Thursday 23 July 2009
Monday 12 March 2007
Travelogue No. 1
(What follows is the unedited transcript of a bunch of emails sent to my friend Leora Lev on sequential days whilst spending a week in Brest, France. The idea being that, an unedited, 'true' transcript will more accurately document, despite/because of typographical spasms, grammatical slumps, my time in Brest, which, in close hindsight has already etched itself into my chronology as some sort of landmark experiential plateau, and thus, the above/the below will subsequently be modified and adapted into the textual spine of an extended musical work called 'Elysium', the music for which I have already started composing...)
Lettres De Brest:
Chere Leora,
so.... Day Two in Brest, I figured I'd proffer a sporadic travelogue, given I have plentiful net access....so, here goes...
Arrived yesterday around four, avec Diarmuid, were collected at the airport by his friends Regis and Cathi, wonderful, positive, accommodating and fun duo of crazed hedonists.... Had a few ales at the local swillhouse, then went along to see the final night of Kindertotenlieder. C'etait absolutement incroyable!!! Amazing, ultra-visceral, tangible haze of damage and hallucinatory as all hell, beautiful texts by Uncle D. Then, naturally, spent some time catching up with Dennis, Gisele and the cast, wonderful evening... trolled along to the alehouse where my crusty and primitive French enjoyed a slow maturation merely by being in the presence of French-speaking, warm, humane creatures, then along to the babylonian drunkhouse elysium of Hotel Vaubam, where many glasses were emptied and much idle chatter spent, beautiful, revealing fun.... Tonight, we have an audience with a brace of fresh dogs, then onto the restaurant of which Regis is manager, and then, qui sais...? Seeing I Apologise on thursday, hopefully catching up with Gisele and co. for drinks and exchanges at some point, and hopefully hopping across a stretch to the island of Ouessant...
And tell me, please, all about the symposium, I'm intrigued and excited to hear of the polyfluous melting pot of synaptic machinegunning....hehe...
Ok, better dash pour maintenant, but more from me soon, with further episodes of travelogue....
Given I recently totally isolated dairy from my diet, based on its sinal abandon, I'm proud and pleased to announce, that I drunkenly succumbed to the fetid delights of local fromage last night and woke today no more fluid or migraine-encumbered than if I hadn't. Fingers crossed for continued backdoor cheesery...
Bisous et el,
Nick.xoxoxox
A ma chere soeur...
Day two! And a deliciously eventful one at that....
Erm... had an audience and aperitif with the brace of hounds and their security guard owner, Papoune, which spiralled predictably into an extended hedonistic spree between various establishments of dubious repute... Had a ravishing and gorgeous meal at La Scala - the restaurant managed by Regis, Beautiful Milanaise au saumon et trop beaucoup de chocolat... Et puis... went to a musick venue, resident troubadour playing stripped-down acoustic renditions of new metal anthems... Got chatting with him, I find my French - vocab and intonation - improving, collaged together from cohabiting with colourfully bilingual types... great fun, then onto a bar called The Tudor, tres Anglaise! Where, we were joined by the lunatic fringe staff of Regis' restaurant post-shift and on a mission towards self-obliteration, much fun, got talking to a rather handsome chef called Xavier, and ended up going chez lui and.... ahem....
Alors... yummmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyy! Which is good and long overdue, so I've been somewhat delirious all day, catalysed by the release of this most enjoyable liason...
Le nuit, je pense que we will perhaps take it relatively easy, ou j'espere, my sleeping pattern operates according to the logic of fractals right now...!
So, had a very liberating vocal workout along to Meredith Monk chez Xavier ce matin, his room has enormous, cavernous acoustic qualities... I'm enjoying exploring sympathetic resonances with my voice, tuning my larynx and her children to the specific frequency of a room, a sink, a toilet, such wondrous, explosive and surprising amplification...
Also dreamt the other night of a notion: that food (or anything) can be transmitted as sound...that their must be a correspondent frequency for every object and concept...and in oneiric rapture considering that one could survive on sound alone...I believe there's a sect, or Tibetan brotherhood that sustain their existences exclusively by maintaing vibration at extremely high (for solid matter) frequencies... hmmm...
Also dreaming aspirationally of holographic food, whereby the third world famine issue is righted bombastically.... break a morsel from a whole foodstuff, and it is replicated completely, as a fragment, in the same way the shards of a shattered hologram will possess the complete image... hehe....fanciful whimsy of course, but this is the conceptual elasticity with which my mind is ricocheting these days....!
