The Huly Buble by Jon Ferguson

I'm thrilled to have a new guest on this blog. Jon Ferguson is a writer, painter and basketball coach. Not buddhist, I think. Nitzchean, more. To find out a whole lot more about him, click here.

Jon in interview





Jon again in prank mode (below with mic)

Jon writes mostly long short stories, or short novels which often exhibit a sardonic sense of humor. The Huly Buble is shorter, and the humor more concentrated. It serves as an introduction to Jon's latest novel "The Flood" which just came out in French: "Le Déluge" (Editions Castagniééé, Vevey, Switzerland):
http://www.castagnieee.com/index.php?p=10&l=31

The Huly Buble

Once upon a time, a time when things were happening just like they are now, but with variations of course, Gud decided that there was too much seriousness in the behavior of trees, rocks, spinning planets, and sunsets, so Hu decided to create mun and wumun. At first there was just one mun and one wumun, but Gud, being one to plan ahead, gave the mun a punus and the wumun a vaguna and the next thing Hu knew there were mun and wumun of different colors and sizes all over the place. In the beginning Gud really liked watching them fight over things like big sticks and pieces of meat, and Hu often laughed his uss off. All of this lasted for quite a long while and Gud stayed reasonably amused….But, as always, boredom began to set in and Hu decided to make a few changes. First Hu decided to make the mun and wumun talk, you know, make noises with their mouths and tongues and lips. But after a while these noises got to be very repetitive and Gud got bored again, so he decided to put a brun in the heads of all the mun and wumun. Up until this point all the decisions that the mun and wumun made were made in their punuses and vugunas and mouths. But now, with a brun in their heads, they had another engine to tell them what to do and which way to go.

It’s funny how all the mun and wumun started to take their bruns seriously. Whereas before, when the punuses and vugunas and mouths were responsible for what was going on, suddenly there were a whole bunch of new things happening in Gud’s funhouse. And the biggest things were all of the sudden the establishment of rulugions and murulities. Suddenly mun and wumun – mostly mun actually – started inventing all kinds of guds and murul principles telling everybody what was rught and what was wrung. Up until then everybody was just kind of eating, sleeping, furnicating, and dying, but suddenly people started to write books and give speeches at see anguls and have vusions about guds and stuff like that, and climb up mountains and telling everybody what was rught and wrung and how to luve their luves.

In Chuna their were people like Cunfucius. He was probably a pretty nice guy who didn’t overeat.

In Jupon there were things like “The Seven Guds  of Guud Luck”.

In Undia there were the Hundus with Guds all over the place running around with holes in their shoes.

And all around there was the bug duddy Buddhu who got his picture in lots of newspapers and who liked desserts and second helpings of food.

In Muxico the sun was Gud for a while until the Chrustians came.

In the Muddle East there was the mountain-climber named Muses who had a gud that got mad a lot and threw lightening bolts at sunners.

The Gruuks had some prutty guud guds too who even liked to drink good wine and show off their punuses and vugunas.

Then came Jusus who was really probably a pretty nice guy, but who got killed and accused of things like walking on water and feeding five thousand people with twelve loaves of bread by people like Puul, Juhn, Luuk, and Muthuw who started writing the Huly Buble.

Pretty soon there was a string of Pupes who got real rich, ate well, built nice buildings, and started  a series of wars.

Then Muhummud came long with Ullah and scarves became fashionable along with cutting off hands and fingers.

Then there were people like Luthur and Culvun who had seen enough of the Pupes and started new religions also based on the Huly Buble.

Then came the Prutustunts and the Murmuns, and the Juhuvuhs Wutnussus and the Suvunth Duy Udvuntusts and the Buptusts, all kinds of groups like that that were telling people what was rught and wrung and who the real Gud was.

It really got to be a big mess and the real Gud was becoming less and less amused by the whole show. Hu started thinking maybe Hu shouldn’t have put that brun in the mun’s and wumun’s heads after all.

Hu finally decided to have a flood and into the gurbage can went most of the mess.

