Dear Friends,
On March 9 Baudhuin Simon, the Belgian mail artist who introduced me to the
mail art network in 1993, committed suicide. The news reached me Saturday.
I composed a message on "what happened" and posted it on a few Yahoo mail
art groups.
I would like to share this with all of you:
To all mail artists
On the suicidal death of Baudhuin Simon:
Yes, the news is true. It reached me by a message from his former girl
friend on Saturday while I was hosting the arrival of a poet in my flat
(Virginia Cubillan, someone I met thru Mark Sonnenfeld, she lives in the
USA but is from Venezuela)
The contrast between the excitement of meeting someone new thru' the
network and the sad announcement of the suicide of Baudhuin (who introduced
me to mail art in 1993) was enormous.
I took Virginia to see a Puccini opera on Saturday (Le Villi)
That opera is on the ghosts of dead people!!!
Sunday we traveled to Ostend to attend a concert with the music of Preisner
(who wrote the splendid scores for all of Kieslowski's movies)
The concert started with a selection of parts of his requiem for a dead
friend.
It almost felt that PIG DADA was present during the whole weekend.
I could tell you lots of things on the circumstances of his act but I
refrain myself and prefer to be quiet. It's his choice and the end of his
traveling, in this world anyway. The least I can do is respect this.
Be well and remember him for what he meant in mail art ...
Guido Vermeulen
Original Message:
-----------------
From: David-Baptiste Chirot [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:43:10 -0600
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Now We're Gettin' Somewheres!
daer friends
thanks for the poem Eric! quite a different view of m. follain! i really
enjoyed this! nothing like some truly elegant scatology!--
i have been reading the novels of hardy finally after decades of feeling i
ought--a m,ention of them esp of jude the obscure by Petra set me to going
to the book seller and finding as i thought i wd paperbacks of them there
for fifty cents--i read jude the obscure, one of the saddest boosk i have
ever read and now am on to returen of the native--has been stormy weather
and my legs have been much imporved i think due to a medication given last
week--a powerful seizure medicartion that opeartes direclty on the nervous
syetm helps with the nerve pain in my right thigh for most of the day so
have been taking longer and longer walks along the bluffs over looking the
lake--i have read more in the last ten days thanin a long time--i mean in
novels--i read the herni bosco FARM IN PROVENCE--bachelard writes of and
quotes so much bosco--and i recalled hearing lot abt him the year we lived
in arles 1967-8--they were making a tv film of his L'ANE CULOTTE--the book
is truly magical and i wd highly recommend it, theonly one of his
tranlsated
into english, Petra sent it to me--one would think that bosco and bachelard
mutaually created each other so well do their works dovetail with each
other!--one is the perfect writer/reader for the other!--i am so glad you
liked the bachelard eric and i wil have to check aout paramenides for
david's saying he also understood poetry--bachelard had a deep
understanding
made stronger by his having to overcome a lifetime of his scientific
training, i think this gave him an even stronger energy to release into his
dreaming--his book on poetics of reverie is also astonsihing and i want to
read his others on the vari9us elements--air, water, earth, fire--he had a
beaitful bearded face with deep twinkling illuminated star like eyes--i
also
read one of thwe two remaining simen0on psychological novels i had picked
up
as i like those so much and a kobo abe, THE ARK SAKURA--and now on to
hardy--and yesterday reading the english poet jh prynne at the university
library as Petra likes him so much--i had read some of him years ago and he
is the most original, different, modern english poet i know of and had
liked
him without pretending to really understand him, he is rather
difficult--not
so much formally but will take me abit to truly get the hang of some of his
