Nr. 6 Percutio 2012 Nr. 6 Ah ! l’Europe !

Table of contents :
Contents / Sommaire Épigraphe
Montparnasse As Was Wystan Curnow
Leaving Wood Green, 1976 David Kârena-Holmes
Musée Rodin, 2005 Cilla McQueen
A Cure Jeet Thayil
The Stone Peter Olds
Reunion Brett Cross
Sonnet Responses Nathan Creech
Lens 1, Lens 2 April Dolkar

ITINÉRAIRE
A Writer’s Notes Geoff Cush
A Note on Leaving Wood Green,1976 David Kârena-Holmes
Odro Arno Loeffler

MUSIQUE
The Neusyland Effect Peter Schlump (Unwucht Records)
Puddle Motivation George Henderson
The Earthquake Zone Bruce Russell
Musique à tous les étages Max Dembo (SDZ Records)

topoi Arno Loeffler

RÉCIT
Extrait du roman Nellcote Revisited Geoff Cush
Extrait du roman I Get High Jim Wilson
The Lunatic K. M. Ross
Nimm mich mit Huelya Yegin-Singer

ESSAIS
Le sonnet caché Jacques Coulardeau
La peinture : simple lecture Sandra Bianciardi
The Physical Characteristics of the Gold Leaves Ted Jenner
NZ Videos at the George Pompidou Centre Laura Preston

COMMENTAIRE
Pasture Nr. 1 Literary Groundswell

Postface INDEX

Citation preview

Percutio

2 0 1 2 n° 6

Numéros parus Percutio 2006 n° 0 Trans-culturel Percutio 2007 n° 1 Moments critiques Percutio 2008 n° 2 Inspiration ou prétention Percutio 2009 n° 3 En concert Percutio 2010 n° 4 La nécessité Percutio 2011 n° 5 N° spécial Percutio 2012 n° 6 Ah ! l’Europe !

Reproductions Couverture Recto : photographie de Catherine James, Le banquet des justes, 2ème partie; de la série Animalitas. 120cm x 153cm, 2004. Page 3 Señor Borges’ Index Fingerprint dans Writers in Residence and Other Captive Fauna par Ted Jenner (2009). Page 39 Max Dembo, Conservatoire Schola Cantorum, Paris, 1983. Pages 29, 43–48 Arno Löffler, Topoi, Lieux d’Europe, 2010-11. Tous droits réservés.

Percutio 2012 n° 6 ISSN Éd Française 1953-1427 ISBN Percutio 2012 n° 6 0-9583266-3-0 Droits de reproduction : Percutio, les auteurs et ayants-droit 2012 Rédacteur en chef : William Direen Dépôt légal : février, 2012 Vente au numéro : W. Direen, 67 boulevard Ney, 75018 Paris Percutio : http://titus.books.online.fr Numéros disponibles sur http://www.crywolfbooks.org/ Catalogue et abonnement : http://www.titus.co.nz

Sommaire Épigraphe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . poésie

Montparnasse As Was Wystan Curnow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leaving Wood Green, 1976 David Kârena-Holmes . . . . . . . . Musée Rodin, 2005 Cilla McQueen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Cure Jeet Thayil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Stone Peter Olds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reunion Brett Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sonnet Responses Nathan Creech   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lens 1, Lens 2 April Dolkar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . itinéraire

A Writer’s Notes Geoff Cush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Note on Leaving Wood Green, 1976 David Kârena-Holmes . . . Odro Arno Löffler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . musique

The Neusyland Effect Peter Schlump (Unwucht Records)  .  . . . . Puddle Motivation George Henderson  .  .  .  .  . . . . . . . . . . . The Earthquake Zone Bruce Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Musique à tous les étages Max Dembo (SDZ Records) . . . . . . .

3 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 20

23 24 25



33 36 38 39

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

Extrait du roman Nellcote Revisited Geoff Cush . . . . . . . . . Extrait du roman I Get High Jim Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . The Lunatic K. M. Ross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nimm mich mit Hülya Yegin-Singer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51 53 56 58

topoi

Lieux d’Europe Arno Löffler

récit

essais

Le sonnet caché Jacques Coulardeau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . La peinture : simple lecture Sandra Bianciardi . . . . . . . . . . . . The Physical Characteristics of the Gold Leaves Ted Jenner . . . . NZ Videos at the George Pompidou Centre Laura Preston . . . .

67 70 72 76

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

81

Postface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

commentaire

index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85



Wystan Curnow

Montparnasse As Was Crossing, horse and cart (cropped) passing in opposite direction across cobbled doubtless an pamplemousse. On the map, they of all nationalities lauded an enigmatic roll call of background namely assorted double the number of studio clientele. Here, the Americans to lemons left what eyes it cherries, what eyes gives rise shortly before the backdrop they crossed stopped the Hungarians following the red with peppers where they’d gone pork for lunch boulevard du montparnasse in the background. And the fruit stall specialty. See still photograph. Picasso is there, Americans still White-bowled long stem pipe in one hand Amidst photographic assortments Picasso nor Apollinaire’s Left the party Follows Citrus from foreign shore’s assorted clientele. Are following the Hungarians During the war on such a 27 degrees Celsius sunny day the Odd cirrus and the specialty grocery stores’ displays Eyes appraised the seventh greatest variety of Merchandise and an pamplemousse, Which they call “grapes-fruit” Are bigaroon With peppers --special size. The group that was taken shortly after right after lunch. Picasso walking alone rue de la grande-chaumière. The Awning as Apollinaire enthusiastically described It: Hazard! Here the American can Find that watermelons are to Cantaloupes as the Russians are red 

Wystan Curnow

To peppers. 2.15 pm. Perpendicular to building along five degrees of Shadow seen on Max Jacob left standing on the traffic island in the boulevard. ‘Where I sin in a revolting manner … there are scandalous unforeseen scenes in the borrowed beds of Russians or Swedes. Sun’s rays so play on His collar bowtie cigarette Forefinger thumb.



David Kârena-Holmes

Leaving Wood Green (London, N. 2)

A London taxi, by the kerb, it’s urgent motor throbbing, plucked me out with much root-rending like the turnip in the story, or like Marsyas, whom Apollo ripped alive out of his skin. Like Marsyas, or Orpheus even, untorsoed by the Thracian women, I felt at parting — skinless, cold and bodiless, and close of kin to an old, uprooted turnip — yet like Orpheus’ head, went singing down the river-road to Heathrow airport: ‘Dear friends, we cannot be divided being one where the world is one.’



Cilla McQueen

Musée Rodin In the formal garden of the Musée Rodin, as if through mist, a woman’s face Expressed in a material so fine and clear it seems dissolving, Unfocused, indefinable, at one point marble, at another, air. In transitional space between one and minus one, outside and in, She shimmers - her features blurred, veiled, provisional, just out of reach, In marble soft as human skin warm, permeable, bound to time.

10

Jeet Thayil

A Cure You can beg all you want, it won’t do a thing. Dr. Dilaudid’s witholding your privileges. Across the hall your friend with the black eye is telling his visitors you are insane, which you are. He smokes unfiltered cigarettes. When he isn’t smoking he’s eating. One night he stood in your room reciting obscenities until the words peeled away from their meanings. Your walk will be cancelled today. You will eat alone. The woman who sits most mornings by your bed will leave early. Too distracted to speak, you watch a small flesh-colored spider levitate with happiness in the window.

11

Peter Olds

The Stone There were signs where a bulldozer had been. The old house was gone. The section had been scraped clean ... I took a look around. Walked up the bulldozer tracks that ran from the street to the back of the section; waded through crushed brick and oyster shells to a sign where the tracks stopped that read: coming soon — ascot apartments. I picked up a stone, about the size of a duck's egg, polished smooth from tumbling in water; kicked a castor oil bottle from loose dirt; uncovered a Rawleigh's ointment tin, a rusty bicycle pedal, a piece of green-hide strap. I saw a woman under a thin light poking a coal range, boots drying on the hearth, a bowl of apples in the middle of a scrubbed table, and a man reading a newspaper listening to the radio ... Back on the street I washed the stone in the gutter and put it in my pocket to dry.

12

Brett Cross

reunion (for ellen) she descends a wide stone staircase constructed of tiny hexagonal tiles, interlocked at each spiral turn, a door number 33, 22, 17, 4, opens to herself at that age behind no. 4 her best friend she leads her out by the hand and she grows to her age they ascend, floor-by-floor past half-open rooms find their way to a family reunion

13

Nathan Creech

Trakl’s Decay Evening. Liberty’s bells peal for joy. In the light of clear autumn wonderful migrations. Birds arrayed like docile pilgrims Vanishing from view. Strolling the twilight garden I dream of their bright destinies And hardly notice the hours receding As I go with them over the clouds. Then a breath of Decay gives me the shivers. A blackbird is complaining among the bare twigs. A red creeper is dangling from a rusty fence Around the dark edges of springs, weathering in the breeze, Chilled blue asters give in to melancholy Like anaemic children in a Round Dance of Death.

14

Georg Trakl

Verfall Am Abend, wenn die Glocken Frieden läuten, Folg ich der Vögel wundervollen Flügen, Die lang geschart, gleich frommen Pilgerzügen, Entschwinden in den herbstlich klaren Weiten. Hinwandelnd durch den dämmervollen Garten Träum ich nach ihren helleren Geschicken Und fühl der Stunden Weiser kaum mehr rücken. So folg ich über Wolken ihren Fahrten. Da macht ein Hauch mich von Verfall erzittern. Die Amsel klagt in den entlaubten Zweigen. Es schwankt der rote Wein an rost’gen Gittern, Indes wie blasser Kinder Todesreigen Um dunkle Brunnenränder, die verwittern, Im Wind sich fröstelnd blaue Astern neigen.

[1909]

15



Nathan Creech

Mallarmé’s Tomb of Poe The Poet so matures in eternity His eloquence makes his century cower; They did not know his exotic monody Was the voice of Death coming to power. The Hydra of fable resents the angel Who effortlessly refines the tribe’s language, Accusing her of having fished a false spell From the impure sludge of a shameful beverage. Earth and sky oppressed him, ô grief! If our honour can not commission a relief Fitting for the eye-blinding grave of Poe May this granite expression of volcanic woe, Unadorned, stand above his tomb To spell, for such blind flights of blasphemy, the doom.

16

Stéphane Mallarmé

Le tombeau d’Edgar Poe Tel qu’en Lui-même enfin l’éternité le change, Le Poète suscite avec un glaive nu Son siècle épouvanté de n’avoir pas connu Que la mort triomphait dans cette voix étrange ! Eux, comme un vil sursaut d’hydre oyant jadis l’ange Donner un sens plus pur aux mots de la tribu Proclamèrent très haut le sortilège bu Dans le flot sans honneur de quelque noir mélange. Du sol et de la nue hostiles, ô grief ! Si notre idée avec ne sculpte un bas-relief Dont la tombe de Poe éblouissante s’orne Calme bloc ici-bas chu d’un désastre obscur, Que ce granit du moins montre à jamais sa borne Aux noirs vols du Blasphème épars dans le futur.

[1877]

17

Nathan Creech

Huidobro’s Solo On your own between nocturne and dying. Moving slowly through eternity’s crux. Eating fruit in the core of nothingness. Nocturne. Dying. The dead freshly planted in unendingness. Earth takes away. Earth returns. On your own facing a star. On your own with no sun and a huge song in your guts. Nocturne and decease. This night of dying. Dead night rolling in decease. Away. Away. Far. The world leaves us on the breeze. A dog howls and howls for the land we have lost.



18

Vicente Huidobro

Solo Solo solo entre la noche y la muerte Andando en medio de la eternidad Comiendo una fruta en medio del vacío La noche La muerte El muerto recién plantado en el infinito La tierra se va la tierra vuelve Solo con una estrella al frente Solo con un gran canto adentro y ninguna estrella al frente La noche y la muerte La noche de la muerte La muerte de la noche rondando por la muerte Tan lejos tan lejos El mundo se va por el viento Y un perro aúlla de infinito buscando la tierra perdida

19

[1941]

April Dolkar

Lens 1 before night fell authentic being was pavement vomiting trust with love like a fly, outside. hovering above the cold wooden floor ascending steps to non-ambition. it was the clawing i could not ignore. false cherishing revolved as the door swung open and closed. then, with a readjusting click, my neck turned one last time when you came in like the boreal wind's whore.