 

© J. F.        Murges, June 2010

No reproduction in any medium allowed without direct authorization from author.


published by  - -  Arabella Hutter

 

La nostalgie

La notion de nostalgie m'intrigue. Je suis malheureusement une de ses victimes. Il suffit que le moment soit passé pour que je le regrette.

Isaiah Berlin traite de la nostalgie dans son livre "The Roots of Romanticism" (je ne crois pas qu'il existe une traduction). It présente d'abord la notion de profondeur, comme lorsque l'on dit d'une oeuvre ou d'un auteur qu'il est "profond". D'après lui, cette notion est aussi née avec le Romantisme, cette idée qu'il y a toujours plus sous les apparences.

A partir de là il explique que, puisque nous ne pouvons pas atteindre la totalité, puisque l'infinité est hors d'atteinte, il ne nous reste qu'à nous retourner et à regretter le passé. Les penseurs des Lumières croyaient fermement en un futur meilleur, il suffisait de trouver la bonne voie pour l'atteindre: les bonnes lois, les bonnes règles, les bons préceptes. Par contre les Romantiques aspirent à la perfection. J'ai beaucoup d'admiration pour la pensée de Berlin mais je ne suis pas tout à fait convaincue par son explication. J'y vois un exemple d'un penseur qui essaie de pousser un objet triangulaire dans un trou rond et qui affirme que la pièce s'imbrique parfaitement. La nostalgie est-elle vraiment seulement dûe à un manque de confiance en l'avenir?  Même si elle est exacerbée chez les Romantiques, la nostalgie existe dans d'autres cultures, en extrême orient par exemple. J'ai longtemps cru que la nostalgie présente dans la culture Afro-Américaine était dûe à leur diaspora. Mais leurs pays d'origine en Afrique semblent avoir une profonde connexion avec la nostalgie Ecoutez Ismaël Lo ci-dessous, par exemple.

Ismail Lo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogWBf5j9vVE&feature=related

Salif Keita:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFTw0c9ew3k

Billie Holliday et Louis Armstrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmSmg1IhZE&feature=related

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Of nostalgia

The notion of nostalgia intrigues me. I am one of its victims. Suffices that the moment be past for me to remember it with nostalgia. 

Isaiah Berlin discusses it in his book "The Roots of Romanticism". He looks first at the notion of depth, as in a piece of art or a thinker which we might call "deep". According to him it's also something that was born with Romanticism, this idea that there is always more than meets the eye, than meets the brain. 

From there he explains that because we can never reach totality, because infinity is out of our reach we can only turn around and pine for the past. While thinkers from the Enlightenment believed firmly that the future could be perfectly satisfactory  if we found the right way - the right laws, the right rules -  to reach it, the Romantics aspire to heights, to impossible perfection. I have a lot of admiration for Berlin's thinking but I am not convinced by his explanation of nostalgia. it seems to me a case of a thinker pushing a triangular object into a circular hole within his system and explaining how perfectly well it fits. Isn't there more to nostalgia than a lack of faith in the future? And nostalgia is common to other cultures besides Romanticism. I had always thought that the nostalgia expressed in African American culture had been passed down by ancestors deprived of their homeland. But I wonder if it's does not find its origin in Africa's own very strong brand of nostalgia in many of its cultures, hear Ismael Lo (below). 

My curiosity has been pricked, i'm going to keep on investigating. Any comments or suggestions welcome.

Ismail Lo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogWBf5j9vVE&feature=related

Salif Keita:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFTw0c9ew3k

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

That drive

A dangerous demon lurking from dark recesses...

Still reading (for the second time) Isaiah Berlin's "The Roots of Romanticism", a book which seems to me crucial in understanding our times. I wonder whether Glissant ever speaks about romanticism in his writings, would be curious to know what his take on it is. Of "The Roots of Romanticism" more later, but in the meantime here's an interesting excerpt:

This is the beginning of the vast drive forward on the part of inspired individuals, or inspired nations, constantly creating themselves afresh, constantly aspiring to purify themselves, and to reach some unheard-or height of endless self-transformation, endless self-creation, works of art, constantly engaged in creating themselves, forward, forward, like a kind of vast cosmic desing perpetually renewing itself. This half-metaphysical, half-religious notion, which emerges from the sober pages of Kant, and which Kant repudiated with the greatest possible vehemence and indignation, was destined to have an extremely violent effect upon both German politics and German morals, but also upon German art, German prose and German verse, and then by natural transference upon the French, and upon the English as well.

