Jane

Below the Paris to Seattle sky bus,

a cloud path seems to lead to Shangri-La,

some impossibly beautiful cloud country only spirits can enter.

And I know she is leaving.

Over there, icebergs

and shipwrecked ocean liners,

giant frogs posing as princes,

a burning arrow of pink-gold cloud, a peony.

     *

Were we close?

Only as close as twins

who do not know where one begins

and the other ends.

Were we close?

Only as close as two fledgling elf owls,

one a little noisier, finding shade in a saguaro

from the Arizona heat.

Were we close?

Only as close as two children of tender natures,

daughters of a Viking mother—

magnificent—but tough.

Were we close?

Close as two girls, one who loved playing with dolls,

the other, playing with characters in books,

both knowing early on which would be a mother.

Were we close?

Close as two swimmers

in red tank suits, passing the baton

in a relay race.

Were we close?

Close as two best friends, 11 and 12,

trying out our first tampons

in the bathroom at midnight.

Were we close?

Close as two Nordic girls

who gravitate to the sea,

high school in La Jolla.

Were we close?

Close as two astonished virgins

discovering sex the same summer,

one in Zurich, one in Paris.

Were we close?

Close as a pair of ears

thrilling to Dylan’s “All Along the Watch Tower”

and “Lay, Lady, Lay.”

Were we close?

Close as Betty’s daughters, raving about the best books,

The Wizard of Oz to Mrs. Dalloway,

In Arabian Nights to Duino Elegies.

Were we close?

Close as two horses nickering,

galloping, freed, ecstatic

in Berkeley in the '60s.

Were we close?

Close as two artists’ models

costumed as the Mad Hatter and the Dormouse

at an art class Tea Party in Kroeber Hall.

Were we close?

Close as two Viking daughters

setting sail for adventures in the ‘70s

on trimaran and schooner.

Were we close?

When one was in trouble in Ecuador,

she didn’t have to say a thing,

the other leaped to go.

Were we close?

Close as two female artists, slowly learning

how to stay devoted to the making, the shaping,

and cheering each other on.

Were we close?

Close as two monks

who value simple food

and silence.

Were we close?

All our lives when the phone rang,

we knew

when it was the other.

Were we close?

Praying for each other to find a worthy mate,

one who’d be there through celebration and suffering,

the failing body, sailing the long distance with us through the end.

Were we close?

Close as daughters of a splendid father,

fighting for him to finish his life as he wished,

exulting with our family when he returned as hawk.

Were we close?

Close as two art lovers,

speechless at Louise Bourgeois at the Pompidou,

a woman telling deep, difficult truth through her art.

Were we close?

Close as two stars

in opposite constellations,

the Centaur and the Twins.

Were we close?

Close as a dreamer

dreaming with Jane through the bardos,

through the long journey home.

Were we close?

Close as two stars in the same immensity,

connected to each other, and you,

through our shining.

     *

Out of thick fog,

two points of a star lit with gold,

or the tail of a fish:

Seattle.

Pine trees, gold

light and sea.

Serenity over all.

Roar of the plane descending.

Race to Swedish Hospital

with Jon and Leatrice. Already there:

Betty, Suki, Ann, Greg,

Bayu, Rachel and Liza.

Jane in bed,

eyes closed, struggling for breath,

beautiful as ever. We hold her hands,

stroke her brow. An hour later, she goes.

Are we close?

Always. 

No One In Paris Owns a White Truck

No one in Paris owns a white truck. Oh, they may drive one off the showroom floor white, but after a very short time (overnight in some neighborhoods) they are no longer trucks, or white, but mobile canvases that promote the work of the coming generation of street artists.

 

For the folks who own the trucks, this is the downside of street art, the point where they would probably say the practice crosses over into vandalism.

Some of these "artists" are simply taggers, in Paris Play's view, low-level wannabes who piss like wolves with magic markers or spray cans simply to mark territory, and leave their scrawls on the fronts of houses, on shop windows, on automobiles and trucks--in short, anywhere, just to say, "I was here." We agree with Tom Finkelpearl, executive director of New York City’s Queens Museum of Art, who says, “I can’t condone vandalism… It’s really upsetting to me that people would need to write their name over and over again in public space. It’s this culture of fame. I really think it’s regrettable that they think that’s the only way to become famous.” 