Lens 2 before night fell authentic being was pavement vomiting trust with love like a fly, outside. hovering above the cold wooden floor ascending steps to non-ambition. it was the clawing i could not ignore. false cherishing revolved as the door swung open and closed. then, with a readjusting click, my neck turned one last time when you came in like the boreal wind’s whore. 20

Itinéraire

Geoff Cush

A Writer’s Notes In November, the trees in the monastery garden look a little shameful, obliged to stand  above the golden clothes they have thrown off as if in a fit of impatience with the effortful beauty of summer.  Did they want to run into winter’s simplicities with free and naked limbs? Do they regret it, now they are getting cold? Martine has a small group of visitors today. She shepherds them around the stations of Saint Francis, calling them to attention before each fresco with a soft and slightly condescending ‘Alors ...’ It is a different Martine we meet in the kitchen at lunchtime where she makes her rapid and wherever possible scurrilous contributions to the talk of village affairs, making the office girls laugh, then rushes to rinse her bowl in the sink. When she scalds her fingers at the tap she yelps, and that yelp along with ‘Alors’ is her most characteristic sound. After all this time she still forgets how hot the water comes out. Martine lives in the village and comes up each day for work. We who live in the monastery and use its showers, do not forget about the hotness of the hot water. Rainy day. Clouds enlace the peaks of the upper valley. The big window at the end of the corridor frames a Chinese landscape painted on silk. Maurice, in his lovely Breton clothes, says of the valley:  ‘Il se donne. Les moines ont choisi bien.’ The summer foliage has fallen from the mountain outside cell number twelve. My private Matterhorn is a slab of bare and brutal rock. That cloud passing below my window has no visible means of support. I mean, if it was a puff of smoke I would know there was a fire; if it was a geothermal emission I would know there was a vent. Or it might have come from a factory, but there a no factories here, just this small cloud moving along the road as though it has every right to be there when it has no clear origin, no papers of identification. Where did it come from?  Why didn’t it stay with the other clouds, in the sky or clinging to the mountains?  What is it doing below my window?  The strong light shows every raindrop and when it rains heavily, long streams of light fall past my face. Saorge, 2006 23

David Kârena-Holmes

A Note on Leaving Wood Green* I was in Paris for six months in, I think, 1978. We found a minuscule flat in la rue Le Regrattier on l’Île St. Louis [after] negotiations over the lease with two land-agents who wouldn’t speak anything but French. I probably still have a few lines of poetry written in Paris (I recall something I wrote about the poplars (aspens are they?) along the Seine and their feathery seeds falling like snowflakes) but no finished poems with which I was satisfied. I did spend quite a bit of time there writing a series of short stories (in fact virtually a book of about 10 or 12 stories). However an editor friend in London told me they "didn’t work" and I think I chucked them away shortly after. One, I recall, I sent my only copy of to The New Review, successor to The Review which Ian Hamilton had started in 1962 with Michael Fried, John Fuller and Colin Falck. Arts Council funding of The New R. was stopped in 1978 or ’9 and the magazine was then closed down. I suppose I’ve some regrets I didn’t keep copies to see what I could make of them at some later stage — but c’est la vie! One story of which I remember the plot was about seeing some ‘biftek’ in a shop window (soon after we’d settled in Paris) and thinking it’d be nice to try some real beef steak as a change from our usual pretty basic meals. So, although it looked somewhat paler than I thought beef should be, I forked out the francs for two sizeable ‘fillets’. It was only as I emerged from the shop that I looked up and saw the sign: boucherie chevaline.

Oh, dear — I’ve always had a great love for horses. I took the meat home, and even cooked it, but then just couldn’t bear to eat it. If Heathrow airport and a few figures from Greek mythology would make the cut, maybe you’d like to consider this short poem, written when I was leaving the house of good friends with whom I had been staying for some time, in 1979 ....

* See page 9.

24

Arno Löffler

Odro I usually attend as much as I can of the annual International Film Festival Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland. This year, however, a compromise was negotiated. I would spend just a few days at the Festival with a friend, then I would meet my wife and our little daughter at the train station in Tenero and the three of us would go driving, and spend a quiet week in the mountains. To the German Swiss, Ticino is commonly known as the ‘Sonnenstube der Schweiz’, the ‘sunny chamber of Switzerland’, combining alpine and almost Mediterranean features, mountains and palm trees, ideal for outdoor activities such as hiking, swimming and diving alike. From Tenero right outside Locarno we drove up the winding road through the picturesque, narrow and shady Verzasca Valley, just past the Lago di Vogorno, 470 m above sea level. Here James Bond bungee-jumped off the impressive hydroelectric dam in 1995’s “Goldeneye” and the dam has been a very popular bungee spot ever since. In the village of Vogorno, the lower parts of which got immersed in the new hydroelectric lake in 1965, you turn off the main road and you may continue up an even narrower and steeper one until you reach a little car park carved out of the mountain slope that can hold about four or five vehicles (if you park economically). That’s as far as it goes, the rest is walking. It was raining cats and dogs that day, a feature not uncommon at all in that area and part of the myth surrounding the tradition of open air screenings at the Locarno Film Festival. We took turns carrying our big backpack and our two-year-old daughter Odilia up the mountain. Much swearing occurred, and my wife Uli had gone on ahead carrying Odilia. I was ready to just lie down in the pouring rain and wait for death to release me, when Odro appeared through some trees. We had been hiking for about two hours. Odro is situated at 1200–1300 m above sea level, that’s a 800 m difference in altitude from where you drop off your car, provided you get a park. At first you walk past lovely vineyards, then, already inside the beech forest that accompanies you during most of your climb, you cross a little bridge. This is where the steps start that are so typical for Ticino. You walk up a continuous gigantic rocky stairwell until you reach your destination. Just a few steps from the bottom of those stairs you pass the tiny abandoned hamlet of Collotta with its little chapel from the 17th century, dedicated to Sta. Maria Dolorosa and still the regular destination of processions from Vogorno. On one of the walls of the chapel you won’t fail to notice an oddly-shaped Calvary—it looks 25

Arno Löffler

a lot like a haystack (called “méda” in the local dialect). After one hell of a climb under the trees of the forest you come across an open bit, this is the location of the settlement of Stavéll. Norman, a pensioner from the village spends the summer months here with his dog; he leaves when the first snow falls. Be sure to drop off a newspaper, preferably “La Regione”, and he’ll be happy to serve you a drink. All the other stone cottages are empty. From here to Odro it’s about a 40 minute walk. There are trees galore, but the forest isn’t dense enough to save your hide from the scalding sun, if it shines. When you finally reach Odro, you are welcomed by Jean-Louis Villars and Marlies Solèr, a friendly elderly couple from the Swiss-speaking part of Switzerland who have bought the premises and turned it into an agri-touristic enterprise. They live here with their donkey all year round, in the winter all by themselves, during the rest of the year they are joined by various helpers, usually girls from Germany who stay for about a month, by tourists like us who stay for a week or two, or hikers who stay for one night or just for a meal. Jean-Louis and Marlies also have the company of semi-wild Verzasca goats who freely roam the ranges of the Pizzo Vogorno but flock to their Odro stables to be milked and groomed. From the goats milk Jean-Louis and the German students make cheese and ricotta. Visitors will find the beauty of the scenery stunning, view of the mountains, the sky, and the little buildings resembling a toy version of a village, with inn (common room, dorm and modern WC), town hall (Marlies and Jean-Louis’ house), central square-cum-restaurant (a spot in front of JeanLouis and Marlies’ house where you can buy a meal) and a swimming pool (a hose behind a curtain that acts as a shower). Tourists are expected to collect their own firewood for their own stove, in the cottages there is electric light but no outlets, no hot running water. It’s cosy but pretty basic. In the eighties and nineties Jean-Louis worked hard on dozens of buildingsites around Switzerland, hydro-electric dams, bridges, and suchlike, to make his dream come true — to buy an abandoned non-permanent settlement in the mountains of Ticino. At some point he was able to fork out the money and for years and years he and his partner Marlies spent their weekends and holidays in Odro to build an alternative, “sustainable” holiday resort on the bleached ruins of rock and wood. They were helped by friends, and a lot of the building materials were transported up there by helicopter, but nonetheless, it must have been an immense effort. Jean-Louis and Marlies moved permanently to Odro in 1996. The couple are still working very hard to keep the ship afloat. Jean-Louis does the heavier work, logging, building etc. and walks down to the village 26

Arno Löffler

with the donkey at least once a week, come snow or shine, while Marlies mainly tends to the living quarters and to the food. She has trouble with her knees, so in order to go down the stairs she has to turn around and walk backwards. She hasn’t left Odro for a long time. Now Jean-Louis and Marlies are looking for a buyer. Christoph, a guy from Germany, is interested. The former Waldorf School caretaker wants to turn the place into an “Erlebnispädagogik” facility, experiential education, the German way of dealing with kids who have got into trouble with the law. Today it is difficult to imagine how poor this part of affluent Switzerland on the southern slope of the Alps was until recently. In the Middle Ages, the region now known as Ticino was divided up between wealthy aristocrats in Berne and Uri who kept the southern valleys and their inhabitants in servitude. This changed during the revolutionary times of the “Helvetic Republic”, when the people of the area fought to be “liberi e svizzeri”, “free and Swiss”, rather than to become citizens of Napoléon’s “Cisalpine Republic”. As a consequence, the free Canton of Ticino, named by its predominant river, was founded in 1802. After the onset of industrialisation, Ticino’s inhabitants began emigrating in large numbers to the nearby cities of Milan and Zurich, or as far away as to America, and the people of the Verzaca Valley moved away too, seeking employment. It used to be pretty cut off, the valley road along the wild river wasn’t finished until 1873. These days, the romantic but largely depopulated vales of Ticino are spangled with stone cottages called by the Swiss rustici. These are either for sale or for rent or they have already been turned into holiday homes owned by German Swiss from the north. If you have some money to spare, this is the place to buy a little mountain retreat, ideal for artists or pensioners or if you want to start a business and open a restaurant (“grotto”) or a “pensione”. Most of the rustici are in or near the villages, but you find them also in a place like Odro. First of all, the mountain settlement of Odro was never used as an “alpe”. The villagers of Vogorno used to drive their cattle to a different place called Bardüghè for the summer months. That’s Vogorno’s “alpe” proper. We reached Bardüghè (1600 m) coming from Odro after a 40 m walk. There is, in fact, a less steep path, one used by the people of Vogorno to this day to drive their cattle, the area around Odro being far too steep for cattle to graze or walk on. People from the village used to spend their summers here to cut “forest hay”, “fieno di bosco”, in modern terminology wild hay since it wasn’t cut in the beech forest but in the ranges above. It was dangerous work, and many villagers were badly hurt or lost their lives, including many children who had been accompanying their parents. People were often bludgeoned by rock 27

Arno Löffler

avalanches or they fell to their deaths (this explains the Calvary resembling a haystack, mentioned earlier). The reason the locals resorted to this demanding way of producing hay that was by no means of a higher quality than hay from the plains, was simple: there is hardly any ground in the deep-cut Verzasca Valley that could be used for hay production. The land owned by the village communities in the plain wasn’t usable either, until the mid-19th century the Ticino river regularly flooded the whole swampy area. The people from Vogorno weren’t dairy farmers. The milk produced by means of the wild hay harvested in Odro was used in veal fattening and the veal sold as the main source of income in the markets in the plain, in Gordola and Locarno. Wild hay production reached its high between 1600 and 1850, a time of extreme population growth, the practise stopped in the 1950’s. In 1596, 2,293 inhabitants were registered in the valley, in 1850, there were 3,189. Since then their number has been in a steady decline, reaching a mere 896 in 2000. In earlier times, a certain sector of the population of Vogorno had to walk up to Odro in May, where they would live and work for several months, some of them until November or even longer, before walking back to the safety of their village. Some went up prior to the mass ascent (“nèe a bosch”) in order to claim a “medée”, a grassy patch on the mountain slope, for their family. This claiming was referred to as “naa a tò fò” in Vogorno. The hay was cut in the “medée” by hand and pushed downhill with the feet, along a “menadóo”, a corridor in the rock or in the meadow, to one of the four little hamlets that made up Odro where it was stored. If the “medée” was too far from one of the little hamlets that made up Odro (Técc Fond, Ticc Zòtt, Sert, Cim’al Prov) the farmers would spend the nights in caves they called “sprügh” to be safe from falling rocks. From the stores in Odro the people carried smaller amounts of hay on their backs down to the village, in wooden containers called “fassoéra”. In the mid-19th century, however, a system of wire cables (“fil a sbalz”) and rollers was put in place, enabling the farmers to send larger bundles of hay downhill with less physical effort. At the bottom of each wire cable there would be a bumper where the hay was received by another farmer and hooked onto the next wire going further down. In 1920, 3300 tons of wild hay were harvested in the Verzasca Valley, 90 per cent of which was cut with a sickle (“mèdora”), not a scythe (“ranza”). Nowadays, Jean-Louis uses modern equipment in cutting the hay around Odro for his goats and although his workload is lightened by the helicopter, the whole process still involves a lot of hard physical labour. Many of the objects the people from Vogorno used for their work in and around Odro are preserved in a little museum in the highest part of Odro, 28

Arno Löffler

about ten minutes above Jean-Louis and Marlies’ little holiday resort, en route to Bardüghè. The museum consists of one little gloomy room in a small cottage once inhabited by a man from Vogorno by the name of Luigi Berri, called “Stevenin”, who died in a hospital in Medocio in 1988 aged 84. Many of the everyday objects on display in the museum are his. Jean-Louis and Marlies turned Luigi’s house into a museum when Luigi died. They have been looking after the museum to this day. If you want to visit it you pick up the key from them for free.