Ok, todays' travelogue entry really should conclude here, as I need to rest briefly before Regis and Diarmuid return from the store with, inevitably, a magnum of lambrusco or something...
Ok, Plus a demain, bien sur...
Bises,
Nick.xoxoxox
Oh. I can'r believe, I spent an hour and half composing the entries of the last two days, very comprehensively, and owing to a minir keyboard extra-sensitivity, it got deleted, so, fuck, agh, I shall recount, thoroughly, when next we meet, hopefully soon chez-toi....j'espere completement...
Ok, well, disappointed that almost two hours of travelogue got vapourised.... mais, here's to beacoup des futirs...
Or something...
Soon,
Bises, ciao, amores,
Nick.xoxoxoxox
Alors...
Here I sit swaddled in weighty blankets, where I'll attempt to recount the beautiful armageddons of the precious three nights (I specify nights because fragments of sleep have been caught between the hours of seven am and three pm chaque jour....)...
Ok, so after the liason tres erotique avec le garcon Xavier....ai-ai-ai.... we woke, continued, I sang a while.... joined the others.......and the chronology from hereonin may be somewhat sketchy and conducive to reconfiguring with the clarity of a post-apocalyptic memory... as accurately as I can recall.... we drank, and drank, Diarmuid left us, retired to read Harry Potter, Regis and I embraced the mission and went along to a bizarre little queer venue called Le Melting, where we got ogled, cuddled and squeaked at by the landlord's wasted mother... we saw some wonderful, physical, texturally-invigorating art, very post-Pollock dispatches of oily globules...very beautiful....and then several gins later, we got a taxi across to a 'disco' s'appeller La Chamade, which was essentially empty sauf pour us, a pocketful of pissed-up teenage mariners, tres Anglaise, leering, posturing, waddling about spewing patriotic gibberish in Lancastrian gooey brogue.... I don't wanna speak to English people whilst en France, tu sais?! Anyway, so we had a bottle of gin between us and decided that pole dancing seemed the best way to progress the evening....donc, we danced, swayed and span like lunatics, and were joined on the floor (souvent literalement!!!) by a thrity year old KGB agent, we cleared the floor, at some point glowsticks were distributed, and naturally, Regis fashioned his into a luminescent cockring, et moi, well, I threatened the heterocentric machismo of the sailors by faux-sodomising myself with another glowstick.... NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!! They were absolutely appalled, which is parfait, parce que we were absolutely appalling... then Regis got talking to a twenty stone bearded slezy oaf, with whom through drunken lenses, he figured it was best to go home and make sex.... so I was idly tossed into a taxi, manned by a beligerent, Anglophobe who basically deposited me randomly nowhere near where I was supposed to be staying, so, having no credit on my phone, I phoned customer services, asked them if I could be given a tiny amount of free credit in an emergency state, they conceded fifty pence, I phoned Diarmuid, transmitted about three percent of the necessary information, considered sleeping in a) a wheelie bin or b) a phone box.... anyway, phoned customer services again, was given personal extension for the helpful operator who offered to send a text to Diarmuid.... alors.... in order to give Karan this number, I'd have to put the phone down, transcribe it somehow, so got the necessary details, attempted to scribe the number into a wall using Cathy's key, eventually settled on the wheelie bin, after having michturated amply all over it... phoned back, gave number, dictated text.... then saw a local hotel foyer beaming with light, so rang for admittance, fumbled my situation to the night porter, he alowed me to use the phone for free, called Diarmuid, embarrassed, fudged my details, whereabouts, eventually got collected by Regis (relieved to have been interrupted, as the oaf had, amongst a nest of rabbit shit, spent the last hour boring Regis to pieces with his Bosnia photos....) and guided back to Cathy's.... where, relief, phew...until, I realized the keys I'd been given appeared to be the wrong keys... so, half six in the morning, rang the bell, whined 'Cathy!!!!@, got let in by a dazed but gracious Breton host... where chatted a while.... et puis, je dormir....finalement.....
