Vitro Nasu

Paul Bowles was born on Dec 30, 1910.
Tangier days Talking with Paul Bowles 1984-1988, from “Conjunction”, an interview by Richard Patterson.
A conversation here. (Rob Couteau’s page.)
A visit with Paul Bowles Moroccan Sojourn
Music by Paul Bowles (via Paul Bowles Org.)
Sample A
Sample B
Sample C

Morocco and its artists
Matisse in Morocco something strange.

Here is an introduction to two books on Matisse,
Hilary Spurling: The Unkown Matisse ,
John Russell: Matisse. Father & Son.

Henri Matisse was born on Dec 31, 1869.
(Capricorn with Moon in Sagittarius – same as Tiger Woods,
Umberto Eco, Takeshi Kitano and Paul Bowles.
“This is a strange pairing of strict discipline with bold enthusiasm and idealism. You are a traveler at heart, and your restless nature has a need to be on the go all the time, either physically or mentally.”)
Matisse said,
“The essential thing is to spring forth, to express the bolt of lightning one senses upon contact with a thing. The function of the artist is not to translate an observation but to express the shock of the object on his nature; the shock, with the original reaction.”
Bathers by a River, 1916-17
Merci Matisse and Paul Bowles for your dedication and your journey to unknown.
From Morocco with Love, Happy New Year 2005.

Close to midnight I wrote to Alan Sondheim,
(do you think I should add that she would like to be known
as a novelist. She seemed to want that recognition, gathering from
TV interviews – my impression).
She described how in telling the story she would often find herself
in tears. She was so moved.

“Well I think of her as novelist, really liked The Volcano Lover…”
(via email) Alan Sondheim replied.
I asked if he wants to add something to my post on Sontag,
he said ” I want to read her again on illness; I’ll use that in a piece.
She was incredibly brave in the writing she did about 9/11.

And there are good minds left, there are always dor vdor, generations after generations…
(*dor vdor is Hebrew.)

Susan Sontag passed away this morning.
Remembering Susan here
Sontag at Japan Society Film Lecture.
Her fine essay on Bergman’s “Persona”
Here is Bill Moyer’s Interview. From New Yorker, Looking at War ”

From Steve Wasserman’s generous and more complete tribute.
Here, a loving portrait from Gary Indiana, who knew her well .

A day later from NYtimes from Charles MacGrath,
highlight her glamour and hidden warmth and
finally her ability to reexamine and reinvent.
Sontag would have been thrilled to be known as an old fashioned novelist who can entertain.

by Jung Chang. Three generations of women in revolutionary China. The grandmother with bound feet is concubine to a warword. The mother is a communist revolutionary cadre caught up in the purges of the cultural revolution. The daughter is a child of the cultural revolution itself. Covers the sweep of history through the remarkable stories of these three women.

Pax vobiscum
LoVE eVOLv

*Turn up the speaker for the first L link .
*Adjust the volumn for this link.

Happy Birthday!

Louise Boourgeois was born on Dec. 25, 1911 in Paris. (Capricorn
with Moon in Aquarius – other famous people with this combo are – Muhammed Ali, Cary Grant, Nixon, Diane Keaton) One word to describe these people – Louise herself said it – Irrepressible, ambitious, eccentric and successful. If Muhammed Ali was reborn as French woman, she would sound like this. Click on Otte to listen. (Melody, text and voice: Louise Bourgeois)

Images from Artfactsnet

“Her hand-colored artbook the puritan, was conceived and written in 1947,
but she did not begin making it until 1989.” from
“What Is Art?”
Louise’ French Childhood was explored here with other creative geniuses.

Louise Bourgeois archive since 2004 here

“Last Friday, in the first of 11 performances through Dec. 31, “O zlozony/O composite” was given an enthusiastic reception. One Paris critic described it as “a major work.” Brigitte Lefèvre, director of the opera ballet said the audience responded with “a wave of love”.

she developed an alphabet – literally A to Z – of “simple and pure gestures, reminiscent of the ballet lexicon.” These were then organized into sequences by using two poems, St. Vincent Millay’s “Renascence” and Milosz’s “Ode to a Bird”, which serve as kinds of librettos for movement, although not as narratives.