In 2000, the museum was incorporated into an anthropological walkway and is now part of the collections of the Museo di Val Verzasca. Luigi had many jobs in his life, pretty much all of them at the same time. In the Verzasca Valley, modern specialisation hadn’t really taken hold yet. He raised cattle, goats and sheep and had a little vineyard, he worked in the fields and made some money as a carpenter and as a bricklayer. Luigi stayed in Odro for many more years after everybody else had left and he lived there all by himself harvesting the wild hay for his goats. Surprisingly, he did not die a poor man. When he passed on they found a shoebox in his house in Costa Piana that contained 130,000 Swiss franks. The money was used to renovate the Church dedicated to St. Anthony in Vogorno and a plaque was put up in Luigi’s memory. Today, the “museo” in Odro has a neighbour, a German Swiss has bought the cottage next door. The only inhabitant of the hamlet sometimes comes here to chill out and take in the view. 29

musique

Peter Schlump

The Neusyland Effect I remember when New Zealand underground music first hit Germany back in November 1984. A record mail order company called Normal, specializing in imports of experimental and extreme music, was advertising music from New Zealand (‘two islands in the South Pacific that in our latitude have primarily been known as supplier for kiwifruit and exclusive destination for rich eco-freaks’) in one of their bi-monthly booklets. The feature was about Flying Nun Records and three featured imports by Marie & The Atom, Fetus Productions and The Gordons. Germany had survived the British punk revolution to little effect, but 1979 saw the rise of a promising DIY/post-punk scene. In close relation to subcultural art circles (Immendorf, Oehlen, Kippenberger), new bands were developing their own ideas and visions with astonishing results. However, years before, groups like Can, Faust and Neu! had already laid the groundwork for this, integrating a level of abstraction into rock music that until then had only been found in obscure regions of free jazz and minimal music. By drawing from a variety of non-musical influences these free thinkers had broken new ground without losing touch with the rock tradition. Probably unaware of the evident parallels, German New Wave since 1979 operated on a similar level. Kurt Dahlke of Der Plan recently pointed out that since the protagonists of early German New Wave had been so busy denying any connection to 70s music, the importance of bands like Neu! or Kraftwerk did not become completely evident until about 1984. Ironically, around this time, a once promising new movement had come to a standstill and pop culture in general indulged in suffering deeply from a post punk hangover. Efforts of integrating the new values into a masscompatible pop concept had mostly resulted in bland commercialism. Meanwhile, a handful of extremists kept on waving the flag of maximum independence and home production, but they kept drifting into regions of elitism and unlistenable weirdness. The aforementioned Normal mail order outlet was the number one source for music of the latter kind and with this in mind their Flying Nun feature came to me as a surprise. Here was a scene that named the Velvet Underground as a bigger influence than the Guyana mass suicides or the mental aberration of the Yorkshire Ripper (excepting the influences upon Auckland’s Fetus Productions). I figured there must be something special about this music. 33

Peter Schlump

In his liner notes to the Six Impossible Things reissue Bill Direen describes New Zealand punk music and fashion as ‘surface manifestations of undercurrents that had been developing actively, at times aggressively, in New Zealand throughout the early 1970s’. Bill further remembers the huge influence of politically motivated theories like Situationism upon the early roots of what would become a music scene of worldwide reputation. The kinship to the German underground probably lies in these connective tendencies to incorporate political/intellectual/art theories equally or in higher degree than influences out of the rock context itself. Germany soon proved to be a fertile ground for the new antipodean pop music. With their early imports Normal had planted the seed. In the second half of the 80s they expanded to a professional record label and released Euro pressings of Flying Nun LPs. Experimental labels like Dunedin’s Xpressway or Trinder Music entered the arena and got imported by a growing number of smaller underground distributors. Reviews appeared regularly in German music journals and New Zealand bands started touring the country. The South of Germany deserves special mention for the Raffmond label in Landsberg that released LPs by The Terminals, Cake Kitchen and Peter Jefferies. A club called PIC was situated in the pictoresque downs of Kaufbeuren and became known for regular bookings of New Zealand bands like The Clean or Bailter Space. Meanwhile, in the antipodes the Tall Dwarfs‘ 1994 album ‘3 EPs’ included a track called Neusyland, referring to both the Noisyland expression originally invented by Stuart Page and the German 1970s band Neu!. A fundamental change was imminent as the new millennium approached. Electronic club music took over the last subcultural refuges of independent rock; New Zealand underground music seemed well past its zenith. Unimpressed by the new lounge generation, I started to dig deeper into the past, and found that over two decades plenty of exciting music had been released beneath the radar on cassettes & records which never made it to the European continent. Christchurch’s Onset Offset label, to choose only one example, had existed since the pre-Flying Nun era without having been recognized in the northern hemisphere as more than a vague rumour. I also learned that in the early days people like Bill Direen had released records in micro-editions, recorded by bands that had already dissolved when I first heard of Flying Nun in 1984. Then around 2005 things became displaced again. Originating from the United States, a new DIY movement spread and flourished rapidly, incorporating new technologies which nevertheless paid homage to certain roots in 34

Peter Schlump

the past such as New Zealand 1980s independent music and German home produced minimalism of the same period. The idea of founding a label originated from these observations. Operating from the historical ground of southern Bavaria, Unwucht releases rare archival material along with recent music that shares a similar approach. There are reissues of primeval Bill Direen recordings, a compilation of Augsburg post punk bands reflecting on Philip K. Dick novels, but also very recent recordings by a U.S. East Coast collective that connects a suitably contemporary environmentally-conscious lifestyle with aspects of industrial music and punk. Rock history is now so complex that there’s fodder for legions of new bands to nourish themselves on. Yet, for me, in this post-postmodern time, the most interesting music will always be the one that dares to walk the narrow path between self-reference and authenticity.

http://www.unwuchtmusik.org

 

35

George Henderson

Puddle Motivation I wasn’t a musical child; I think my desire to make music began as a desire to emulate and share the glory of people I admired. Like joining a political party or sports club, first as a supporter, then with ambition to make a name for oneself. Along the way I picked up a love for certain sounds; the arty raunch of The Beatles, the spooky guitar of Syd Barrett, the crunchy groove of the Velvet Underground, the stamping beat of the Stooges. I came up at a time and in a place when these sounds, at least the latter three, weren’t common currency. Indeed, in musical circles they weren’t legal tender at all. This had to change. Someone had to do it. I was the one deluded enough to think there would be glory in it. I’m still not a musical adult. By that I mean, I seldom practice, and I don’t avidly follow the new releases in any genre. I don’t have much need to hear what’s going on. I get my deepest listening pleasure from playing the same few CDs and LPs for years at a time. This twelvemonth past I’ve continued to luxuriate in Strange Geometry by the Clientele, with a side order of Shuggie Otis’s Inspiration Information and occasional tracks from The Changing Same. The Velvet Underground, The Fall, and the Clientele are the only bands I’ve heard play in my dreams. Only The Clientele, a few nights ago, played a song I recognized; a live version of “No Dreams Last Night” on a floppy 7”, the sort they used to give away in magazines in the 1970s, was playing in a charity thrift shop as I looked through the books and found it among them. What do I want from a song, as listener or composer? Ideally, tears of joy that such beauty exists. Combined perhaps with the awareness of unraveling a riddle hidden in plain sight; lifting the sword in the stone, perhaps. I don’t write down my musical ideas; if I can forget them, anyone can, so I allow them to evolve by natural selection. In my case the sense that no-one else is doing something that I want to hear is always a stimulant. It helps that I don’t really know what other people are doing anyway. The world needs a song about Vitalism or a concept album based on Colin Wilson’s 1956 classic The Outsider. But something gets a bit bent in the telling, always, because ultimately I’m not going to stray far from the popular idiom, as I hear it, or as it should be. So there’s stuff trapped in the songs; Stendhal and Dante are in there like flys in amber, but I’d consider it infra dig to point them out, and I don’t know how they got there anyway. 36

George Henderson

The Puddle aesthetic is one of melody and words, which are often akin to dialogue; I don’t do vocal harmony, I don’t favour long intros or repetitive singalong choruses. Make your point quickly and get out is my oft-neglected counsel of perfection. Neglected because I also like to get a good groove on. One never rests for long; a band like the Puddle, creating and existing hand to mouth, will only ever be as good as our next album. Somewhere in Nietzsche, not sure where, there’s a beautiful description of the pleasure of ideas; what it feels like to find yourself thinking, or thinking that you’re thinking, novel thoughts. I guess, if I’m citing Nietzsche and Colin Wilson, that mine is then a rather utilitarian, stimulant sort of philosophy; I have little time to waste and no use for concepts or investigations that might hinder my ability to catch my sensations, to accept the world as given, to investigate it rationally, to behave as if my thoughts and actions might count, and enjoy such reward as is to be had thereby. This pretty much rules out both the supernatural and the skeptical-pessimistic. What I really love now is science and history; learning about the natural world, the evolution of species, the physiological nuts and bolts of existence, especially as it relates to the human condition. It probably stems from my past interest in drugs and pharmacology. So I got something good out of that. And again the sense that no-one else has hit on or developed a particular connection is a source of pleasure. I was, so far as I know, the first person to point out that the physiological effects of benign dietary ketosis on a lowcarbohydrate diet ought to suppress replication of the Hepatitis C virus. It’s the eternal search of the amateur for that lover’s reward that is not measured by income, prizes, titles, but exists instead in the temporary silencing of self-criticism.

37

Bruce Russell

The Earthquake Zone On 22 February 2011 my home town of Lyttelton was struck by an earthquake of relatively modest magnitude 6.3. It was accompanied by vertical ground acceleration of over twice the force of gravity — the most powerful on record anywhere. Amongst very many other things (including the town’s every brick and stone buildings, paved roads, high-rise offices and shops), we had lost all running water and sewage services. Once the power came back (which always happens quickly in Lyttelton, due to proximity to the port) I worked out how to make my own chemical toilet. With a large lidded bucket and an old chair, we soon had something that approximated the regular loo, albeit under the southern summer sky. The family wasn’t 100% keen, but options were limited, and once the city’s collective porta-loos arrived, the reality of sharing a chemical toilet with the rest of the town made my back-yard throne a whole lot more appealing. Inside a week the bucket was getting full …. At this point I heard someone on the radio saying that in the pioneering days, folk used to keep their long-drop toilets smelling lovely with a handy white powder known as hydrated lime. And we had a whole sack of the stuff, I remembered, with the kind of excitement that only a person showering under a tree in their garden with solar-heated water will fully understand. We’d needed a cupful about ten years earlier to make milk paint, and the only way to get it was to buy a 20kg sack, which had sat in the shed ever since. Once I’d dug a pit and emptied the brimming karzi into it, I scattered on a handful of the powdery white saviour and bingo! No odour at all. I was soon going door-to-door round the neighbourhood with a bucket and shovel, doling out an obscure chemical which Wikipedia informs us, was widely used in Afghanistan to make ‘dipping tobacco’. ‘Got a long-drop?’ I cheerily asked people with whom up till then I’d scarcely got beyond ‘Gidday’. ‘Or a pit full of poo? This stuff is just the ticket for smell, here, have a shovel full… just scatter in on top and: Bam! The smell is gone…’ Believe you me, they all went for it, no exceptions. No one looks a gift de-odorizing chemical in the mouth when half their town has just gone down to dust in a wheel-barrow ride to hell. And that’s how we got through it in the end, people pooled their resources and looked out for their neighbours. We’re better for it, despite what we’ve lost. We’ve got the toilets back too; and I’ve still got some lime, if anyone fancies some Afghan dipping tobacco, whatever that is … 38

Max Dembo

Musique à tous les étages

Mon rapport à la musique remonte à 1982-1983. J’avais un peu plus de 5 ans quand mes parents m’ont inscrit à des cours de piano. Les cours avaient lieu à la Schola Cantorum, un vieux conservatoire, rue Saint Jacques à Paris. Plus peut-être que les cours eux-mêmes, ce lieu - un ancien couvent de bénédictins anglais transformé en école de musique que fréquenta brièvement Serge Gainsbourg - m’a beaucoup marqué: le carrelage retro de l’entrée, l’immense escalier en bois, l’incroyable atmosphère de "musique à tous les étages", le calme de la cour intérieure. C’est probablement le lieu le plus authentiquement musical que je connaisse. Avance rapide jusqu’à l’automne 1996. Je ne prends plus de cours de piano et je n’ai d’ailleurs plus de piano à proximité, j’habite dans une petite ville de l’arrière pays niçois. Je fais des études dans la région qui, aussi belle soit-elle, est un désert musical. Depuis quelques années j’écoute principalement du hip-hop: Public Enemy, Gangstarr, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, etc. Au lycée ça avait suscité quelques moqueries, Metallica étant considéré comme définitivement plus cool. Quoiqu’il en soit à Nice, il n’y a ni vraiment l’un ni vraiment l’autre: seulement quelques concerts de chanteurs de variété ringards qui viennent relever les compteurs pour leur public de retraités. Même si j’essaye de suivre les rares apparitions du mythique et mystérieux groupe 39