Contributed by - - Arabella Hutter

Jeudis d'Afriqua Paris - dans l'esprit de Glissant

Je n'aurai pas l'occasion d'y aller, bloquée derrière l'Océan Atlantique, mais je vous conseille de vous rendre sans faute à la rencontre d'Afriqua Paris du jeudi 27 mai avril autour de Sony Labou Tansi (à gauche), 1947-1995, romancier, poète dramaturge présenté par Nicolas Martin-Granel et Patrice Yengo, spécialistes de la littérature africaine suivi de Joss Doszen, jeune auteur, griot urbain au talent prometteur. Deux formes de littérature à explorer. 

Les rencontres des "Jeudis d'Afriqua Paris" se tiennent:

Au Restaurant Albarino

4 rue Lekain, Paris 16ème, M° La Muette

Biographie de Sony Labou Tansi, par Edwige Gbouablé (photo: Cécile Pango Djepp Beugré et Michael Danon dans "Il nous faut l'Amérique!"):

"Sony Labou Tansi est né le 5 Juin 1947 à Kimwanza, au Zaïre. Professeur de formation, Sony devient par la suite un grand artiste. Il s'est imposé par la richesse de son écriture, comme le chef de file de la nouvelle génération d'auteurs africains. Ecrivain pluridisciplinaire, Sony s'est pratiquement illustré dans tous les genres : poésie, nouvelle, théâtre et roman. Mais c'est dans ces deux derniers qu'il a fait connaître son talent d'auteur-metteur en scène avec la troupe Rocado Zulu Théâtre. Sony a été un écrivain prolifique et non-conformiste, de par le caractère subversif et novateur de son écriture qui se veut un moyen de libération et donc de promotion de l'art africain, à travers la création de "formes rebelles" rejetant à la face du monde les atrocités qui la gouvernent. Sa production littéraire est un vaste champ d'oeuvres primées pour la plupart. Nous ne citerons ici que les pièces et romans édités. Après la vie et demie qui l'a révélé mondialement en 1979, Sony publia quatre autres romans : L'Etat honteux (1981), L'anté-peuple (1983), Les sept solitudes de Lorsa Lopez (1985), Les yeux du volcan (1988). Son sixième roman intitulé Le commencement des douleurs a été publié à titre posthume en 1995. Dans le domaine théâtral on peut citer, outre les pièces phares, Conscience de tracteur (Présence Africaine, 1979), Je soussigné cardiaque et Parenthèse de sang (Hatier, 1981), d'autres titres comme Ma rue mouche (Equateur n° 11, 1986), Antoine m'a vendu son destin (Acoria 199), Moi veuve de l'empire (L'Avant-Scène Théâtre n° 815, 1987), Qui a mangé madame d'Avoine Bergotha ? (Lansman, 1989), Une chouette petite vie bien osée (Lansman, 1992), Le coup de vieux co-écrit avec Caya Makhélé (Présence Africaine, 1988), Une vie en arbre et chars…Bonds (Lansman, 1998), Qu'ils le disent qu'elles le beuglent (Lansman, 1995), Le trou (Lansman, 1998). 

Toute cette créativité a fait de Sony un écrivain accompli et épanoui parce que libre dans ses pensées et dans son écriture qui ne s'embarrasse d'aucune règle normative. Sony reste même mort, l'une des voix les plus autorisées du monde littéraire africain."

