The Wonderful World of TamTam Books

"Baron Court All Change" by Terry Taylor

2012-02-07T20:53:00.001-08:00

Stewart Home has been raving about "Baron's Court, All Change" by Terry Taylor for a long time now. Well, he's a man of great taste, and this novel is a superb snapshot of London circ. very late 1950's. The narrative is a page-turner, but what is really great is the language -especially coming the main character, who has a way with British slang unlike the futuristic Alex from "A Clockwork Orange." Our teenage hero is totally over 'normal' life, yet he's still from that world and is quite sweet. But with the introduction of Charge (pot) and his love of Jazz music - he goes into the world of modern jazz and pot dealing. Taylor wrote this novel when he was quite young, yet the writing and his observations are very sharp. This book is very much a proto-mod attitude towards life, music, drugs, and the need to break away. Fascinating work!

"Adrift in Soho" by Colin Wilson

2012-02-03T22:04:00.000-08:00

About three years before Swinging London hit the headlines, Colin Wilson of "Outsider" fame was writing about the down and out (and in) Soho. This was Wilson's second novel which reads like a memoir, and is a really beautiful snapshot of boho London before it was defined by the popular media of the time. For some life was very causal, and for the hardcore Soho citizen a way of life that totally ignore the mainstream view of life. Colin Wilson always struck me as a romantic, but in a very good way. And this is a very solid and a very quick read into the world of Soho, London and its citizens. And like any good book on London, the city becomes a character in the story. The edition I read is New London Editions and it promises to be an important press.

Elaine Dundy's "The Old Man and Me"

2012-01-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

The late and great Elaine Dundy is a very interesting woman, who lived near Book Soup and was a customer as well. Little did I know of her writing career till I read "The Dud Avocado" which is fantastic by the way. So her history is fascinating in that she was married to British theater critic great Kenneth Tynan and also wrote the first serious in depth biography on Elvis.

So of course "The Old Man and Me' would be of interest, but beyond that, it is quite a remarkable novel on various levels. The thing that really caught my attention is that she really got into the language of the British and its difference from American English. Two, she has some knowledge (of course) on the British personality and how that works with the American personality. And three, this is a really smart novel about how cultures merge - especially in early 1960's London. The main character resembles a much sweeter Patricia Highsmith twisted character who is dealing with identity and revenge of sorts. She knows what she wants, but does not know why she wants it. And that is the main problem with "Honey Flood." She goes out to seduce, but she gets seduced and its a weird journey from naive to knowing.

The book captures the culture of London in the early 1960's -before the Beatles and in some ways London itself is one of the characters in this novel. It's a great piece of London literature.

Jean Boullet and Boris Vian

2012-01-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

J'irai cracher sur vos Tombes (I Spit on Your Graves)

The above edition is very rare. Maybe 1,000 copies were produced sometime around 1947 or 1948. It's Boris Vian's "I Spit on Your Graves" with illustrations by Jean Boullet, a friend of Vian's, and whose work is a combination of Jean Cocteau meets Tom of Finland.

"Jean Marais" by Jean Boullet

Via TamTam Books I want to re-publish this edition with the illustrations as well as using a Boris Vian's introduction to his controversial novel. I am asking out to anyone who either has a copy of this limited edition wonder of a book or have contact to the Jean Boullet estate.

"Barnum's Digest" art by Jean Boullet with comments by Boris Vian

Also I am looking for a copy of the above book as well. Boullet did a book of drawings with commentary by Vian. Also if anyone has any inside information about the relationship between Vian and Boullet. Everyone knows that I am a mega-Vian fan, but I am also drawn towards Boullet's work. I saw some of his illustrations/artwork at the Boris Vian exhibition that took place in Paris.

Jean Boullet

Early Edition of Boris Vian's L'automne a Pékin (Autumn in Peking)

2012-01-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

An early edition of L'automne a Pekin (Autumn in Peking) by Boris Vian

"Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson" by Kevin Avery

2012-01-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

Paul Nelson's life narrative is too good and too tragic. A man who didn't compromise, and paid the price for his stance in the world - nor could he really take care of himself as well. in other words the dark noirish side of being a professional rock n' roll critic.

Nelson was one of the first important figures in Bob Dylan's professional life and eventually signed the New York Dolls to Mercury Records, where he worked as an A&R man. A job for sure that wouldn't last forever. The great aspect of Nelson's work as a critic and even as a human being is his ability to see through the artist's work and really define it on a very personal level. That I think is a critic's job, and Nelson nails it to the written page.

The painful thing about reading this book beautifully written and edited by Kevin Avery is a lot of people are going to identify with Nelson's love for culture and what it means to him/us/them. Any person who loved Jackson Browne as well as the New York Dolls is able to see beyond the veil of pop machinery and just focus on the work on hand. The fact that he went all out to get the Dolls signed is an amazing narrative. No one in the music biz liked the Dolls except for a handful of critics - and Nelson was the one who really stopped at nothing to get them signed and that alone we can be really grateful for Paul Nelson.

But here is a man who didn't drink alcohol, but consistently had two cans or bottles of coke with his daily hamburger (he is sort of a Popeye Wimpy figure) and led a life devoted to his interests and nothing else. Also the fact that he ended up working at a video store is both tragic and great at the same time.

The tunnel vision that made him unique is also what killed him in the end. And again, that is the scary part of someone who is so devoted to comment on music, film (a huge film fanatic as well as music) and living on the side of noir despair. A very sad book. But the interviews with his fellow critics and friends (most love him to bits) is quite moving and a tribute to those who write to expose how 'their' feelings are attached to the shine or the mirror-like image of pop culture.

My Boris Vian Obsession

2012-01-17T19:25:00.000-08:00

The superb, the remarkable, the 'wow' Boris Vian Exhibition at the BnF.

"L'Art et le Sang" by Benoit Preteseille

2012-01-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

Based on the great Marcel Allain/Pierre Souvestre character Fantomas, the author/graphic comic artist Benoit Preteseille takes "Fantamas" into a more crazy and bloody world. And the original Fantomas is pretty much out there, but this goes a littler further and is also quite sincerely creepy. This version of Fantamas is disfigured and actually in one of the stories cuts off his lower half after chopping his lover's head off. So yes a lot of identity role playing and sawing limbs are at work here. The book is in French (and no I don't read French) but the graphic images do tell the tale - and maybe i am making this up with my horror imagination, but this is a work of a very talented artist. One should know the tradition of Fantomas. And yeah, this is one of the books I bought at the weird but fantastic (and best) bookstore ever. Located in Paris of course.

http://www.preteseille.net/index.php?/autreschoses/lart-et-le-sang/

Un Regard Moderne

2012-01-13T08:59:00.000-08:00

images from http://vasta-images-books.blogspot.com/2011/02/paris-un-regard-moderne-book-shop.html?zx=34d4fe5815a53ae7

Un Regarde Moderne - The funniest videos are a click away

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1136692/un_regarde_moderne/

This is perhaps the greatest bookstore I have ever been to. For one, it is really hard to walk in - you can't because there are nothing but piles and piles of books. Piles is a weak world - it is more like mountain of books all around you. To walk in you almost have to go on your side. You can only go forward or backwards.

Images from http://www.paperblog.fr/1690345/un-regard-moderne-cult-bookshop-in-paris/

Un Regard Moderne specializes in pop culture - which means an excellent selection of graphic comics/novels - both in French and English and probably other languages as well. Great film selection, art, photo, and mondo subject matter stuff. But beyond that, the space in here is incredible, because there is no space. As you can see the books are stacked up to the ceiling. Truly one of the most amazing stores I have ever been to.

The address & phone number:

Un Regard Moderne

10 Rue Gît le Coeur, 75006 Paris

01 43 29 13 93 ‎

Boris Vian's Review of Serge Gainsbourg's "Du Chant a la Une"

2012-01-11T15:24:00.000-08:00

Down below is a review by Boris Vian on an upcoming singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. This is from Gilles Verlant's biography "Gainsbourg." Coming out on TamTam Books this Spring. The translation down below is by Paul Knobloch, who also translated into English Vian's "To Hell With The Ugly," "Autumn in Peking," and "The Dead All Have The Same Skin." All titles published by TamTam Books.

What we have here is one great artist appreciating another - and its really beautiful.

DUCHANT A LA UNE: SERGE GAINSBOURG

Come along, all you readers or listeners, those of you ready to rail against all those phony songs and fake artists. Empty your pockets and run to the record shops, and demand that the owner give you a copy of the new Philips B 76447 B… This isn’t any payola: I don’t work for Philips any longer, and even if I did I’d be telling you the same thing.

It’s the first 33 rpm from a witty individual named Gainsbourg, Serge, born in Paris on April 2, 1928. As for me, I’m hoping it won’t be his last. As for you, well, you’re the ones who can make sure it’s not his last. An album is costly to make, and it’s also costly to launch a new artist, especially when the owners of the record shops, drowning in a sea of mediocre product and paralyzed by rising sales tax, no longer have the time to listen to what the record companies send them.

So what will you hear on this disc?

First of all – honoring those who are often forgotten – you’ll hear Gainsbourg’s back-up players, thick as thieves and swinging together under the direction of Alain Goraguer, who provides the orchestration for the nine cuts on the album. Technically speaking, each one easily ranks a 17 to 19 on a scale of 20, in spite of a piano sometimes poorly tuned. But that’s not the fault of Goraguer: in a recording session, a piano should be tuned to a vibraphone.

You’ll hear, tucked away in the middle of one side of the album, a song sure to disturb you: “Ce mortel ennui qui me vient… quand je suis près de toi…”^¹5

You’ll hear three absolute technical triumphs (phrasing, style, cadence, etc.): “Le poinçonneur des Lilas,” somber, feverish, and lovely, has also been done by Les Frères Jacques, who are quite admirable. But listen to the real author do it. It’s the prototype of powerful popular song that’s missing among artists like Yves Montand. “Douze belles dans la peau” is also of superb quality. Michèle Arnaud sings it rather well, I believe. Jean-Claude Pascal also gives it a go: an homage to his good taste. “La femme des uns sous le corps des autres,” with its South American rhythms, is also both a bitter and exuberant success.

By the way, if some numbskull wants to accuse Gainsbourg of pessimism, I’ll permit myself to ask this same halfwit if he really loves pleonasm that much, and if, by chance, he really listened to the tune…

You’ll hear “Ronasrd 58,” not as imaginative, but still a worthwhile jazz number that’s not some dated piece like the ones we currently hear in France that try to evoke the spirit of jazz from 1935 (which would be just fine if it were 1935).

You’ll hear “La recette de l’amour fou” and you’ll remember, since I’m going to tell you, that Gainsbourg regrets but one thing, which is not having been able to know the director of the Ecole universelle of surrealism, André Breton.

You’ll also find “L’alcool,” “Du jazz dans le ravin,” and “Le Charleston des déménageurs de piano.” This last tune is a great illustration of just what the piano can do, and it’s simply delicious for those who play or those who simply like to listen. Still, from time to time, we should consider those who actually do the work of moving…

And after having heard all that, the phonies among you will tell me that Gainsbourg has a weak singing voice. And while it might be a bit muted or too nasal, remember that he’s not singing opera. You want opera? Go buy some Xavier Depraz. Gainsbourg might remind you, now and then, of Phillipe Clay. Yes, because their voices have a similar timbre. And so what? Gainsbourg also has that tense and biting quality you find with Clay.

You’ll also probably tell me that this young lad is a bit skeptical, that it is wrong to see everything in such dark terms, that there’s nothing “constructive” in his work… (sure… fine… if that’s what you say).

To which I would respond that a skeptic who writes words and music like this, well, you had better give him a second listen before just grouping him in with the other blasé artists of the nouvelle vague… It’s still much more interesting than some idiotic enthusiast eager to attack whatever displeases him…

And after all, this is 1958. We’re capable of coming up with something better than images of baroque pavilions with bluish-green cats staring down at us from the rooftops.

Still, there’s something missing on this album. One song, perhaps Gainsbourg’s best: a little love ditty about a cannonball and a wooden peg-leg searching for a home.

It’s a piece called “Friedland.”

Gainsbourg’s already recorded it.

But alas, it’s not part of this album. You’ll have to go to Milord l’Arsouille to hear Gainsbourg sing it.

They must have taken it off the disc in order not to displease the good king Charles XI.

Nevertheless, if I am not mistaken, might not Freidland become the Usurper?

Boris Vian

1⁵ “This black apathy that grips me… whenever we’re together…” (T.N.)

Serge Gainsbourg and Philippe Clay

2012-01-11T12:17:00.000-08:00

Memoriance album based on "L'écme des jours" (Foam of the Daze) a

2012-01-08T10:25:00.000-08:00

Wow. As time allows I like to visit the world of Boris Vian and all its little side-affects on culture - and this prog rock album from 1979 is pretty much - wow? When I heard it, I thought for sure 1971 -I mean the punk movement totally went under the bridge for this band. I know very little of Memoriance, but listening to the album they sort of remind me of Roger Waters era Pink Floyd with lots of French overtures in sound and design. Do I like this album? Well, not really my cup of drink, but it is Boris Vian related, so its a must-have. I bought an used vinyl copy at Amoeba.

http://www.mediafire.com/?m2lmfkj324o

"Post Everything" by Luke Haines

2012-01-06T20:58:00.000-08:00

The second and the best of the Luke Haines books. And the first one is very enjoyable, but this one seems tighter, because I think the subject matter is much better. The first one is about being in the music world during Brit-Pop, and this one is about....him in his own world.