Then... got up, about two, the aperitif was called, in Cafe De La Plage, we performed the barfly routine admirably....three pickled stooges propped on stools, Regis et moi were rather soporiphic....Diarmuid went to The Dubliners..... Regis and I returned to the flat....I passed out with fatigue a while to Joanna Newsom's winsome cooing.... then we joined D at The Dubliners, where reinvigorated, the flavoured vodkas flowed generously.... I started behaving very strangely.... we all hopped in a taxi and went to The Red Dragon (the city that never sleeps....every country should have one...), where, until five, we danced...I lusted quite verbally over a fey English cocktease called Alex... got deliriously drunk, guided home by a hiccuping D about six, whereupon I got good slep until about two... we rose, I meandered slowly through town, played half an album on a piano in a music shop to a goggled-eyed, unblinking Algerian toddler....met up with D and R, R announced we were to meet friends of his in The Tudor at three, so off we trotted, aperitif occured and lasted five hours, D went to a conference by Jean-luc Verna, R and I bought beaucoup du vin, prepared food, drank wine, chatted... civilised up until a point.... then we went along to a rather more mainstream, but still fucking bizarre, gay club called The Happy Cafe, the shots trickled violently from the bar, somebody take away my debit card, please...!!... and then notic ing a trio of vacant pole-podia in the rear of the club, Regis and I seized the opportunity by the shimmery pink horns, threw ourselves all over the poles, pirouhetting spasmodically, were joined by a Parisian couple, who expressed great interest in music, in between sub-Chuck Berry twirling, throwing etc.... absolutely disgraceful,....then onto The Red Dragon again, new freinds in tow.... danced like epileptic hardcore fans...while the vodka debt piled up.... The Dubliners gang joined us... Regis suddenly appeared semi-naked, I resumed the flirting with fey Alex, told him he was a fucking cocktease, congratulated him, got told I was beautiful, thankee sehr gut.... I launched my bank card at the bar in a whirlwind dervish apocalypse of financial abandon, we all danced, chattered, swerved and warped....nipple-tweaking.... derrieres...G-strings....I fauned all over this Alex entity right in front of his cute Breton pixie bride.... shameless... Xavier joined, fantastic, hopefully meeting with him again later.... eventually fell back into the flat about six, prepared a sea food stir-fry (obviously?!?)... I started transcribing the events as Regis and Diarmuid stumbled, fumbled, mumbled, we opened more wine, my transcription got lost with a rogue keyboard flourish.... my final memorie of last night were....Regis naked, on the floor, gargling, me throwing seafood all over my jeans, coordination uterly compromised by les plasirs alcool....and Diarmuid explaining that I'm OD-ing Brest with bisous....
Woke about twelve, listened to The Rite of Spring, coiled on the sofa....and re-commenced this transcription.... and ergo, donc, therefore, voila....and the above is merely the regaling of events.... the thousand volume tome detailing my responses, emotionally, cerebrally, philosophically, shall follow at some point, I know...
Pour maintenant...:
xx
Ma chere soeur,
Bien sur, I'm taking care of myself as and when necessary....! Yesterday for instance involved seulement un petit demis a bier.... vraiment....! Yes, indeed, yesterday it was proven absolutely necessary to NOT drink and to NOT revel in swathes of dionysian lunacy until the wee, misty hours... so no, we woke, felt absolutely abysmal, eventually motivated our pole-dance-beleagured little pieds to take a stroll down by the port, the castle et al, all of which, naturally inflamed the urge to re-read upon returning home, the tome by our gnostic Saint Genet, now that I have a feel for the ambience and layout of the place. Brest, I'm absolutey spellbound, besotted by... a very urban, modern - rebuilt almost from scratch after the war - Dennis found it distinctly unpalatable, his tastes governed by a more orthodox elegance peut-etre? But I'm loving it, we visited l'eglise St. Louis, built entirely of concrete and resembling a boat-cum-cathedral as designed by, say, Albert Speer...I should have some photos and will, bien sur, send to you.
In the evening, we ambled along to Le Quartz, the venue hosting L'antipodes Festivale, where Gisele is resident artist, and we saw I Apologise, the first of her and Uncle Dennis' collaborative works. Simply put: amazing. Absolutely mesmerising in its audio-visual layering, and as a work of choreography alone, it dazzles so brilliantly - dialogues of leitmotifs, non-chronologically-rendered visual correlatives, truly mind-bending, and with only three performers in addition to a stage-ful of dolls.... wowowowow! Spoke to Gisele afterwards, toujours un plaisir - you recall I stayed with her in Paris in september. A wonderful, dynamic, vibrant seam of energy and kindness, we're hopefully meeting up for informal exchanges in a bar ce soir...boo-hoo, it be my last evening in Brest, mais, probablement il faut necessair que je retourner - pour raisons d'argent, and my mind and body!!! This afternoon I think we may be taking a drive out to the countryside to bask with books amongst cliffs, beaches etc....
