A night with George Steiner and Gaelle Boissonnard—now that’s a curious ménage! Late caffeine kept me up until 6:30 this morning and I spent the night with these two.
Steiner took me from an old Transfuge to wikiquotes and Cornel West; there goes 3 hours pf precious sleep and when my mind was too tired to absorb anything more, Boissonnard’s images were there to help with their delicate originality.
“There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise and gregariousness.” Steiner
Boissonnard is everything our “noisy” culture isn’t—serene, quiet, tranquil…
She has started working with a new company; I hope this move makes her work more available to international markets. Just found out that my friends in Paris, La Banque de l’Image, mention her in their company’s blog!
I love this quote of Steiner: “the most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital.” This is what I have learned by heart long ago:
“Le tout est de tout dire, et je manque de mots
Et je manque de temps, et je manque d’audace
Je rêve et je dévide au hasard mes images
J’ai mal vécu, et mal appris à parler clair.” Eluard
دلم گرفته است
دلم گرفته است
به ايوان مي روم و انگشتانم را
بر پوست كشيده شب مي كشم
چراغهاي رابطه تاريكند
چراغهاي رابطه تاريكند
كسي مرا به آفتاب
معرفي نخواهد كرد
كسي مرا به ميهماني گنجشكها نخواهد برد
پرواز را به خاطر بسپار
پرنده مردني است
I feel sad,
I feel blue.
I go outside and rub my fingers
on the sleek shell of the night.
“I see that lights of contact are blocked,
All lights of contact are blocked.”
“Nobody will introduce me to the sun,
Nobody will take me to the gathering of doves.”
Keep the flight in mind,
The bird may die.
This post is in the loving memory of the 3 sisters my friend, Marie, has lost in the past few years (the last one two days ago)—all young, all from heart problems…
To see Boissonnard’s blog go here.
