samedi

êtes-vous aussi fou que ça, que vous pensez à se suicider chaque jour? êtes-vous fatigué de cette douleur, de se reveiller le matin sous un manteau, les stigmates du satan sur le corps, entre les os, les bras courbaturés, les yeux pleins de larmes qui ne roulent pas? ne bougez plus pour vous protéger, devenez embryon sur le divan? regardez la télé ou buvez quelque chose pour nouer le cerveau? sautez les pillules, regardez-les, balancez-les, remplacez-les dans la boîte? ennuyez-vous comme un chat sous les nuages grisâtres? baignez dans le désespoire rouge? vivez la maladie encore, pourquoi pas?

c'est samedi, faites une mélodie, allez au vieux café, écrivez. oui, le jour est lourd, oui, vous ne pouvez pas vous lever. alors, fermez les yeux et rêvez du passé ou de l'avenir qui n'est pas fait. revez, revez... ne vous quittez pas. pas aujourd'hui. pas le samedi.

Howard Zinn has died

I can't stop thinking about Barack Obama's first state of the union address last night, given on the day that Howard Zinn has died. Governments lie. We bailed out the elites, Wall Street, with trillions of our tax dollars and with no consequences. Next? The people must continue to pay; discretionary spending (the people's needs) will be frozen beginning in 2011, education cut, health care cut, women's and children's needs put aside. However, the war chest will continue to grow unabated. Change we can believe in? Quelle mensonge, mon vieux. What are you going to do about it?

 

Thank you, Howard Zinn, for being one of our most important teachers of peace and war resistance.

Je suis francophile

rien n'a changé depuis que j'ai écrit ce poème en 2008...

i want a croissant

biftek poulet alain bashung

i want a new language

a post cinema verité

an avant garde nouvel roman

i want a song about lyon

or strasbourg or toulouse

i want to be pédé in gay ole' paris

or bi- in bretagne

I want to sit in an old theatre

and drink in bérénice

then go home and

write poetry à la ferré

i want to be risqué

i want to be un grand

i want an old barn for maison

and a terrace sur la seine

i want to take a train to cannes

and try this poem over again

i want to say "je vous aime"

like a true patriot

for once in my life

i want to say "vive la france"

without the guilt

throw off the shackles

i've felt since age 12

the American nightmare

adieu vietnam

bienvenue afghanistan

an endless maladie

tying me to a couch

with pills and pain

year after year after foutu year

my heart bursting with desire

my soul longing to speak

but the words are always foreign

always à la français

so no one gets the poems

even if my accent is good

no more cryptic prayers

"You feel frustrated, depressed and life is unbearable, because you can't do the one thing you love to do most." ~ Rachel Ballon

i need a serious angel

a grand slab of reason

a knock on the head

with peaches and cream

anything but what i have

anything but this grand sadness

i need a national anthem

i need truth in reconciliation

i'm not a founder of nations

but an astute hanger-on

jazz for the masses

blues for my sorry soul

i need my old purple mountains

some good old fashioned philo

a poem that will rock my world

with a simple fait accompli

anything but what i see

anything but this droning tv

(and in hd, their eyes follow me)

i need and need and need some more

like a good american consumer girl

fuck my passions fuck them all

including obsessive jailhouse rock

alibis for living low alibis and more!

like dirty hair and dirty socks

(and dirty looks in the dark with dreams on)

anything but this sad city

any place but the pacific nw

any appendage but a one track head

anything but this sick fucking bed

i'm waiting for a letter that says

we've found you a woodland nest

and every word that you catch

counts for a basket

here in provence

here among the olives

inspired by italia

which lives on sur la langue

lady get up and

need no more!

break out because even small

animals have heard your prayers

and it's fait accompli, fait accompli

no more cryptic prayers no need

ghosts

i live in the silence that

you have left behind

a deep abiding silence

that sweeps upon the room

when i hear a certain song

or come upon a photo

or just hear your names

bubbling up from the nowhere

that subtly subsume my thoughts

color them with blues and grays

as i struggle with chaos

a hole opens up in my chest

like some sacred chakra

reserved for your absence

and like an accident victim

i absorb the shock and turn

pale and parched with no

sense of myself

there is only you

moving in and out of my

peripheral vision
deepening a wound

all your ghosts inhabit this

house like crowds of

pilgrims, brides and children

you knock at my heart

in the wee morning hours

when i lie still and soundless

it is then that your subtle

bodies enter my mouth and

infiltrate my dreams

i grab for the coverlets

sad and shivering
I grab for goblets and drink up

there is no transcendence

there is only you encompassing

year after lonely year
there is only you in the music
there is you here in the snow
and rain or in the rays of sunshine
when i eat my soup

when i put on my clothes

i feel you watch me

and bid me come away
such the angel in me would love
but it is the animal that lives on