Pour en savoir plus sur S. Labou Tansi:

http://laboutansi.crdp-limousin.fr/spip.php?rubrique5

Pour écouter S. Labou Tansi:

http://www.radio.cz/fr/article/89373

Bien des auteurs français, surtout à l'époque coloniale, ont donné leurs impressions de l'Afrique dans leurs écrits: Maupassant, Gide, Kessel, St-Exupéry. Intéresssant, et Glissantien, de découvrir cet extrait d'un texte de Sony Labou Tansi où il décrit la ville de Limouse avec son optique bien particulière:

"Cette ville c’est de l’argile tout bêtement. Elle est jaune. Rouge par endroits. Elle boit les vrombissements des camions et la lente machination des orages au mois d’octobre. Mais cela dépend tout à fait. Les forêts d’ici sont de vieux fétiches de bois verdâtres. Les pierres marchent exactement comme les pierres de chez moi. Cette terre se laisse déchirer par le progrès, elle cache son âme derrière les pierres taillées par un poète appelé Sanfourche. Une vache rumine le même songe dur laissé par nos petits ancêtres. Chaque vache ici fait un peu paysan de chez moi. Mais cela n’est rien. Il y a le maire de Bessines et le vieux Léopard-maire d’Eymoutiers, ex-marxiste, ex-intellectuel, ex-maoïste, futur œuf de pierre. Beaubreuil sonne comme un mot de chez moi. Le soleil coupe les heures mortes et les feux rouges. Quel beau destin que celui d’un feu vert ! J’en ai bu cinquante hier. C’est peu cinquante. Sur la route qui va de la gare au lycée Léonard, j’ai croisé des filles rondes comme des feux rouges. Elles n’ont pas perdu le grand art de marcher dans leur âge. Avec les vieilles dames aux chapeaux indélicats, marcher c’est déjà la hausse des prix. La Vienne a fait ses « biloko » comme si elle allait prendre le prochain train pour Périgueux. Elle marche aussi courtoisement que la rue Jaurès. Gambetta quitte la place d’Aisne comme un sexe en colère. L’avenue Allende s’est tuée tout contre l’avenue de la Révolution et la Vienne n’a rien dit. Mais cela arrive aussi chez nous. Les menstruations des chauffages attendent la date requise pour couler. La nuit est lente. Nous avons froid. Il se pourrait que demain le soleil brille autrement. Nous viendrons de partout, pour ramasser de petits fagots de terre cuite. Aujourd’hui c’est tout bête : nous apprenons à multiplier la parole par le nombre de mal-amours cousus derrière la vente morte des céramiques. Les noms ne parlent plus. Comme les autres terres, cette terre est enceinte d’un brouillon de malaise. Elle veut se dire et parler dans sa langue de terre cuite. Certes cela énerve d’être le balbutiement annuel de l’avenir. Tu murmures. Tu chantes. Tu croasses. Ou bien tu cries … personne ne t’a appris à parler aussi loin que la terre. Pourquoi le redire à cette ville et dans cette ville ? Nous sommes tous emprisonnés dans la matrice des silences que font les mots. Cela n’est rien du tout puisque parler c’est souiller le silence."

Articles sur mémoire coloniale et indépendance africaine:
http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/info/Les-dossiers-de-la-redaction/Independances-afrique-cinquantenaire-2010/p-6162-Memoire-coloniale-et-independances-a-lire.htm

Contribué par  - -  Astou Arnould 

Publié par,  avec matériel supplémentaire  - -  Arabella Hutter

at the G.I. Methodist clinic

- What brings you here today?

 Young resident, end of morning. He's got a lean, hard face with blue eyes. Tall, thin. He looks harassed.

   kkk - I'm coming for the results from the sample analysis, and also for a renewal of...

  kkk- Let me pull the results on the system. You're not in the system. Have you been here before?

   kkk- Yes, I came in Jan...

   kkk- How come you're not in the system? Are you sure you've been here? Yes. You must if you have a chart. That's so annoying. Let me check what's happening.