Re: the zine, no, Uncle Dennis never actually completed the interview, which is a pity as a) they were questions whose answers I'm still intrigued to befriend and b) I postponed the release of the zine for so long, based on waiting for his interview - and concurrently had collated all but his pages - that the interviews I undertook with The Hidden Cameras and Xiu Xiu were rendered obselete, both being based on their imminent new releases.... But never mind, we know he's emerging from a rather sticky annus horribilus, and hey, it was a good exercise. I feel a little bad for the artists I harangued into contributing, but hey, most of them were/are friends anyway, and I may reconstitute the less temporally-specific texts into un bete nouveau, non...?
Yes, I hope to get to Paris at some point, perhaps for just a weekend, before the summer. I NEED to catch the David Lynch retrospective.... And how wonderful it would be to meet up, if not then, definitely, absolutely, and certainly this year ma tres chere soeur....
Nick.xooxooxoox
Alors,
And so it drags to a dribbling, ecstatic close.... yesterday we took a countryside drive around the local coastal villages, tres, tres, beau, vraiment.... wow. Saw la couvent saint-maur - a gorgeous, collapsed, absent monastery once housed by a remote Benedictine faction.... and a beach at Ploumoguer, the 'arms of Brittainy', amazing bay embrace, where we danced barefoot (Patti Smith) dans la mer, and where we found whelks/limpets/cockles on the rocks, levered them off, prised them open and ate, tres, tres fraiche, amazing... et aussi....alors.... La Pointe De St. Mathieu - site of the monastery which used to house un tour de feu - since replaced by a non-demoninational white model... we saw a tiny chapel and ate primroses, made whooping, squeaking, shrill reed noises with grass blades.... beautiful, magickal afternoon.... then, the aperitif occured in The Dubliners, where I got to spend time with almost everyone I've met throughout the week... lovely, relatively sane until the anthemic numbers boomed from enormous speakers, glowsticks (encore...oh dear...) were presented to all and draped like a James Bidgood frieze from ears, nipples, hair, napes of shirts...a like a collective human chandelier.... Regis et moi tripped out to The Melting under the guise of collecting ordered pizzas...just for two....back to The Dubliners with pizza....yum... back to The Melting for several palmfuls of the sangria we glimpsed in the first instance...then back to The Dubliners...more pints, glowsticks...Dexys Midnight Runners fashioning an odd segue with my return home - Kevin Rowlands, principal singer/player/composer in DMR eats in our cafe at least three times a day... - then after multiple attempts to connect with a rather drunk Gisele, we end up scrambling raucously to La Stendhale...where after much barging, conniving, we skip the queue, only to get physically and forcibly ejected by the bouncers as Regis refuses to pay an exorbitant admission.... petits anarchistes, non..? And then (oh, Xavier has been with us all the way/by the way) we fall into The Red Dragon, which is superlatively crammed with gawping, wasted revelers... too densely packed with blitzed humans - I meet Regis' cousin, and in drunken collaged pigeon Franglaise have an enjoyable exchange... et puis.... based on the density of drunk mass (et des raison autres....hehe), Xavier and I decide to leave... arm in arm we shunt back to his - bizarrely, passing pixie cocktease Alex en route (!?!), wearing an alpaca hippie bonnet.... back to Xaviers.... 'etc'... wake et plus 'etc'... a shower, Joanna Newsom, we part, I stumble through Brest still drunk, get breakfast, journey chez Cathy, where I get an hours rest, listening again to Joanna - deliberately, fixedly concentrating on the orchestral parts exclusively, amazing, and an epiphany in terms of my musical evolution, the ability to maximally concentrate my attention on very specific ribbons, swathes, phrases, flourishes.... and thus figure out immediately how to play very complex melodic lines, chromatic meanderings.... which to an extent I could do before, but now, plateau, landmark.... departed for Regis', which took me thirteen minutes allowing for non-specific wandering....
And now, I sit typing this, invigorated, tripping out on the memories, the stories, the moments, episodes, vignettes, exchanges, compositions.....of the week, which, bien sur, feels like a year, so alien, foreign, seductive, now homely, my life... (life directs you where you are supposed to be if you submit to its current....) and I'd happily move here, and perhaps will....
With this travelogue, I have fashioned the textual basis of the extended guitar/voice work, which for the next two months, in relative seclusion, I will develop for debuting as a whole at the festival in May... this week truly has been and always will register as an exceptional landmark - on no meagre account for the liberty, hedonism, the sense of seulement being...BEING...