Benjamin Biolay: Ton Héritage

I've had this album, La Superbe  for months, since November when it was released, but I just listened to this song today for the first time. This translation is for my son, Joseph... xooxoxoxxooxo

TON HERITAGE

by Benjamin Biolay

and translation


Si tu aimes les soirs de pluie
If you love rainy nights
Mon enfant, mon enfant
My child, my child
Les ruelles de l'Italie
The back alleys of Italy
Et les pas des passants
And the steps of the passerbys
Eternelle litanie
Eternal litany
Des feuilles mortes dans le vent
Dead leaves in the wind
Qui poussent un dernier cri
That push a last cry
Crie mon enfant
Cry, my child

Si tu aimes les éclaircies
If you love lightning
Mon enfant, mon enfant
My child, my child
Prendre un bain de minuit
Taking a bath at midnight
Dans le grand océan
In the great ocean
Si tu aimes la mauvaise vie
If you love a wicked life
Ton reflet dans l'étang
Your reflection in a pond
Si tu veux tes amis
If you love to have your friends
Près de toi tout le temps
Near you all the time

Si tu pries quand la nuit tombe
If you pray when night falls
Mon enfant, mon enfant
My child, my child
Si tu ne fleuris pas les tombes
If you don't decorate the tombs
Mais chéris les absents
But cherish the departed
Si tu as peur de la bombe
If you are afraid of the bomb
Et du ciel trop grand
And of the too big sky
Si tu parles à ton ombre
If you speak to your own shadow
De temps en temps
From time to time

Si tu aimes la marée basse
If you love the low tide
Mon enfant, mon enfant
My child, my child
Le soleil sur la terrasse
Sun on the terrace
Et la lune sous le vent
And the moon beneath the wind
Si l'on perd souvent ta trace
If we often lose track of you
Dès qu' arrive le printemps
Just as spring comes
Si la vie te dépasse
If life passes you by
Passe mon enfant
Move on, my child

Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ton héritage
It's your inheritance
Et ça sera pire encore
And it will be worse yet
Quand tu auras mon âge
When you're my age
Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ta chair, ton sang
It's your flesh, your blood
Il va falloir faire avec
You are going to have to make do with
Ou plutôt sans
Or rather without

Si tu oublies les prénoms
If you forget first names
Les adresses et les âges
Addresses and ages
Mais presque jamais le son
But almost never the sound
D'une voix, un visage
Of a voice, a face
Si tu aimes ce qui est bon
If you love what is good
Si tu vois des mirages
If you see mirages
Si tu préfères Paris
If you prefer Paris
Quand vient l'orage
When a storm is coming

Si tu aimes les goûts amers
If you love bitter tastes
Et les hivers tout blancs
And winters all white
Si tu aimes les derniers verres
If you love the last call
Et les mystères troublants
And all the troubling mysteries
Si tu aimes sentir la terre
If you love to smell the earth
Et jaillir le volcan
And the volcano that spouts
Si tu as peur du vide
If you have fear of the void
Vide mon enfant
Empty out, my child

Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ton héritage
It's your inheritance
Et ça sera pire encore
And it will be worse yet
Quand tu auras mon âge
When you're my age
Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ta chair, ton sang
It's your flesh, your blood
Il va falloir faire avec
You're going to have to make do with
Ou plutôt sans
Or rather without

Si tu aimes partir avant
If you love to leave before
Mon enfant, mon enfant
My child, my child
Avant que l'autre s'éveille
Before the other awakens
Avant qu'il te laisse en plan
Before he leaves you in the cold
Si tu as peur du sommeil
If you are afraid of sleep
Et que passe le temps
and how time passes
Si tu aimes l'automne vermeil
If you love a red automn
Merveille rouge sang
Wonderous red blood