Max Dembo

garage-fuzz local Dum Dum Boys - à ne pas confondre avec leurs homonymes néo-zélandais — je m’emmerde ferme sur la "French Riviera". La découverte d’Internet pendant l’hiver 1996-1997 m’enthousiasme. Je découvre avec joie de nombreux sites musicaux. Beaucoup de sites "maison", souvent anglophones, me rappellent l’esprit des fanzines que je lis depuis mes visites régulières à la boutique parisienne "Le Silence de la Rue" (adresse historique à Lamarck Caulaincourt) quelques années auparavant. Je crée mon propre site puis décide de lancer un fanzine papier du nom de SDZ. Des initiales qui avaient une signification à l’origine mais devinrent rapidement une excuse pour titiller l’imagination des curieux. Les premiers numéros ne sont quelques pages A4 photocopiées et pliées en deux avec des news de mes groupes favoris, glanées sur le web, et quelques chroniques de disques et de concerts. En envoyant ces premiers numéros à d’autres fanzines ou en faisant des échanges, je découvre peu à peu que le vaste réseau Do-It-Yourself des fanzines s’étend sur toute la planète. Je commence à recevoir pas mal de courrier, ma boîte aux lettres est régulièrement pleine. Laurent, un ami habitant alors à Reims, me rejoint pour préparer les numéros suivants. Ceux-ci sont de plus en plus épais. Je multiplie les interviews par e-mail, y compris avec des groupes que je connais pas du tout mais dont le nom ou le site m’a intrigué. C’est aussi l’occasion de rentrer en contact avec des musiciens de caractère qui étaient déjà sur le web comme Tim Kerr de Lords High Fixers, Bob Bert de Chrome Cranks, Jack et Lili des Splash Four, Alex Cuervo de Blacktop, Dale Crover des Melvins, Mick Collins, Eugene Chadbourne ou encore Dave Crider du label Estrus. Comme dans le milieu des fanzines, je découvre alors un réseau d’activistes musicaux (groupes, labels, producteurs, organisateurs de concerts...) composé de gens souvent passionnés qui s’aident naturellement les uns les autres en se refilant des bonnes adresses, des bons contacts et en faisant jouer le bouche-à-oreille. Nouvelle avance rapide jusqu’à l’automne 1999. Je me retrouve dans une petite chambre d’étudiant sur le campus d’une université de la ville de Québec au Canada. L’hiver est rude et l’ennui me guette à nouveau. J’écoute la radio du campus et je tombe par hasard sur une émission passant autant du rock’n’roll sauvage (Teengenerate, Guitar Wolf et autres Devil Dogs) que des vieilleries 60s québecoises (Les Habits Jaunes, Les Lutins, Les Jaguars ...) et quelques étrangetés country du coin. Interpellé, je téléphone à la station et entame une discussion avec Jack, l’un des animateurs. Au fil des semaines, je finis par rencontrer puis sympathiser avec l’équipe de l’émission, composée en grande partie de membres du groupe punk rock local Les Vipères. Je suis le groupe avec acharnement à chacun de ses concerts, fais la fête chez eux, les accom40

Max Dembo

pagne en pleine tempête pour soutenir des légendes de la région, les Camel Clutch. Au delà de l’amitié, je me dis que le groupe est bon. Il a la fougue, la sauvagerie, la folie douce que j’aime dans les groupes de rock’n’roll. Vers la fin de l’année, Stéphane Dufour un ami français de Nancy, auteur du très bon site musical "Fourdu WWW: Underground Zone" me contacte pour m’annoncer qu’il envisage de lancer son propre label de disques. Il prévoit de sortir un single du groupe garage punk Sux Evulsors. Il m’envoit une K7 du groupe, je lui envoie un CD démo des Vipères. On aime chacun beaucoup ce qu’on reçoit et nous décidons pour inaugurer nos labels respectifs, SDZ Records et Fourdu Records, de sortir un split 45 tours entre les deux groupes. Le disque sort au début de l’année 2000. Nous l’avons fait presser dans une usine à Nashville aux Etats-Unis. 500 copies. C’est un grand bonheur pour les deux labels comme pour les groupes qui se rencontreront finalement quelques mois plus tard à l’occasion d’un concert à Paris. L’aventure du label SDZ Records est lancée même si à ce moment, je n’envisage pas vraiment qu’elle puisse durer. De retour à Paris, je fréquente régulièrement les concerts dans les petits bars et j’ai mes habitudes chez quelques disquaires indépendants comme Born Bad. Avec Laurent je continue à faire le fanzine et des amis nous ont même rejoint, notamment Larry et Manu du groupe local Steve & The Jerks mais aussi pour la version web un australien, Shane. Ce dernier me parle un jour du groupe néo-zélandais The D4 fraîchement signé sur Flying Nun, un de mes labels favoris. Laurent me prêtant main forte sur le label, nous décidons - après avoir sorti un autre disque des Vipères - de sortir un 45t des D4. Nous les rencontrons lors d’une soirée mémorable à Paris pour un concert qu’ils donnèrent avec leurs compatriotes des Datsuns. Peu de temps après, nous décidons de sortir un disque des Anteenagers M.C, nouveau groupe de nos amis Larry et Manu. Musicalement ces derniers sont assez éloignés des D4 ou des Vipères mais peu importe: chaque sortie est une nouvelle aventure, un nouveau coup de coeur musical à défendre, nous n’en sommes pas à vouloir créer une ligne éditoriale! Plus tard Laurent me parle d’un concert de l’artiste anglais Ben R Wallers qu’il a vu à Londres. Le bonhomme est connu aussi pour ses méfaits au sein des Country Teasers. Son projet solo nous épate. On lui propose de sortir un disque et il accepte! On l’aidera même par la suite pour quelques concerts parisiens. On se rend compte peu à peu qu’il y a une foule de groupes attachants complètement ignorés par l’industrie musicale et qui sont ouverts aux propositions de micro-labels comme SDZ. C’est ainsi que nous sortons aussi le deuxième single du groupe Cheveu qui connaît depuis un assez large succès en Europe comme en Amérique du Nord. 41

Max Dembo

Au fil des sorties et sans que je m’en rende forcément compte, le label s’est forgé une certaine identité musicale. Je le constate ponctuellement à l’occasion d’articles, notamment ceux consacrées à la compilation "Flottante tension d’éclipse" sortie en 2010 pour les dix ans du label. Je m’étonne toujours autant de commandes provenant de l’autre bout du monde. Ou de cette discussion presque surréaliste l’an passé dans l’Utah où quelques fans semblaient connaître tous les micro-labels et petits groupes de l’hexagone. Au delà de la musique, de l’objet — je me rends compte ici que je n’ai pas justifié du choix du format vinyle (c’est pour moi une sorte d’évidence) — ce sont bien ces rencontres, ces heures passées à discuter avec les amis, les groupes, les autres labels, les mailorders et le public "avide de découvertes" qui me donnent l’envie de continuer ce hobby envahissant qu’est SDZ. http://sdz.free.fr

42

topoi

Lieux d’Europe

43

44

t opoi

: Lieux d’Europe

Arno Löffler

Vienna, disused  WW II flak tower. 13.3.2011.

Odro, Ticino, Switzerland. Abandoned dwelling, now a state-owned museum. 12.8.2011

Extremsport Vienna, 15th District. September 2010

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Arno Löffler

t opoi



: Lieux d’Europe

Barcelona, abandoned car, marked by the Police themselves. 10.2.2011

Copenhagen, September 2011

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t opoi

: Lieux d’Europe

Arno Löffler

Berlin. Former Airport Tempelhof, now an unofficial park. 17.10.2010

Milan. Locals believe the holes in that column in front of St Ambroses church have been made by the devil. 23.11.2010

Milan. The shrine of the Three Magi, whose remains were stolen from here and taken to Cologne by Emperor Barbarossa in 1158. 23.11.2010

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Arno Löffler

t opoi



: Lieux d’Europe

From the Museum dedicated to Bertel Thorvaldsen, Copenhagen. November, 2011

In Grisons, Switzerland, August 2011

48

récit

Geoff Cush

from Nellcote Revisited ‘There are no good studios in France. ‘ Anita translated. She looked towards Villa Nellcote and laughed. ‘So we are building a studio in the basement. We have to come down here to escape the hammering.’ Keith added something I almost understood. ‘Carpenters?’ I hazarded ‘Carpeters’ Anita said. ‘To make the sound better.’ It seemed too difficult to ask if the next Rolling Stones album was going to be sung in French. In any case, Villa Nellcote didn’t sound like the sort of place I’d find the peace I craved, with a rock band making an album in the basement, however much carpet they put down. After their Wellington concert I had a ringing in my ears that lasted for three days and since then, things had only got louder. Go Ask Alice At the end of Cannes fortnight, my clothes were all packed for the trip back to Paris, save for one last outfit for a last round of movie people parties. The movies had got better as the festival went on and The Palme D’or ended up going to a lovely film about a boy and some good looking actors doing intriguing things in the English countryside. After the gala screening I drifted out of the cinema feeling my critical standards had been vindicated and the balance restored in my relationship with art. A warm pink evening and the back seat of a car embraced me, whisking me above the town to a vine-covered terrace where Bertolucci was hosting a faux-rustic dinner. Afterwards, our party joined up with some Americans to go dancing at Monaco. Driving back to Cannes around two o’clock, we passed above Villefranche and saw the normally sleepy resort ablaze with lights and full of people. Someone in the front seat yawned. ‘The fleet is in. Welcome to Villevegas-Sur-Mer,’ The scene flashed between the trees and was gone. The man sitting beside me, having somehow missed the speaker’s tone of megaphonic ennui, enquired anxiously. ‘Well, aren’t we going down there?’ s We passed the through the gates of the villa without slowing down; the murmur of macadam turned to the roar of outraged gravel, our tires spat stones at the garden. Outside the front door there really was a red sports 51

Geoff Cush

car waiting to whisk me to Cannes. Anita said, ‘I’ll find your driver,’ and vanished inside. Bobby and Scotty followed her. I waited by the front door feeling it would be somehow dangerous to enter Anita’s home. In Rome her admirers had passed the time speculating about Anita’s future—no one doubted it was golden. But her mumbling pop star had taken her higher than even the best expectations of schoolgirl Anita if she was mistress of the world beyond that door. It looked like the entrance to some Napoleonic ministry, high glass panels held in place by arabesques of black iron and flanked by a pair of sphinxes. I stood between the sphinxes listening to the birds waking up in the grove that concealed the house from the road. The music had stopped but after a while it started again, shaking the ground beneath my feet. Poor shy famous Keith, anonymously serenading the sailors at their revels. Shouldn’t someone tell him that the party was over and everyone had gone to bed? Scotty came back looking as though he’d had eight hours sleep in the five minutes since I saw him. Pink-faced and restored to his former humour, he was bringing me a Martini in a conical glass. ‘Anita’s still trying to find your driver,’ he looked mischievous as if his excursion to the interior had confirmed something suspicious. ‘There are a lot of rooms,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, drink this. I know just how you like it.’ ‘You should know,’ I took the glass and sipped. ‘You’ve heard me telling half a dozen bartenders how to make it.’ The music stopped again and my ears readjusted to the tiny twittering in the trees. ‘This is the strangest garden I’ve ever seen,’ I said. Branches writhed and twisted skywards like modernist dancers pretending to be trees. Vegetable introverts curled inwards to their trunks and cloaked themselves with impossibly patterned leaves. The whole garden seemed to be holding its breath as if our arrival had interrupted a stealthy advance on the house. ‘I don’t think I could name more than one or two species. ‘ I said. I thought I was still talking to Scotty, but when I turned around it was Anita standing on the step. ‘An English admiral built Nellcote,’ she said. ‘He brought plants and trees from every country he visited. He was one of those Victorians who were interested in botanical science. ‘Now,’ she added unnecessarily, ‘The place is completely wild.’ (publication pending)

52

Jim Wilson

I Get High (extract) On one day in 1978 two of my best mates die and then—another three months later. I guess I’m scared because I’m fucking her so much and beating her so much that she must leave me. Maybe I’m just a prick, but this is the way a junkie often lives. Many are soft and extremely good people, but many are another way too. I demand that she shoots me up and we have sex. I fuck her everywhere in the house. To me it’s love. One day I have a bad overdose. Then she must leave me. I think it’s the strongest thing she’d ever done. It must be done. By this point in time my life has diminished and Andy, Black Pete, and Mouse are all dead. I’m buying codeine and sitting waiting at a methadone clinic. Well, how does that make me feel? I get my methadone put up twenty milligrammes by telling my doctor that I would use street drugs if I didn’t get a higher dose.