The title of the piece is taken from Milosz’s poem, which begins in its English translation with “O composite,/O unconscious.” The poem, recited in a sensual voice in Polish, is also integrated into Ms. Anderson’s haunting score. And a bird is even suggested in the choreography.”
( Nytimes /Arts- Dec.23/2004)

Trisha Brown recieved the highest cultural award from France. (Dec17, 2004)

Trish and Laurie having collaobrated before, the two have been making history for the quarter of century.

Sai,” the kanji meaning “disaster,” was voted as the character that best symbolized the year 2004, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation announced last week. Poll taken from
91,630 votes this year, with “sai” attracting 20,936 votes.

Hiroyuki Sanada who appeared in the “The Last Samurai” is the star of this acclaimed film.
Samurai 101 from Midnight Eye

Alain Silver serves you “The Samurai Film”

Samurai Fiction came after Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill came after
Samurai Fiction, a serious film student must understand
the implication of this sequence.

David Markson was born on Dec 20, 1927 (Sagittarius with Scorpio Moon ) Bruce Lee who died young share this combo. Unlike ill fated Bruce, David Markson is alive and still writing.

David Markson

From Elegant variation, do not miss Dalkey’s inteview on David Markson.

What is the point? Stephen Michelmore finds the novel alive and well.

Vanishing Point That Markson achieves this depth of character through a bone-dry catalogue of commentary largely centered on art and death is nothing short of remarkable.

” We were drinking with David Markson, and he had made me sad. ” From hypertext novel The Unknown

“David Markson’s Reader’s Block is written in very short paragraphs.
This is a style whose look is gentle to the eye and visually does not promise a great deal of continuity. ” From Spineless Books

“A novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel?” from MadInkbeard

Un Chant D’amour by Mark Adnum talks about the only film Genet directed.
See the whole movie here -25.22min.

Here is a Genet site which is sunny and light, unusual for Genet followers who tend to emphasize his dark and deviant side.

By stretching language we’ll distort it sufficiently to wrap ourselves in it and hide. (More quotes)

Jean Genet <> <>

The Miracle of Jean Genet

Jean Genet was born on Dec 19, 1910, a Sagittarius with Moon in Leo, a firely combination shared by Jane Fonda. They were also friends when they both aided the Black Panther Party. Here is a description of a person with (Sagittarius/Leo combo), ” you have a love of mankind and a code that combines good judgment with a very tolerant attitude. This combination is very dedicated; dedicated to honor, prestige, and achieving stature in the world. You are intellectual philosophic, broad-minded, and highly creative. Your creativity is in the ability to form an image in your mind and then bring to reality that clear picture you envisioned. You take life seriously, with a keen sense of the importance of making the most of it. ”

Genet met Jane Fonda, who gave him her phone number; as Roger Vadim’s ex-wife and the star of several French films (including Barbarella), she was fluent in French. She was then married to New Left activist Tom Hayden, a member of the “Chicago Seven” who had named the Panthers “America’s Viet Cong.” She wished to work on a film with Genet on behalf of the Panthers, a project that was discussed but never materialized. She remembers that she and Genet got along marvellously well.
One morning Genet awakened bright and early in a strange Hollywood mansion. No one was awake. Genet couldn’t have spoken to them in any event, so he phoned Jane Fonda. She said she’d be right over to rescue him — but where was he staying? He said he had no idea. “Listen,” she said, “Go outside and look at the swimming pool, then come back to me and describe it.” Genet did as he was told and Fonda exclaimed, “Oh, you’re at Donald Sutherland’s, I’ll be right over.” :From Genet A Biography by Edmund Whit.

Jean Genet by Giacometti

Many of us are likely to have come to Genet via Sartre. Sartre’s Saint Genet was a giant leap in literature of mixing biography with literary critical analysis. Satre says, “In writing out for his pleasure the incommunicable dreams of his particularity, Genet has transformed them into exigencies of communication… Genet began to write in order to affirm his solitude, to be self-sufficient, and it was the writing itself that, by its problems, gradually led him to seek readers.” (Jean-Paul Sartre in Saint Genet, 1963) “I did not write my books for the liberation of the homosexual. I wrote my books for another reason altogether — out of a taste for words, out of a taste for commas, even punctuation, out of a taste for the sentence. ”

On December 18, 1999 Robert Bresson passed away at the age of 98.

Both Bresson and Agnes Martin lived long lives for people
so austere and monkish. Is it because they knew how to live with clarity, simplicity and a sense of purpose coming from profound vision and understanding?

Anne Wiazemsky with a Donkey.