I highly recommend this book if you are a Black Box Recorder fan, because it pretty much covers those years and his commentary, like the first book, is also much more wittier. Although his image is of a grouch, I think he is actually a very good critic. Which means I don't agree with him all the time, but he knows how to say what's on his mind and he does it with great spirit.

Also the one problem I have with him, music wise, is his smarty pants teacher-like attitude towards culture. But alas, in this book he gives credit to those who were there first. And he has a really nice and interesting reading list at the back of the book, including one of my faves Stewart Home. And I am hoping that Mr. Haines will return to empty page and fill it with some grief and good humor.

"Diary of a Rock n' Roll Star" by Ian Hunter

2012-01-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

Ian Hunter is a very much underrated songwriter and made some great records solo as well as with the fab Mott The Hoople. And what we have here is his diary/journal in the very key year when they are breaking into a bigger audience via the help of David Bowie. The book is very much of Hunter expressing his joys, anger, and frustration of touring America circ. 1972. "All The Young Dudes" is in the air, and Mott is riding on the wave via that song. I think any person who picks up a guitar or snare drum as a profession will enjoy this memoir. Because Hunter is not offering something unique in that world, in fact its pretty much so-so hotel and its very so-so food, and the physical strain of keeping yourself in order to perform and deal with a lot of cancelled gigs. So there is nothing romantic here or even sexy, its basically a job. A nice job of sorts, but nevertheless a job. Reading this I wanted something more funny or crazy, but the truth is ....nothing happens on a tour of this scale (struggling of course) and it is really waiting between flights, dealing with the lack of a sound check, and weird and very foreign urban situations, that is a first for a British citizen. What's kind of cool is that the whole band checked out hock shops looking for music gear. I find that endearing. And yes, I think this book is a must for the man ( a very much a man's world then) and woman who picks up an instrument and play for whatever currency that's out there.

Mott the Hoople "All The Young Dudes"

Sawada (Julie) Kenji covers Boris Vian

2012-01-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

A major pop music figure in the Showa Era (20th Century) in Japan, Kenji Sawada, whose nickname is 'Julie,' is one of the bright spots in Japanese pop culture. He had a great role in Paul Schrader's "Mishima," and also acted in a lot of interesting Japanese films. And he is also the king glam of Japan during the 70's. Here we have him covering Boris Vian.

"The Map and the Territory" by Michel Houellebecq

2012-01-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

His best novel. The themes are basically the same, but Michel Houellebecq tells the tale again with great energy and in a large tongue in cheek manner. On one level it is about the rise of an artist who doesn't really want to participate in the art market. He has nothing against it, but his character is not one where he follows the market place. Yet he's extremely successful in what he does. The other textual parts are Houellebecq's fascination with what people do on their 'free' time - the need to be a tourist in 21st Century life as well as the issue of aging, fame, and the beauty of maps. in many ways, of all his novels, this is the most Situationist like. Houellebecq is for sure not Guy Debord, but he shares his sense of love (disgust?) at looking at culture and what that means to an artist/writer as well

There are major plot turns that makes this narrative into a policer. The twists in the plot makes this a really fun read. "The Map and the Territory" is the best novel of the year and its January 3, 2012.

Old BBC interview in English

Iggy Pop and Michel Houellebecq

"Paris" by Michel Houellebecq and Bertrand Burgalat

Houellebecq pop singer 4:33

"TinTin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece" 1961 film

2011-12-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

The original film poster

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

The Adventures of TinTin "The Secret of the Unicorn" by Hergé

2011-12-31T17:25:00.000-08:00

Ah I always do things half-assed backwards. Ok, so this is the first part of the two part story and I sort of gave a review for the second part. What's amazing and interesting is how much research Hergé did for his stories. Besides clothing, he had a good eye for architecture as well as weapons, automobiles, etc. These young reader editions all have additional information regarding the story - and overall its very interesting. Similar to a bonus on a DVD set. The world of TinTin is very very rich.

The narrative doesn't impress me that much, but the detail work of his Hergé's illustrations is really impressive. And as I mentioned before I am really attracted to his drawings. And I think I got that bug ever since I was a child.

The Adventures of TinTin/"Red Rackham's Treasure" by Hergé, plus Documentary on TinTin

2011-12-31T08:49:00.000-08:00

I have known TinTin all my life and i must have read the series as a very very young tot, or my mom read them to me. For the past 40 something years I have been avoiding re-reading the books, while at the same time being very attracted to the author/artist Hergé's artwork. in fact I am totally nuts about it.

It is fascinating that Hergé did a remarkable amount of research for his narrative/artwork. He made models of locations/ships, and in many ways they are sort of like little films or at the very least visual film treatments - but alas, that doesn't really matter, because the work really does it best on the printed page. "Red Rackham's Treasure" is the second TinTin book, and my understanding is that it is sort of attached to the first adventure "The Secret of the Unicorn" which I will read next. Nevertheless "Red Rakham's Treasure" stands up on its own, and all the eccentric characters are fully exposed and explained. What we have here is a boy's adventure, but with very well dressed characters. And that alone is worth the attention, and seeing how Hergé works and thinks, this has to be an important aspect to the aesthetic of TinTin.

This book as well as the others I will read shortly are young reader's edition's, which is exactly (at least I have been told that) the same as the original, except the images are bigger, and each title has an additional 20 pages of bonus material, which is quite interesting.

Down below is a documentary on Hergé and his invention TinTin.

"TinTin & I Documentary Part 1

"TinTin & I" Documentary Part 2

"TinTin & I" Documentary Part 3

"TinTin & I" Documentary Part 4

"TinTin & I" Documentary Part 5

Syd Barrett Story (BBC Documentary)

2011-12-29T08:17:00.000-08:00

"My Friend Dahmer" by Derf Backderf

2011-12-29T08:06:00.000-08:00

A graphic memoir by Derf Backderf whowent to high school school with serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Whatwe get are snapshots of Dahmer's life before he totally answered tohis darker side. Yet, clearly he was on that road to mayhem perhapsall his life. One is never sure, because I think everyone has aDahmer they went to school with. And that is the quiet shock of thenarrative, at least for me.

There are two worlds that are expressedin this 'graphic novel.' One by Backderf, who seemed to have beencharmed with a good family life and friends, and then there isDahmer, a tortured soul with no friends and a disturbing familyset-up. The thing is the problems he had at home is not thatdifferent from millions whose family are going through divorce ordrug related problems. Some can just pick up the pieces and go on,but Dahmer can't go on.

Dahmer basically went through schooltotally wasted on alcohol. & to amuse the school population hepretended to be spastic. Which was obviously a role he took to hisheart on many levels. The disturbing part of the narrative is thatno one picked up on his problems or worse, they didn’t care orbother to think about it. The title is miss-leading because Backderfis not a friend of Dahmer . He knew him causally at school, andlike his other classmates saw him as an object to use or have funwith. Which is typical of teenagers in that social setting, andBackderf doesn't run away from that role in his teenage years. Butclearly the problem with Dahmer was obvious and the fact that hiscommunity didn't see it coming is the shocking aspect of thenarrative.

"Bad Vibes" by Luke Haines

2011-12-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

Britpop, as a movement, had a huge affect on maybe a handful of people - mostly those who lived in North London. But saying that there were some great bands that came out of it, who without a doubt is Pulp. On the other hand I am not sure if Luke Haines was one of the 'movement's bright lights, but for sure a great personality. And like most great personalities they usually have talent on the page. Therefore "Bad Vibes" is a splendid trip to the underbelly of British pop music world circ. 1990's. While Haines has distaste for the pop world, one suspects he also has great admiration for the power structure of the pop world as well. If for nothing else then to rebel against its limited power and vision.
And as for Haines' music, I only know Black Box Recorder, which is pretty good (hardcore) British pop. Another music figure who delivers to the medium of the book. Very nice.

http://youtu.be/FP-2VLQEv4c
Perfect pop chorus.

http://youtu.be/Mm_W4r0Fw5g

L'écume des jours by Boris Vian

2011-12-23T08:25:00.000-08:00

Great David Bowie Footage 1997

2011-12-21T23:03:00.000-08:00

Great Bowie circ. 1997.

The Lost David Bowie Footage

2011-12-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

R
R

"The Doctor Is Sick" by Anthony Burgess

2011-12-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

In many ways "The Doctor is Sick" is very much like "A Clockwork Orange," Burgess' mega-hit novel. The structure of the main character going through a difficult journey is the same -and confronting surreal or out-of-wack situations via the journey is part of the fun in both Burgess books. Also I think the main draw to Burgress' work is his language play. Here is an author who loves the accent of the local population - and being set in London, its highly an adventure to accents and class structures. I didn't love the novel, but found it very interesting. I think because I am obsessed with London as a literary landscape, and Burgess uses that landscape quite well.

Iggy Pop and Michel Legrand

2011-12-21T06:56:00.000-08:00

http://youtu.be/yGgtfuPrQfY

"24 Hours From Tulsa"

2011-12-19T23:22:00.000-08:00

Gene Pitney

Dusty Springfield

The Great Great Catherine Ringer

2011-12-19T08:43:00.000-08:00

Catherine Ringer : Pardon en live dans le Grand... by rtl-fr
Superb singer, superb writer....fantastic pop music artist.

Lun*na Menoh's Cinema Boutique

2011-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Cinema Boutique from Lunna World on Vimeo.

Lun*na Menoh's great work inspired by the cinema. Cinema=fashion=wow.

Captain Beefheart and American Bandstand

2011-12-17T18:25:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite music images. Kids dancing to Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. And to this day, this is my recording by Mr. Beefheart.

Lost Arthur Rimbaud Photo?

2011-12-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

The History of David Bowie

2011-12-16T23:26:00.001-08:00

David Bowie live in 1990

2011-12-16T22:54:00.000-08:00

This is the fantasy part but wow, a great song. Dream.

The Monks - The greatest rock n' roll band ever?

2011-12-16T19:59:00.000-08:00

I think for this one footage alone, they are truly the greatest rock n' roll band ever. Anyone disagree?

They had the tunes.

"Cuckoo" is one of my all time favorite songs. It somehow expresses the world to me.

The best banjo song ever.

There is such beauty here

L'écume des jours (Foam of the Daze) by Benoît Preteseille (After Boris Vian)

2011-12-14T20:28:00.000-08:00

L'écume des jours (Foam of the Daze) by Boris Vian is such a multi-media type of structure - it works as a novel, an anime, a manga, a musical, a film, and also as a French comic or graphic novel by Benoît Preteseille. Very minimal yet complexed, the drawings expressed the haunted characteristics of its main characters. As things gets darker the drawings get more expressive. Also Sartre as sort of a rock n' roll figure in the comic hits the right spot for me. Essential of course.

"Nuits Rouges" by Georges Franju

2011-12-11T17:10:00.001-08:00

I just watched "Nuits Rouges" by Georges Franju for the second time in my life. its a great film. The above is just a very small excerpt. Nevertheless it has a very strong Fantomas appeal as well as a great mood. And I only watch films mostly for their mood.

"Letters to Stanley Chapman" by Boris Vian

2011-12-11T14:31:00.001-08:00

More of a chapbook then say a book book, but nevertheless the original handwritten and some typed up letters from genius Boris Vian to his translator at the time (late 1950's) Stanely Chapman. A remarkable document of Vian asking Chapman to help him with his song lyrics. A tad too rock & roll for Chapman, but nevertheless a charming collection of letters.

"No Longer Human Vol 2" by Usamaru Furuya

2011-12-11T12:31:00.001-08:00

Part 2 of three parts of the manga "No Longer Human" based on Osamu Dazai's novel of the same name. And when we left our hero from volume one he survived a suicide pact with a lovely - and now how does he live and go on? Well he does of course, but without ruining others and himself as well. Usamaru Furuya is perfectly matched up with Dazai's obsession of life among the edge of total failure. So far part 2 is like watching an accident as it happens. Very enjoyable!

"The Astro Boy Essays" by Frederik L. Schodt

2011-12-10T16:45:00.001-08:00

The perfect book for me to pick up at Shibuya Tower. Somewhere between my personal desire and what others in Japan have given me, I find myself surrounded by Astro Boy toys and books. When I first started to go to Japan, Osamu Tezuka was one of the sources of understanding that culture and it was such a pleasant adventure. Frederik L. Schodt's book on the culture and history of Astro Boy is a must-read for anyone who have even the slightest interest in manga and its history.

Tezuka is without a doubt a major figure in pop Japanese culture - perhaps the key figure, and without a doubt a genius in his field. He is also a mega-figure to write about, and Schodt's book is a good starter in the world of Tezuka, and by mostly focusing on his most famous work in the west - Mighty Atom aka Astro Boy.

part one of "Birth of Astro Boy"

part two of "Birth of Astro Boy"

part three of "Birth of Astro Boy"

The story of a boy robot made by a scientist who was grieving over his deceased son. But that 'father' eventually disowns the robot due to the fact he doesn't age. And therefore we have the consistent tension between robot and human. Tezuka thought long and hard on this and Astro Boy is not a simple subject. He's a mixture of popular science and all the hope it brings, but also the inner-danger of nuclear power and the arrogance of science. And it is this tension that makes 'Astro Boy' into a major work. Also Tezuka's skills as a writer and illustrator is pretty amazing. For sure he's the Disney of Japan, but I think he's more then that - way more. Schodt did a remarkable job introducing the world of Tezuka and why he's important.

