Ghost world

Personal Shopper is The End of The Affair: an acute study of relationships in modern times with a magical element that feels both sincere and tacked-on. Graham Greene's novel frustrated readers who enjoyed the bits in it about people; Olivier Assayas' movie should be equally annoying but his mystery-machine is more compassionate. Maureen's connection with the spirit world is a neat metaphor for an interloper who purchases transient fashion on behalf of a distant celebrity; when she steps into her client's clothes she becomes someone other than Kristen Stewart, a meta-special-effect in itself. We are in the Single White Female / Maitresse neighbourhood here, the transference and stalking by text more thrilling and scary than any CGI spook. Contemporary Paris and London are looking newly sexy lately – see also In the Shadow of Iris (Jalil Lespert, 2016).

Paris 1213

The Mythiq27 exhibition opened in Paris this week. The art by Invader and Rero and my accompanying text are shown above and there is a short movie of the exhibition in total here.

Mythiq 27 is an anthology of art and texts about 27 musicians who died aged 27. Curator and editor Yann Suty asked me to write about Kurt Cobain; I went into more detail about the project earlier here and here.

You can see more photos of the book launch and the opening night on the project's Facebook page and of course there is a Twitter feed.

Suty's project uses the tensions between obscurity and fame to meditate on the short time we all have here. Viewing its collection of dead celebrities, fragile street art and clipped transmissions from a distance lends it an even greater ephemeral quality.

Paris 2727

The catalogue for the street art and literature project Mythiq27 is published this week in France.
Curated and edited by Jann Suty, Mythiq27 is about the legendary "club" of artists who died aged 27: Dave Alexander, Jean-michel Basquiat, Chris Bell, D.Boon, Arlester Dyke Christian, Kurt Cobain, Peter de Freitas, Richey James Edwards, John Garrighan, Peter Ham, Les Harvey, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Rudy Lewis, Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan, Jacob Miller, Damien Morris, Jim Morrison, Kristen Pfaff, Gary Thain, Jeremy Michael Ward, Denis Wielemans, Alan Wilson, Amy Winehouse and Mia Zapata.

Suty invited 27 authors to each write 27 lines about one of the members. The collected texts would be exhibited alongside commissioned works from 27 street artists and published in a book.

I was asked to write about Kurt Cobain. Not being a poet I was curious about the idea of writing to a 27-line word limit. Moreover I was excited that the artist chosen to illustrate my piece was Invader, whose work I'd seen in London and Paris. Above is his Kurt Cobain piece, in his trademark coloured tile-style.

The full list of authors in order of subject is: Paul Vacca, Oliver Rohe, Arnaud Viviant, Philippe Routier, Marc Durin-Valois, Chad Taylor, Émilie de Turckheim, Yann Suty, Solange Bied-Charreton, Marc Villemain, Claro, Sorj Chalandon, David Fauquemberg, Laurent Binet, Jean-Michel Guenassia, Jean-Philippe Blondel, Harold Cobert, Grégoire delacourt, Laird hunt, Paulverhaeghen, Brian Evenson, Elsa Flageul, Fabrice Colin, Aude Walker, RJ Ellory, Alexis Jenni and Manuel Candré.

The street artists -- again, in corresponding order -- are: Sfief Desmet, Orticanoodles / Bernard Pras / Frank Fischer, Sp 38, Jonone / yz, Sd karoe / Charlotte Charbonnel, lnvader / Rero, Oudhout, Samuel Coisne / Yves Ullens, Seize Happywallmaker / Wen-Jié Yang, David Gouny / Antoine Gamard, Denis Meyers / Mademoiselle Maurice, Osch / lnvader/ Maykel Lima, Sd karoe / Shaka, Autoreverse / Nina Mae Fowler, Frank Fischer / Moolinex, Niark 1, Beb-Deum / kashink, Yoh Nagao / Graphic Surgery, Antoine Gamard / DHM, lnvader / Rero / Blek le Rat, Maykel Lima / Seize Happywallmaker, Ludo, Lana and Js, Oli-B, C 215 - Christian Guemy, Graphic Surgery / Johnnychrist and Mademoiselle Maurice / Lim Si Ping.

There's more information on Mythiq27 on Facebook and you can download a PDF of the press release. The Twitter feed for the publication and exhibition is @Mythiq27. If you do find yourself in Paris, the exhibition is at Espace Cardin in December. Big ups to Jann Suty for putting it all together.