Si tu as peur de la foule
If you're afraid of crowds
Mais supporte les gens
But can stand people
Si tes idéaux s'écroulent
If your ideals escape

Le soir de tes 20 ans
The night of your 20th birthday
Et si tout se déroule
And if everything happens
Jamais comme dans tes plans
Never the way you plan
Si tu n'es qu'une pierre qui roule
If you are only a rock that rolls
Roule mon enfant
Roll, my child

Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ton héritage
It's your inheritance
Et ça sera pire encore
And it will be worse yet
Quand tu auras mon âge
When you're my age
Ca n'est pas ta faute
This isn't your fault
C'est ta chair, ton sang
It's your flesh, your blood
Il va falloir faire avec
You're going to have to make do with
Ou plutôt sans
Or rather without

Mon enfant...Mon enfant...
My child... my child... 

what's to be expected?

fame fame fame

that's all they think about

those artistes

those egoistes

they are more depressed about

their lack of fame than the fact

that they haven't written a new

song or poem in the last weeks,

months, years, more worried about

record companies and book deals than

whether or not their art is going

anywhere but on a shelf or melded

to plastic or into the fire of human

history, ash or bone.

i read that there is more depression in

this world about fame than anything

else: everyone wants to be famous,

a celebrity, a lead guitarist, a

brilliant poet, everyone wants to be

heard and seen, recognized as genius,

more than to have the muse descend in

the wind and knock them on the head and

wake them up to the fact that it's about

process and nothing else because in the

end you won't be remembered.

(99.999999% chance de disparition)

i feel like a worm if i haven't written

a poem in three days. but i too want to

heard, to be remembered, i just refuse to

become depressed about it anymore, what's

the use when i'm sure to be one of the

disappeared... just give me poems for

breakfast, lunch and dinner, i'll work, i

promise, i won't leave anything out, i'll

tell the truth the best i can, burn out

the flame, and go to bed, smacking my

lips and giving praise for the day.

Jean Fauque parle de sa collaboration

merci aux producteurs de ce vidéo qui donne une petite fenêtre sur la collaboration des amis, jean fauque et alain bashung, sur plusieurs chansons, le jour après qu'alain est passé de ce monde et est entré pour toujours dans nos cœurs. moi aussi, jean, j'aime la mieux ta chanson "mes bras", et moi aussi, j'ai pleuré souvent en l'écoutant, car c'est une chanson qui entre dans un tout autre domaine de l'art chanson, remplie de connaissance pour l'état humain. et toi, tu m'as touché lorsque tu l'as chanté à la sorbonne en octobre. http://www.myspace.com/jeanfauque

Jean Fauque: Bashung, mon ami

envoyé par Lesinfos. - Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

Alain Bashung: Mes Bras

envoyé par aureliendesbois. - Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

six

tableau: otto dix, self-portrait as mars, 1915

i returned to our astoria poetry workshop taught by laura anne brooks tonight and wrote the following as my first exercise of the year, using the number "6". evidament, je suis inondé par des pensées d'afghanistan...

six ducks

six goblets

six slugs of eau de vie

i'm dropping tears

like an iron-clad knight

on the battlefield

six drunks

six young'uns

six drummers drummin'

i'm proud of

who i've become

in the movies

the sixth part of me

bends with the celluloid text

i'm cut up in the editing

six tricky fingers

six civilians

six dead children

crowds of afghans

push their way

into the future

my own gang
lunges over the hill

and drops their rifles

a general will soon

receive a notice of

unintended slaughter

there will be a

review, a report, and

a trial by jury

no one will go to

jail because

we are all guilty

six positions

six civilians

@ sixty-six bullets

time runs out
the film ends

i am antihero

six black holes

six wounded warriors

six hoops of memory

i sit in my room
trembling and

await the slow crawl

six minutes
six months
sixty-six years

une voix qui pleure

for mano solo (24/04/63 - 10/01/2010)

je me souviens de

la première fois

que j'ai entendu tes pleures

ta voix d'enfant et d'homme

presque feminine

presque âme-sœur

avec "barbès-clichy"

je me suis trouvée là

parmi des misérables

à minuit seule sur un banc

ou à 18h lorsque

tout le monde passe

muet et aveugle

la tristesse de "janvier"

lorsque tu t'ouvrais la gorge

et tu saignais partout tes chants

d'une humanité perdue

nous rentrerons au port

avec des larmes pour une

vie coupée trop courte

"Croyez pas que j'vous abandonne même si, encore une fois, je vous laisse le pire: les larmes qu'on verse sur la mort d'un homme" (MS, 1997)

HOMMAGE MANO SOLO 10.01.2010 BFMTV BLOGPARFAIT
envoyé par BLOGPARFAITPOINTNET. - L'info internationale vidéo.