Chapter Seventeen One thing about junk is that it takes away shyness and so people know what is really going on. The desperation will take away shyness as well. I remember being up all night examining Vanessa’s vulva. Her friend Nicky had been around that day. I remember feeling uncomfortable being in the room with them and I went and got stoned. When I got back I noticed that Nicky had a small scar on her neck and she was holding her head so this would be visible to everyone. It was like she was proud of it. I remember her brother had committed suicide by throwing himself off Whitewash Heads. Sometimes I’m just plain glad I found dope, because I’m still alive. I found something that sustained me, even in the worst of times. Sitting with the two of them I thought about that scar the whole time. Whatever she did, I thought about that scar. Nicky was the kind of chick who was often fucking four men a day for their methadone. Yet she’d always be rubbing that scar and complaining about being unloved. She was very open and told us that she always insisted that these men with the methadone measure it out in front of her. Then she’d take half for what she called ‘sex.’ If they didn’t get takeaways, she’d insist that they hold it in 53

Jim Wilson

their mouths at the chemist shop until they got out the door. Then she’d kiss them and drink half. Sometimes she’d kiss them at the sunglass stand because she thought they couldn’t help but swallow some if they had it in their mouths long. She called the whole procedure ‘oral sex.’ Nicky would act like all this was ok and she was a nice person in a way. Then in other ways she’d come across like a reptile. When she couldn’t get opiates she’d take valium, and when she did this she’d always have spittle at the side of her mouth. One time when I was in Cherry Farm or Sunnyside*, I was walking around a field and I noticed how very alone I was in all this. Sometimes I’d scare myself to death if I thought about it too long. Once I had my methadone I was always ok, but when it had worn off things were awful. The only way to return to a state of it being ok was to take more methadone. Once they were putting opium tincture on my tongue with an eye dropper and this was ok as well. Nicky had been going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings and she was ‘clean today.’ She was like a lot of women in junk (clean or fucked up), she was stripped right back to her absolute essentials. She bared her teeth like a pack hound even when she was happy. She had a lot of ground to make up for and a lot of revenge to be worked out. She had become some sort of flag bearer for the twelve step movement and they had sent her to share on the evils of drugs at a school for problem kids. She was invited to do this by a dope smoking teacher who was in the know. He had often shared his joints with his pupils. Nicky and the teacher were both hip. But on her way to the school, Nicky had taken some methadone orally from a one legged guy who had been in the programme for twenty years. He boasted that he was getting the highest dose in town and when he said this you could see how happy he was. She had kissed him passionately in his chemist shop down the Cashel Street mall. He had actually tried to swallow more than half for himself, but she had managed to get her tongue way down his mouth and to lick a lot back. They nearly fell over as his crutches swayed, each was wearing old fashioned Rayban sunglasses. He had worked out to sway his crutches at the appropriate moment, as this gave her less chance of getting an even dose. So on this day he had left his leg at home. Nicky went to the school and had a joint with the teacher first. He was dead keen to be her friend as this made him out to be staunch, and to truly be on the side of the underdog. He was proud that she was here to address the class. 54

Jim Wilson

She began to speak and developed a rhythm as she did. She had always noticed that it felt really good to repeat certain words and like all junkies she was keen to show just how tough she was. As she talked, she also used her hands to illustrate points as to how hard the drug seeker’s life is. These were some of the words she used over and over: Oral Swallow Penetrate Sugar Food Mother Dad Dreadful Oral (many times) Swallow (many times) Penetrate (as in what a car did to her that slammed into her car) Sugar (she loved it) Food (as in how healthy she eats now) Mother (who always supported her) Dad (as in how sick he was) Dreadful (as in what a junky’s life is like) She spoke the same few sentences over and over as if it were an attempt to believe it all. Gradually it all thinned away and she began to speak only about her childhood. She spoke of the night her father read her a bedtime story before he left for good, about how she had never touched him and wished she could. Then she spoke quietly about how he had never touched her either. Then she began crying ....

*Cherry Farm and Sunnyside were psychiatric hospitals near Dunedin and Christchurch respectively. Cherry Farm psychiatric hospital existed from 1952 (transferring patients from Seacliff Mental Hospital) until 1992. Cherry Farm aimed for a village atmosphere, contrasting with the gothic Seacliff (designed by Dunedin’s Victorian architect Robert Lawson, architect of over 40 Dunedin churches). Sunnyside existed from 1863 till 1999. Its main buildings were constructed in the 1870s from designs by Christchurch’s Victorian architect Benjamin Mountfort. The last building was demolished in 2007.

55

K. M. Ross

The Lunatic It was a game of currents. Striking up, he felt the focus of every line in the hanging and uncertain world towards his arms and fingers; the lines of the technique and the art he knew soothed everything down to the familiar. Outside, the opposite. People half-twisted and caught their breath. A solid, singing, screaming racket punched in and filled the air, there in the ˇ Staromestská radnice in the Old Town Square in Prague, clogging the big Gothic anteroom with some blue-black aerial filler. High wires screaming gold at the upper edge. Cracked, derelict old Jimmie paced, trying to get some agreement in his A’s. Y’r bowffin’, man. Mingin’. Then all that harsh bodged carpentry of clashing sound settled down, steadying into a long line, or a match of lines, like the bridges he’d seen ranged one past another into the distance along the Vltava River. The slow air, Sine Bhàn, was his own approximate reference to the bride, whose name was Jana (like all but a few of the female Czechs he’d met); naturally after that would have to come Mairi’s Wedding. His chest was heaving. Six Chivas’s and a Drambuie on the plane the day before might not have been the best preparation for this after all… so hold it down steady man. Fingers operating like a row of intricately-cammed mechanical rods; apart from him; nothing to do with his brain. Thank God. And he paced and turned for the march. Just as his bleary eyes began to notice what everybody else was doing. Backed up behind an invisible dam, inside the ornamental Gothic doors, all the guests or passers-by from the Square outside were standing staring a uniform nine to ten metres away, while he pranced up there alone. The currents jammed. All in some sort of shock, were they, some ultimate cultural disbelief? The kilt. The brogues, flashes, sgian dubh, Argyll jacket, Glengarry; the triple-spiked unwieldiness of the instrument. Can this really be happenin’? News for you, mateys. And suddenly aware, forced up against a world where others’ eyes existed, he did fluff a line of notes. Well, it was only beat-up old, kenspeckled Jimmie. The Czech guy who was Reiss’s best man – Holic, his name? – was hovering nervously in his tails a foot or two away. Clean stop. The air seemed to vibrate, fracture into silence, as another shudder ran through the crowd. A wee mite echoey in there. Jimmie started to explain what everybody should be doing, at least the, what you might call, 56

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invited guests. He made a sweeping motion with his two arms, indicating the way people ought to file past him to the inner door. And the current, the flow was unleashed at that moment, without the need for translation; and he fluffed the bag to strike in again, and began on his pièce de résistance, learned just for the occasion: the competition two-four ‘Highland Wedding’ by the great Angus Mackay. Two cultures brushed, two atmospheric streams, as the touched outrageous entity that had begun to posture strangely in a public place was reduced in their minds to what he should have been: background, a shouting, cacophonous background; and old Slavonic formality glided at a mature pace past howling brigandry in the glens and passes of one more freezing country.

57

Hülya Yegin-Singer

Nimm mich mit Ich muss so vier, fünf Jahre alt gewesen sein. Meine Kindheitserinnerungen an Istanbul beziehen sich zumeist auf Geschehnisse auf der Straße: Das Leben spielte sich im Freien ab und es war immer was los. Oft war der erste Gang am Morgen noch im Pyjama zunächst nach draußen, gucken, was abgeht. Und nicht nur die Kinder sah man in Nachtgewändern in den Morgenstunden vor den Hauseingängen. Ich war ein sehr temperamentvolles Kind. Wollte immer in der Jungen-Gang unseres Viertels mitmachen. Aber die waren älter und wollten keine Mädchen. Nur ab und zu, wenn sie einen Spitzel brauchten, um zu sehen, ob die Luft rein ist, haben sie mich zum Spähen ausgesendet. Klar haben sie mich für ihre Zwecke benutzt. Dennoch sah ich mich bei diesen Gelegenheiten als ein Teil von ihnen. Ich war wichtig! Immerhin hing ihre Strafe davon ab, ob ich meine Arbeit gut machte oder nicht. Oft hielten wir während unserer Spiele inne, schauten einem über uns fliegenden Flugzeug nach und riefen im Chor: “Flugzeug flieg, nimm mich mit.“ Das war so ein Ritual, das die jüngsten Kinder von den etwas älteren übernahmen und fortführten. Ich schrie natürlich auch aus vollem Hals. Man musste ja schreien, sonst hätte es das Flugzeug nicht gehört. Geahnt hatte ich natürlich nicht, dass ich schon bald in solch einem Objekt fliegen würde. Die nächste prägnante Erinnerung spielt sich im Wohnzimmer meiner Großmutter ab. Meine Eltern waren ausgehfertig angezogen. Wir Kinder nicht. Meine Schwester war damals zwei Jahre alt und schlief auf dem Sofa. Meine Mutter streckte mir eine Handvoll Haselnüsse entgegen. Ich begriff in jenem Moment, dass hier etwas Unverzeihliches vor sich ging und die Nüsse das nicht gutmachen würden, was jetzt geschah. Als wäre es erst gestern gewesen, kann ich mich erinnern, wie meine Mutter liebevoll auf mich einsprach, ich aber, aus gekränktem Protest, keine Miene verzog. Meine Eltern waren unterwegs als Gastarbeiter nach Deutschland. Für ein Jahr. Uns Kinder überließen sie unserer Großmutter, die wir sehr liebten. Sie wohnte in einem anderen Stadtteil. Hier besuchte ich dann auch die erste Klasse. Weil in Deutschland das Geld auf der Straße lag (Allgemeine Annahme der Türken in der Türkei zu jener Zeit), fassten meine Eltern den Entschluss, noch ein bisschen länger zu bleiben. Es wurde beschlossen, dass ich nach 58

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Deutschland importiert werden sollte. Ein Onkel von mir brachte mich zum Flughafen, und gab mich in die Obhut eines mir unbekannten Mannes. Nun saß ich im Flugzeug und würde bald meine Eltern wiedersehen. Aber Panik ergriff mich, als ich bemerkte, dass der Mensch, der die Verantwortung für mich trug, eingeschlafen war. Wir würden die richtige Haltestelle verpassen! Da ich damals ein cooles Kind gewesen bin und mir meine Angst nicht ansehen lassen wollte, habe ich jedes Mal, wenn der Mann einschlief, seinen Ärmel absichtlich ein wenig ruppig hochgezogen. Als er dann erschrocken aufwachte, sagte ich ihm unschuldig: “Ich wollte nur nach der Uhrzeit sehen.“ Ich denke, dieser Herr hat nie wieder in seinem Leben jemanden getroffen, den die Uhrzeit so sehr interessierte wie mich. Ebenso irritierte es mich, dass ich die Durchsagen im Flugzeug nicht verstand. Ich ahnte noch gar nicht, dass dies der Anfang von vielem Unbegreiflichen sein würde. Die ersten zwei Monate in Deutschland waren für mich als Kind das Grausamste, was ich je erlebt habe. Meine Eltern gingen arbeiten und schlossen mich in der Zeit in die Zweizimmerwohnung ein. Ich wurde aus dem lebendigen, quirligen, lärmendem Treiben Istanbuls herausgerissen und einsam und verlassen eingesperrt in ein paar Quadratmeter, in einer fremden Umgebung, von meinen mir noch fremden Eltern. Der Schrecken packte mich jeden Tag, wenn von außen die Tür verschlossen wurde. Dann eines Tages fand ich einen Schlüssel in einer Schublade, mit der sich die Wohnungstür öffnen ließ. Die Haustür allerdings nicht. Diese überwand ich, indem ich aus dem Fenster kletterte. Aber draußen in Deutschland war nicht so wie draußen in Istanbul. Die Straßen in Deutschland waren tot. Keine Kinder, kein Geschrei, kein Lärm. Ein einziges Mädchen kam manchmal auf die Straße und wir spielten zusammen, solange ich unentdeckt aus dem Haus türmen konnte. Ich wusste zu dem Zeitpunkt zwar nicht, dass dieses Mädchen geistig behindert war, aber dass was nicht stimmte, hatte ich schnell gemerkt. Ich habe sie in all der Zeit nur ein Wort sprechen hören: „Eierkopf“. Mein Einstieg in die deutsche Sprache. Bald schon hatten Nachbarn meine Eltern über meine Ausbrüche informiert. Ich wurde gerügt und musste schriftlich Aufgaben lösen, solange ich auf mich allein gestellt war, damit ich nicht auf dumme Gedanken kam. Zudem wurde die „Oma“, wie die ältere Frau und Vermieterin, die ein Stockwerk über uns wohnte, von allen genannt wurde, beauftragt, auf mich aufzupassen. Das war viel besser als Einsamkeit. Die „Oma“ mischte aus zwei ver59