Make Me Smile - Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel

2011-12-09T21:38:00.000-08:00

I just read about the making of this song in the latest issue of Uncut. So... its here. And its great.

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Sebastian

2011-12-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

A beautiful performance. Glam.

"Boris Vian; Post-Scriptum (Dessins, manuscrits, inédits)

2011-12-03T11:49:00.001-08:00

Boris Vian is in a very real sense to me, a god. The fact that I devote my press TamTam Books to him - and that my second half of my life is basically thinking of Vian in every manner possible - well, this book is heaven sent to me. What we have here are selections of his art work - some paintings, but mostly drawings on paper and notebook paper. Its put together in chronicle order of his work - so in a sense this is sort of a visual biography of the man via his drawings and some of the text from his novels, plays, etc. Beautifully designed, this is an important book for all Vian lovers that are out there. The book is in French. And I am happy.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Volume 2" by Jacques Tardi

2011-12-03T08:27:00.001-08:00

"The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec comes back! Volume 2: "The Mad Scientist" and "Mummies on Parade." Jacques Tardi is my favorite living comic book artist from France, and of course I have favorites in Japan, but let's not confuse categories and things. Volume 2 is more mood narratives that fall in the French pulp genre then anything else. Things can happen any moment and time - and our hero Adele seems to never have a night's sleep - with assassins breaking into her apartment, and strange phone calls in the middle of the night.

Jacques Tardi

Adele is a Detective of sorts who studies the occult and secret organizations and has a thing for mummies. She and a group of individuals and creatures make strong impressions on the landscape of turn of the century Paris. And it is Paris that is really the star of the series. Always mysterious and dangerous (especially in the middle of the night) and yet hauntingly beautiful. And with the addition of a tight narration makes this series into a graphic novel masterpiece. Volume 3 is coming out in 2013, and that is the only tragic part of the series. The waiting...

Paris Fashion 1926 (hand-painted or tinted footage)

2011-11-30T09:59:00.001-08:00

I found this on the Dangerous Mind website. What attracted me is that this was filmed in 1926, the year of my Father's birth. And second, the images are beautiful. All hand-tinted and almost like a faint memory of life better lived.

"Why A Man Should Be Well-Dressed" by Adolf Loos

2011-11-27T16:32:00.001-08:00

This book is not only about men's attire, but also the Vienna mindset from the author and great visionary architect Adolf Loos. The structure of Austria's class system has a lot to do with how people dressed during the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century. What's charming (and this book is nothing but charming) is Loos' writing style which seems to be geared for the fashion magazine of its time. One thing that comes through is that Loos knows his landscape, and he knows how that landscape should look - so its natural for an architect to be also interested in clothing, because clothing is another form of architecture. So what's fascinating about this book is not the subject matter itself, but how such an interesting man, a great designer, looks at the world of fashion and fabric. And yes, a must for the dandy's book collection, without a doubt!

Adolf Loos

Jarvis Cocker's "Mother, Brother, Lover"

2011-11-26T16:50:00.001-08:00

This sounds like an insult, but its a compliment. Jarvis Cocker is a low-rent Noel Coward. I am a huge fan of song lyrics turned into books. Some of my favorite are Cole Porter and Ira Gershwin. There is something sweet about reading lyrics away from the music world - and into the world of books. Of course the works were originally meant to be with the melody, but by reading the lyrics as text, it gives the work another dimension.
"Mother, Brother, Lover" is almost an non-literal diary for Cocker, as a lot of the songs are based on real incidents, real people, but of course re-done by the magic of Jarvis. All the hits are here, but a lot of B-Side pieces as well as works he wrote for others. And yes, the other songwriter he reminds me of is Ray Davies. The common thing he has with Davies and Coward is a sense of place (U.K.) and shared national point of view of the world because of the location. Also Cocker has a knack of writing that goes directly to the subject. He doesn't hide behind language, which is sometimes great of course, but for someone like Jarvis, he needs to be direct and quick. His genius if he has it, is his character. And reading "Mother, Brother, Lover" you get a lot of character, which by the way is excellent.

Jarvis Cocker on his book.

Even doing a Chuck Berry tune, Jarvis Cocker somehow makes it into a Kentish Town/Camden sound.

And Jarvis turns Elvis into a Kentish Town romantic. With Duane Eddy.

Boris Vian's Original French Edition Book Covers

2011-11-26T16:28:00.001-08:00

Books under the name of Boris Vian, and in order of production.

Books by Vian under the name Vernon Sullivan. His crime/Science Fiction works.

Boris Vian and his Jazz World

2011-11-26T16:18:00.001-08:00

Le Major, a close friend of Boris Vian and a major influence on Vian's life and work.

Boris Vian jazzing

Boris Vian Jazzed (wonderful shoes)

Boris Vian at and in his moment

Duke Ellington, Michelle Léglise-Vian, and Boris Vian

Michelle Léglise-Vian, Miles Davis, and Boris Vian

Fantastic footage of Boris Vian and his world, including some inside images of Le Tabou, Vian's major hangout in the late 1940's.

Usamaru Furuya's Graphic Novel of Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human"

2011-11-25T18:23:00.001-08:00

It has been a Usamaru Furuya month for me, since I read "Lychee Light Club early this month. And I liked it a lot - but this is really my cup of sake. "No Longer Human" is a classic and great Osamu Dazai novel, and Furuya does a good job in updating the story (slightly).

A story of a wealthy young teenager who had everything but quickly loses it due to feelings of severe alienation. Yes, it could be a Who rock opera concept, but in the hands of Dazai its a poetic downsizing of a character slowly losing his sense of identity. His only hope really is becoming a writer. And the book (and graphic novel) is based on Dazai's personal life. I discovered this writer while living in Japan, and at the time (and still does to be honest) makes perfect sense to me. Whenever I write something I think of Dazai first. And its interesting Furuya has taken on this novel as a graphic piece of narration. His work is super great and sophisticated. "No Longer Human" is a three part series. I can't wait till volume 2

Michelle Vian

2011-11-24T14:14:00.001-08:00

A remarkable person. Someday in the future I would love to meet her and her son Patrick Vian.

Ma vie avec Boris Vian (par Michelle Vian)

31-10-11 à 22:57 par Leménager Grégoire 16 réactions

TEMOIGNAGE EXCLUSIF. Alors que la BNF consacre une grande exposition à l'auteur de «l'Ecume des jours», et que paraît un beau livre intitulé «Boris Vian. Post-scriptum», sa première femme, aujourd'hui âgée de 91 ans, s'est confiée à Grégoire Leménager.

Michelle Vian, chez elle à Paris, aujourd'hui. Née en 1920, MICHELLE LEGLISE a épousé Boris Vian en 1941, moins d'un an après leur rencontre. A la suite de leur divorce, en 1952, elle a fait partie de l'équipe des «Temps modernes» et a, notamment, dactylographié la plupart des textes de Jean-Paul Sartre. (© Bruno Couttier pour "Le Nouvel Observateur")

RÉAGIR

Pour qui s'intéresse à Boris Vian écrivain, elle est le témoin capital: Michelle Vian, née comme lui en 1920, a été sa femme de 1941 à 1952. Elle ne lui a pas seulement donné deux enfants. Elle l'a vu écrire ses dix romans, une soixantaine de nouvelles, d'innombrables poèmes, chroniques, critiques de jazz. Elle était bien placée pour les lire: c'est elle qui tapait ses manuscrits. Ensemble, ils ont inventé Saint-Germain-des-Prés et Saint-Tropez, traduit Chandler et Richard Wright, fréquenté Miles Davis, Charlie Parker et Orson Welles, organisé des surprises-parties où se bousculait toute l'équipe des «Temps modernes».

A 91 ans, Michelle Vian n'a rien oublié de ce tourbillon: ni les échecs littéraires de Boris, ni la manière dont Camus et Merleau-Ponty ont failli en venir aux mains dans leur salle à manger, ni la nuit où elle a fait des frites pour Duke Ellington. Mais elle n'en parlait plus depuis longtemps: «Evoquer Boris, ça touche presque tout de suite à l'intimité. Je suis assez timide.»Aujourd'hui, elle habite un étroit deux-pièces du 6e arrondissement. Sur son bureau, un grand format qui vient de paraître où l'on trouve un joli texte de Prévert, des vers inédits et d'hilarants montages de coupures de presse.

C'est «Boris Vian. Post-scriptum» (Cherche Midi), qu'elle a parcouru sa loupe à la main:«Un beau livre, qui rassemble des feuilles éparses, pleines de dessins que l'on griffonne inconsciemment, de photos, de poèmes, de couleurs. C'est un bel album, à poser sur la table basse du living, et à ranger ensuite au rayon des rêveries.»

G.L.

La rencontre

«BORIS VIAN. POST-SCRIPTUM. DESSINS, MANUSCRITS, INEDITS», par Nicole Bertolt, avant-propos de Jacques Prévert, Prologue de Siné, Cherche Midi, 200 p., 29,90 euros.

« C’était pendant l’été 1940, à Capbreton, où nous étions descendus un peu en avance à cause de l’exode. J’étais seule là-bas avec mon frère Pierre-Claude. Mon petit frère s’était noyé, ma mère était partie rejoindre mon père à Agen. Sur la plage, j’ai rencontré Alain, le frère de Boris. Il m’a invitée à une surprise-partie qu’il organisait. J’y suis allée avec mon ami Jacques Loustalot, dit «le Major», qui était du coin. J’y vais, je ne suis pas particulièrement attirée par Boris: je crois que je ne le vois pas. Il est plutôt timide, il reste dans son coin.

C’est avec Alain que je danse : il était blond et prenait des cours de théâtre à Versailles. Enfin, il était plus showy ! C’est plutôt vers lui que j’allais, mais en copain vous savez: j’étais tellement oie blanche! J’étais très serrée à la maison. Mes parents avaient choisi d’habiter le 98 rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière, à Paris, parce que l’appartement donnait sur le lycée Lamartine, de sorte qu’ils pouvaient me surveiller avec des jumelles. Je me demande pourtant bien ce que j’aurais pu faire au lycée Lamartine, qui avait la réputation d’être coincé comme ce n’est pas possible.

Nous avons donné une surprise-partie à notre tour – je me demande bien ce qu’on leur a donné à bouffer, nous n’avions absolument rien... Au bout d’un mois, on est allé à Hossegore à bicyclette. C’est là que j’ai commencé à m’intéresser à Boris, qui s’intéressait à moi depuis un moment. Mais c’est quand même Alain que je devais revoir à Paris. On s’était donné rendez-vous sous l’arc de Triomphe, le truc classique. J’y suis allée, c’est Boris qui était là! Il m’a dit : «Je remplace mon frère.» J’ai dit : « Bien volontiers.» Et nous sommes allés au Pam-Pam des Champs-Elysées, comme faisaient tous les zazous. Le Pam-Pam, c’était une marque de jus de fruits, les zazous ne buvaient pas d’alcool.»

La demande en mariage

« C’était la guerre, mes parents me destinaient un type affreux : il avait un ventre, il suait, mais avait demandé ma main. J’ai donc dû sortir avec lui. Il avait alors essayé de m’embrasser, c’était horrible! Je l’ai raconté à ma mère, elle m’a dit: «Comment, il t’a embrassée, et tu ne veux pas l’épouser? Mais tu es une cocotte !» C’est comme ça que je suis devenue une féministe avant la lettre. J’ai filé retrouver Boris, comme chaque soir, à l’Ecole centrale. Quand je lui ai raconté tout ça, j’ai vu qu’il réfléchissait, qu’il devenait un peu sérieux. Et puis on a parlé d’autre chose. Mais en se quittant, devant le métro, il m’a dit: «Au revoir, madame Vian.» J’ai compris que c’était une demande en mariage.

Je n’étais pas majeure, je n’avais pas encore 21 ans. On aurait pu attendre un an, mais non, Boris voulait se marier. Et puis c’était la guerre. On n’avait aucune idée de l’avenir. A Paris, où on n’avait le droit de rien, il y avait la défense passive, des avions qui volaient, les fenêtres qui étaient encollées de papier bleu. Alors qu’est-ce qu’on en avait à foutre? Les Anglais se faisaient piler à Dieppe, on n’avait pas à manger, on n’avait pas d’électricité, pas de casserole, rien. On était zazous, il n’y avait que le jazz qui comptait… Une vie sans jazz avec les Allemands, ça ne comptait pas. Alors pourquoi ne pas se marier, puisque le lendemain on pouvait être morts?»

Ses parents

« Nous allions tous les week-ends à Ville d’Avray, chez ses parents. On n’avait pas d’argent, il y avait un jardin pour le gosse, nous pouvions le laisser pour sortir le soir à Paris – ce que je ne pouvais pas faire quand j’avais l’enfant. Cette famille m’a d’abord semblé merveilleuse: on parlait beaucoup à table, très librement, et en faisant constamment des jeux de mots enfantins. Puis je me suis aperçue que c’était une fausse liberté. On ne parlait que de petites choses, jamais de la politique, de la guerre ou de ce qui aurait demandé une opinion.