He leaves. He comes back. Without a word, starts putting my info into the system, his back to me. The room is tiny, I'm sitting right behind him. I look out the window, Brooklyn under a grey sky. I see all the way to the Bay of New York. Packed with so many ships & barges it looks like we're at war. The doctor, his back still turned, pulls the results from the analysis.

   kkk- No infection detected, but chronic non aggressive gastritis. Were you diagnosed with GERD?

  kkk - Yes, I saw a throat sp...

   kkk- Right, I see it here, diagnosed a couple of years ago. Hey, could it not have been caused by taking too much Ibuprofen or another similar drug?

  kkk - I did get poisoning...

   kkk- Poisoning? What do you mean by poisoning? This is so confusing!

   kkk- Well the drug I was taking, similar to ...

   kkk- But that's not called poisoning. Anyway you have GERD. You need to avoid certain foods: spicy, caffeine, fats. Don't drink with meals. Don't eat late before going to bed. You look fit. That's good.

   kkk- Oh. Thanks.

   kkk- Why are you here today?

  I sigh. I waited 2 hours to be seen.

    kkk- To get a a refill of my prescription.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Kant, la science moderne, moi

En lisant l'analyse d'Isaiah Berlin de la relation entre le romantisme et Kant (il y en a une), je pense à la nature et au libre arbitre. La tendance, du moins aux Etats-Unis, est d’attribuer de plus en plus de comportements à une cause génétique. L'agressivité serait sur le gène 12, la solidarité sur le chromosome 6, le mysticisme sur le 18. Nous serions des automates dont le comportement programmé se transmettrait de génération en génération. Lors du séquençage du génome humain, les généticiens se sont montrés surpris du nombre de gènes détectés. 25'000 au plus. Bien inferieur aux 100000 prédits. 

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/genenumber.shtml

Je jubile. Les humains ont seulement deux fois plus de gènes qu'un animal primitif comme le nématode. Où sont-ils, tous ces gènes du comportement? Attribuer le comportement aux gènes dispense l'être humain de prendre ses décisions librement, mais surtout permet de dispenser la société de sa responsabilité. Si les jeunes noirs ne finissent par leurs études et remplissent les prisons, si les pères ne remplissent pas leurs obligations, si les jeunes filles deviennent mères trop tôt, c'est génétique. Solution: médications? Manipulations génétiques? Sélection au stade embryonnaire? Aldous Huxley? 

Dans le monde de la recherche, il y a une tendance non scientifique à disculper la société, et il y a une tendance non scientifique chez moi à croire de toute ma foi que l'être humain peut prendre des décisions responsables dans la mesure où la société lui offre un environnement adéquat. Que tous les plus beaux rêves de l'humanité de justice, d'égalité, de solidarité ne vont pas passer à la poubelle au nom de la science.

Contribué par  - -  Arabella Hutter

Sunday at the Park

Klezmer music in front of the Brooklyn Public Library. Klezmer dance class for public. Would have made Glissant proud.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Motherhood

Recently on French radio: 
Heard  a reportage on a maid working for wealthy whites in South Africa. She comes from Soweto where unemployment is 50%. A job is very hard to come by.

"When I started working here they gave me the cabin at the end of the garden. I asked if I could bring my two children. No, the cabin wasn't big enough, they said, I could only bring one. I had to chose. My daughter was starting adolescence and I thought she would need me more. I left behind my son who's 10. I don't understand why I have to be like a mother snake whose babies go and fence for themselves. Like a mother snake I don't take care of my son."

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Walking down Houston St - miniblog

I was walking the 10 long blocks from 1st Ave to the FDR with my son Numen yesterday. He was going to his orientation at Bard High School. I was telling him: I don't know how I feel about my kids being more intelligent than I. It gets a bit tiring. What's intelligence anyway?

He was wary:

-  I'm not even going there.

-  No, seriously, how would you define intelligence? 

-  It's one of those things you can't define. Like friendship.

14 and so wise. I took up the challenge.

-  It's easy: friendship is when you like someone and they like you back.

-  And why do you like them?

-  I think they must fill some need you have. If you like to think, they'll be smart for good conversation. If you like to be pampered they'll be caring.

-  Oh so friendship is a kind of cure for you needs?

He was skeptical. I gave up on defining friendship, but it was good to chat on a beautiful spring day, New York thriving with life and excitement around us.