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schiedenen Flaschen ein Getränk, das ich nie zuvor getrunken hatte. Später als Erwachsene, als ich zum ersten Mal Weinschorle getrunken habe, kam der Aha-Effekt: Sie hatte also Alkohol gemixt und damit sich und mich abgefüllt. Die Situation war ja auch nur im Suff zu ertragen. Heute kann ich darüber lachen. Manchmal ging die „Oma“ in einen Gasthof im Ort und nahm mich mit. Wir aßen dann gemeinsam zu Mittag. Als ich das meiner Mutter mal erzählte, schien sie sehr entsetzt. Sie wollte genau wissen, was ich gegessen hatte. Beim Stichwort „Fleisch“ fiel sie fast in Ohnmacht. Im Gegensatz zu heute liebte ich als Kind Fleisch so sehr, dass ich nach Erzählungen meiner Mutter an keinem gedeckten Tisch Platz nahm, an dem nicht Fleisch serviert wurde. Nun bekam ich eine ausführliche Erklärung darüber, dass ich höchstwahrschlich Schweinefleisch gegessen hätte. Ich sei Moslem und die Deutschen seien Christen. Die Deutschen dürften Schweinefleisch essen und ich nicht. Und da ich nicht wusste, wie ein Schwein aussah, weil in Istanbul keine herumliefen, geschweige denn wie Schweinefleisch von anderen Fleischsorten zu unterscheiden war, wurde mir eingeschärft, auswärts kein Fleisch zu essen. Damit hatten tatsächlich auch erwachsene Türken ein Problem. Eine junge Frau aus Anatolien hatte uns erzählt, dass ihr am ersten Tag ihrer Anreise in Deutschland Fleisch vorgesetzt worden sei. Sie habe eindeutig ein Brathähnchen vor sich gesehen. Aber vor lauter Sorge, es könnte ein Schwein sein, gerade weil sie nicht wusste, wie ein Schwein auszusehen hat, habe sie nichts gegessen und sei hungrig ins Bett gegangen. Ich musste nicht hungern, aber Fleisch mit „Oma“ war tabu. Nur gut, dass die Eltern nicht wussten, dass sie und ich uns einen hinter die Binde kippten. Sonst hätten sie mir den Umgang mit ihr wahrscheinlich gänzlich verboten. Die alte Dame war schon ein wenig eigen. Obwohl sie eine Toilette hatte, benutzte sie einen Nachttopf. Man musste im Erdgeschoss aufpassen, wenn man den Kopf aus dem Fenster streckte: Sie schüttete nämlich regelmäßig ihren Urin vom ersten Stockwerk in den Garten hinunter. Eine neue und erfreulichere Ära begann für mich, als wir umzogen in eine andere, größere Wohnung. Die Vermieter über uns hatten mehrere Kinder, mit denen ich immer spielen konnte. Auch begann ich mit dem Besuch der ersten Klasse. Erfreulicherweise wohnten wir direkt gegenüber der Grundschule. Nach einem Jahr wurde auch meine Schwester nach Deutschland geholt und wir bekamen noch eine Schwester. Mein Dasein wurde bunter und alles pulsierte wieder. Aber ich merkte bald, dass ich ein 60

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differenzierteres Leben im Vergleich zu den anderen türkischen Kindern, von denen es in unserem Ort reichlich gab, führen musste. Erste und wichtigste Regel war, nicht mit türkischen Kindern spielen! Dieses Verbot hatte ich von den Eltern bekommen, damit ich Deutsch lernte. Natürlich ist alles, was verboten ist, interessanter und aufregender. Ich begann, mich ab und zu mit türkischen Kindern heimlich auf anderen Straßen zu treffen. Immer mit kribbelnder Panik, auf frischer Tat erwischt zu werden. Deutsch habe ich als Kind natürlich schnell gelernt. Meine Mutter gab mir zuhause Unterricht in elementaren Dingen wie dem Zählen auf Deutsch. Als wir bis 19 gekommen waren und die Zahl 20 anstand, sagte sie: „Du darfst jetzt nicht lachen. Es klingt unanständig, aber die Deutschen sagen das wirklich!“ Dann erzählte sie mir von der Endung „-zig“. Das klingt im Türkischen wie „Penis“. Mutter und ich kringelten uns vor Lachen, als wir begannen, ab 20 aufwärts zu zählen. Während der Text im Zeugnis der ersten Klasse wie folgt lautete: „Hülya ist sehr ehrgeizig und fleißig. Ihre Leistungen sind gut. Ihre mündliche Mitarbeit ist durch mangelnde Deutschkenntnisse nachteilig be­einträchtigt“, stand bereits in der zweiten Klasse unter der Rubrik „Deutsch“: "gut". Zusätzlich haben mich meine Eltern zu einer pensionierten Lehrerin aus Hamburg zum Nachhilfeunterricht geschickt und wirklich Unmengen D-Mark bezahlt, damit ich die deutsche Sprache ja auch beherrsche. So kam es dann zu dem Umstand, dass ich bereits in der Grundschule weit und breit das beste Deutsch unter den Türken gesprochen habe. Dies führte dazu, dass ich in meiner Freizeit als Dolmetscher viel herumgekommen bin. Ob Arztbesuche, Amtsbesuche oder Verkaufsgespräche: jeder konnte mich buchen. Meinen türkischen Schulabschluss (fünf Pflichtjahre) habe ich nebenher in Nachmittagsunterricht auch abgeschlossen. Ganz stolz war ich, als ich vom Türkischen Konsulat eine Belobigung für besondere Leistungen erhalten hatte. Ich Zwerg war ein wichtiges Mitglied der türkischen Gemeinde. Das wiederum hat mir nicht geholfen, als ein türkischer Junge in der Grundschule Schutzgeld von mir erpresst hat. Und zwar zum Schutz vor ihm selbst. Das heutige Klischee vom Türvorsteher Hakan kommt wohl nicht von ungefähr. Ich frage mich heute, was aus diesem Jungen geworden ist. Ob er bei den „Black Jackets“ Karriere gemacht hat, die in unserer Gegend Schutzgelder erpressen? Jedenfalls drohte er mich zu verprügeln, wenn ich ihm nicht regelmäßig was zukommen ließe. Woher nehmen, wenn nicht stehlen? Ich begann, aus der Geldbörse meines Vaters Kleingeld zu 61

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entwenden. Eine Weile konnte ich mich so schützen. Doch irgendwann hat ein türkisches Kind seinem Vater erzählt, ich würde im Gegensatz zu ihm viel Taschengeld bekommen. Der Vater des Kindes fragte dann meinen Vater, warum er mir so viel Taschengeld gebe. Dies ließ meinen Vater hellhörig werden. Er merkte bald, was Sache war, und stellte mich zur Rede. Nachdem ich ihm die Situation erklärt hatte, war er zumindest erleichtert, dass ich nicht aus Habgier gehandelt hatte. Wie das Gespräch zwischen dem kleinen Türken und seinem Vater verlief, weiß ich nicht. Aber er machte ab da einen großen Bogen um mich. Auch in den späteren Jahren machten die Jungs einen großen Bogen um mich. Während meine türkischen Schulkameradinnen ab 16 aufwärts heirateten und Kinder auf die Welt brachten, drückte ich noch die Schulbank. Sie hatten mir immer wieder erzählt, wenn wieder heiratswillige junge Männer mit ihren Familien angerückt waren, um um ihre Hand anzuhalten. Bei uns Zuhause rückte nie jemand an. Erst mit Anfang dreißig habe ich zufällig erfahren, dass meine Eltern von vornherein jeglichen Anwärtern aus Deutschland oder der Türkei zu verstehen gegeben hatten, sie bräuchten nicht mal auf die Idee kommen. Meine Mutter ist gebürtige Istanbulerin und sie hat ihren Mann auch selbst ausgesucht. Dennoch wurde ich an einer sehr kurzen Leine gehalten. Manches, was sie mir vielleicht erlaubt hätten, haben sie verboten, da sie in der türkischen Gemeinschaft stark unter Druck standen. Meine Eltern galten bereits als Exoten, weil sie bei ihren drei Töchtern die Bildung an erste Stelle setzten. Meiner Mutter war das irgendwann zu wenig. Sie wollte, dass alle türkischen Mädchen gewisse Freiheiten erlangten. In der Gesamtschule im Nachbarort, in der ich bei den Elternabenden, selbst noch Schülerin, jährlich dolmetschte, hatte sie gemeinsam mit einer deutschen Lehrerin ein regelmäßiges Treffen von türkischen Müttern eingerichtet. Dort wurde dann versucht, Probleme, mit denen türkische Schülerinnen konfrontiert wurden, gemeinsam zu erörtern und zu lösen. Ein Hauptthema war das Schullandheim. Die Mädchen wurden generell nicht mitgeschickt. Durch das Einwirken meiner Mutter konnte doch die eine oder andere Mutter sich erweichen, ihr Mädchen ein paar Tage wegfahren zu lassen. Leider kam es nach etwa einem Jahr zu einem großen Eklat. Im Nachbarort wohnten damals sehr viele orthodox-gläubige Türken. Nun begannen ein paar Männer gegen meine Mutter zu schießen. Sie würde die Ehefrauen gegen ihre Ehemänner hetzen. Sie sei eine Kommunistin durch und durch. Dabei 62

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ist meine Mutter eine sehr fromme Frau. Viele Männer haben dann ihren Frauen verboten, zu den Zusammenkünften zu gehen. Daraufhin hat meine Mutter dieses Projekt aufgegeben. Nicht, dass jetzt der Eindruck entsteht, ich hätte große Freiheiten gehabt. Ich durfte zwar mit 13 ins Schullandheim. Aber als ich 16 war und Paris anstand, wurde der Riegel vorgeschoben. Was sagen die Türken, wenn die TeenagerTochter für eine Woche in die Stadt der Liebe fährt! Eigenartigerweise war die einwöchige Fahrt mit 18 in die DDR wieder selbst­verständlich. Meine Eltern haben oft widersprüchliche Entscheidungen gefällt. Heute weiß ich, wie stark der Druck der Türken um sie herum war. Doch meine Eltern haben sich in all den Jahren auch weiterentwickelt. Zum Beispiel war es für sie überhaupt kein Problem, meine acht Jahre jüngere Schwester nach ihrem Abitur ein Jahr als Au pair nach New York zu schicken. Im Ganzen gesehen haben sie alles richtig entschieden. Sie haben drei selbstbewusste Frauen in die Welt hinausgeschickt. Und wir sind ihnen sehr dankbar dafür. Was wollen sie mehr? Naja, mein Vater hätte sich einen türkischen Schwiegersohn gewünscht. Nicht wegen der Herkunft, mehr wegen der Sprache, damit er sich barrierefrei unterhalten kann. Nun, wir konnten ihm bisher nur mit Schwäbisch, Badisch und Persisch dienen. Wenn ich heute gefragt werde, ob ich mich mehr als Türkin oder Deutsche verstehe, kann ich keine eindeutige Antwort geben. Manchmal überkommt mich eine sehr starke Sehnsucht nach Istanbul. Nach dem Geruch des Wassers, nach dem Horn der Fähren, nach den Rufen des Muezzins, nach den Menschenmassen, der untergehenden Sonne hinter den Silhouetten des Topkapı-Palastes, der Hagia Sophia und der Blauen Moschee, nach dem Wirrwarr von Stimmen, nach dem nie enden wollenden Treiben und nicht zuletzt meinen geliebten Verwandten. Wenn ich dann aber eine Weile dort bin, saugt mir diese nie zur Ruhe kommende Metropole Energie aus dem Körper und ich sehne mich zurück in den geordneten, ruhigen Schwarzwald und meinen geliebten fleißigen Schwaben. Dann schaue ich schon mal in den Himmel, sehe einem Flugzeug nach und denke: „Flugzeug flieg. Nimm mich mit.“

63



Essais



Jacques Coulardeau

Le sonnet caché

Romeo et Juliet I, v, 104–117 L’écriture dramatique de Shakespeare fait appel au pentamètre iambique non rimé comme forme de base poétique à côté de la prose. La forme poétique est celle de certains personnages mais aussi de certaines scènes. C’est une forme noble. Le sonnet dans une scène est donc une forme exceptionnelle dans Shakespeare du fait de son système strict de rimes. Un sonnet des pèlerins est précédé par l’utilisation de rimes dans la scène. Romeo est le premier à le faire quand il arrive dans la fête et qu’il découvre Juliet à l’autre bout de la salle. Il utilise alors dix vers rimés par paire avec la première paire et la cinquième paire utilisant la même rime. Donc ces dix vers sont rimés de la façon suivante : AA BB CC DD AA. L’embrassement est bien sûr signifiant : le désir de contact entre Romeo et Juliet. Mais nous avons plutôt une accumulation de métaphores dont aucune n’est filée de façon extensive. Remarquons le huitième vers qui introduit la main qui sera utilisée comme point de départ dans le sonnet un peu plus tard. ROMEO O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. Seul Tybalt utilise quelques rimes de façon d’abord totalement chaotique puis en un quatrain de deux paires rimées. C’est comme le miroir de la rencontre de Romeo et Juliet dans les yeux du cousin particulièrement agressif. Cette image se construit peu à peu. Par contre le père Capulet n’utilise aucune rime. 67

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TYBALT Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting. I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.

A la fin de la scène Juliet utilisera dans son commentaire à sa Nurse un quatrain de deux paires rimées comme l’écho du sonnet et du coup de foudre exprimé et accepté dans le sonnet lui-même, mais après la révélation que Romeo est un Montague.

JULIET My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy.

Le sonnet lui-même est amplifié d’un quatrain supplémentaire. Son schéma de rimes est le schéma traditionnel du sonnet shakespearien avec un quatrain supplémentaire donc : ABAB CDCD EFEF GG HIHI. Le sonnet est un dialogue à la structure complexe : Premier Quatrain : Romeo x 4 ; Deuxième quatrain : Juliet x 4 ; Troisième quatrain : Romeo x 1 Juliet x 1 Romeo x 2 ; Paire de l’envoi : Juliet x 1 Romeo x 1 ; Quatrain supplémentaire : Romeo x 1 Juliet x 1 Romeo x 1,5 Juliet x 0,5. Le sonnet est un cas typique de « wit » fondé sur une seule métaphore dédoublée. La métaphore est celle des pèlerins qui se dédouble aussitôt en une référence réelle aux mains qui se touchent métaphorisées en mains qui prient et en une référence réelle aux lèvres qui s’embrassent métaphorisées en lèvres qui prient. La métaphore alors est étendue aux saints qui prient et au pêché du baiser, avec un jeu de mots sur « saint » et « sin » qui terminent le quatrain supplémentaire du sonnet par un échange de baiser qui devient un aller retour du pêché. En dire plus serait en fait trahir le poème. C’est une forme particulièrement travaillée qui veut cependant exprimer une spontanéité spirituelle des deux jeunes gens. Une spiritualité qui est aussi une pureté. Et Shakespeare n’hésite pas à dépasser la forme de son sonnet pour lui donner encore plus de puissance par ce quatrain final qui donne un souffle supplémentaire au baiser en en faisant un va-et-vient d’échange d’un pêché. 68

Jacques Coulardeau

ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss. ROMEO Have not saints’ lips, and holy palmers too? JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair. JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake. ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged. JULIET Then have my lips the sin that they have took. ROMEO Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. JULIET You kiss by the book.