The future's uncertain and the end is always near

 

 "When something dies is the greatest teaching." -- Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Not writing in restaurants

For a writer reading on holiday is like letting somebody else drive. You try to relax but your foot's hovering on an imaginary brake. Clutching my fists on my knees as the Riviera shot by I saw this, from David Mamet's A Whore's Profession (1985):

When the meaning of the script is unclear in the theater, the actors and director usually assume that the author know what he or she was doing, and they reapply themselves to understanding the script.

In the movies if the meaning and worth of the script is not immediately obvious, everyone assumes the writer has failed.

I've had conversations like that. Nice fire engine: does it have to be so red?

Also on the pile was Paul Auster's The Brooklyn Follies (2005), the first Auster I've read since... Moon Palace, I think. Here he is pulling his usual stunt:

"What's your name?"
"Tom," Tom said.
"Of course. Tom Wood. I know all about you. In the middle of life's journey, I lost my way in a dark wood. But you're too ignorant to know that. You're one of those little men who can't see the forest for the trees."

This technique breaks a rule, for me. He shows you the thing, then he tells you he's shown you the thing, and he even breaks down the symbolism for you, exposing the already apparent aptronymn (wood = forest = forest for the trees). Look at the red fire engine, it's so red, red like fire, it's a red fire engine.

To me the narrator should be like Kate Moss: never complain, never explain. But Auster's Auster-like first person always explains. I don't mind, however. That's his style.

City life

Paris (Feb), London (NYE), Hampstead Heath (Dec).

Going dark

I'm working on a new thing – I'm always working on a new thing – because I believe in moving forward and I enjoy being useful. Recent events have convinced me that being online is either very important or a waste of time; prior to that I thought it might have been somewhere in between, but the in-between – again, it seems – can only be that which comes after: that which is in retrospect, and not during. So it's time to kick off and end things. It's over. I have other places to be. So do you.

Pictured: Mr Mojo Risin', Paris 22 Feb 2011.

Goodnight, everybody.

La vérité est là

Season five of Maupassant is my favourite.

New favourite Degas

Danseuses bleues, 1893, Musée d'Orsay.

When I was down you just stood there grinning

Major book chains are closing up. Meanwhile in France (pictured) where the selling price is fixed by publishers, book stores are still open for business. Note also that retailers lease fewer than four floors, don't serve coffee or sell CDs and DVDs. So Amazon has won... at least until governments (= consultants) decide the postal service isn't financially justifiable.

A London publisher told me about the Christmas when Amazon UK demanded that they cut their prices. The publisher refused, so Amazon switched off the 'Buy' buttons on all their titles. The publisher refused to back down and Amazon caved – eventually. Stories like that make me like bookstores even if they are a chain.

I'll remember Borders in Auckland for stocking my novels (ta Chris B) and wish the staff well. If the Civic premises are going to vacated, now is the time for a DKD revival.

Also on the theme of change The National Enquirer has been staking out Steve Jobs. I don't want to know and I'm not going to link to it but I do want to point out that the last time a reporter pulled this kind of stunt the Tooth Fairy bit his lips off.

Je me souviens

Meaningful stairs

Last time I was in Paris I walked around the corner and slap bang into a set of steps I had seen before. It took me a moment to spot where: I was standing in the square which became the final scene in Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale, one of those movies I shouldn't love but do. I snapped the photos on my Olympus XA 35mm and stitched the panorama together in Photoshop. Here is DePalma talking about noir and dreams:

I had this idea to do a noir movie, but I felt that noir only works in a surrealistic way. Which meant that I had to create a dream, and put the noir story in the dream. If you look at these old black and white movies, with their sort of fatalistic storylines and very stylized way of shooting, I thought the dream device would be the best way to re-imagine it in a contemporary setting. So I put the noir melodrama in the brackets of her dream sequence and I used a lot of things that sort of happen when you have a dream. Certain things you experience reappear in your dream in kind of strange juxtapositions, and that's why the noir story appears the way it does. It doesn't seem that many of the people who have written about it have quite seen that. Somehow they don't see where the brackets of the dream are, so they write about the movie like it's a straightforward, realistic noir melodrama, but in reality it's a kind of surrealistic rethinking of the noir form. There are things that don't make sense until you think about them later, much like in a dream. You have all of these images that you have to ponder later: "why was that there" but the driving sense of it is essentially pretty simple, you know, she steals the diamonds, these guys are after her, and they're going to kill her. All the things that happen, are more or less consistent with that very simplistic, fatalistic storyline.

Pere Lachaise, after visiting Jim, 30 Dec 2009

All by way of some sort of Christmas / New Year's card. Head down in the new ms. Like it always is. More fully formed ideas to follow.

Le Chat Noir