Mano Solo Rentrer au port live Ce Soir Ou Jamais France 3
envoyé par yudenx. - Clip, interview et concert.

Mano-Solo Balbino-Barrio-Barbes
envoyé par hoel6128. - Clip, interview et concert.

whatever it takes

i'll hold it between my thighs

like a football

slam it into chords, give it a melody

hum it into obscurity

invite the raccoons at the door

to come in and eat their fill

call the rains down

pass out for days

you'll find me

quiet

quiet and dependent

so you can love me at will

something has to love this

thing we call a life

you are often gone now

on mulitple errands

or to your bed to compose

happier dreams

downstairs is a dying woman

on a couch

nothing makes us sadder

than to talk about that

hiding from mirrors

swallowing clonazepam

whatever it takes

not to talk about it

whatever it takes
not to feel a thing

Adieu, belle Lhasa...

photo de Carl Lessard


Communiqué officiel: "La chanteuse Lhasa De Sela est décédée à son domicile de Montréal pendant la soirée du 1er janvier 2010, un peu avant minuit./Un cancer du sein qu’elle a combattu avec courage et détermination pendant plus de 21 mois l’aura finalement emportée./Durant cette période difficile elle a continué à toucher la vie des gens qui l’entouraient avec la grâce, la beauté, et l’humour qui la caractérisaient./Elle a aussi réussi à terminer l’enregistrement de son dernier album et à assurer son lancement sur scène au Théâtre Corona de Montréal et au Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord à Paris. Les deux concerts donnés en Islande au mois de mai auront été les derniers où elle aura interprété ses vibrantes chansons." 

Voici le magnifique vidéo dessiné au crayon de plomb par Alex McLean et Kathleen Weldon, deux Montréalais hyper talentueux: dessinateurs, réalisateurs, et membres du group Rothschilds (www.myspace.com/therothschilds).
  

Lhasa | Clips vidéo MySpace


Lhasa de Siem en live et en espagnole

Daniel | MySpace Vidéo

Update 8/01/09: Special émission d'Acoustic ce soir sur TV5 sur Lhasa!

Keane - Spiralling

sparrow is spiralling...

somewhere only we know...

MOVE YOUR MONEY

let's fix this mess. this year, make a resolution to MOVE YOUR MONEY!

what-the-fuck IS happyness?

happyness

what the fuck!

when was I happy

and when was i not?

and if i have ever been

HAPPY

was there any unity

with what was real

or was it an

adrenaline flow

like a volcano of

ecstatic blood

being in love, being one

with god or monster

being lesbiana

being the stranger

being l'unique, the courageous

being krishna's devotee
or jehovah's whore

reaching the watchtower

on top of the world

falling upon the

portes de paris unaware

motoring around

a greek island

getting lost in an

indian town on my

way to meet the

guru who is

waiting to meet

me because, well

my karma must be good

is good, is perfect!

buying books by the pound

buying designer clothes

at goodwill or

reading anais nin's

little birds, becoming

sparrow of her

satanic verses or

worse! rushdie...

having babies

offering them my breast

dressing them up

seeing them off

on their way to

their own nests

eating christmas

candy, eating curry

wearing comfortable shoes

or finding cute boots to

match my miniskirt

losing 20 lbs

after tipping the scale

at 160 for years

chronically blimped

now hip now svelte

feeling like everybody

else at last then

adding a question mark

to strike a balance

such as

what the fuck

what the fuckity fuck

IS happyness when

somebody else is

bleeding somewhere

thanks to my bullet

when my sharp

tongue becomes viper

dreaming of a kiss

that never comes

then hearing a

mylène song

on the radio and

realizing it can't

be true because i'm

in oregon not in

france and no one

knows who-the-fuck

mylène is and

no radio plays

"ainsi soit il" and

"fuck them all" because

happyness is but

short lived, comes

when i've grown

another chin, when i live

an alternate universe

i ain't gonna

find it with long feathers

fuck happyness when

a bed lies unmade

waiting for my

cold body to float

into dream worlds

is that a happy-enough

thought to sustain me

if ever i decide to take

mick's advice:
if i try i might actually
get what i need???

