places of/to worship

the french love to protect their culture and cultural heritage. in the most simple of ways, they have strict quotas on the amount of foreign television that they let into the country. although this does stimulate the french film and tv community and much locally produced content makes it to air in situ and outside of the hexagone, a lot of this content, to be very kind, is really just that content, fluff, and far from being future 'cultural heritage'. in this case i suppose it's more an example of the most 'high' or 'low' of f&tv making out of dodge (e.g 'C'est Gravida qui vous appelle' and '36 Quai des Orfèvres'. the latter being quite simply the worst french film i've ever seen.).

an example more befitting of the cultural heritage tag (the protectionism and preservation of all things truely république) would be the french government's obsession with buying authors' houses, especially should they be threatened with a redevelopment. you can visit the houses of, among many other, hugo, balzac, zola, mallarmé, and yourcenar. these authors clearly have a 'reason' to be heritage listed: their influence and renown are great through the french and non-french world. and no doubt part of making it on 'the list' has to do with the 'friends of associations' that would raise funds to purchase the houses and preserve these authors' patrimoine. but it makes you think, well what of today's authors, who will make the list with the support of their ardent group of follows keen to sanctify these sites of literary creation? from the dead: sartre? cayrol? and from the living: sollers? robbe-grillet (and his cacti)? houellebecq?

but there's a deeper force at work here that makes it possible, that is even conceivable. the spaces themselves and the slow evolution of towns and buildings. such an act of preservation would be impossible in a city like tokyo where a building's average life is only twenty years. such a quick rate of regeneration of space would possibly have an author having lived in 4 buildings in his or her life.

but even if you have the choice, what space should you preserve? the residence of the author at the moment of death, or the garrotte where he or she struggled and starved to produce the great work of literature? which has greater cultural weight? or is the question of kitch value, romantic value? what to remember and what to forget? what to preserve and what to tear down? how can you really know? and what about famous sites for films?

american english

apparently part of the reason americans speak english in such a perculiar way has to do with webster's spelling books. teachers would read aloud and repeat the set examples from the book breaking words into clear syllables. the result was that words in american english were given much more even stress on each syllable.

what a shame that more of the language of the south's slaves didn't make its way into american english.

ellen's got problems. (where do you put the emphasis when you read that? depends on your point of view...)

did the word "aKlimate" prick anybody's ear?

tents and bridges

i know only about building tents. or perhaps more properly forming tents. tent or bridge, they have similar beginnings. they need a solid foundation, a base from which to start, so that their bodies will rise with little stress. but already the differences appear. a bridge builder needs deep foundations. a bridge builder knows it's surrounds, is in contact with the earth it will penetrate, and to some extent, is aware of the immediate earth's geology. clearly a bridge has a history of knowledge imbued in its conception and completion. on the other hand, there is little preparation for a tent. the tent builder needs little: a happy outlook, some shade from the sun, a flat piece of ground, unencumbered by debris. the tent's foundation is the same wherever it should be formed, and knows nothing of the earth's geology, and indeed has no penetration. it is pure surface. the tent builder is free to roam, and his qualities for foundations vary given many multiplying, ever changing factors. that brings us to what the bridge or tent is interested in: the bridge is not interested in the space between its poles, only in conquering this space, and eliminating a whole possibility of exploring the gully it crosses. the tent is versatility, versare to turn, moving around, engaging with space in a different order. although the tent builder knows a range of territories past and present, he is only concerned with the present set of territories. i long sometimes for the stability of the bridge builder's life.

sado-robbe-grillet

the académicien robbe-grillet is about to release another novel, un roman sentimental. damn it! so much for his profession at the time of the release of les derniers jours de corinthe that he was giving up writing. apparently he had other things to do (such as tend to his beloved garden on his property in basse-normandie, which was apparently devasted by a storm. his property was bought with the help of former the former head les éditions de minuit, jérôme lindon. conveniently for robbe-grillet, and his wife, who visits the imec regularly, it is located apparently only 5 minutes drive from the institute where he placed his beloved manuscripts in 1998 after withdrawing them from the bnf), and had no complusive drive to continue writing until his death bed. but two novels have subsequently appeared, and a movie, and by all reports robbe-grillet is still rather healthy, and so there could be plently more to come.