To close, Joanna Newsom's album, the musical fuel, obsession, delight of recent months, is called 'Ys', which is a town in Breton legend dealing with love, decadence, floods, passion... more floods.... and I was privileged to hear the tale recounted by a Breton local - Cathy, to whom I am, along with Regis, gloriously, and happily indebted... and so they will be, amongst the first, with Diarmuid, to receive copies of the disc when complete. As, bien sur, will you, for permitting me the screen on which to paint my own strokes of the above, throughout this week.
Thank you.
xxx
Chere Leora,
so.... Day Two in Brest, I figured I'd proffer a sporadic travelogue, given I have plentiful net access....so, here goes...
Arrived yesterday around four, avec Diarmuid, were collected at the airport by his friends Regis and Cathi, wonderful, positive, accommodating and fun duo of crazed hedonists.... Had a few ales at the local swillhouse, then went along to see the final night of Kindertotenlieder. C'etait absolutement incroyable!!! Amazing, ultra-visceral, tangible haze of damage and hallucinatory as all hell, beautiful texts by Uncle D. Then, naturally, spent some time catching up with Dennis, Gisele and the cast, wonderful evening... trolled along to the alehouse where my crusty and primitive French enjoyed a slow maturation merely by being in the presence of French-speaking, warm, humane creatures, then along to the babylonian drunkhouse elysium of Hotel Vaubam, where many glasses were emptied and much idle chatter spent, beautiful, revealing fun.... Tonight, we have an audience with a brace of fresh dogs, then onto the restaurant of which Regis is manager, and then, qui sais...? Seeing I Apologise on thursday, hopefully catching up with Gisele and co. for drinks and exchanges at some point, and hopefully hopping across a stretch to the island of Ouessant...
And tell me, please, all about the symposium, I'm intrigued and excited to hear of the polyfluous melting pot of synaptic machinegunning....hehe...
Ok, better dash pour maintenant, but more from me soon, with further episodes of travelogue....
Given I recently totally isolated dairy from my diet, based on its sinal abandon, I'm proud and pleased to announce, that I drunkenly succumbed to the fetid delights of local fromage last night and woke today no more fluid or migraine-encumbered than if I hadn't. Fingers crossed for continued backdoor cheesery...
Bisous et el,
Nick.xoxoxox
A ma chere soeur...
Day two! And a deliciously eventful one at that....
Erm... had an audience and aperitif with the brace of hounds and their security guard owner, Papoune, which spiralled predictably into an extended hedonistic spree between various establishments of dubious repute... Had a ravishing and gorgeous meal at La Scala - the restaurant managed by Regis, Beautiful Milanaise au saumon et trop beaucoup de chocolat... Et puis... went to a musick venue, resident troubadour playing stripped-down acoustic renditions of new metal anthems... Got chatting with him, I find my French - vocab and intonation - improving, collaged together from cohabiting with colourfully bilingual types... great fun, then onto a bar called The Tudor, tres Anglaise! Where, we were joined by the lunatic fringe staff of Regis' restaurant post-shift and on a mission towards self-obliteration, much fun, got talking to a rather handsome chef called Xavier, and ended up going chez lui and.... ahem....
Alors... yummmmmmmmmmmyyyyyyyy! Which is good and long overdue, so I've been somewhat delirious all day, catalysed by the release of this most enjoyable liason...
Le nuit, je pense que we will perhaps take it relatively easy, ou j'espere, my sleeping pattern operates according to the logic of fractals right now...!
So, had a very liberating vocal workout along to Meredith Monk chez Xavier ce matin, his room has enormous, cavernous acoustic qualities... I'm enjoying exploring sympathetic resonances with my voice, tuning my larynx and her children to the specific frequency of a room, a sink, a toilet, such wondrous, explosive and surprising amplification...
Also dreamt the other night of a notion: that food (or anything) can be transmitted as sound...that their must be a correspondent frequency for every object and concept...and in oneiric rapture considering that one could survive on sound alone...I believe there's a sect, or Tibetan brotherhood that sustain their existences exclusively by maintaing vibration at extremely high (for solid matter) frequencies... hmmm...
Also dreaming aspirationally of holographic food, whereby the third world famine issue is righted bombastically.... break a morsel from a whole foodstuff, and it is replicated completely, as a fragment, in the same way the shards of a shattered hologram will possess the complete image... hehe....fanciful whimsy of course, but this is the conceptual elasticity with which my mind is ricocheting these days....!
Ok, todays' travelogue entry really should conclude here, as I need to rest briefly before Regis and Diarmuid return from the store with, inevitably, a magnum of lambrusco or something...
Ok, Plus a demain, bien sur...