thought--he also writes of economics--at times--a week ago saturday i went
to see/hear the birtish poet tom raworth perform with the local very good
musican steve nelson-raaney--it was pretty good on the whole for such an
event--they had worked together in the past so it went pretty smoothly--i
am
not always keen on such things, but when wellenuigh done it is interesting
as was this--and the walls werte lined with collages by raworth that were
of
interest--he is a pretty good poet, one of the few english moderns to have
acceptance with a lot of the americans--
speaking of serbioans petra has been very happy with the death of
milosevevic--
i think she is coming tomorrow to visit, to go to the art musuem, itis free
to milwaukee county residents on wednesdays, her sister works works there
and she hasnt been to it since 1980--we met once before, in november--she
wrote an astonsihing essay on the line--which will apear in august--and
just
two days wrote me she hadnt told me before is dedicated to me! she had sent
me a copy without the dedciation--it has quote from me and one of my pieces
in it--i am thrilled no end as quite an honor as is a very fine and
original
essay--
i have a copy of the film walk the line to watch and will but saw a little
of it yesterday as my apt mate was trying to ewatch it--god it looked
awful,
wooden and shallow--johny cash was quite a complex man and so was his wife
a
complex woman from a very rich musical and religious heritage--and what i
saw made them flat trite people--and the acting atrocious, lame--eyt the
woman won academy award and the film raves! well i wil watch it and maybe
even write a review of it--for my duaghter who said she saw it when it came
out--she has loved johnny cash since she was tiny--as grewup hearing him,
she had a childrens tape of songs by him at age one i gave her--did you
know
his birthday is the same day as victor hugo's?--yes! just two days before
mine--i just learned other day ben hecht also has same as me--so does linus
pauling and rudi nureyev and i think liz taylor--and biran jones who
founded
the rololing stones and henry james died on that date--another strange
thing
with birthdays i didnt leanr until much later on--that the mother of my
oldest son paul has the same birthday, though not year, as covay's
mother!--
a big surprise on my birthday--the day fter i cam back here and rthere was
waiting for me a metal p[asta tin--with logo on it i always loved of buxom
peasant woman with sheaves of drum wheat under each arm--hope i didnt
already write yo of this ?--the De Cecco brand from Italy--and with it a
card in evelope dedciated to 'daviod Re-Baptiste Chrito" with "baptsite"
underlined--and opening up i thought my god i know this handwriting--and
reading it the allusions and humor i thought only one person in this world
wd know these things, these priobvate jokes and have this sesne of
humor--and at the bottom, though it took a while to sink in was really
real--singed "love, tina"--covay'smother! so a few days later i spoke with
her on the phone and we had the greatest conversation, like old times, and
i
felt so happy, that finally after al this years of glacier ice from here
except for an occsiaionl wamr phpone call finally things had been healed
and
the ice broekn and we were tlaking like real friends with a real pshared
past together it was wonderful to hear the old sounds in her voice and her
laughter again--i have to sit down and write her a long letter of thanks as
well--and then later in week i realized i hadnt checked my junk mail in
ages
and hastily going through it suddenly saw the name jospeh d harris--my
father!--he had sent a nbirthday note--said he had found my things on the
web and was very proud love father--very breif, but coming from him, as
tina
and i both were saying, a very great deal--so that also marked a closure on
my birthday--tina said, isnt it ironic and amazing, on your birthday the
last two people one wd expect to remeber and suprsie you! and though i am
not relgious i think this just might be a sign from god that you are doing
things right this time and that you are meant to cotinue on like this. so
that laso meant a good deal.