"l'Arrache-coeur", de Boris Vian, finit par paraître en 1953, avec une préface de son ami Raymond Queneau - mais pas chez Gallimard. (c)DR

Comme je connaissais Boris, je savais qu’il y avait autre chose chez lui. Il se forçait pour être au diapason, et cette liberté de ton apparente masquait une contrainte: les enfants ne devaient pas quitter la maison. Pourquoi avaient-ils une salle de bal au fond du jardin? Pour qu’ils n’aillent pas chez les autres. Pourquoi passaient-ils leurs vacances à Landemer, dans un désert, à côté de Cherbourg? Parce qu’ils avaient une grande plage pour eux seuls. C’était une villa isolée, avec un beau jardin.

On retrouve tout cela dans «l’Arrache-cœur», où la mère met des fers aux pieds à ses enfants. C’est son livre le plus signifiant. Boris a eu beaucoup de mal à le finir.»

Au commencement était «Vercoquin»

«Boris a démarré en flèche avec « Vercoquin et le plancton », qui a beaucoup plu à Queneau dès 1945. Mais ça n’était pas destiné à l’impression: c’était juste destiné à faire rigoler les copains. Boris était ingénieur, il n’avait pas idée qu’il serait écrivain. Il faisait des petits poèmes, comme tous les étudiants: dans le genre Villon, puis dans le genre Baudelaire. Boris est passé par tous les genres! On n’y accordait pas beaucoup d’importance. C’était drôle, mais à l’époque tout le monde faisait des vers. On n’avait guère que ça à faire sous l’Occupation.

Il ne s’est considéré comme un écrivain qu’à partir du moment où Queneau lui a dit qu’il en était un, et lui a pris «Vercoquin» en lui demandant quelques aménagements : tous les personnages avaient des noms de barons et de ducs; Queneau trouvait que ça encombrait inutilement. Ils ont été très proches, tous les deux. Boris voyait en lui un père.»

Zazous sous l’Occupation

« La danse et le jazz nous rapprochaient. Et puis je crois que Boris était très attiré par moi : il faut vous dire que j’étais très jolie... Depuis que Charles Trenet le leur avait fait connaître, dès 1937, les zazous écoutaient du jazz. Enfin, ce qu’ils pouvaient écouter. C’était interdit de jouer du jazz américain, les Allemands jouaient du jazz allemand qui n’était pas bon: ils en étaient encore au saxo rieur. Ca avait toujours un côté soldatesque, ils se sont rattrapés après, même si pour la mélodie, ils ne sont pas forts. Mais Boris n’avait pas attendu Trenet. Il était en avance ! Il connaissait le jazz américain dès 1936.

Quand les zazous ont entendu Pétain, les jeunes ont dit: «Ils nous font chier avec leur guerre, on n’en a rien à f...». Ils n’étaient pas mobilisés à ce moment-là, ils avaient 18-19 ans. Pendant la drôle de guerre, les pères étaient à l’armée, les mères pleuraient, les enfants étaient libres. Alors ils écoutaient du jazz, et quand ils ont entendu Pétain, ils sont devenus gaullistes. Pourquoi? Parce que de Gaulle était en Angleterre. Ceux qu’on aimait, parce qu’ils étaient proches et déjà nos alliés, c’étaient les Anglais. On est devenu anglais.

Les zazous portaient le costume anglais de l’époque, qui rappelle celui qu’ont plus tard porté les mods: la veste longue, les deux poches, un peu évasée, cintrée, le pantalon un peu court, mais pas trop, découvrant des chaussettes de laine blanche, absolument, hélas des chaussures en bois parce qu’il n’y avait rien d’autre; les filles, des jupes courtes s’arrêtant au genou, en général écossaises, ou alors volantes, des chaussures en bois, compensées, des petits pull-overs, de n’importe quelle couleur, la coiffure en nid de pie avec les cheveux en arrière, ou alors des résilles, et puis le parapluie. Les garçons avaient la toute petite cravate, en nœud d’épingle, et les cheveux en arrière, avec la queue de canard. Voilà pour les zazous. Quand ils avaient de l’argent, ils essayaient de se faire faire des costumes.

Ce qui nous rassemblait, aussi, c’étaient les films. Les films étaient allemands! Mais il n’y avait que ça. Peut-être un nouveau film par semaine. Alors on se réunissait chez nous, et on dansait. C’était le swing qu’on dansait. Voilà les zazous. On était Anglais, on était contre Pétain, on ne voulait pas aller à la guerre. On n’a connu les Américains que plus tard, même si on connaissait leur jazz.»

La femme du trompette

« A la Libération, on est devenus Américains. Ils dansaient ces Amerlos ! Comme des dieux ! On était étourdis… Boris faisait du jazz depuis longtemps, il s'était inscrit au Hot Club de France à 16 ans. Il avait une trompette assez défoncée, ça n'était pas bon pour son coeur, mais enfin il en jouait, bien. Comme il n'avait pas de souffle, ce n'était pas Armstrong, c'était plutôt Bix Beiderbecke : style Chicago, très rythmé, avec de jolies harmonies.

Avec l'orchestre Abadie, il allait de club en club. Moi j'accompagnais. J'étais la femme du trompette et, surtout, une belle blonde... Et puis je servais d'interprète. Boris avait fait grec-latin-maths et une langue, l’allemand – c’était la voie noble à l’époque. Moi j’avais fait latin-anglais, et comme j’avais passé toutes mes vacances d’été en Angleterre, j’étais bilingue. Alors il m’était d’autant plus facile d’accueillir les Américains. J’ai appris l’anglais à Boris, très vite, en l’espace de six mois.

On ne nous payait pas, mais les soldats américains nous fournissaient des V-discs, qui avaient été enregistrés pour eux, et qu’on ne pouvait pas donner parce qu’ils étaient fragiles : au bout de quatre ou cinq tours ils se cassaient. Tous les musiciens en avaient enregistré pour les soldats, même Ellington. Ca, les soldats américains étaient magnifiquement traités! Surtout par rapport aux nôtres… Ils avaient tout. Et d’ailleurs ils nous apportaient tout: les jeans, les souliers en caoutchouc... Quand ils ont appris qu'on avait un bébé, le lendemain il y avait un camion au bas du faubourg Poissonnière avec du lait, des haricots et des bouquins sur lesquels il était écrit : « Quand vous aurez fini, passez-le à un autre GI.»

Après, il n’y en a plus eu, des Américains. Les politiques, et surtout de Gaulle, n’aimaient pas voir les Américains chez eux. C’était dégueulasse d’ailleurs. Quel était ce mot d’ordre qui était écrit sur tous les murs? GI Go home.»

Les musiciens Don Diaz (à genoux), Claude Luter, Boris Vian, Aimé Barelli et Jacques Dièval (de D à G), autour de Michelle Vian, répètent au Lido de Paris le 4 mai 1948 avant l'ouverture du Festival international de Jazz. ©AFP

Saint-Germain-des-Prés

« On a fait Saint-Germain en y important le jazz. Comme il y avait des gens très intelligents qui fréquentaient le café de Flore, les Deux-Magots et Lipp, c’était un carrefour formidable. Boris et moi y allions pour retrouver l’équipe des «Temps Modernes», Sartre et les autres.

Quand on voulait du jazz, on allait au Lorientais l’après-midi, puis on continuait au Tabou. Je surveillais les entrées avec Anne-Marie Cazalis et Juliette Gréco, nous étions les psychologues de service. Les types qui ne nous plaisaient pas, on leur disait «Vous n’entrez pas». Mais on laissait entrer des types qui n’avaient pas un rond quand ils étaient intéressants, c’est-à-dire quand ils avaient un livre sous le bras: on exigeait des livres. Les étrangers aussi, on les acceptait. A condition qu’ils soient un peu littéraires. C’est comme ça que le Tabou s’est formé, peu à peu. C’était ouvert et c’était fermé. On ne laissait pas entrer n’importe qui, et en même temps, les gens qui entraient étaient n’importe qui. Je crois qu’on y voyait les types sympas.

C’étaient Anne-Marie Cazalis et Juliette Gréco qui avaient trouvé, rue Dauphine, ce café qui fermait très tard parce qu’il était fréquenté par les types des Messageries. Gréco avait eu l’idée de demander leur cave. Il n’y avait pas de salle pour les zazous, c’est pour ça qu’ils sont allés dans les caves. Ce n’est pas seulement à cause du bruit, c’est parce qu’il n’y avait rien. Les types ont dit d’accord. Il a fallu enlever le charbon, c’était humide, dégueulasse. Cazalis et Gréco ont entraîné là ceux qui, les premiers, ont fait le Tabou; c’est-à-dire Merleau-Ponty et Queneau.»

Boris Vian est à l'honneur, jusqu'au 15 janvier 2012, à la Bibliothèque nationale de France François-Mitterrand, 75013 Paris. Le catalogue est co-édité par la BNF et Gallimard. ©Photo Ingi Paris / akg-images

Pataphysique

« Queneau et lui s’entendaient très bien. Queneau l’a fait entrer chez les pataphysiciens. Quoique selon moi, ce qu’ils faisaient n’était pas tout à fait de la pataphysique. Enfin, je n’aime pas les pataphysiciens! Cette société secrète, ça faisait un peu cagoulard, et surtout assez infantile... Leurs grosses plaisanteries, qui leur font se taper sur les cuisses, ça ne me faisait pas rire du tout. D’ailleurs je crois qu’ils étaient contents de rencontrer Boris parce que leur Collège de Pataphysique tombait un peu en désuétude à ce moment-là. Boris lui a donné un sang nouveau. Avez-vous lu les «Cahiers de Pataphysique»? Les trucs de Boris étaient bien.»

Camus-Merleau: la dispute

Chez nous, les surprises-parties ont continué après la Libération. Comme, après avoir été prisonniers en Allemagne, mes parents étaient tout de suite partis au Canada, on avait leur appartement du Faubourg Poissonnière entièrement à nous: en hiver on pelait de froid, parce qu’il n’y avait pas de charbon, mais en été, on avait sept grandes pièces.

C’était là que Camus et Merleau-Ponty se sont disputés, dans la salle à manger. Je crois que c’était pour une histoire de camp de concentration russe. Merleau-Ponty avait dû écrire, dans «les Temps modernes» bien entendu, un éditorial sur le sujet. Et Camus trouvait que ça n’était pas assez fort – il cherchait alors querelle à tout le monde. Il a attaqué Merleau-Ponty, qui s’est défendu. Camus a dit: «J’en ai marre!» Il a pris ses cliques et ses claques, il a descendu l’escalier. Jacques-Laurent Bost lui a couru après, Sartre a couru après Bost, mais Camus est parti. Et la rupture avec Merleau-Ponty a été définitive.

Un humoriste aux «Temps modernes»

« «Les Temps modernes» étaient ravis de l’accueillir. Boris était leur égal! Quand il y a publié sa «Chronique du Menteur», il n’y a que Merleau-Ponty qui a tordu le nez. Sartre nous avait confié la traduction d’un livre un peu osé, c’était sur les Indiens et leur mode de vie. Ca s’appelait «la Fumée de leurs feux». Merleau-Ponty n’a pas voulu le publier parce qu’il y avait deux Indiens qui baisaient d’une certaine façon… Quel coincé. Quand on pense qu’il courait après Gréco en miaulant! »

Jean-Paul Sartre, Boris et Michelle Vian, Simone de Beauvoir. ©Yves Manciet

Femmes

« Je me souviens, c’était au cours d’une de nos surprises-parties, très tard. Boris est allé dans la cuisine avec Simone de Beauvoir. Ils ont beaucoup parlé tous les deux. Boris est revenu, et m’a dit: « Oh ! j’ai fait le con.» Ca voulait dire: «Elle m’a fait des avances et je n’y ai pas répondu.» Les femmes intelligentes lui ont toujours fait très peur. Il préférait: «Sois belle et tais-toi.» Ce n’était pas toujours un mari facile à vivre. Et il était jaloux ! Alors qu’il avait toutes les filles de Saint-Germain… Vous savez, on a eu un enfant tout de suite, ça faisait d’un coup une grosse responsabilité. Mais alors il ne fallait pas épouser une oie blanche!»

« Pas une rature »

« Quand il travaillait à l'Afnor [l'Association française de Normalisation, où Vian était ingénieur], il me rapportait le soir dix ou vingt pages que je tapais tout de suite, car j'avais fait deux ans de dactylo. Ses manuscrits étaient nets. Regardez les 450 pages de «l'Ecume des jours», il n'y a pratiquement pas une rature. Il écrivait comme ça. Et quand on lui disait qu'il avait de la chance d'écrire si vite, il se mettait en colère: «Mais j'ai travaillé pour ça, j'ai travaillé vingt ans sur les bancs de l'école et ça me faisait chier !»

En effet, il travaillait de la tête, il avait tout lu; comme moi d’ailleurs. C’est pour ça qu’on s’entendait bien.