Bises,
Nick.xoxoxox
Oh. I can'r believe, I spent an hour and half composing the entries of the last two days, very comprehensively, and owing to a minir keyboard extra-sensitivity, it got deleted, so, fuck, agh, I shall recount, thoroughly, when next we meet, hopefully soon chez-toi....j'espere completement...
Ok, well, disappointed that almost two hours of travelogue got vapourised.... mais, here's to beacoup des futirs...
Or something...
Soon,
Bises, ciao, amores,
Nick.xoxoxoxox
Alors...
Here I sit swaddled in weighty blankets, where I'll attempt to recount the beautiful armageddons of the precious three nights (I specify nights because fragments of sleep have been caught between the hours of seven am and three pm chaque jour....)...
Ok, so after the liason tres erotique avec le garcon Xavier....ai-ai-ai.... we woke, continued, I sang a while.... joined the others.......and the chronology from hereonin may be somewhat sketchy and conducive to reconfiguring with the clarity of a post-apocalyptic memory... as accurately as I can recall.... we drank, and drank, Diarmuid left us, retired to read Harry Potter, Regis and I embraced the mission and went along to a bizarre little queer venue called Le Melting, where we got ogled, cuddled and squeaked at by the landlord's wasted mother... we saw some wonderful, physical, texturally-invigorating art, very post-Pollock dispatches of oily globules...very beautiful....and then several gins later, we got a taxi across to a 'disco' s'appeller La Chamade, which was essentially empty sauf pour us, a pocketful of pissed-up teenage mariners, tres Anglaise, leering, posturing, waddling about spewing patriotic gibberish in Lancastrian gooey brogue.... I don't wanna speak to English people whilst en France, tu sais?! Anyway, so we had a bottle of gin between us and decided that pole dancing seemed the best way to progress the evening....donc, we danced, swayed and span like lunatics, and were joined on the floor (souvent literalement!!!) by a thrity year old KGB agent, we cleared the floor, at some point glowsticks were distributed, and naturally, Regis fashioned his into a luminescent cockring, et moi, well, I threatened the heterocentric machismo of the sailors by faux-sodomising myself with another glowstick.... NO YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!! They were absolutely appalled, which is parfait, parce que we were absolutely appalling... then Regis got talking to a twenty stone bearded slezy oaf, with whom through drunken lenses, he figured it was best to go home and make sex.... so I was idly tossed into a taxi, manned by a beligerent, Anglophobe who basically deposited me randomly nowhere near where I was supposed to be staying, so, having no credit on my phone, I phoned customer services, asked them if I could be given a tiny amount of free credit in an emergency state, they conceded fifty pence, I phoned Diarmuid, transmitted about three percent of the necessary information, considered sleeping in a) a wheelie bin or b) a phone box.... anyway, phoned customer services again, was given personal extension for the helpful operator who offered to send a text to Diarmuid.... alors.... in order to give Karan this number, I'd have to put the phone down, transcribe it somehow, so got the necessary details, attempted to scribe the number into a wall using Cathy's key, eventually settled on the wheelie bin, after having michturated amply all over it... phoned back, gave number, dictated text.... then saw a local hotel foyer beaming with light, so rang for admittance, fumbled my situation to the night porter, he alowed me to use the phone for free, called Diarmuid, embarrassed, fudged my details, whereabouts, eventually got collected by Regis (relieved to have been interrupted, as the oaf had, amongst a nest of rabbit shit, spent the last hour boring Regis to pieces with his Bosnia photos....) and guided back to Cathy's.... where, relief, phew...until, I realized the keys I'd been given appeared to be the wrong keys... so, half six in the morning, rang the bell, whined 'Cathy!!!!@, got let in by a dazed but gracious Breton host... where chatted a while.... et puis, je dormir....finalement.....