An article in the latest issue of À Paris, the official magazine the city sends free to local residents, makes a clear distinction between artists and taggers, the latter of whom cost the city €4.5 million ($5.82 million) each year in clean-up fees. À Paris said, "There is no question here of artistic practices on walls or dedicated street art…but those who defile façades and houses." After noting that the city's legal options are limited, the article concludes, "It therefore encourages residents and owners to complain, so that the damage will be treated as a crime and not as a fatality. Le graffiti sauvage is liable to a fine of €3750…up to €7500 for a public building."

A step up from tagging, the lines begin to blur. When enough tags accumulate, the result can be a collective collage that turns into a work of art. One of our favorites is this tiny work above, the locked gate at a long disused railroad tunnel in the 14th arrondissement. 

The graffiti crew "Spank," with their latest work on a "legal" wall on city property

And the next step up from tags as collage are the works of graffiti artists (individuals or "crews") who create larger spraypainted pieces with psychedelic colors and misshapen letters that carry our minds back to the Wes Wilson, Kelly/Mouse, Arab et al Fillmore and Avalon Ballroom posters that burst out of the Haight-Ashbury in that Sixties blaze of cultural and artistic ferment. We'd call those Bay Area-based artists godfathers to the graffiti crew phenomenon of the seventies in Philadelphia, then New York, etc., though the music that inspired those latter rebels was hip-hop, still associated, in many people's minds, with the larger calligraphic pieces that spread around the world, the gradual evolution of tagging into works of graphic art. 

 

(It's not our intent to delve into the arcana of styles, bubble-lettering versus wild style, or how different styles evolved in different ends of the same town, but anyone who'd like to add to our store of knowledge is free to join in the comments section.)

The final step (so far) are the full-scale works of art, with or without calligraphy, that Paris Play has been covering for the last two years, the urbain art movement that is filling galleries, exhibition spaces, and gradually museums around the world, and fetching prices even heftier than the penalties for tagging.

One of the distinctions that artists we've come to know here make is permanence versus impermanence. The organization Le M.U.R., whose exhibition we covered a few weeks ago, now has three billboard sites around the city, but each of those large pieces of billboard art only stays up for two weeks before it is replaced by the work of another artist. Street art, they believe, is ephemeral, ever-changing, which is why we are out at least three days a week documenting with our cameras what we see in the streets. It could literally be gone in a day. 

While street artists work in various media--painting, mosaic, wood blocking, yarn bombing, stencils, multimedia installations--many of the art pieces we photograph, like the popular work of Fred Le Chevalier, Kashink, Norulescorp, Tristan des Limbes, Madame, and others are "sticker art" done on paper, with wheat paste to adhere it to the walls, precisely because it is impermanent. Some artists like seeing their work decay over time; the process of decay is part of the life cycle of the work, and a comment on city living. The replacement of their work with other peoples', which also decays and is replaced by others, makes some street walls pentimento collages.         

But the spray-painted trucks are permanent, looking like rubber-tired versions of circa-1970s New York City subway cars. In some neighborhoods that have street markets a few times a week, where trucks are parked regularly in order to maintain a position on market day, it's an artistic free-for-all--trucks as chum for a school of art sharks. Walk along Boulevard de la Villette or Boulevard de Belleville in the 11th arrondissement (same street, it just changes its name near the Belleville Metro stop) and you'll see a free plein air gallery.

 

However, there may be a bright side we're missing. These could all be commissioned works, from crews like FD and 1984, whose work appears frequently. Perhaps the truck owners have simply hired a local crew to create some coherent, themed mural, rather than succumb to taggers with no taste. If you can't beat 'em, hand 'em your own spray can and stand back.

 If you'd like to see more, we posted our overflow pictures here. 

Street Legal Art (for a few days)

Mural by Bustart

What a fine week it was for street art in Paris. The equivalent of, if not Woodstock, at least 1967's Monterey Pop Festival.

Last week, Paris Play joined the organizations Alternative Paris and My Life on My Bike to provide wall-to-wall coverage of the four-day long urban art exhibition featuring the work of fifty street artists from all over the world, organized by Le M.U.R. de L'Art. The documentary crew of six (including Richard, and our nephew, Jonathan Edwards) shot photographs and conducted thirty-five videotaped artist interviews in ninety-six hours, with the eventual goal of producing a documentary about this effervescent scene.

