best perks in life. They tend to get the girls in high school, be invited to the best parties, and generally tell everyone else what to do, since anyone arguing gets beaten to a pulp. Now if we extend this understanding to orcish military matters (hmm … heh … heh heh heh, HAHAHA!), we see an immediate problem. The best fighters become the leaders, meaning the ones not as good get to be, yes, the common foot soldier (oh wait, they’re ALL foot soldiers since horses are menu items). Further complicating things is the fact that if an orc doesn’t like a command, like say, go jump on yonder pike so I don’t have to or go climb that wall while they pour boiling pitch on your head he usually makes a fuss, whereupon he gets beaten into a pulp and can’t jump or climb anyway. So the common orcish foot soldier is the runt of the litter (yes, orcs have litters, you got a problem with that?), only doing what his commander says when it sounds better than being clobbered. It’s a little hard to get things done this way. I honestly think I’d prefer herding cats (though I’ve never actually tried this). The other drawback of this system is that those with the biggest muscles don’t always make the best decisions. Yes, I hate to say it, but they tend to be dolts. Not all, just most. This leads to a rather unexciting battle strategy: rush the enemy and kill them. And you might as well forget about talking about flanks, as orcs think those are food. No, upon closer inspection, it is fairly miraculous that there are any orcs left at all. The multiple births probably explain this as well as anything. So considering all the facts, one must conclude that the orc is his own worst enemy.

Why the Orc Fights

In the far distant Past, the All Father sought a place to establish his household. Upon finding a place, he gathered of the materials and created a Realm in which to ensure the happiness of the All Mother, his wife. The All Father loved the mountains and hills, the rivers and streams, and indeed the fair blanket of verdant foliage and flora his labors had created. All these things he produced with singleness of heart, however. Above all other things he coveted the pleasure of the All Mother. Well in might be said her delight and contentment motivated all his actions. Upon completion of the establishment of his Realm, he desired more time with the All Mother, and so sought Servants to labor in maintaining all he created. As the All Father surveyed his Realm, he noted three creatures that with time and effort might be made into Servants. From the most graceful and fair came forth the Elves. From the most calculating and industrious emerged the Humans. From the most solid and fierce sprang the Orcs. To these new Servants the All Father set Tasks to ensure his Realm prospered: tending the earth to ensure the beauty of the Realm, care of the creatures within the Realm, ensuring the garners be full in times of cold or famine, and above all, ensuring the continued pleasure and happiness of the All Mother. He left the ordering of these tasks to his Servants, causing the All Mother a sense of foreboding. Among her various qualities she possessed prescience, so she approached her husband, cautioning against this course of action. Had he listened to her counsel, things may have been different. Yet the All Father desired for his Servants to choose how best to complete the Tasks themselves, thus the stage for the drama to unfold.

The Elves were immediately drawn to the Task of caring for the land. Possessing a keen awareness of the most satisfying balance of tree and scrub, meadow and glade, they became the nurturers of the land amplifying the natural beauty of the Realm. The fauna, both avian and terrestrial creatures, also prospered under the assiduous care of the Elves. Soon the air teamed with fowl of all hue, the land crawled with exquisite denizens marvelous to behold. Thus the Elves found their Task, enchanting the All Mother with their labors, finding pleasure in its accomplishment.

The Orcs too were drawn to the fair things of the Realm, also seeking the Task of husbandry of the natural beauty of the Realm. The orchid and the butterfly, these were the things which stirred the heart of every Orc. ‘Twas foredoomed, however, for where the Elf possessed grace and a gentle caress, the Orc a ham-fist and harsh touch. The flowering things withered in the care of the Orcs. Delicate creatures perished under their lumbering attempts at care. ‘Tis a sad fact that disappointment often leads to reckless actions. Frustrated in their attempts, the Orcs looked to the Elves. Seeing the Elves’ success heightened the Orcs’ sense of failure. Aggressive by temperament, they sought to take what they could not produce. They smashed so as to spread their misery, for they were miserable, cursed by their natures as hopeless in their desired Task.