Vian traducteur

« Nous avons traduit Chandler, Peter Cheney, Richard Wright, James Agee… Je faisais une première traduction, il la mettait au propre. Il faisait du Vian, comme Baudelaire faisait du Baudelaire avec Edgar Poe. Mais il ne prenait pas vraiment des libertés. Il fallait que le paragraphe respecte la pensée de l’auteur. A l’arrivée, Boris est l’un des rares traducteurs dont on n’a pas besoin de refaire les traductions. Elles sont aussi bonnes depuis cinquante ans. Parce que c’était un écrivain.»

« J'irai cracher sur vos tombes »

« Oui, c'est moi qui ai trouvé le titre. Boris pensait à «J'irai danser sur vos tombes». Je ne trouvais pas ça très révolutionnaire. Il fallait que ce soit très fort, très provocant, mais ce que les gens ne savent pas, c'est que dans les contes hassidiques, ceux d'Isaac Bashevis Singer par exemple, des juifs se font cette menace: «Si tu fais ça, je ne te laisserai jamais tranquille, j'irai te tirer la barbe et cracher sur ta tombe.»

J'étais sûre que le livre marcherait, à condition que Boris n'avoue jamais qu'il en était l'auteur. Je lui disais : « C'est un canular, tu l'as réussi, fais autre chose.» D'ailleurs les autres livres[signés Vernon Sullivan] sont de la même eau, mais un peu moins bons. «Et on tuera tous les affreux», c'est vraiment moins bon.»

Portrait non daté de l'écrivain français Boris Vian. (c) Afp

« Jamais une vulgarité »

« J’irai cracher sur vos tombes », c’était bien. «L’Ecume des jours», c’était plus que bien. Un chef d’œuvre. Quand il a été question de lui donner le prix de la Pléiade en 1946, je trouvais ça normal.

C’était beau, sentimental, nouveau. J’avais lu pas mal de littérature, ça tranchait sur tout. Ce n’était ni bête ni vulgaire: il n’y a jamais une vulgarité chez Boris. J’adore son œuvre romanesque, je la mets au pinacle. »

La fureur de vivre

« Il ne dormait pas bien, hélas. Il avait ce qu’on appelle un rhumatisme articulaire, le cœur devait pomper tout le temps : ça formait un gros muscle qui étouffait dans sa poitrine et rétrécissait ses artères. Quand il avait douze ou treize ans, les docteurs avaient dit qu’il ne dépasserait pas la quarantaine. Il avait donc une vie de quatre-vingts ans à fourrer dans quarante ans. Et comme il était particulièrement doué… Il n’était pas vraiment angoissé. Ca se voyait quand il dormait, si vous voulez. Il ne grinçait pas des dents, mais on voyait qu’il était mal. Il était conscient qu’il se ruinait la santé, mais il avait des choses à faire, très vite.»

Les copains, les voitures

« Avec lui, les copains ont toujours passé avant tout. Les copains de Centrale, puis ceux de Saint-Germain, et les copains garagistes… C’était une de ses passions: les voitures, toujours les voitures. Comme il n’avait pas un rond, il achetait de vieilles occasions. Et telles qu’il les achetait, c’étaient de vieilles voitures, pour lesquelles les usines ne faisaient plus de pièces détachées. C’est pour ça qu’il avait des copains dans tous les garages. Nous avons dû visiter tous les garages de France, je pense! »

Milieu littéraire

« Boris était très ami avec Robert Scipion et ceux des «Temps modernes». Puis il s’en est éloigné: j’étais avec Sartre, lui était avec Ursula [Kübler, que Vian a épousée en 1954], on n’avait plus rien en commun. Sartre était pour lui comme un père qui l’avait trahi. Un peu comme Queneau, qui l’a lâché en ne publiant pas chez Gallimard les romans qui ont suivi «L’Ecume des jours». Il lui demandait des arrangements, Boris les faisait mais ça ne collait pas.

Par ailleurs, Boris a cherché à connaître Marcel Aymé, qu’il aimait beaucoup, mais ça n’a pas marché. Marcel Aymé ne voulait voir personne. Boris avait un petit espoir parce que Delaunay, du Hot Club de France, connaissait le tailleur de Marcel Aymé. Comme Boris aimait beaucoup se faire des trucs sur mesure, des vestes un peu vague, quelque chose qui n’était pas tout à fait du déguisement mais enfin qui lui permettait de n’être pas habillé comme tout le monde, il allait chez ce tailleur, du côté de Montmartre. Et il y allait d’autant plus que c’était celui de Marcel Aymé. Je crois qu’il lui a écrit, l’autre ne lui a jamais répondu.

Un que Boris adorait, c’était Pierre Mac Orlan. Il avait lu tous ses livres, ils se voyaient régulièrement. Ca collait très bien entre eux.»

Clichés agaçants

« Quand on parle de lui tout m’agace. Les biographes lui attribuent souvent des choses qui ne sont pas de lui, parce que ça fait plus riche. Ce n’est plus Boris Vian, c’est un dieu. Et du coup il perd toute humanité.»

Saint-Tropez

« C’était juste après-guerre. C’est Freddy Chauvelot, le patron du Club Saint-Germain, qui nous a entraînés là-bas. Boris a accepté d’y aller avec son orchestre. Et comme ça on a pu faire une atmosphère, dans un café de la Ponche, c’est-à-dire chez les pêcheurs, dans le vieux Saint-Tropez, à côté de l’église. Ca donnait sur une petite plage où les bateaux s’échouaient – les pointus.

Ils ont joué, les gens sont venus: d’abord les gens du village, et puis ensuite toute la bande des «Temps modernes», les Pontalis, Claude Lefort, Sartre, d’autres encore. Ils n’y passaient pas forcément de longues vacances, mais tout le monde passait à Saint-Tropez. Gréco et Anne-Marie Cazalis étaient à Juan, mais elles venaient nous voir. On a engagé Mouloudji aussi. Tout ça a fait la réputation de Saint-Tropez.

Les pêcheurs venaient écouter du jazz, au lieu d’écouter du musette. Et certains dansaient, je ne vous dis pas, comme des Américains ! Il ne faut pas oublier que les Américains avaient débarqué là. D’ailleurs Saint-Tropez était encore en partie détruit sur le port. Les pêcheurs nous acceptaient comme on était: en jean et en chemise. Ils nous appelaient les «estrangers du dedans». C’était bien, c’était beau, c’était sympa, ces premiers temps. On avait une maison de pêcheur qu’on louait pour rien du tout. Boris voulait l’acheter, mais il n’avait pas un rond. Et puis tout ça n’était pas fait pour durer.»

A gauche : Livre d’or de Bimbo et Doublezon. Première page du livret cartonné réalisé par Boris Vian et Alfred Jabès, 36 pages – 1940. [extrait de «Boris Vian. Post-Scriptum», éd. Cherche Midi]. A droite : Squelette pendu. Dessin au stylo Bic bleu sur carnet de notes à spirale – 1953. [extrait de «Boris Vian. Post-Scriptum», éd. Cherche Midi]. ©Cohérie Boris Vian

Séparation

«C’est Boris qui m’a quittée, en avril 1951. Il a emporté les Marcel Aymé, les Queneau, les disques d’Ellington et de Fats Waller. C’est tout. Et puis «l’Arrache cœur», qu’il n’arrivait pas à finir. Il y a vraiment une coupure dans sa vie. Les romans et les poésies, il les a écrites avec moi. Puis il s’est lancé dans la chanson. Il était dégoûté par ses échecs littéraires, mais c’est aussi qu’il voulait vivre plus vite et gagner de l’argent plus vite: il était bourré de dettes. Le divorce s’est très mal passé, c’était moche, il se sentait coincé. J’avais peur de perdre mes enfants, il n’aurait pas su s’en occuper. C’était un fils, pas un père!»

De l’échec à la Pléiade

« Que Boris soit aujourd’hui à la Bibliothèque nationale, et surtout dans la Pléiade, c’est extraordinaire. D’autant qu’il avait été très déçu, en 1946, de ne pas avoir un prix qui s’appelait le prix de la Pléiade. On le lui avait fait miroiter, il y tenait beaucoup. «L’Ecume des jours» plaisait beaucoup à Beauvoir, Sartre, Queneau et Lemarchand. Mais il y a eu une opposition de Paulhan. Il était sadique, Paulhan. Il disait à Boris qu’il avait de grandes chances, donc Boris était aux anges; en fait il voulait donner le prix à un poète, qui fut Jean Grosjean. Pour Boris, ça été très cruel, très difficile à vivre. Il est sorti à un moment où les vieux tenaient la littérature. «L’Ecume des jours» a été un best-seller quand les jeunes l’ont lu, en collection de poche, en 1963. Boris a toujours eu vingt ans d’avance.»

Propos recueillis par Grégoire Leménager

A VOIR

EXPOSITION
Boris Vian, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris 13e. Rés. : 01-53-79-49-49 ou visites @ bnf.fr. Jusqu'au 15 janvier 2012.

A LIRE

BORIS VIAN, catalogue de l'exposition, sous la direction d'Anne Mary, BNF/ Gallimard, 192 p., 39 euros.

BORIS VIAN. POST-SCRIPTUM. DESSINS, MANUSCRITS, INEDITS par Nicole Bertolt, Cherche Midi, 200 p., 29,90 euros.

A ECOUTER

COFFRET BORIS VIAN, lu par Arthur H, Denis Podalydès, Thibault de Montalembert, François Marthouret, Audiolib, 3 CD, 39 euros.

Source: Version intégrale de l'article paru dans "le Nouvel Observateur" du 27 octobre 2011.

Boris Vian

2011-11-24T14:08:00.001-08:00

Boris Vian Exhibition!

2011-11-24T14:02:00.001-08:00

I am going to this exhibition before it closes in January, 2012. I strongly recommend everyone who has even a slight interest in interesting culture - should go to this exhibit. And yes, you will be poor afterwards, but then life is not always the cherry on the top of your desert.

BNF: Autant en emporte le Vian

20-10-11 à 20:57 par Leménager Grégoire Réagir

Vian n’a pas toujours été le Boris national de France qu’on célèbre dans une belle exposition à la BNF. L’histoire est parfois bizarrement fichue.

"Boris Vian" est à l'honneur, jusqu'au 15 janvier 2012, à la Bibliothèque nationale de France François-Mitterrand, 75013 Paris. Le catalogue est co-édité par la BNF et Gallimard.

RÉAGIR

L’Histoire est cruelle, même quand elle semble généreuse. Prenez Boris Vian. Il se trouve aujourd’hui célébré à la BNF après avoir fait en 2010, dans la foulée du cinquantième anniversaire de sa mort, une entrée remarquée dans la Pléiade. Le cinéaste Michel Gondry adapte actuellement son «Ecume des jours», avec Audrey Tautou, Léa Seydoux, Romain Duris et Gad Elmaleh. Et Nicole Bertolt, qui sait à peu près tout sur lui, publie au Cherche-Midi un «Boris Vian, post-scriptum» plein de poèmes inédits, de dessins bizarres et de montages d’extraits de presse franchement poilants.

Boris Vian face à l'Histoire? ©DR Archives Cohérie Boris Vian, Paris, 2011

Vian sur tous les fronts? Voilà bien ce qui s’appelle une consécration à retardement, pour le romancier de «Vercoquin», du scandaleux «J’irai cracher sur vos tombes» et de «l’Automne à Pékin», qui comme chacun sait ne parle ni de l’automne ni de Pékin.

Car son statut de classique contemporain fait oublier à quel point, malgré l’amitié admirative de Queneau, la vie d’écrivain de Vian fut minée par les échecs, les désillusions, la scoumoune. Comme pour le premier poète maudit venu. Et il faut croire que tout ça lui pesa un peu, puisque ce cracheur de copies surdoué tira un trait sur ses ambitions littéraires dès le début des années 1950, en finissant tant bien que mal son «Arrache-cœur».

Vian ne s’était pourtant officiellement lancé qu’en 1946, avec «l’Ecume des jours». On lui avait fait miroiter le prix de la Pléiade pour finalement le donner à Jean Grosjean. Gallimard, après avoir publié ses deux premiers romans, avait refusé poliment les autres. Une dizaine de titres plus tard, dont quatre signés Vernon Sullivan, cet homme pressé de vivre avant d’avoir du vent dans son crâne jetait l’éponge pour se consacrer à la chanson.

Il est question de tout cela, et de bien d’autres choses, dans la grande exposition que consacrent, à la BNF, Anne Mary (commissariat) et Nicole Bertolt (conseil scientifique) à ce touche-à-tout qui rétrospectivement semble avoir eu tous les talents.

Ici, on tombe sur la fameuse lettre où Queneau s’efforce, le 22 décembre 1949, de lui dire gentiment que Gallimard ne veut pas de son «Herbe rouge»: «Sommes-nous tous un peu cons? Ou bien n’as-tu pas fait ce que tu voulais faire? L’histoire littéraire en jugera, comme dirait l’autre.»

Là, c’est l’âge d’or de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, où sa première femme Michelle accueille le Duke en personne, et où le couple Vian fréquente abondamment l’équipe des «Temps Modernes», de Sartre à Beauvoir en passant par Merleau-Ponty.