Le M.U.R. de L'Art was founded in 2007, and serves as a legal, aboveground, as it were, gallery for street artists. To make a long story short (you can read the long version here), street artists began hijacking billboards here in Paris in the early 2000s, replacing advertising with street art. Finally, one billboard company simply gave up the fight for one piece of turf, and donated its ground-level billboard on rue Oberkampf to the community. Hence, Le M.U.R., which presents a different artists' work made on that billboard every two weeks, to celebrate both street art and its ephemeral nature. If you miss that fortnight's work, it's gone.

But here's where relationships get strange. Le M.U.R. gives each artist €500 to create his or her piece, a stipend provided by the City of Paris. And this four-day exhibition was supported by the City, in a city arts center in the Marais. So, while much of the art we are so fond of photographing and showing you here on Paris Play is illegal, and artists can be fined and jailed for putting it up, detente exists, though some artists do not want their photographs published. Nonetheless, it was great fun putting faces to many of the names whose work we've admired for the last few years.

Kashink with her sculpture, "Cash Cow"  

Each of the fifty artists who exhibited last week in this benefit for Le M.U.R. had previously been featured on a billboard. Some, like Jérome Mesnager, Mosko and Associates, Speedy Graphito, and Gérard Zlotykamien are the equivalent of O.G.s (original gangstas) on the street, and have already been the subject of books, museum catalogs, and have their work in contemporary art museums and galleries, selling for thousands of euros apiece. Others, many of them women, have been in the game for a lot less time, but their work is of a high enough quality that it rivals that found in the formal galleries in the Marais and St. Germain des Pres, and is often more interesting. 

And since the work, by artists from as far away as Chile, Argentina, Canada, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia, speaks for itself, we'll be quiet and let you enjoy. If you like a name, Google it for more examples; just about everybody has a Website or Facebook page. And Le M.U.R is a non-profit, which welcomes your support.

Jérome Mesnager

Mosko et Associes

Gérard Laux of Mosko et Associes, surrounded by the staff of Graffiti Art magazine

Speedy Graphito

Bustart

Shaka

Kashink

 

Kouka

Thom Thom

Thom Thom (Thomas Schmitt) is co-founder of Le M.U.R.

Ella & Pitr

 

YZ

FKDL

Mural by FKDL (left) and Stoul (right)

Stoul

Sixo

Le Cyklop

Chanoir

Teaching his son how to mix paint

Jana and JS

 

Nicogermain

Paella

Surfil

Surfil with Alternative Paris' Demian Smith

Macay

H101 and Zosen

Gilbert

Rue Meurt d'Art

Kenor

Kenor teaching a fan

No Rules Corp

Alber

 

Michael Beerens

If you've scrolled this far, thank you. And here's your surprise: links to the four two-minute or so videos the team produced each day of the event, as teasers for the eventual documentary. Video one, two, three, and four. Enjoy. 

Pussy Riot and the Power of Myth

Distressed at the notion that the three female punk rockers from the six-member group, Pussy Riot, were being slapped down way too hard for their anti-Putin protest in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral on February 21, we joined 300 other Parisians this broiling noon hour (Friday, the 17th) in a demonstration of solidarity at the famous Niki St. Phalle fountain next to the Pompidou Museum. (That's the fountain in our masthead, above.) 

As the world knows, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and her band-mates Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina, wearing knitted balaclavas, burst into the Orthodox church with three other band members (who are currently in hiding) and performed a song beseeching the Virgin Mary to oust the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who was standing for re-election.

The choice of venue, and of the Virgin, were a protest against the way the church has become, in the eyes of the band and other Russians, an arm of the Putin State during his twelve years in power.

Pussy Riot specializes in sudden, often illegal public performances, of the kind associated with flash mobs, including one in Moscow's Red Square. In a freer tradition, Pussy Riot would be recognized as the honored form of Trickster we call the court jester, the holy fool whose job/art it is to tell truth to power. 

The State was not amused.

The women, all in their twenties, were arrested and charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred," because their performance was called, by the government, a hate crime against the church. Pussy Riot called it free speech.

We call it myth. You don't have to believe in myth; it unfolds all around you, whether or not you believe in it.

In these last few days of Leo, with the Sun and Moon both in the sign, we've noticed many cat posts on Facebook. We're spending a lot of time with Marley, just admiring his feline beauty. And today, we're in a public square awaiting the verdict on Pussy Riot. 