The actions of the Orcs appalled the peace-loving Elves who regarded their behavior as unconscionable and irrational. Knowing not where else to turn, they sought the intervention of the All Mother. For her part, she heard the pleas of the fair ones. Compassion for her Servants caused her to approach her husband, seeking a protection for the Elves and an end to the conflict. The All Mother suggested that perhaps the Orcs were unsuited for such labors, and perhaps he might help them find another Task. The All Father saw the wisdom in this and indeed Intervened. He changed the Orcs that day. No longer did the Orcs see the world as did the Elves. The beauty of the Realm no longer moved the Orc as it had before the Intervention. Their hearts no longer soared with the sonnet of a bird, nor were stirred with the simple poetry of a flower. Their desires more closely matched their temperament and ability. For good or ill, this Intervention remains to this day.

The industrious humans did not remain inactive during the afore mentioned episode. True to their nature, they took the fruits of the earth and created farms and orchards; so to they domesticated animals of the Realm creating ranches and dairies. Soon villages and markets emerged, creating opportunities for trade and in turn, wealth. Their industriousness filled the garners of the Realm, pleasing the All Father and fulfilling a vital Task. The Humans thus became happy and profitable Servants. Life, however, continually changes.

Now that their desires had changed, the Orcs sought a new way in which to fulfill the All Father’s Tasks. They looked to the Humans, noting they seemed to be doing quite well in accomplishing the Tasks. Hence, they too attempted farming and herding, as did their successful fellow Servants. Alas, their fierce natures interfered once again. Farming, a task best completed with cooperation, quickly degenerated into arguments and scuffles with more seed being used as ammunition than ever made it into orderly rows. Trade proved equally frustrating. Trade with other Orcs went the way of farming, and trade with the other Servants also proved unprofitable.

The Elves, mistrustful from previous experience, failed to remain in negotiations when it looked as though bartering might lead to battle. Trading with Humans was worse, as they were all too willing to trade. Whereas the Humans were endowed with the ability to trade cleverly, Orcs were slow to understand the nuance of complicated transactions. As the Orcs continued to come away from bargaining with Humans with less than they started with, resentment and frustration began to build. Eventually the Orcs began bringing their innate skills to the bargaining table. They took farms and orchards, ignored contracts, and destroyed the markets and trading houses of the Humans. The Humans, in face of Orcish aggression, sought the aid of the All Mother.

The All Mother’s benevolence moved her to action. Convinced that again the Orcs were simply inadequate for their chosen Task, she approached the All Father. Seeing her distress at the state of affairs, he considered the problem his Orcs caused. He first separated the Orcs from the Humans, ending their struggle, and abating the distress of his wife. He also Intervened in the affairs of the Orcs a second time, declaring the Orcs should leave the farming and the trading to the Humans. The Second Intervention also remains to this day, so that it is a rare Orc who enjoys trading or farming.

Yet, he knew the Second Intervention could not be a final solution to the problem. His Orcs were combative and continued peace in the Realm seemed impossible while they were about. Further, the Tasks were being fulfilled admirably by his other Servants. Indeed, the Orcs seemed to in fact be the problem. The All Mother, sensing the direction of his thoughts, declared she would be most displeased if the Orcs simply “disappeared.” She counseled that their departure from the Realm would suffice. So it was that the Orcs were to be banished from the Realm.

Yet before their departure, the All Mother granted them this Boon: the Orcs should become a law unto themselves, unbound from the strictures of conduct placed on the remaining Servants, freed from any restraint of the All Father’s will. The All Father then Banished the Orcs, and they became a Race Apart, bearing similarity to the other races, yet different in custom and speech. The Boon allowed them to develop different values, more suited for their new condition. Of necessity, the Orcs grew feral and wild. Finally free to become true to their hearty and ferocious progenitors, the Orcs became a warrior race, valuing toughness and martial skill above all else. By act of will, the Orc became a fighter. This is why the Orc fights.