this novel is slightly different from the others in that now at 85 years of age robbe-grillet makes no bones (hahaha!) about it, that his work is in indeed pornographic (or at least likely to offend). that is, according to his interpretation of society's sensibilities.

as happy as i am that robbe-grillet is still out there writing, it seems as though the warning to readers on the plastic sealed book sounds like the best thing about the new book:

« L’Editeur tient à signaler que ce « conte de fées pour adultes » est une fiction fantasmatique qui risque de heurter certaines sensibilités. L’ouvrage n’étant pas massicoté, il est préférable, pour l’ouvrir, d’user d’un instrument coupant plutôt que de son doigt »

wahoo! pages you have to cut. an extra physical, textual delight! better than fingering the pages...

but how wacky is robbe-grillet? he loves to be loved so he can then give the bras d'honneur in return. what was the first thing robbe-grillet did after being elected to the académie? he refused to be offically inducted since he didn't want to wear the traditional costume (he loves his turtle necks so dearly!), and refused to submit his induction speech in advance (he loves to improvise his speeches). and then, of course, he made a film. and now two years after his film, he writes a porno book, or 'conte fées pour adultes', that could well be banned. haha!

repetition

i think the most unnerving thing about politics is the repetitive language. the same words popup again and again. of course that's the politician's staple, repetition, because people don't very often like to listen to them. electorate deafness? perhaps closer to electorate hearing impairment, as though only certain frequencies of a given speech are picked up by only certain individuals. like high-pitched dog whistles. no more finer example than howard's string of great swindles, tampa, children over board, gst, awb etc. and of course, we shouldn't forget howard's pre-hanson statements on 'asian immigration': 'I do believe that if it is - in the eyes of some in the community - that it's too great, it would be in our immediate-term interest and supporting of social cohesion if it were slowed down a little, so the capacity of the community to absorb it was greater'. but even more surprising is the frequency with which he employs the word multiculturalism these days, given that he has said, 'To me, multiculturalism suggests that we can't make up our minds who we are or what we believe in'. even better is his statement, 'I abhor the notion of an Aboriginal treaty because it is repugnant to the ideals of One Australia'.

conversation pour le parc

byrne shows me how i think: 'it's like 60 mins on acid'

byrne enters into a becoming-music

schindler who? it's tom's story!

can authors beat a dead horse anymore? (not a good analogy with our equine influenza epidemic! but the melbourne cup will continue, we are assured by the stoic minister for nothing in particular, peter mcgauren--apparently the billions of dollars the spring carnival brings in can't be missed.) as it turns out, yes! our favourite book turned film, schindler's ark (aka schindler's list, don't know why speilberg wouldn't want those christian connotations?! the book ['82] was republished as schindler's list after the film ['94]. n.b the title also received some criticism amongst american jews, something keneally doesn't address in his new book.), is receiving its own explanation in searching for schindler, a memoir. well not so much an explanation as a tommo festival of wonder! how hard it was to write, reflecting on a european war even tho he's a failed seminarian from suburban sydney, how it was to go to the oscars, and for good measure some 2000 sydney olympics joy. how you beaut!

bukowskian poetics

how is it possible that everyone can appeal to some greater conception, or understanding of reality to justify their poetic? does our understanding of reality grow so continuously? are beer shits the finally word on poetics?

littell's studies

jonathan littell is about to publish his second book, le sec et l'humide, 12 months after his goncourt winner les bienveillantes. this time it's an essay aimed explaining his approach to writing. and good timing too, since fata morgana are to release a book of four short texts, that apparently served as 'studies' for les bienveillantes.