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Shopping dernier cri: 5 tableaux du Musée d'Art Moderne

Le Pigeon aux petits pois de Picasso, La Pastorale de Matisse, 

L'Olivier près de l'Estaque de Braque, La Femme à l'éventail de Modigliani 

et Nature morte aux chandeliers de Léger.

Apparamment le vol des cinq peintures au Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris aurait été une commande. Pas facile de revendre ce genre de recel sur le marché de Montmartre. Un choix assez étonnant, mais peut-être le commanditaire ne voulait vraiment qu'un ou deux tableaux et a fait escamoter les autres pour brouiller les pistes.

Contribué par  - -  Arabella Hutter

A week in New York, uh, five days actually

As my nephew Léandre is visiting from Switzerland, I have been going out more than usual. And floored, again, by what this city has to offer. In one single week:

Started on Wednesday with Carousel event on the Lower East Side. Comic strips/graphic novel artists were presenting their work as slide shows on a large screen with voice over. It was such an essential Lower East Side event, with a cool assortment of New York eccentrics, and a totally unique show. Just loved it. Plus we had a bottle of beer in our hands, uh, my hand, as my nephew is 18. Proceeds from the drinks go to the theater so we were actually doing a charitable act by drinking which is a very enjoyable experience. We totally enjoyed Jason Little's postmodern fable and were swooned by Doug Skinner's gorgeous black and white drawings accompanied by a poetic text. In the vein of Herriman's Krazy Kat. Puzzled by his awesome performance and the European flavor of his art, I checked him out and found that he composes music, is a ventriloquist, actor, has made videos, am I forgetting anything? 

Carousel apparently organizes these slide shows regularly. Anybody who's into graphic novels/comix art/bande dessinée or just plain visual art with a twist should check them out. Just too cool, too much fun for words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Skinner
ullagegroup.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6301533565&v=wall&ref=ts

Friday went to see "Women without Men", a film by Shirin Neshat, at the Quad. Visually stunning, she was present after the screening for a Q & A about her visually stunning film. The main role was played by an artist friend of hers, who was acting for the first time. Incredibly touching and convincing performance. The film is interesting and daring and explores narrative possibilities. The combination of realistic and fantastic characters didn't quite work for me. And the theme of the orchard was somewhat contrived. But. Salute anyone who goes and makes a first full length feature which is compelling, because we know how hard that is.

http://www.womenwithoutmenfilm.com/

Saturday at Roulette to hear John King's compositions. Unfortunately we were late because we went to Roulette's headquarters in Tribeca instead of the performance space on Greene St. Now you know and won't make the same mistake. So we missed part of the first quartet which was intriguing and horizon widening. SAPPHO, twelve arias inspired by Sappo's poetry was the most beautiful and poignant thing I've heard since Bach's Matthew's Passion at BAM last spring. The music and singing captured the essence of Sappho's poems, their beauty, their simplicity, precious fragments somehow handed down to us through time of a woman, a poet who felt and loved and sang on the Aegean coast a long time ago.

http://www.roulette.org/events/event.php/KING10

Sunday at the Queen's Museum of Art for the opening of a very very cool exhibition, the Curse of Bigness! Inspired by the model of New York city  and the Unisphere, it offers some fun and clever pieces of art. My son Numen (in the photo below, against a painted background) enjoyed the giant churros and the tiny dumplings which were served at the opening.

http://www.queensmuseum.org/the-curse-of-bigness

Contributed by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Mode ... glissantienne à Paris!

Message d'Astou Arnould, à propos du festival de mode organisé par Lucie Zambo à Paris qui devrait faire plaisir à Edouard Glissant, tant les magnifiques modèles (voyez les photos) expriment la joie de la rencontre des cultures!

A la fin du mois aura lieu à Paris le 2ème Festival de mode ethnique, "Métissages des styles", avec 15 créateurs de vêtements, lingerie, accessoires venant de France, de Burkina Faso et de Côte d’Ivoire.