I've been re-reading Candide. Just imagine what Voltaire would have to say about this miserable witch-burning still going on in Russia. Enlightened Eighteenth Century philosophers, writers and politicians in England, the U.S. and France, were clear about the need to keep church and state separate, and to allow free speech, without repressive repercussions from religion or the government.

In an earlier age, the band, Pussy Riot, would have been burned as witches. There is a reason why cats and witches are connected. Cats are creatures of mystery. They are beautiful, not utilitarian. You don't see cats out herding cattle and sheep.

Zoologist Desmond Morris said, "Cats are artists, dogs are soldiers." Soldiers of the state like Putin don't understand artists or witches. Witches were probably early feminists, equally versed in magic and nature. They wanted to transform the world, as artists do. As these singers did, appealing to the Virgin Mary to stop Putin. 

On a mythical level, the Virgin Mary is the goddess, Demeter. She is an earth goddess. In earlier times, women addressed the goddesses with such protests, and no man would dream of silencing them. 

Despite worldwide protests, and appeals for leniency by creative artists ranging from Danny De Vito to Yoko Ono to Paul McCartney, the women, who were jailed for the five months awaiting trial, faced up to seven years in prison.

Our Paris demonstration, as well as others across Europe, were held at the time the court was to release its verdict. Organized by the French chapter of Amnesty International, aided by the International Federation for Human Rights, this Paris iteration attracted a cross-section of Parisians, including members of the local Federation of Anarchists.  They carried black flags, and didn't mix much.

Despite the lack of shade, and an eighty-eight degree Fahrenheit temperature (31 Celsius), the fashion for the day was the balaclava, in spandex, leopard, or you-name-it, with or without slogans.

While the length of sentence was not handed down before the demonstration ended, the crowd was told by the event's Amnesty International host, who was monitoring the Internet on his iPhone, that the members of Pussy Riot were found guilty, expected information that was met with a chorus of boos.

Later Friday, the judge, Marina Sirovaya, sentenced the trio to two years in prison.

Astrology is just the time dimension, the seasonal aspect of myth. And today, as Leo draws to a close, the pussy cats are rioting.

Dinner: One Cricket, One Kir

I followed the thread of the labyrinth for years, until I knew its winding loops and pattern as if they were my own soul.

I still trace its pattern and colors daily, a record, a map of my days.

Out of the labyrinth now, I’m fascinated by the threads that link me to others, to kindred spirits, other worlds.

Kindred spirit: Susan. Met in Berkeley at a screening of my cousin Mark’s film about the ecology movement, “A Fierce Green Fire.” Instant love.

Kindred spirit: Edith. Met in Paris at Connie’s house when she told us stories of artists she’s known that kept us all spell-bound. Instant love.

Kindred spirit: Judithe, a friend of Susan’s and Edith’s and Connie’s, who also lives in Paris. Judithe invited me to a gathering of writers and bande dessinée (comic strip) artists who write for and illustrate a French magazine called Soldes. It was inspired by a countercultural magazine Actuel, that Judithe and her ex-husband created in the late ‘60s.

I am to meet her at her home. She comes to the door in goat leather jacket, serpent pants, with a Jeanne Moreau mouth.

Rez de chaussée (the ground floor), a large living-dining room that opens onto a deep garden, rare in Paris and enchanting. Persian rugs. Fine paintings on the walls. A photograph of an African king.

A chunky Welsh corgi on the floor.

A tricycle in the foyer.

Judithe is learning how to make an e-book. She’s a diver who photographs underwater worlds. She’s modest about her photography skills, but a friend in NYC insists that she must make an e-book with her photos of underwater creatures, and he will help with text and publication.

She shows me how she plugs in text and photos in the e-book program on her MacBook. It looks so easy!

Her black Smart car is parked on the curve of the boulevard. It’s impossibly small, like a toy car. But it carries us comfortably and smoothly through Paris to the Canal St. Martin. We cover deep-sea diving, American politics, whether Obama will be re-elected (yes, I think he will), French politics (the choice between Sarkozy and Hollande, and who should win), UNESCO, the counterculture, children, people we know and love in common, Berkeley, the Berkeley Barb, R. Crumb, who was friends with Judithe and her husband and did cartoons for Actuel.

We park just off the Quai de Valmy in a tiny space that no other car could maneuver into.