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Sandra Bianciardi

La peinture : simple lecture* Couche après couche, par superposition, mélanges de couleurs nouvelles et anciennement posées, ambiguïtés de la ligne, transparence de la couleur que seule l’huile autorise ... c’est un long processus interrompu sans cesse et repris, se laisser guider par l’intuition, le senti ; je regarde, je sais que la couleur n’est sèche qu’en surface, je sais qu’alors la touche posée n’aura pas la clarté du verre coloré, je décide alors d’effacer, de raturer ou d’attendre plus tard, je ne sais pas quand. Chaque séance apporte sa ligne qui s’ajoute à la précédente, puis par superposition de limites colorées et de lignes serrées qui forment un plan, la figure apparaît lentement, sans préméditation, mais donne l’aspect du poing serré, affirme sa présence, ou celle d’une couleur par rapport à une autre, ou d’un objet dans le tableau. Les muscles, les mains, les transparences de la chair, la masse qu’on devine sous le vêtement deviennent aigus, précis, efficaces ; la nervosité du modèle devient sensible, palpable, le regard se perd dans les possibilités diversifiées de la lecture des formes, des plans, des surfaces, de l’iconographie. C’est ainsi que la réalité se pose, devant nous, fluctuante, mouvante, insaisissable. Les blancs ne sont jamais vraiment blancs, les variations de gris sous nos latitudes sont infinies, les couleurs vives parsèment leurs reflets tout autour d’elles, puis le regard transporte encore cet éblouissement sur le paysage qu’il contemple. Nous sommes envahis de ces reflets, ils nous étouffent comme dans une matière cotonneuse, ou nous affolent, s’en prennent à nos nerfs, transpercent notre estomac. La peinture, ce n’est que ça. Les blancs, les gris, les reflets et leurs perturbations, le tout figé sur les deux dimensions d’un plan. Tout est là, figer une mouvance. le 11 Février, 2011

* Texte expo. L’exposition a eu lieu dans La Maison du Temps Libre à Stains du 15/03 au 15/04/2011.

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Sandra Bianciardi

Painting: a simple reading* Layer after layer; by superimposition, mixes of new colours with former combinations applications of colours, ambiguities of line, that transparency of colour which only oil achieves ... it is a long process forever being interrupted and resumed, in which one lets oneself be guided by the intuition, the senses; I take a look and know that the colour is only dry on the surface, that therefore the brush-stroke as applied will not have the clarity of coloured glass — so I decide to remove it, strike it out or I decide to wait a while, not knowing for how long. Each session is characterised by its line of investigation which makes contact with the earlier one, then by superimposition of coloured limits and of lines arrayed forming a map, the figure appears slowly, without it having been premeditated, but with the certainty of a closed fist, affirming its presence, or that of one colour in relation to another, or of one object in the painting. Muscles, hands, transparencies of the flesh, the mass which one imagines under the clothing all become sharp, precise, effective; the nervousness of the model becomes tangible, palpable, the eye loses itself in the various possible readings of forms, maps, surfaces ... of iconography. And that’s how reality comes to appear before us, fluctuating, moving about evasively. The white colours are not truly white, the variations of grey at our latitude are infinite, strong colours distribute their reflections all around themselves; then the eye reconveys this kind of marvelling, this admiration and surprise, over the landscape the eye is contemplating. We are invaded by these reflections, they muff us, depriving us of breath as if we are suffocating, or they drive us crazy, putting us on edge, transpiercing even the stomach. Painting is nothing more than that. The whites, the greys, the reflections and their agitation, all of this is frozen, arrested, upon the two dimensions of a map. It’s there before your eyes, a glaciation, an apprehension (arrestation) of something that is in a state of change. 11th February, 2011 [tr :

w.d.]

* Exhibition Notes from the show at La Maison du Temps Libre, Stains. 15th March to 15th April, 2011.

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Ted Jenner

The Physical Characteristics of the Gold Leaves Lead was the material on which you wrote curses in the Greco-Roman world; gold foil the medium on which you engraved images of the gods—or a sacred text identifying you as one of the elite in a cult or religious movement which, as yet, has no definite name. The precious metal lent its lustre and its imperish­ ability to magic fleeces and to a mythological era when men lived without toil and were believed to be much closer to the gods. In the context of the Gold Leaves, one is reminded of all those gold signet rings ‘too small even for dead fingers’ (Levy, 236) found in Minoan tombs, their bezels engraved with scenes of an Elysium, a paradisal life after death. Above all one thinks of the Golden Bough in Virgil’s Aeneid, that unearthly token in living gold, its metal leaves rattling in the wind, which enables the hero Aeneas, a living man to enter and survive the realm of death. The Bough is returned by Aeneas to the door of Proserpine (the Roman Persephone) where our initiates believed they would stand, spectrally and in supplication, with their tiny strips of gold foil. Given the magical properties of gold in Greek mythology, these objects had, of necessity, to be made of gold. The most extraordinary physical characteristic of the leaves, however, is their size. They are diminutive, as a glance at the drawings will confirm. They range in size from the Cretan leaves averaging 60 x 10 mm. to the comparatively capacious leaf from Thourioi in the south of Italy, ‘Thourioi 1’, with its 16 lines within a height of 36 mm. The leaf from Pharsalos in Thessaly, central Greece has nine lines engraved within a height of 16 mm., the letters averaging about one millimetre in height, but this has been achieved at some cost: if we compare the text to that supposedly from Petelia in southern Italy, verses 7-9 appear in a prose summary and the last three lines have been omitted entirely. The two Pelinna leaves from Thessaly have been described as ‘paper-thin’ with minute lettering crammed onto their surface in a disordered fashion, seven lines on one measuring 40 x 31 mm., and five more carelessly but with slightly larger lettering on the other measuring 35 x 30 mm. The lamellae with the fewest lines or words are not necessarily the smallest; for example, two found in cist-graves at Pella in Macedonia and shaped like myrtle leaves—one reading ‘Philoxena’, the other, ‘To Persephone/ Poseidippos pious/ initiate’—are 82 and 83 mm. in length respectively, and 28 and 23.5 mm. respectively at maximum width. I call these lamellae ‘leaves’ rather than ‘plates’ or ‘tablets’ for two reasons. Not only are they made of what we call ‘gold leaf ’, but a few of them are 72

Ted Jenner

shaped like leaves and even the rectangular leaf from Hipponion in the south of Italy may have been referred to as the ‘leaf of Memory’ if we read the word thrion in line 1. The lamellae with the longer texts are generally rectangular, but the two from Pelinna are ivy-shaped, and those engraved with the name of the initiate only, which were found in cist-graves at Pella and at Aigion in the northern Peloponnese, have the shape of myrtle leaves. The gold leaves of ivy and myrtle are as if plucked from wreaths of initiation, and the initiates are conceived as taking these leaves with them to the Underworld; the leaves are, of course, tokens of their induction into the Mysteries. A scholiast on Aristophanes, Frogs 330 informs us that initiates into the Mysteries wore myrtle wreaths. In Pindar’s second Olympian Ode, initiates who have passed blamelessly through three lives weave garlands of leaves and flowers on the Islands of the Blest. We are told by the scholiast on these lines (73-4) that the flora from which they gather these leaves are the olive, the myrtle and the ivy. Evergreen ivy was closely associated with Dionysos, the god of rebirth and of the regeneration of nature in the spring. Myrtle, on the other hand, was associated with the cult of the dead and the worship of Demeter and her daughter Korē, i.e. Persephone. Another relevant detail we learn from the scholiast on Frogs 330 is that when Dionysos retrieved his mother Semele from the Underworld, he was obliged to offer Hades leaves of myrtle. Other shapes the lamellae assume are the half-moon and the ellipse. The example from Mylopotamos in Crete has the former shape and was no doubt an epistomion or lip-band like the other Cretan leaves which were either cut to an ellipsoid configuration like the Rethymnon leaf or to a rectangular shape like the two examples from Sfakaki in Crete which were not engraved. All these small, thin ovals or rectangles of gold foil were probably placed on the lips of corpses to speak on their behalf. The texts ‘graphically preserve the ability to talk that the lifeless body has lost’ (Graf & Johnston, 162), and this would be especially true of the Pellan leaves in Macedonia which had apparently been placed inside the mouths of the deceased in the manner of burial coins for the ferryman, Charon. Indeed, the two gold coins of Philip II incised with the names of initiates and found in the mouths of the deceased in graves at Pydna in Macedonia seem to combine the function of the burial coin with that of the lip-band, the epistomion. References

Graf, F. and Johnston, S.I., Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets, Routledge: London and New York, 2007. Levy, G.R., The Gate of Horn, London, Faber & Faber, 1963.

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Ted Jenner

Thourioi 1 : 51 x 36 mm.

Thourioi 2(a) : 47 x 28 mm.

Thourioi 3 : 54 x 29 mm.

Rome : 65 x 24 mm 74

Ted Jenner

Hipponion : 49-59 x 32 mm.

Petelia : 45 x 27 mm.

Eleutherna 1 (Crete): 57 x 10 mm.

Pelinna (a) : 40 x 31 mm. 75

Laura Preston

People’s Television NZ Videos at the George Pompidou Centre Curator’s Address

In 1985 videographer/artist Darcy Lange asked ‘Are there ways for the camera to record without stripping people of their spirit, without sloganising, without replacing a deep sense of community by a shallow voyeurism?’ Lange’s statement was a rallying cry for those seeking a more deeply engaged filmic representation of people and place. Twenty-five years later, this screening reflects on recent and historical moving image work made by artists from Aotearoa New Zealand. While some works share Lange’s strident sensibilities, others celebrate the possibilities afforded through the mechanics of filmic construction. People’s Television draws together these different perspectives to reinstate the democratic impetus of moving image broadcast. Television is synonymous with one’s home space; the living room. "Home"? is a real-time experience, a utopia state and a place to return to. Many of the works in People’s Television capture an idea of home; a place contained by its rhymicity, periodicity and its relationship to an external environment or architectural enclosure. Whether using the tools of filmic construction or documentary realism, People’s Television tests the possibility for bringing the moving image close to home. In this era when the Internet presents information so close to hand yet at such a remove from real-time experience, I wish to reinstate the democratic ideal of television, while knowing there is no return and its democratic form was only ever an ideal. If television endeavours to bring the remote into your home, doesn’t it only in turn distance understanding by proximity? How close can recorded images ever get to the transfer of experience, particularly images that knowingly inform and are sent from a distance? Is the condition of distance, of decidedly creating a crisis in the image, a way for the form of moving image to involve the viewer more closely? Black and white television broadcasting officially began in Aotearoa, New Zealand back in June 1960. Early demonstrations of TV promised to distribute and democratise culture, yet as we know, television sets came to be installed in living rooms, isolating viewers from one another. Early screenings in New Zealand were community affairs, such as the presentations of TV broadcasts at A&P shows, agriculture festivals (which also presented 76

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other cultural feats such as wood chopping and farming exploits). These events anticipated a more interactive future for the medium, conflating community event with live, pre-recorded and simulcast components. As an event, the screening of PTV, People’s Television, touches on an ideal for the return of democratic values. Values that early video art practitioners pursued. It does this knowingly by presenting a diverse range of material for distribution—historic and contemporary, documentary and determinably fiction. The programme takes its cue from the contemporary artists’ work. These works are examples of moving image production that is reflexive of acts of translation and distribution. What bridges the early video art and the recent experimental films is a shared understanding of the power of the camera to presume proximity. The artists circumvent this by keeping the document personally determined. The works do not try to translate experience, they are, rather, open to misunderstandings; some are excerpts, others are kept unresolved. I have devised this programme with co-curator Mark Williams and convenor of Circuit—a distribution agency for New Zealand artist films. We responded to the way contemporary artists are personalising the expectation to belong to an actual geographical locality, and to acknowledge the particularities and intimate relationships to context that condition the specific forms presented here on screen. In part the screening is a reply to the invitation to present a landscape of art production in a place this has been previous unknown or overlooked in Europe. New Zealand art is proof of a simultaneous and parallel art history. A core condition to our artistic endeavours has been a deep understanding (at times anxiety) of distance (determined by geography) but that is not to say art research and production has or continues to be delayed. Aotearoa, New Zealand is predicated on a history of itinerancy and encounter; a constant flux of arrival and departures. Within the post-colonial context of NZ our cultural histories are becoming more and more multifaceted, embracing difference, drawing on the constant of indigenous voices and the voices of recent arrivals from the Pacific Rim. Through connecting early 70s video practice to the contemporary, People’s Television highlights duration as a consistent concern. Underlying early exploration was a democraticisation of time, and an opening up to the rich material to be found in the everyday of routine, the immediate, boredom. A significant proponent of early video art making in New Zealand— indeed an artist most committed to exploring the possibilities of the new 77