fuck happyness!
i need paris

photo from wikipedia: porte de saint-denis

Vénus: Les Mystères du Cosmos

Je viens de traduire "Vénus" de Gérard Manset, interprété par Alain Bashung... et j'ai trouvé ce vidéo très intéressant de Vénus, un épisode de la séries "Les Mystères du Cosmo". Après l'avoir regardé, venez voir ma traduction et un bon vidéo "live" de Bashung en concert à l'Elysée. J'ai besoin de visiteurs sur mon nouvelle blog de Bashung! http://bashung-in-english.blogspot.com/2010/01/venus.html 

Les mystères du cosmos Ep3 - Venus
envoyé par halorache. - Vidéos des dernières découvertes technologiques.

natural fibers

photo by moineau

cotton and silk

raw fibers to

caress le corps

wrap short thick legs

embellish softening arms

we tried polyester once

black and slippery

sexy you said

but couldn't wait

to peel it off

we even tried vinyl

but knew it was

a terrible mistake

when a maiden ran

crying from the house

give me cotton

fuzzy sweaters washed

two hundred times

ribbed legwarmers cuffed

at knee and ankle

dress my neck in

chinese silks

thin and tearable, with

cherry blossoms to wrap around

my extra large head

drown me in fabric

cotton caftan or jilbab

i'll flow like a river

under your swaying boat

water lapping at your lips

on a large flat bed

soft undergarments strewn

across the floor and furniture

you will kiss noontide shadows

under the passion tent

Once in a blue moon... or twice! Happy New Year!

photos by moineau, 31 decembre 2009

Rare 'blue moon' to ring in 2010

from the Associated Press

By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer Tue Dec 29, 7:03 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Once in a blue moon there is one on New Year's Eve. Revelers ringing in 2010 will be treated to a so-called blue moon. According to popular definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. But don't expect it to be blue — the name has nothing to do with the color of our closest celestial neighbor.

A full moon occurred on Dec. 2. It will appear again on Thursday in time for the New Year's countdown.

"If you're in Times Square, you'll see the full moon right above you. It's going to be that brilliant," said Jack Horkheimer, director emeritus of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium and host of a weekly astronomy TV show.

The New Year's Eve blue moon will be visible in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Africa. For partygoers in Australia and Asia, the full moon does not show up until New Year's Day, making January a blue moon month for them.

However, the Eastern Hemisphere can celebrate with a partial lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve when part of the moon enters the Earth's shadow. The eclipse will not be visible in the Americas.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days, and most years have 12. On average, an extra full moon in a month — a blue moon — occurs every 2.5 years. The last time there was a lunar double take was in May 2007. New Year's Eve blue moons are rarer, occurring every 19 years. The last time was in 1990; the next one won't come again until 2028.

Blue moons have no astronomical significance, said Greg Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

"`Blue moon' is just a name in the same sense as a `hunter's moon' or a `harvest moon,'" Laughlin said in an e-mail.

The popular definition of blue moon came about after a writer for Sky & Telescope magazine in 1946 misinterpreted the Maine Farmer's Almanac and labeled a blue moon as the second full moon in a month. In fact, the almanac defined a blue moon as the third full moon in a season with four full moons, not the usual three.

Though Sky & Telescope corrected the error decades later, the definition caught on. For purists, however, this New Year's Eve full moon doesn't even qualify as a blue moon. It's just the first full moon of the winter season.

In a tongue-in-cheek essay posted on the magazine's Web site this week, senior contributing editor Kelly Beatty wrote: "If skies are clear when I'm out celebrating, I'll take a peek at that brilliant orb as it rises over the Boston skyline to see if it's an icy shade of blue. Or maybe I'll just howl."

Happy New Year to friends and readers! xoxoxox