Then... got up, about two, the aperitif was called, in Cafe De La Plage, we performed the barfly routine admirably....three pickled stooges propped on stools, Regis et moi were rather soporiphic....Diarmuid went to The Dubliners..... Regis and I returned to the flat....I passed out with fatigue a while to Joanna Newsom's winsome cooing.... then we joined D at The Dubliners, where reinvigorated, the flavoured vodkas flowed generously.... I started behaving very strangely.... we all hopped in a taxi and went to The Red Dragon (the city that never sleeps....every country should have one...), where, until five, we danced...I lusted quite verbally over a fey English cocktease called Alex... got deliriously drunk, guided home by a hiccuping D about six, whereupon I got good slep until about two... we rose, I meandered slowly through town, played half an album on a piano in a music shop to a goggled-eyed, unblinking Algerian toddler....met up with D and R, R announced we were to meet friends of his in The Tudor at three, so off we trotted, aperitif occured and lasted five hours, D went to a conference by Jean-luc Verna, R and I bought beaucoup du vin, prepared food, drank wine, chatted... civilised up until a point.... then we went along to a rather more mainstream, but still fucking bizarre, gay club called The Happy Cafe, the shots trickled violently from the bar, somebody take away my debit card, please...!!... and then notic ing a trio of vacant pole-podia in the rear of the club, Regis and I seized the opportunity by the shimmery pink horns, threw ourselves all over the poles, pirouhetting spasmodically, were joined by a Parisian couple, who expressed great interest in music, in between sub-Chuck Berry twirling, throwing etc.... absolutely disgraceful,....then onto The Red Dragon again, new freinds in tow.... danced like epileptic hardcore fans...while the vodka debt piled up.... The Dubliners gang joined us... Regis suddenly appeared semi-naked, I resumed the flirting with fey Alex, told him he was a fucking cocktease, congratulated him, got told I was beautiful, thankee sehr gut.... I launched my bank card at the bar in a whirlwind dervish apocalypse of financial abandon, we all danced, chattered, swerved and warped....nipple-tweaking.... derrieres...G-strings....I fauned all over this Alex entity right in front of his cute Breton pixie bride.... shameless... Xavier joined, fantastic, hopefully meeting with him again later.... eventually fell back into the flat about six, prepared a sea food stir-fry (obviously?!?)... I started transcribing the events as Regis and Diarmuid stumbled, fumbled, mumbled, we opened more wine, my transcription got lost with a rogue keyboard flourish.... my final memorie of last night were....Regis naked, on the floor, gargling, me throwing seafood all over my jeans, coordination uterly compromised by les plasirs alcool....and Diarmuid explaining that I'm OD-ing Brest with bisous....
Woke about twelve, listened to The Rite of Spring, coiled on the sofa....and re-commenced this transcription.... and ergo, donc, therefore, voila....and the above is merely the regaling of events.... the thousand volume tome detailing my responses, emotionally, cerebrally, philosophically, shall follow at some point, I know...
Pour maintenant...:
xx
Ma chere soeur,
Bien sur, I'm taking care of myself as and when necessary....! Yesterday for instance involved seulement un petit demis a bier.... vraiment....! Yes, indeed, yesterday it was proven absolutely necessary to NOT drink and to NOT revel in swathes of dionysian lunacy until the wee, misty hours... so no, we woke, felt absolutely abysmal, eventually motivated our pole-dance-beleagured little pieds to take a stroll down by the port, the castle et al, all of which, naturally inflamed the urge to re-read upon returning home, the tome by our gnostic Saint Genet, now that I have a feel for the ambience and layout of the place. Brest, I'm absolutey spellbound, besotted by... a very urban, modern - rebuilt almost from scratch after the war - Dennis found it distinctly unpalatable, his tastes governed by a more orthodox elegance peut-etre? But I'm loving it, we visited l'eglise St. Louis, built entirely of concrete and resembling a boat-cum-cathedral as designed by, say, Albert Speer...I should have some photos and will, bien sur, send to you.
In the evening, we ambled along to Le Quartz, the venue hosting L'antipodes Festivale, where Gisele is resident artist, and we saw I Apologise, the first of her and Uncle Dennis' collaborative works. Simply put: amazing. Absolutely mesmerising in its audio-visual layering, and as a work of choreography alone, it dazzles so brilliantly - dialogues of leitmotifs, non-chronologically-rendered visual correlatives, truly mind-bending, and with only three performers in addition to a stage-ful of dolls.... wowowowow! Spoke to Gisele afterwards, toujours un plaisir - you recall I stayed with her in Paris in september. A wonderful, dynamic, vibrant seam of energy and kindness, we're hopefully meeting up for informal exchanges in a bar ce soir...boo-hoo, it be my last evening in Brest, mais, probablement il faut necessair que je retourner - pour raisons d'argent, and my mind and body!!! This afternoon I think we may be taking a drive out to the countryside to bask with books amongst cliffs, beaches etc....
Re: the zine, no, Uncle Dennis never actually completed the interview, which is a pity as a) they were questions whose answers I'm still intrigued to befriend and b) I postponed the release of the zine for so long, based on waiting for his interview - and concurrently had collated all but his pages - that the interviews I undertook with The Hidden Cameras and Xiu Xiu were rendered obselete, both being based on their imminent new releases.... But never mind, we know he's emerging from a rather sticky annus horribilus, and hey, it was a good exercise. I feel a little bad for the artists I harangued into contributing, but hey, most of them were/are friends anyway, and I may reconstitute the less temporally-specific texts into un bete nouveau, non...?