Là, un coin est réservé au dramaturge de «l’Equarrissage pour tous», avec photos de représentations et lettre de Vian à Jean-Louis Barrault; un autre secteur rend hommage au pataphysicien, en exposant notamment son impressionnant «cor à gidouille à dix-huit tours»; un autre encore salue l’admirable mélomane qui révérait Charlie Parker et Dizzy Gillespie dans «Jazz hot», tout en y signant de désopilantes revues de presse.

[©DR Cliché Patrick Léger / Gallimard. Archives Cohérie Boris Vian, Paris, 2011]

Partout, des manuscrits, des photos, des éditions originales, des dédicaces. Comme dans n’importe quelle exposition, alors? Sans doute, sauf que l’intérêt de celle-ci vient aussi de la richesse des archives audio-visuelles qui s’y trouvent présentées.

Non seulement on peut écouter ses chansons, du «Déserteur» à la «Java des bombes atomiques», enregistrées par Vian ou par d’autres, mais les extraits de films s’enchaînent, sur différents écrans: voilà par exemple Vian qui ramasse des filles dans sa voiture, à travers Saint-Tropez, avant de retrouver le tout jeune Michel Piccoli à la terrasse d’un café; et le revoilà, qui se faufile entre Jeanne Moreau et Gérard Philipe dans «les Liaisons dangereuses» de Vadim.

On ne s’arrête pas sur chaque détail, c’est impossible, il y en a trop. Mais peu avant la fin du parcours, en gros caractères sur un mur, pas moyen d’éviter ce mot d’ordre, extrait d’un livre hélas inachevé qui se serait appelé «Traité de civisme»:

« Le monde est aux mains d’une théorie de crapules qui veulent faire de nous des travailleurs, et des travailleurs spécialisés, encore: refusons... Sachons tout... Soyez un spécialiste de tout. L’avenir est à Pic de La Mirandole.»

Avec des phrases comme celle-là, on espère que l’avenir sera aussi, pour un moment encore, à Boris Vian. Ca tombe bien, l’Histoire a quelque chose à se faire pardonner.

G.L.

"The Adventues of Hergé" by Bocquet, Fromental, and Stanislas

2011-11-23T17:29:00.001-08:00

Hergé has always been a mysterious figure to me. What interests me more is not TinTin, but the research that went into his work. The fact that he was a depressive personality and sort of in murky waters with respect to politics -makes him a fascinating subject for a biography. As far as I know there are two biographies in English (one of them is coming out next month) and of course, this graphic biography by Boucquet, Fromental and the remarkable illustrator Stanislas.
I am a total sucker for the typical design for graphic novels in France. And the great publishing house Drawn and Quarterly keeps the same design. And if you looked at it fast enough at a bookstore, you think it was part of the TinTin series. So, yes, a very elegant book. But I also feel that this book was edited down, because it jumps around a lot. And I did enjoy reading it in one sitting (well I am in a bed with a cold), but still, i wished it lingered in certain parts of the narrative. But for sure, I am going to dwell into the world of TinTin. This book wet my hunger for boy reporters who get themselves in jams

Adam Ant & the Good, the Mad & the Lovely Posse - Zerox.

2011-11-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Let there be drums! Its good to see Adam Ant looking good and sounding great.

Adam Ant On Late Late Show 4 Nov 11.mp4

2011-11-21T07:45:00.000-08:00

Always find Adam Ant interesting. I also enjoy his memoir that came out some years ago.

"The Doors" by Greil Marcus

2011-11-20T14:14:00.001-08:00

Reading Greil Marcus is always a pleasure. And its the reason why I am reading this particular book, because I really don't have a passion for the Doors or their imagery. But on the other hand they are a band that's important to my personal culture. Being raised in Los Angeles, I saw the Doors at the Whiskey, opening for Them with Van (the other) Morrison. It may have been the first show in a club, not sure. My mind I was around 12, but I think i was actually 14. Nevertheless I went there with my Dad to see Them, and the Doors was a superb surprise. I think it may have been before their first album was released, but I remember being really impressed with Jim Morrison's voice. It sooth as well as rocked. And there was something quite personal in the way they communicated with their audience in the club. On the other hand, Them was very cold and cool. Not a bad thing mind you, but totally the opposite of the Doors.

The next I saw the Doors it was at an outside concert - and I thought they were boring. They didn't have that concentration or the force of their show at the Whiskey. And at this time it was around the height of "Light My Fire." But the magic was gone, at least to my young ears at the time.

The other times were non-musical - but I remember being invited (with my Dad) to the back stage of the first Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young show at the Greek theater, and as we were walking to the entrance of the backstage, Morrison was being escorted out by a security guard. Then all of sudden Stills shows up and tells the security guard to let Morrison stay. And that was my memory of the evening! The next time after that I saw him in Topanga Canyon, drinking beer in a brown bag behind a wheel of a parked Volkswagon bug. Of course all of above could have just been a dream, but....

But back to the book, Marcus uses the Doors' culture and music as a springboard on his thoughts on 1960's American culture. its basicially a long riff how culture and band connects and makes commentary on to each other. Marcus is writing this book as not only a fan (and he's a very critical fan) but also the state of the world via the eyes of Jim Morrison and Co.

Phil Spector's Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans

2011-11-20T11:23:00.001-08:00

A very cool and warm album from planet Phil Spector. "The Wall of Sound" can be sometimes very intimate and on your lap - and Darlene Love is a vocalist who just gets it right all the time. This album has a couple of soulful or bluesy tunes that cut the rain (in Los Angeles at the moment) into a wrapped around warm blanket. "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" is just, a wow record. Slow and burning.

This is another beautiful cut: My Heart Beat A Little Bit Faster

Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg

2011-11-19T15:02:00.000-08:00

MN from fun bubble on Vimeo.

Serge Gainsbourg's "Histoire de Melody Nelson" was made into a music promo in 1971. The film is directed by Jean Christophe Averty. Starring Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin.

Kenneth Anger and Brian Butler's Technicolor Skull

2011-11-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

My favorite band at this very moment.

The Crystals Twist Uptown

2011-11-19T11:13:00.001-08:00

A beautiful album by The Crystals via Phil Spector. I got this album from the "Phil Spector Presents The Philles Album Collection" which is great. Hearing a work, especially when you know the songs so well over the years, in its original packaging and concept...is simply wonderful. There is a strong 'dream' aspect to Spector's work, and I love it for that reason alone.

"Wallace Berman: The Aleph Male" by Tom Teicholz

2011-11-19T08:44:00.001-08:00

Wallace Berman, "Untitled #126," 1976, single negative photographic image cutout.

Art exhibitions take many forms. They can be surveys of a time, place, artist or artistic movement. They may reconsider an artist through a new prism, or appreciate the familiar in a new or different way. All too rare is the exhibition that invites the viewer to share in the joy of discovery, engaging us as confidants in new revelations that suddenly seem self-evident. "Speaking in Tongues: Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961-1976," is just such an exhibition. At the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, the show was co-curated by Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon.

Berman is probably best-known for his Verifax collages -- made with an early Kodak copier, with which Berman appropriated and assembled images, often showing a hand holding a transistor radio on which an image is displayed. (Today, this device appears to prefigure our current smartphone-iPad-iPhone technology.) The works contain a series of various images, repeated in grid format and are often adorned by Hebrew letters.

Heinecken made his photographic compositions without a camera, using appropriated images. Although the two artists' works are very different, their display here, side by side, grouped around themes of code, gesture and narrative, makes clear the conversation that existed between the two and allows the work of each to seem all the more important, influential and contemporary.

In a recent conversation, Bohn-Spector explained that it was while doing research in the Heinecken archives in Tucson, Ariz., that she and Mellon discovered the connection between the two artists and came upon a way of revealing a hitherto unknown symbiosis between them.

Let me confess my ignorance: Until a few weeks ago, I knew little about Wallace Berman -- although it turns out that I had seen one of his important works, "Topanga Seed," when for a column on the launch of "Pacific Standard Time," I visited the home of Stanley and Elyse Grinstein, where the work sat at the entryway, a huge boulder covered with Hebrew lettering (it's now on view at the Getty). Although the Pasadena exhibition gives equal importance to both artists, because of Berman's imagery I will focus here more on him.

Grinstein called "Wally" (Berman) the "soul" of California's artistic movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Berman is variously referred to as a "guru" to the Beat movement and the "father" of California assemblage art.

Wallace Berman, "Untitled" (two-ton rock, above and below), Verifax positive, with Polaroid transfer on magazine map.

Berman was born in Staten Island, N.Y., in 1926. When he was 4, his family moved to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. He attended Fairfax High School, from which he was expelled, in 1943, for gambling (his gambling compulsion was such that one of his early artworks consisted of a poker table, complete with cards and chips, hung on a wall as a painting). He served in the Navy during World War II, working with sonar and setting off underwater explosives, an experience that triggered a breakdown. After the war, Berman attended both the Jepson Art Institute and Chouinard Art Institute.

In the 1950s, Berman became deeply immersed in jazz and the blues, writing a song for Jimmy Witherspoon and designing album covers. (On the day I visited the Armory exhibit, one of the other attendees was a woman who had been friends with "Wally," as she had called him, and she recalled him taking her to jazz clubs in what was known at the time as South Central Los Angeles, even introducing her to Charlie Parker.) He also became part of the Beat movement, spending the next decade shuttling between San Francisco and Los Angeles creating Semina, a limited-edition art magazine that mixed prose, poetry and art from contributors such as Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jean Cocteau. In 1961, he returned to Los Angeles, settling in Topanga in 1965.

For the next decade, Berman was part of a vibrant Topanga arts community that included actors, artists and musicians, among them Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, George Herms and Neil Young (Young's "After The Gold Rush" was originally composed as the soundtrack to a Berman film screenplay). Berman was killed in 1976, the night before his 50th birthday, while riding his motorcycle, the victim of a drunk driver.

Berman's love of the printed word and his appreciation of the spiritual dimension of words and letters was manifest in his study of kabbalah, his use of random Hebrew lettering and words in his art, and his adoption of the Hebrew letter "Aleph" as his own identifying symbol. It is both beautiful and haunting to see those Hebrew letters in Berman's works, on display both at the Armory and at the Getty's "Pacific Standard Time: Crosscurrents in L.A. Painting and Sculpture 1950-1970" survey. The Hebrew attests to the ancient and often indecipherable mystical power of both language and art -- at once foreign, scary and familiar.

In the Armory exhibition, curators Bohn-Spector and Mellon included postcards, letters and texts by Berman that offer a sense of his inner life and which, at times, read like Kerouac-style free associations, jazz-like hipster monologues. Berman had a great appreciation for the French Surrealists and Dada, and for the symbolist credo of a derangement of the senses to produce transcendence -- which may be the best explanation for his nine-minute experimental film, "Aleph" (completed posthumously by Stan Brakhage), which is being screened at the Armory.

Berman, Untitled
Co-curator Mellon's catalog essay about Berman and Heinecken, "Feeling for the Dude: Brotherhood and Masculinity Creeping Through the Ether," is a personal essay and discussion of the male idioms that pervade the relationship between these two artists (such as military service, gambling, motorcycles and pornography) and that inform their work.

Berman
It is striking that both, in those postwar years in California, were immersed in jazz and Beat, and involved in disassembling and reassembling contemporary culture, making paintings without painting, or photographs without cameras, as well as appropriating images -- even those shocking to conventional society (such as admittedly pornographic images) -- and refashioning them as art.

This recalls nothing so much as the dialogue between those other dudes, Picasso and Braque, who in an earlier Jazz Age in that Parisian Topanga called Montmartre, also created art of the vulgar and exotic (the African-masked whores of "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon"), as well as assemblages from found objects and collages that included the detritus of their everyday lives -- newspapers, menus, images of street performers and musicians. Their inventions of Cubism and the art of collage and assemblage would speak to an entire society coping with modernity and to the artists that followed, including Berman and Heinecken, as would these latter two become influential in their own right, upon artists as varied as Robert Rauschenberg, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.

It is the recognition of this secret language between the artists and the generations that "Speaking in Tongues" allows us to discover in Berman and Heinecken. Berman's work and influence, if not so widely known before, should by virtue of "Pacific Standard Time" become a part of our modern canon. To quote "The Big Lebowski": "The Dude abides.

This article appeared originally in print in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

A very nice piece on my father. But to give credit that is due, Neil Young's "After The Goldrush" is based on a screenplay by Dean Stockwell, not by my Dad. - Tosh Berman

Boris Vian

2011-11-18T16:37:00.001-08:00

Usamaru Furuya's "Lychee Light Club"

2011-11-18T07:57:00.001-08:00

I accidently ran into mangaartist/writer Usamaru Furuya's work via looking at the cover of hisversion of Osamu Dazai's great novel "No Longer Human."Mind you I haven't read it yet, but Dan at Skylight Books in LasFeliz put this little dynamite in my hands. "Lychee light Club"is a group of damaged kids who have a powerful unhinged chess loving'leader, who at the same age controls this goth gang. They kill,destroy, and build their own version of a Frankenstein, who has onehuman eye that belongs to a member of the gang.

The violence is very extreme andover-the-top, which .....makes this work better then others. The arthere very much reminds me of another manga artist i.e. genius by thename of Suehiro Maruo, who is a major influence on Furuya. The mangais based on an actual theater piece of the same title and helped puttogether by Maruo - so this is very much a literal tribute to theoriginal stage production as well as to the works of Maruo.