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medium to aesthetically document—Darcy Lange (a contemporary of Jim Allen performing News here) saw the responsibility of questioning the nature and power of realism. He established a video aesthetic informed by political as well as structural concerns as an alternative to film language weighted down by ideologies. Lange’s study of people at work explored notions of real time and the unresolved potential of the long take. Lange’s own take on art as a politics was based on a hope of creating understanding —of bridging distance. Lange wrote his manifesto before embarking on a major body of work about New Zealand artists, which offered a distinct alternative to television’s usual documentary form. Prior to television, Modernist art in New Zealand re-thought isolation not to be a problem but as a possibility for forging a new era within a relatively new land and with it a new art. The vigour of the arts community at this time was augmented by the arrival and departure of New Zealand artists moving to and from Europe. Although from a different era, indeed a film that is yet to be officially released (dated 2012), Gavin Hipkins work This Fine Island riffs on the production values and narrative structures of modernist 16mm films. The film blurs genre boundaries between drama and documentary. It is based on the travel writing of Charles Darwin and engages in issues of contemporary tourisms, global wanderings, and affiliated travel fatigue. By the 1970s the infrastructure for art had expanded and professionalised in New Zealand. Many new museums opened around the country, university art history departments multiplied, the role of curator developed and the art market expanded. This created a reactionary effect, which saw a generation of artists driven by experimental attitudes to art production and reception. These attitudes took the form of a movement that came to be known as post object art, a conceptual art movement that expanded the object into mediums of performance and video. These works foregrounded the politics of art’s own production and reception. Joanna Margaret Paul, considered the first female New Zealand experimental film maker, picked up a camera at this time and discover the potential for moving image to mediated a space between interior and exterior realities, between culture and nature. She said “It was the mythopoeic & clumsily extended aspect of my paintings which first turned me to film­making ... I also enjoy the abstraction possible with the camera ... together with the resistance to the purely subjective offered thru that lens”. 78

Laura Preston

Given the revisioning impulse of post object art it is not surprising that many artists went on to challenge issues of representation and identity; reflective of a now embedded feminism and an even greater mobility of artists working between various contexts for the production and reception of their work, and who at times creatively misread the politics of the “centre” and commonly distributed theoretical positions. A question for me now is how to characterise contemporary art in light of this legacy, quickly sketched. New Zealand artists no longer seem to be producing work with an ironic detachment to the international, but more broadly are shape-shifting frames of references dependent on what is at hand and in relation to the increased possibilities and availabilities for where and how to work. In turn the work produced is perhaps not as self-conscious and could be said to be more specific to the demands of the content framed and reflexive of distributing this offering. These conditions of production indeed are not dependent on the specificities of place—this could be perhaps said about any elsewhere. Though what I see in linking these works under the frame of a New Zealand focus is an attempt to get close to local experience through a concerted embrace of imagining “home” as a personally determined, collectively shared pursuit. Showing different takes on interiority and of belonging, the works in PTV glimpse, trace and explore the question of how to get close to their subjects rather than declare statements of their identity. May I suggest that you consider this in relation to the excerpt from Not Everybody Can do Everything, filmed in Manhattan, New York. This work, produced by New Zealand artist Peter Wareing, presents an intimate portrait of the relationships developed over 14 years between the filmmaker and three people with severe visual impairment and developmental disabilities. It shows the vulnerability of the filmmaker as much as the subject, and further implicates our own as viewers. People’s Television doesn’t presume to present a certain or definitive image of place rather like our common understanding of the space of “home” it is personally determined and collectively constructed. It seeks to reveal a more nuanced understanding of the local by incorporating a recent-history of New Zealand video art. There is a shared interest in presenting other takes on how the environment, often architectural, is experienced and determined as much by personal, psychological states as shared physical structures. 79

Laura Preston

It also asks you, the viewer, on whether there is a cultural specificity to these works, or if indeed culture is only ever a mirage, constantly constructed and deconstructed like the daily news report. Soon after this document of Jim Allen’s News, we will follow a dance within the architectural frame of a bridge recorded by artist Rebecca Hobbs. The work sets up a space between the performance and the document, between local difference and global inflection, land and sea ...

gH PTV: People’s Television Rencontres Internationales Monday 21 November 2011, 6pm. Pompidou Centre, Paris

Jim Allen. News, Performance documentation, colour, dv, 00:14:00, 1976/2009. Rebecca Hobbs. 246 metre bridge, Video, color, 00:02:45, Australia , 2010. Gray Nicol. Getting to Know You, Video, black and white, 00:12:00, 1977. Joanna Margaret Paul. Jillian Dressing/Aberharts House, Film expérimental, black and white, super8, dv, 00:05:30, 1976. Sriwhana Spong. Muttnick, Experimental film, colour, super8, dv, 00:04:00, 2005 Darcy Lange. Ruatoria Part 2 - Shearing Pekama (excerpt), Video, black and white, umatic, dv, 00:09:00, 1974. Gavin Hipkins. This Fine Island (preview), Experimental film, colour, 16mm, dv, 00:12:00, 2012. Peter Wareing. Not Everybody Can Do Everything (excerpt), Documentary, colour, dv, 00:12:00, 1996-2011 (New Zealand-USA). Alex Monteith. 2.5km mono action for a mirage, Experimental film, colour, 35mm, dv, 00:03:30, 2011. gH

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Commentaire

Pasture n°1 Literary Groundswell (Kilmog Press, New Zealand). 2011. isbn 978-0-9864665-7-1 The first-ever issue of this journal reached me as a contributor’s copy. The title came as a surprise from a publisher known for the street-toughened acerbity of some of his writers. I’ve heard he has moved his offices (and his binding workshop) from Dunedin central to the tranquil and frankly beautiful location of Ravensbourne. Grassy slopes opposite (Otago Peninsula) make for something like a European ‘pastoral’ scene, though maritime traffic below (and its intended mercantile exchanges), potentially eruptive volcanic forms of hills and mountains all about, and a certain Antarctic luminescence take the scene far from the shady groves of Virgil’s Tityrus, Milton’s Lycidas or Arnold’s Oxford dropout, the Scholar Gipsy. And yet, as opposed to idyllic verse which sang the wilds in themselves, pastoral poetry has always relied upon a contrast between beneficent countryside and a more menacing environment, where men and women are less in touch with Nature and its seasonal impulses to work, rest and make love. Not far from the pastoral’s lazy pipers, ‘wattled cotes’ and myrtle berries, there is often the menacing shadow of a castle, a city, a palace, a university, a crusade, a war, a death. Perhaps this is the key to Pasture. If the series intends to tap the spring of a literary activity that is not simplistically arcadian, with respect to the writers in Pasture n°1, I am happy to be counted among their number. At a time when I am seeking more and more the vigour of irrepressible writing, I wish Pasture an infinity of numbers.

w.d.

81

Postface 1. without obvious connection i return to you you to me timely our makeup seeking repair from what we have made—our own wars what is and what not worms to endline feeds eye-wise as we of craft here percuss superscaffolds maul who could not speak & as for publishing houses a flux of skinnings of skeining backwards vicars fingering innards for starters our birds returning are meaningless superfluous liberties disconcerted without fellow swallows coming to rest by tombs we wish for a tree as the rusty dawn finds a crane, a flag, a scab, crusts, a woman tearing at her clothes the ninth hour of light a hero enters the city madams confer over fertilisation procedures the eggs unseasonal as the out of kilter moon drops him among cruising boys imitating their opposites bullblack bloodless Moroccan hand in hand with the Graces they sidle to transport houses to lace silence with their gasps worm swings towards the 11th arrondissement pisses negation into Canal St Martin savours excellence of his own beast cell of potential erection smooth passages of redundant neutrons-stuff the faucetflow of his galaxy unstanched and sees a velvet shoe absorbing a raindrop—another gob—gobs upon gobs of god-enzymes the storm intensifies exhausting his carcass till he finds nothing suitable but love and as for that ‘the lush, the liar’ she weeps lymphatically he finds her a cigarette ‘merci’ and abandons her who had to go alley frowning till the dank stream left tubercular venom on her jacket 2. in the flood zone he was haunted though he had run the exit water had doneso and doneso leaving intestinal mazers drowning to find himself here where day is switching timers and night a damp mattress among sewage pipes rat bait and the smoke of teenage bereavement ah! he was violated bloated bitten swallowed and swollen an emphysemiac a homing undrowning little person stepping over drowning little persons clean shaven the sun through a second finish of cloud at 12:20 he makes the rendez-vous and finds it that day, work, which brings shoes worthy of the wearer that all should be so lucky ended that clambering over the blind near that stink of a shitting place here all is calm in his apartment now this silent night as he catches a face in the wider meaning of a window vis à vis sill-smoking cunning at him nude land escapes to middle water and pleasure self-prizes we have coquetry in soft copy outrunning the visual the issue is no longer situations nor what we overcome 82

the issue is the assholes driving us back into our bodies they read each other but in translation his ice sculptures will not be salvaged his words lose their coverings split lengthwise this is success only when they go to his cellar the other feels in the dark a scar on his thigh they touch what he offered to metal historical among the odour of cholera it all comes back. Tradition. Little thinking of her who immolates herself October 22 2011 within sight of her students 3. October 22 constant right quadrant attacks & sounds of transformers in the auditory cortex a feeling that what happens to a man happens to man to Durkheim Alvarez Camus and Peregrinus the ocean haunted by castaways refining language in silence O! Europe! where all that shines may be sold & there are still those allied leaders who’d bear you away on splittable ships to a timeless and pointless siege sons of estates fly over tribes fulfill criteria and are exhibited unacceptable tribes decimated all this passes in a century that discovers nothing about the horizon or the stars or the migrations of birds has changed the island is the same to you now as ocean is the same to island — your suppurating wound changeless Philoctetes untrained in the first half forget the second technicity is the archer’s strum, Phil one can do no more and that was never enough Clairmont chewing the perspective Rothko any of whose paintings cost him his life others choose laughter surrealism domestic power some hilarity near the beginning of this parenthesis is dearer than all the pleasures that follow a man buys a dog long and thin carries it home under his arm eats the head before his door slices the remainder for his imminent guests as for his bread it may have to be put down and mercifully a woman resists a man insists he invades she forgives his mistakes till what pervades has all it takes for a haemorrhage or a marriage of (and) dna





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w.d.

Ont collaboré à Percutio 2012 : Sandra Bianciardi—peintre; diplômée des Beaux Arts de Paris. Jacques Coulardeau (Dr)—professeur invité des Universités de Paris. Nathan Creech—étudiant et poète (inédit) aberdeenois (m. 1979). Brett Cross—éditeur-en-chef de Titus Books, Kaipara, N-Z. Geoff Cush—romancier néo-zélandais. Graine de France, Actes Sud, 2004. Nellcote Revisited va paraître en 2012. Wystan Curnow—poéte, critique et commissaire. Modern Colours, poésie, (2005). Professeur émerite d’anglais à l’université d’Auckland. Max Dembo—fondateur du label SDZ Records, Paris. http://sdz.free.fr William (Bill) Direen—éditeur. Devonport, A Diary (2011), journal. April Dolkar—photographe américaine. Vit à Dunedin, N-Z. George Henderson—musicien de rock alternatif. The Puddle (groupe). Catherine James—travaille dans les champs de la photographie, de la vidéo et de la performance. Diplômée des Beaux Arts de Paris depuis 2001. Ted Jenner—poète, enseignant et helléniste. Writers in Residence (2009). Gold Leaves, une étude d’inscriptions funéraires grecques, va paraître en 2013. David Kârena-Holmes—poète et enseignant de langue Maorie. Arno Löffler—photographe, journaliste, voyageur. Vit à Vienne. Cilla McQueen—poète lauréat de Nouvelle-Zélande, 2009-2011. Peter Olds—poète; vit à Dunedin. Ballad of the Last Cold Pie (Cold Hub Press, Lyttelton, NZ. 2010). A gagné plusieurs bourses et prix. Laura Preston—conservatrice à la Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University de Wellington. K.M.Ross—écrivain édimbourgeois. Falling Through the Architect roman, (2005). Œuvre en cours, The Blinding Walk (roman). Bruce Russell—Guitariste. The Dead C (noise rock). Vit à Lyttelton, N-Z, localité sévèrement touchée par les tremblements de terre de 2010-11. Peter Schlump—fondateur du label Unwucht Records, Augsburg. http:// www.unwuchtmusik.org Jeet Thayil—écrivain et poète; son roman Narcopolis vient de paraître. Jim Wilson—promoteur et manager de plusieurs groupes de rock néozélandais. I Get High (titre provisoire) doit paraître en 2012. Hülya Yegin-Singer—infirmière aux Urgences, elle écrit dans son temps libre. Toujours de nationalité turque, depuis 38 ans elle vit en Swabie, allemagne, où elle a immigré à l’âge de 7 ans. 84