Yes, I hope to get to Paris at some point, perhaps for just a weekend, before the summer. I NEED to catch the David Lynch retrospective.... And how wonderful it would be to meet up, if not then, definitely, absolutely, and certainly this year ma tres chere soeur....
Nick.xooxooxoox
Alors,
And so it drags to a dribbling, ecstatic close.... yesterday we took a countryside drive around the local coastal villages, tres, tres, beau, vraiment.... wow. Saw la couvent saint-maur - a gorgeous, collapsed, absent monastery once housed by a remote Benedictine faction.... and a beach at Ploumoguer, the 'arms of Brittainy', amazing bay embrace, where we danced barefoot (Patti Smith) dans la mer, and where we found whelks/limpets/cockles on the rocks, levered them off, prised them open and ate, tres, tres fraiche, amazing... et aussi....alors.... La Pointe De St. Mathieu - site of the monastery which used to house un tour de feu - since replaced by a non-demoninational white model... we saw a tiny chapel and ate primroses, made whooping, squeaking, shrill reed noises with grass blades.... beautiful, magickal afternoon.... then, the aperitif occured in The Dubliners, where I got to spend time with almost everyone I've met throughout the week... lovely, relatively sane until the anthemic numbers boomed from enormous speakers, glowsticks (encore...oh dear...) were presented to all and draped like a James Bidgood frieze from ears, nipples, hair, napes of shirts...a like a collective human chandelier.... Regis et moi tripped out to The Melting under the guise of collecting ordered pizzas...just for two....back to The Dubliners with pizza....yum... back to The Melting for several palmfuls of the sangria we glimpsed in the first instance...then back to The Dubliners...more pints, glowsticks...Dexys Midnight Runners fashioning an odd segue with my return home - Kevin Rowlands, principal singer/player/composer in DMR eats in our cafe at least three times a day... - then after multiple attempts to connect with a rather drunk Gisele, we end up scrambling raucously to La Stendhale...where after much barging, conniving, we skip the queue, only to get physically and forcibly ejected by the bouncers as Regis refuses to pay an exorbitant admission.... petits anarchistes, non..? And then (oh, Xavier has been with us all the way/by the way) we fall into The Red Dragon, which is superlatively crammed with gawping, wasted revelers... too densely packed with blitzed humans - I meet Regis' cousin, and in drunken collaged pigeon Franglaise have an enjoyable exchange... et puis.... based on the density of drunk mass (et des raison autres....hehe), Xavier and I decide to leave... arm in arm we shunt back to his - bizarrely, passing pixie cocktease Alex en route (!?!), wearing an alpaca hippie bonnet.... back to Xaviers.... 'etc'... wake et plus 'etc'... a shower, Joanna Newsom, we part, I stumble through Brest still drunk, get breakfast, journey chez Cathy, where I get an hours rest, listening again to Joanna - deliberately, fixedly concentrating on the orchestral parts exclusively, amazing, and an epiphany in terms of my musical evolution, the ability to maximally concentrate my attention on very specific ribbons, swathes, phrases, flourishes.... and thus figure out immediately how to play very complex melodic lines, chromatic meanderings.... which to an extent I could do before, but now, plateau, landmark.... departed for Regis', which took me thirteen minutes allowing for non-specific wandering....
And now, I sit typing this, invigorated, tripping out on the memories, the stories, the moments, episodes, vignettes, exchanges, compositions.....of the week, which, bien sur, feels like a year, so alien, foreign, seductive, now homely, my life... (life directs you where you are supposed to be if you submit to its current....) and I'd happily move here, and perhaps will....
With this travelogue, I have fashioned the textual basis of the extended guitar/voice work, which for the next two months, in relative seclusion, I will develop for debuting as a whole at the festival in May... this week truly has been and always will register as an exceptional landmark - on no meagre account for the liberty, hedonism, the sense of seulement being...BEING...
To close, Joanna Newsom's album, the musical fuel, obsession, delight of recent months, is called 'Ys', which is a town in Breton legend dealing with love, decadence, floods, passion... more floods.... and I was privileged to hear the tale recounted by a Breton local - Cathy, to whom I am, along with Regis, gloriously, and happily indebted... and so they will be, amongst the first, with Diarmuid, to receive copies of the disc when complete. As, bien sur, will you, for permitting me the screen on which to paint my own strokes of the above, throughout this week.
Thank you.
xxx
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