The narration is pretty good, but forme, its the visual aspect of the piece that grabs my attention. Itsone long beauty of a penmanship by Furuya. Like everything else thereis so much dregs in the field of manga, its nice to be exposed tosomeone who is really using the medium of comics to not only breakinto new ground, but also just pushing to the horror and violencethat this medium is or can be great at.

Dennis Cooper's "The Marbled Swarm"

2011-11-17T22:10:00.001-08:00

A very beautifully layered novel thatone can almost taste the narrative. Considering it deals withcannibalism among other things this may not be your type of flavor -but it is an essential read by one of the great English languagewriters alive. What strikes me about the novel for me personally isthe jaded aristocratic voice that runs through it. All of DennisCooper's novels have a strong visual sense - and usually with theminimal language. "The Marbled Swarm" is different becausethe text is so dense and beautifully spread out - that its just a joyto go over the sentences over and over again. It has its own music,and the images that come from the "music" is both funny andhighly poetic.

A lot of people will probably react tothe violence and sex, but to me in the hands of M. Cooper its abeautiful instrument that plays a haunting melody. In about sixmonths i am going to re-read this book - not only for the pleasure ofthe text, but also to dig into the narrative that is as twisted asthe secret tunnels that are featured in this novel.

James Campbell's "Boris Vian, The Prince of Saint-Germain"

2011-11-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

The following is an article that was printed in The Times Literary Supplement.

Boris Vian, the Prince of Saint-Germain

James Campbell

BORIS VIAN
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Until January 15, 2012

BORIS VIAN
191pp. BNF/Gallimard. 39euros.
978 2 07 013530 1

Published: 9 November 2011

Just when it seemed impossible that Boris Vian could do anything else to surprise us, his too-lean, too-pale face veers into close-up on one of several screens in this captivating exhibition. Accompanying himself on an outlandish nine-string guitar-cum-lyre,Vian begins to sing a solemn Italian ballad. It takes only a few moments for the listener to realize that it’s improvised nonsense – all spaghe-h-h-h-tt-tt-i, minestro-o-o-ne, forrrrrmAAGGio, chocoLAAATTe. An interviewer asks in English why he is singing this gibberish. “I never went to Italy”, an almost smiling Vian replies, “so I had to write a song about it to know it.”

Throughout his thirty-nine years, Vian made up life as he went. When the world declared that his invention did not fit, he spun his own planet, in a parallel orbit, where the laws of Boris applied. The most successful of the eight novels to be published during his lifetime, J’irai cracher sur vos tombes (1946), was written in two weeks and published under the name “Vernon Sullivan”, an African American writer whose work was translated “de l’Américain par Boris Vian”. The action takes place in the United States, which Vian never visited. Sex, violence and a racial conundrum – the anti-hero Lee Anderson is a black man light enough to pass for white, like Joe Christmas in Light in August (Faulkner was in vogue) – led to Vian being charged with having outraged “des bonnes moeurs”. It was the first literary prosecution of its kind since 1857, when Madame Bovary entered the dock. Vian did not enjoy the scandal, which resulted in time-consuming litigation and a fine, nor the infamy. His hopes of being taken more seriously as a writer at the Café de Flore, which had suddenly become the literary centre of the world, were raised when Gallimard published, first, Vercoquin et le plancton (1947), a novel originally written to amuse friends, and then, three months later, in the collection “Blanche”, L’Écume des jours. At the same time, Les Temps Modernes took his short stories and translations and indulged a sequence of send-ups of “Meloir de Beauvartre” and “Pontartre de Merlebeauvy”, making a motley of the journal’s leading thinkers, under the heading “Chronique du menteur” (Liar’s chronicle). The brief surge of good fortune was quashed, however, when Gallimard rejected his next novel, L’Herbe rouge, in 1949.

The letter bearing the bad news from Raymond Queneau, a reader at the firm, is displayed here. Queneau, a lifelong friend, cannot bring himself to disagree with the other dissenting readers, who included Sartre. Meanwhile, Merleau-Ponty, the editor of Les Temps Modernes, had got fed up with seeing himself lampooned in his own magazine, and the truth-talking liar’s hi-jinks were discontinued. Sartre himself remained fond of Vian, even when the latter turned up in Left Bank nightclubs reciting passages from L’Être et le néant to a blues accompaniment by Henri Salvador. Sartre had enjoyed his depiction in L’Écume des jours as Jean-Sol Partre, author of “La Lettre et le néon”, a study of neon lighting. But the mutual affection could not survive the decampment of Boris’s wife Michelle, mother of their two young children, to the Sartre coterie, of which she remained part until Sartre’s death in 1980. Michelle Vian, once “une belle blonde” – her own description, in a fascinating recent interview in Le Nouvel Observateur – still lives in the sixth arrondissement, and has been instrumental in the mounting of this exhibition, as was Vian’s second wife, Ursula Kubler-Vian, who died last year.

To describe Vian as a writer is less than half the story. It is his exhilarating versatility that makes the show such a joy. The awkwardness of putting a mainstream literary figure on display was manifested six years ago in the Sartre exhibition, in the same Galérie François 1er of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The curators tried valiantly to blow life into dusty material by providing clips of the Temps Modernes circle in discussion, together with footage of early productions of Sartre’s plays. There was also a short film of postwar Saint-Germain-des-Prés, of which the highlight was a few seconds of a reed-thin Vian, shot from below, playing a bebop solo on a pocket trumpet. That cameo has now been amplified and given a broad context, in a splendid presentation, under the direction of Anne Mary.

Music dominated the second part of his career, after 1953, when the last of the Vian novels appeared, the painfully titled L’Arrache-coeur – one of only a few Vian books to have been translated into English, in this case as Heartsnatcher, by Stanley Chapman. The fourth and final Sullivan novel came out in 1950. Vian’s passion for jazz was already equal to his love of literature, and his jazz writings occupy several volumes. A selection translated by the late writer and jazz trombonist Mike Zwerin under the title Round About Close to Midnight was published in 1988. Here is Vian, who disliked New Orleans jazz, reporting from a festival in Nice in 1948 for Albert Camus’s old newspaper, Combat:

“Louis Armstrong, who had just woken up, crossed the lobby in kingly manner on his way to breakfast. Last night was a triumph for him, tonight will be another. You cannot really find fault with Louis. He is the same Louis you hear on record. In fact you sometimes get the impression that his records are playing, not him.”

When American musicians visited Paris after the war, buoyed by Marshall Plan largesse, Boris acted as host, while the bilingual Michelle took the job of interpreter. One photograph on display shows Vian with an arm round Miles Davis; another catches Duke Ellington looking enquiringly into the wide eyes of Juliette Gréco. Vian approached his jazz writing as he did every other kind – as if composing a letter to a friend. His dispatches are full of jokes, recriminations, made-up words, flights of fancy: “Birds are responsible for three of the lesser curses that burden mankind: the desire to climb trees, to steal, and to sing”. The introduction to his treatise on songs and songwriting, En Avant la Zizique, of which these are the opening words, has the recommended tempo, “Andante, pataphysicoso”. The reader turns the page to arrive at “Chapitre Zéro”.

Vian was having great fun saying “merde” to one and all; but while he was adored by his intimate circle, as the designated Prince of Saint-Germain, the wider public was minded to reply to his industry in similar fashion. Vian had suffered from heart trouble since childhood, and the scandal over J’irai cracher sur vos tombes depressed his constitution further. Even by 1947, we learn here, he had to manage his energy, and his breath, carefully. Vian was a competent nightclub trumpeter – his recordings with small groups are available – and even if he never dreamed of making a living playing “Muskrat Ramble” at the Club Saint-Germain or the Tabou, it must have been crushing in 1950 to hear a doctor say that he should give it up altogether. The film clip of him leading a trio including his brother Alain in a pacey “Sheik of Araby” is particularly affecting in this respect. Dated 1958, it shows the trumpeter a year and a half from death, doing what he loves most, in the knowledge that each note shortened his life by a minute. An empty trumpet box, made by Vian, is on show. “The instrument itself has disappeared.”

With several careers already behind him – he had begun his professional life as an engineer at l’Afnor (the un-Vianesque Association française de normalisation) – he turned in his early thirties to songwriting and popular music generally. In the years that remained, Vian would become, first, joint artistic director “pour les variétés” at Philips, under the wing of Jacques Canetti, brother of the Nobel Prize-winning writer, and then, in 1958, artistic director of the Fontana label in France.

He wrote about 500 songs, many of which have become part of French pop culture. His interprètes include Gréco – an exquisite “Musique mécanique”, which may be heard here – Serge Gainsbourg (a sloppy “J’suis snob”), Magali Noël, who joins Vian in a riotous rendition of “Fais-moi mal, Johnny”, Henri Salvador, with the gargling “Blouse de dentiste” – the dentist turns out to be a plumber – as well as Yves Montand, Leo Ferré, Jacques Higelin and Serge Reggiani. For all his limitations in range and technique, however, there is no substitute for hearing Vian sing Vian. He recorded only about twenty of his own songs, but every track expresses his character. They satirize suburban mores (“Complainte du progrès”), arms dealers (“Le Petit Commerce”, “La Java des bombes atomiques”), psychotherapy (“Bourrée de complexes”), as well as recalling lost love (“Je bois”) and early Westerns (“Cinématographe”). Two EPs were issued in 1956, followed by an LP the same year, Chansons possibles et impossibles, with either Alain Goraguer or Jimmy Walter serving as composer and arranger. A few demos exist of Vian singing with one or the other at the piano. Admirers live in hope of the discovery of a cache of bootleg tapes.

Vian himself wrote the music for only one of his recorded songs, but it is the best known. “Le Déserteur” was first sung by Mouloudji in 1954, before being recorded by Vian. Almost a decade before Bob Dylan taunted statesmen in “Masters of War” for cowering behind their desks while armies went into battle, Vian’s narrator tells Monsieur le Président (at the time René Coty) that he never foresaw his destiny as killing poor folk. An invitation is issued which, as sung by Vian, has stirred generations of French students:

S’il faut donner son sang
Allez donner le vôtre
Vous êtes bon apôtre
Monsieur le Président . . .

(If blood must be spilled, why not spill your own and set a good example . . . .) As for the deserter himself, he is content to become a drop-out, wandering “les routes de France / De Bretagne en Provence”.

Alas, the singing career was no more successful than any other enterprise. “Le Déserteur” was released shortly after the fall of Dien Bien Phu and at the time of a deepening crisis in Algeria. State tolerance of youth protest was not yet in an evolved condition. Vian was in physical danger when he stood up to sing. In any case, he suffered from stage fright. Jacques Canetti’s daughter described the demeanour in the theatre of the jesting prince as “glacial”. The coat he designed himself and wore onstage, familiar from gloomy photographs of the otherwise highly photogenic figure, is displayed in a glass case.

Vian’s death could have been yet another of his inventions. In the early 1950s, he had sold the film rights to J’irai cracher sur vos tombes. By the time Michel Gast was ready to put it into production, however, the author had changed his mind. Perhaps he felt that the advent of civil rights in the US had altered the mood; or maybe the older man was uneasy at his younger self’s violent story. But his efforts to block the project failed. Attending a private screening at the Salle du petit marbeuf, near the Champs-Élysées, on June 23, 1959, he suffered a heart attack and died.

Since his revival in the 1960s, Vian has never been out of fashion. L’Écume des jours is a perennial student favourite and his collected works have recently been issued in two Pléiade volumes. What would the perpetual rebel – “a son, not a husband”, according to Michelle – who loved everything in life except trad jazz and “les flics” have to say about that, if he could look down from the uppermost room at the Flore? Probably that the world, so long out of joint in his regard, had moved a millimetre closer to the laws of planet Vian. There are numerous things to enjoy in the exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale. Not the least, on the day I was there, was the sight of two teenage girls with headphones clamped to their ears bobbing up and down to Vian’s immortal rhythms.

James Campbell’s books include a biography of James Baldwin and Exiled in Paris, a study of anglophone literary life on the Left Bank after the Second World War.

Boris Vian Exhibition at Bibliothèque nationale de France – Site François Mitterrand

2011-11-12T13:48:00.001-08:00

Boris Vian

The works of Boris Vian are exhibited at the National Library of France starting with October 18. The much anticipated opportunity to (re)discover the world of this poet keen on jazz.

From 18 October 2011 To 15 January 2012
Bibliothèque nationale de France – Site François Mitterrand

Boris Vian was never successful ... that is, not before his death! A sad realization, if one considers the beauty of the works that the writer, poet, lyricist, critic, musician, scriptwriter left behind, and the artists he inspired (Serge Gainsbourg in the lead).

The National Library of France,through an exhibition dedicated to him from October 18, 2011 to January 15, 2012, aims to display exceptional documents about the life of Boris Vian (around 200 items).

Thanks to the donations from the heirs of the author of I Spit on Your Graves, it will be possible to discover his first writing in prose, six paintings from 1946, The Treaty of civility that he did not finish, album covers and many sound and audio clips ...