It’s not at all clear where this warehouse is. Judithe pops into the post office, and asks a group of Arab men. The entrance is around the corner, says one. She is gay and charming, and he is happy to help.

Canal St. Martin is lined with young picnickers and drinkers, a hip and happening part of town. The warehouse is marked by familiar graffiti—I’ve seen it before in a photo of Richard’s.

The high-ceilinged room is filled with artsy-looking youngsters in their 20s through 60s. (Artists and revolutionaries are closer to their childhood selves, and while not always the most mature of citizens, carry youthful spirits well into old age.) The first thing that strikes the eye is a giant cartoon on the wall.

“Richard would love this!” I exclaim.

“Call him and tell him to join us,” says Judithe. But he is at a photography event.

Judithe introduces me to a man about our age, an elegant French artist, who is one of the founders of Soldes. I can’t make out his words above the rock music, and ask him to speak more slowly, thinking I might read his lips. But he and Judithe think I mean I don’t understand French, and switch to English. But I do! Chat, chat.

We make our way through the crowd in front of the bar. Judithe orders a serious drink. I settle for Kir.

Back into the main room. An array of insects is artfully arranged in mandala form on plates. The hors d'oeuvres.

I am mesmerized. Scorpions, bees, grasshoppers, crickets and worms. We’re supposed to eat them. They’re certainly beautiful, but no one is rushing up for a sample. I take a few photos to show Richard.

Two young men with microphones are seated on the lip of a stage. On a big screen behind them are photos and diagrams of places in Africa and Asia where insects are a primary source of protein in the diets of humans.

One of the men discourses in that serious French fashion, as if this is a lecture at the Sorbonne. Now he is deconstructing cultural attitudes towards eating insects.

Insects were once eaten in Europe, the lecturer tells us. The only thing that prevents us from eating them today is disgust. (Disgust! That little piffle.) I was raised in a state where scorpions abound, and avoiding them always seemed like a good idea.

Judithe and I take seats on folding chairs near the projector. We glance over at the hors d’oeuvres table. No one has touched the snacks. In spite of the cogent analysis, cultural disgust is intact.

“Why are there no spiders?” asks a young woman.

“Spiders aren’t insects,” the speaker says.

Oh good. No black widows. No rattlesnakes.

“But aren’t some insects poisonous?” someone asks.

“Insects are just like mushrooms. You have to know which ones are edible, which are toxic,” the lecturer says.

Judithe asks another question. But this is one too many interruptions for the lecturer. They will take questions at the end.

“This is so French,” Judithe mumbles,“the serious sermon.”

We meander around. I strike up a conversation with a man who is drawing bright beautiful cartoon figures in the front of the latest edition of Soldes. He introduces me to his wife, Ariane.

She is Swiss. He is French. They lived in NYC for a while and now are back in Paris. I ask her if she knows the myth about her namesake, Ariadne.

No, she doesn’t. What is it?

I tell the story of the Cretan princess and the labyrinth and the Minotaur.

“Oh!” she says, “The goddess with the thread? That’s funny. My husband’s name is Phil and you know the French word for thread is fil. And he’s a Taurus, a bull.”

“So is mine!” I say. “And our myth is Ariadne and the Minotaur. In the later part of the story, Ariadne marries Dionysus. One of the shapes he takes is a bull.”

We talk about the Native American custom of going on a vision quest, which is a variation on the descent into the labyrinth.

I join Judithe outside on the bank of the Canal St. Martin. All around us people stand talking, drinking, smoking, cell phoning.

Back inside Judithe introduces me to a cartoonist who reminds me just a bit of Robert Crumb. A young Asian man extends a tray of insects to me.

“Why thank you. I believe I’ll try this cricket on his little wheat-colored bed,” I say. “Oh crispy! Delicious!”

Judithe and I are ready to go at the same moment. I buy a Soldes and ask Phil (Fil) to sign it to Richard and me. It’s as beautiful as an art book, and costs 17 euros.

We return in Judithe’s Smart car, and talk of Amin Maalouf’s book, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, the Lebanese, my cousin Mark’s “Fierce Green Fire,” Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, Cannes, diving in the Mediterranean sea, sky diving, a friend who killed herself in spite of great brilliance and beauty, French lessons.

A pleasurable evening of many threads. Dinner: one cricket, one kir. And a new friend, with many links between us.