Le samedi 29 mai 2010de 10H00 à 23H00, traiteur sur place
à la salle 66pelleport, au 66 rue Pelleport Paris 20ème, Métro Gambetta tel: 09.63.54.46.30

Au programme :
- - 10H00 à 18H00 entrée libre : Exposition vente
- 19H30 à 21H00 entrée payante : défilé de mode 5 créateurs renommés accompagné d'un spectacle de danse africaine


Article complet: http://www.categorynet.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=125126&Itemid=790&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=mode&utm_content=Twitter

Vous pouvez aussi vous promener sur le blog Afriqua Paris, qu'Astou Arnould anime en collaboration avec Penda K. Traoré et qui  traite de la bouillonante culture africaine parisienne. Comme son nom l'indique. http://afriquaparis.blogspot.com/2010/04/gabriel-okundji-auteur-invite-du-jeudi.html

Contribué par  - Arabella Hutter en collaboration avec Astou Arnould

Tribeca, PEN, Nomad

As the Tribeca Film Festival was wrapping up, the PEN festival was in full swing with Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Patti Smith, Richard Ford, and more. As well as the Nomad festival at the FIAF - Alliance Française - focusing on Lebanon this year. Hard to keep up with it all in NYC. I went to a panel about Dystopia and Utopia which included Jonathan Lethem and Eshkol Nevo. The discussion was interesting, many dystopia/utopia around the world today and in yesteryears. Jonathan Lethem talked about dystopic New York of the 70's. A Russian poet was there, talking in Russian which was then translated by an interpreter. Inga Kuznetsova. Whenever she spoke her face, her voice, her body vibrated with passion. All smiles and joy for utopia - writing, literature, anguish and pain for dystopic USSR. In front of a very restrained audience in a large CUNY auditorium she was holding nothing back, her emotions overflowing freely.

And later that night I went to a poetry reading. The international group of poets read translations from their poems. Again, a Russian, Pavel Nastin, read his poems in Russian. He was practically shaking with anticipation, whether dread or excitement, as he walked on stage. He read into the mic, his poetry's strong rhythms rippling through his body. Whether he was expressing sarcasm or nostalgia his whole body joined his voice in shaping the meaning. When he finished reading one a young woman would take over the mic and read the English version. He would run away to the back of the stage and wait there, in trepidation. When his turn was over he left the stage before the end of the clapping and rushed outside to smoke a cigarette.

Journée de commémoration à la Réunion

Voilà longtemps que je souhaitais que ce blog soit par épisodes trilingual, multilingual. C'est fait! Dimanche le 9 à la Réunion, une journée mémorable à ne pas manquer!

JOURNÉE DE COMMÉMORATION NATIONALE DES MÉMOIRES DE LA TRAITE NÉGRIERE, DE L'ESCLAVAGE ET DES ABOLITIONS

Lo dimansh 9 mé 2010 dann "Parc boisé, parc Laurent Vergès" o Port 9vèr ziska 13 zèr lo groupaz MCUR-CRA i invit zot tout pou la zourné souvnans trafik zesklav, lesklavaz, ek tout bann zabolisyon. Zourné-la partou dan Lafrans i ansouvnans ali konm i fo. Nou kont si zot tout pou èt anparmi. Nora : Fonnkèr, kont, shan, dans, moring, slam, maloya, lektir 100 non bann konbatan la liberté. Ariv azot ekzot manzé nou va mèt ansanm

L'association MCUR-CRA vous invite à participer à la journée de commémoration nationale des mémoires de la traite négrière, de l'esclavage et des abolitions, le dimanche 9 mai 2010 au parc boisé du Port de 9h à 13h. Au programme : Fonnker, contes, chants, danse africaine, poèmes, moringue, slam, maloya, hip-hop, lecture de 100 noms de combattants pour la liberté et pique-nique de partage sur place....

The MCUR-CRA association invites you to participate in a day of national commemoration of slave trade, slavery and abolition. It will take place Sunday May 9 2010 in the "Parc boisé" or Laurent Vergès Park in Reunion, from 9am until 1pm. Program: Fonnker, storytelling, songs, African dance, poems, moringue, slam, maloya, hip-hop, reading of the names of 100 freedom fighters and potluck picnic...

L'entrée est gratuite.

Alé di partou - Alé fann partou !!!

Entry is free.