A superb closer look into the fantasy world of Boris Vian, where you feel the whole atmosphere of the postwar district Saint-Germain-des-Prés frequented by this jazz fan alongside Sartre or Simone de Beauvoir. It’s essential.

http://www.new-paris-ile-de-france.co.uk/events-paris/exhibitions/modern-and-contemporary-arts/boris-vian-283177.html

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article818037.ece

Lun*na Menoh || Maximum Miniature 1

2011-11-08T06:48:00.000-08:00

The wild sewing machine music with fashion and wit. The Sewing Sisters!

Lun*na Menoh || Maximum Miniature 2

2011-11-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

"Bartleby & Co." by Enrique Vila-Matas

2011-11-06T16:19:00.000-08:00

At last! A novel about novelists that don't write. In fact they master the notion of "no." Enrique Vila-Matas is at the moment, one of my favorite living authors, who consistently questions the nature of literature and why one writes 'literature.' It is probably the ultimate book on writing and its (non)writers.
Although its a work of fiction, it is really a hardcore Literary criticism on a series of writers who either like Melville's great character Bartleby, just refuse to participate in the world of writing and therefore their lifestyle and the work that they did leave on this planet, is .....writing. All the subjects one thinks of who we may think is in this category Duchamp, Kafka, Robert Musil, and especially Robert Walser are investigated in short poetic chapters. Its a hard book to put down, and Vila-Matas has a real understanding why these (non)writers click into our conscience. Superb.

Alfred Jarry - The MIT Press

2011-11-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Alfred Jarry - The MIT Press

A brand new biography on the great man. Have not read it yet, but time is on my side.

The World of Lun*na Menoh: Maximum Minature: Scale Behavior in Style

2011-11-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

This promises (I promise) to be a great event/show/evening. Check out the videos down below if you don't believe me. Also featured is the remarkable Bettina Hubby.

LUN*NA MENOH
RUNWAY FASHION SHOW

MAXIMUM MINIATURE: SCALE BEHAVIOR IN STYLE

http://www.lunnaworld.com
http://www.lunnamenoh.com

Original Live Music Score by THE SEWING SISTERS

short fashion puppet movie by MAN VS TANK

projection piece "Sex without the People" by BETTINA HUBBY

Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 8 PM, doors open at 7:30 PM
$10

TRACK 16 GALLERY
http://www.track16.com/

2525 Michigan Avenue, Bergamot Station C-1
Santa Monica, CA 90404

PURCHASE TICKETS
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/205759

Buster Cornbread Halloween Hoot-e-Nanny

2011-10-31T07:56:00.000-07:00

A very short film by Relah, Kent & Buster. And if you blink your eyes you may miss yours truly as well. Very scary.

Enrique Vila-Matas' "Montano's Malady"

2011-10-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Is there such a thing as literature sickness? According to Enrique Vila-Matas' (sort of) novel, the answer is yes. There also should be a warning sign on the cover saying this book is only for literary nerds, because this is a hardcore open port to the world of literary concerns. In fact, one would think that this is the ultlmate book for anyone who is even thinking of writing a novel or two.
Reflections on Kafka, Benjamin, and every cult writer from the 20th Century is in this book, as well as some side issues, like Edgar Ulmer' s great noir film "Detour." And also what is a writer's journal and does it reflect on 'real' life or life imagined. Does these issues concern you? If no, skip the book, but if you are an obsessive reader like me, who wonders about these things -well then Vila-Matas is the Brian Wilson of Euro book geek-dom. So yeah, I love it.

Brian Wilson reveals The Beach Boys Smile Sessions Light Up Box Set

2011-10-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Beach Boys Smile Sessions Unboxing

2011-10-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

A fan's take on the packaging of Smile (double disk set). And Tom Recchion who does all the design work for TamTam Books, did the "Smile" packaging. Its a small world Mr. Disney.

The Beach Boys An Introduction to "SMiLE Sessions"

2011-10-28T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well only days or is it just hours from the official release of one of the great bootleg albums of all time.

Boris Vian Exhibition

2011-10-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

Try to keep me away from this exhibition!

Spanish Harlem (demo) - Phil Spector (1960)

2011-10-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

Phil Spector's demo for "Spanish Harlem." Its a beaut! How I would love it if there was an album of Phil Spector singing and playing guitar. Yes, that would be lovely.

"Minimum Miniature/ Opening" Lun*na Menoh

2011-10-18T22:20:00.000-07:00

Minimum Miniature // Opening from Lunna World on Vimeo.

I expect everyone to be there. Its remarkable watching this show being put together in Lun*na's studio.

"Minimum Miniature" Two Models - Lun*na Menoh

2011-10-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

Minimum Miniature // Two Models from Lunna World on Vimeo.

"Minimum Miniature" by Lun*na Menoh

2011-10-18T22:14:00.000-07:00

Minimum Miniature // Lineup from Lunna World on Vimeo.

Shiro Hamao's "The Devil's Disciple"

2011-10-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

"eroguro-nansensu" or as they say in English "erotic grotesque nonesense" was a school of writing in 1920's Japan. Decadent, druggy, kinky, and...fun. The most famous writer in that movement without a leader was Edogawa Rampo (yes it is a play on the name Edgar Allen Poe) and Shiro Hamao. Hamao was a lawyer by trade from a very well connected family. He threw that life away to become a crime writer, and an early supporter of gay rights in Japan. Died young, yet a dandy, Hamao had it all. And we can be thankful for Hesperus publishing these two short novels "The Devil's Disciple" and "Did He Kill Him?"
Both stories are pretty pulpy, but it drips with Asakusa 1920's life, and both have a gay sensual quality. Imagine Cocteau writing a gay noir detective story - and that is pretty much what is here. So yeah, not a masterpiece, but nevertheless a fascinating writer in a fascinating country in a very exciting series of moments.
Both stories deal with seduction that leads to a crime - and no regrets! One can only hope shortly that there will be more Shiro Hamao stories in English.

たま　マリンバ

2011-10-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

たま鐘の歌

2011-10-16T23:24:00.000-07:00

Tama is one of my faves. When I spent a whole year in Japan, this band was it for me, and now, they're still it.

たま　夕暮れ時のさびしさに Tama

2011-10-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Tama is my favorite band of all time.

たま　夕暮れ時のさびしさに

2011-10-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

Tama is my favorite Japanese band of all time.

Jacques Dutronc / Les Playboys (Françoise Hardy Blues 1966) [HQ Stéréo]

2011-10-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Remarkable record! Jacques Dutronc looks into culture, and therefore...

Françoise Hardy & Jacques Dutronc - Les Garçons

2011-10-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

mini, mini, mini - jacques dutronc ft. francoise hardy (fh blues 1966)

2011-10-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Dutronc and his wife Ms. Hardy hard at work.

Jacques Dutronc - Dans la vie faut pas sen faire, Uploaded by DustingShe...

2011-10-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

Jacques Dutronc always reminded me of Ray Davies. The legs are rockin' and the eyes are on the music hall.

Jacques Dutronc - Hippie Hippie Hourrah, Uploaded by DustingShelves

2011-10-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

The Great Jacques Dutronc!

Ry Cooder's "Los Angeles Stories"

2011-10-14T07:50:00.000-07:00

The stars are lined up perfectly for musicians who write books. Some of my favorite books are by rock n' roll people i.e. Patti Smith's "Just kids," and Nick Cave's novels. And now we have a superb collection of short stories by guitarist/songwriter Ry Cooder that deals with Los Angeles from 1940 to the mid-50's and its brilliant. What you get is a series of snapshots of life in different neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and some of these places don't exist anymore - but yet they live via Cooder's writing. After reading this book I wanted to rush off and locate volumes on Los Angeles history and its tall tales.

All narratives are strong, and very Noir in its approach and the way it looks at urban life. Money is tight, the fear of communism is in the air, and more bad times are just around the corner - yet the eccentricity of the characters are incredibly endearing - even though they're very low-level criminal types or even murderers. Nevertheless "Los Angeles Stories" is a classic of urban history research and fiction. After each story and while reading them, I was consistently googling to see if they actually exist or not. Some do and some don't and that's all part of the fun. Essential!

Evariste - Connais-tu l'animal qui inventa le calcul intégral ? - 1967

2011-10-09T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have this record! Evariste needs to be known. He has the best haircut of 1967, and he's incredible.

La Révolution, Evariste, 1969

2011-10-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Situationist/May 68 pop from Evariste!

Évariste - La Chasse au boson intermédiaire (1967)

2011-10-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

Demented music by Evariste. 1967 at its most....1967. I hear May 68 around the corner here.

Evariste "Wo I Nee" 1967 Dim Dam Dom

2011-10-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

A new (well 1967) new talent for me: Evariste. He's incredible.

The Wonderful World of TamTam Books

"Baron Court All Change" by Terry Taylor

"Adrift in Soho" by Colin Wilson

Elaine Dundy's "The Old Man and Me"

Jean Boullet and Boris Vian

Early Edition of Boris Vian's L'automne a Pékin (Autumn in Peking)

"Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson" by Kevin Avery

My Boris Vian Obsession

"L'Art et le Sang" by Benoit Preteseille

Un Regard Moderne

Boris Vian's Review of Serge Gainsbourg's "Du Chant a la Une"

Serge Gainsbourg and Philippe Clay

Memoriance album based on "L'écme des jours" (Foam of the Daze) a

"Post Everything" by Luke Haines

"Diary of a Rock n' Roll Star" by Ian Hunter

Sawada (Julie) Kenji covers Boris Vian

"The Map and the Territory" by Michel Houellebecq

"TinTin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece" 1961 film

The Adventures of TinTin "The Secret of the Unicorn" by Hergé

The Adventures of TinTin/"Red Rackham's Treasure" by Hergé, plus Documentary on TinTin

Syd Barrett Story (BBC Documentary)

"My Friend Dahmer" by Derf Backderf

"Bad Vibes" by Luke Haines

L'écume des jours by Boris Vian

Great David Bowie Footage 1997

The Lost David Bowie Footage

"The Doctor Is Sick" by Anthony Burgess

Iggy Pop and Michel Legrand

"24 Hours From Tulsa"

The Great Great Catherine Ringer

Lun*na Menoh's Cinema Boutique

Captain Beefheart and American Bandstand

Lost Arthur Rimbaud Photo?

The History of David Bowie

David Bowie live in 1990

The Monks - The greatest rock n' roll band ever?

L'écume des jours (Foam of the Daze) by Benoît Preteseille (After Boris Vian)

"Nuits Rouges" by Georges Franju

"Letters to Stanley Chapman" by Boris Vian

"No Longer Human Vol 2" by Usamaru Furuya

"The Astro Boy Essays" by Frederik L. Schodt

Make Me Smile - Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel

Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Sebastian

"Boris Vian; Post-Scriptum (Dessins, manuscrits, inédits)

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec Volume 2" by Jacques Tardi

Paris Fashion 1926 (hand-painted or tinted footage)

"Why A Man Should Be Well-Dressed" by Adolf Loos

Jarvis Cocker's "Mother, Brother, Lover"

Boris Vian's Original French Edition Book Covers

Boris Vian and his Jazz World

Usamaru Furuya's Graphic Novel of Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human"

Michelle Vian

A remarkable person. Someday in the future I would love to meet her and her son Patrick Vian.

Ma vie avec Boris Vian (par Michelle Vian)

TEMOIGNAGE EXCLUSIF. Alors que la BNF consacre une grande exposition à l'auteur de «l'Ecume des jours», et que paraît un beau livre intitulé «Boris Vian. Post-scriptum», sa première femme, aujourd'hui âgée de 91 ans, s'est confiée à Grégoire Leménager.

Boris Vian

Boris Vian Exhibition!

BNF: Autant en emporte le Vian

Vian n’a pas toujours été le Boris national de France qu’on célèbre dans une belle exposition à la BNF. L’histoire est parfois bizarrement fichue.

"The Adventues of Hergé" by Bocquet, Fromental, and Stanislas

Adam Ant & the Good, the Mad & the Lovely Posse - Zerox.

Adam Ant On Late Late Show 4 Nov 11.mp4

"The Doors" by Greil Marcus

Phil Spector's Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans

Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg

Kenneth Anger and Brian Butler's Technicolor Skull

The Crystals Twist Uptown

"Wallace Berman: The Aleph Male" by Tom Teicholz

Boris Vian

Usamaru Furuya's "Lychee Light Club"

Dennis Cooper's "The Marbled Swarm"

James Campbell's "Boris Vian, The Prince of Saint-Germain"

Boris Vian, the Prince of Saint-Germain

BORIS VIANBibliothèque nationale de FranceUntil January 15, 2012BORIS VIAN191pp. BNF/Gallimard. 39euros.978 2 07 013530 1

Boris Vian Exhibition at Bibliothèque nationale de France – Site François Mitterrand

Boris Vian

Lun*na Menoh || Maximum Miniature 1

Lun*na Menoh || Maximum Miniature 2

"Bartleby & Co." by Enrique Vila-Matas

Alfred Jarry - The MIT Press

BORIS VIAN
Bibliothèque nationale de France
Until January 15, 2012

BORIS VIAN
191pp. BNF/Gallimard. 39euros.
978 2 07 013530 1

たま　マリンバ

たま鐘の歌

たま　夕暮れ時のさびしさに Tama

たま　夕暮れ時のさびしさに