this last relapse and winter and two times in the hospital were so grey and
dim twilight zone and felt such a massive let down and descent into
nothingness and loss of identity--blurring away of any edges--theonly thing
that held any focus were the books sent that kept me going--otherwwise it
was like some nightmare and the interval in between back at the apt was
horrible--just a nightmare--and the first month back here very hard--it is
only very recently slowly emerging back into life which is why this year
the
stirggsn of spring and being able to walk m0ore gain mean so much to me--i
did some art work during first weeks but until now have not been doing
anything--i feel now will be as have a collab series to do with woman in
ohio who has a show now in germany and is very good--a jewish artist--whose
work i like and is oppostie of me--we were the two featured artist of a
show
last year in maine which led me to approaching her--she sent me huge amount
of hand made papers to work with--so jjst getting started with those--she
wrote of her first trips to germany and what it meant as a jewish artist to
be there--which i found interesting--my very jewish borooklyn niecie dehlia
who just recently changed her last name also from harris--to hannah--was
medical fellwoship student in berlin and is going back again--she loved it
there and told my mother she never felt her jewsihness so much as
there--but
in a totally positive way--i wanted to hear more abt this--i loved berlin
the short time i was there, which was in 1975--it was the only city i have
ever been in where the police persoanly welcomed me to the city=-=and gave
me money and said to have a good time!!!!--god what a palce!--someday i wil
write yo of my wild adventures and what led to my house arrest and trial in
poland before militray tribuanl due to events in berlin the night i left
for
poalnd--the day i leanred later of the murder of pasolaini--
but i feel i am gfinally coming out of the fog a bit--also i had gained ten
pounbds or so--which was very depressing, due to medications they put me
on--i quit them without telling dr--and waited to see new dr--they put me
on
something else which is the opposite and i think may help--and this dr cut
through lot of the bullshit they are always telling me i have--my only
thing
i have is the inherited severe depressions which drove five family members
to suicide and has huanted many others for generations--and myself on and
off--a chemical imbalance--one is walking along and things are fine and
suddenly the bottom falls outof the world, one is faling fallinf flaiing
and
flames seem to jet arou done, hell opens and darkness looms over the world
and sometimes i hear voices--and everything becomes darkness and
hellish--and then life becomes flat and meaningless and a torment--just so
bleak and hard--and hopless--but on other hand dealing with it has made me
stronger, too--so i am glad this dr isnt doping me up--this medication they
gave me is more like an upper supposedly and is to help you concentarte as
i
was having lot of trouble with that--focus was drifting al over the palce--
but enough of al that itis tireseom--
the main thing is to get back to work--
thanks so much for the follain eric i have really enjoyed them--i like so
much his quiet oblique takes on things--he slices right through to the
essential paradoxes of life--the balnce of the beauty and the terror which
exist side by side--
i liked what you wrote ods spoy who came in from the cold--the grimness and
bleakness of it i throgouholy enjoyed and the acting all around was
superb--and the cinematography and settings and writing was excellent
martin
ritt is usualy a sort of preachy director but i thought thte rest of the
proieduction so good it stole the show from him thank goodness-i missed
david and lisa that night and wished i hadnt
they had on an old d w griffith liilian gish the other night but sadly i
dozed off and missed most of it--orphansin the strom, and unlikely tale of
the french revoltuion!--the last film she made with griffith--he told her
he
cdnt pay her waht she was worth--he was honest with her--so she went on to
other things and acted until she was about ninety--one of the truly great
ones--
god there have been no good movies on vcable in so long!
there are now starting up to be some excellent ones at university so wil be
back in my film going mode, thankfully a great many of them free--and i
usually know the people working the doors and get in for free--and when one
pays is only four dollars which on my limited budget is stil something--but
worth it--and they have some whole series that re free coming up--the latin
american series for a week and the asian one also--and some others and
mouchette this week by bresson and films made in tribute to it or as sort
of
extensions of it that sou8nd very interesting--i dont think i ever saw
mouchette i like bressons films very much--he is a jansensist which makes
hius films very rigorous--one of the films i have seen in recent years that
has the most haunted and disturbed and moved me is his AU HASARD
BALTHAZAR--if you ever get the chance, do see that it is a mind blower--
WEL I HAVE BEEN LOSING THW EIGHT AND WLAKING AND SLOWLY GETTING BACK MORE
TO
MYSELF AND SAW MY YOUNG POET FRIENDS AT THE REDING AND HOPE TO SPEND MORE
TIME WITH THEM--I HAVE SPENT LOT OF TIME ALONE AND HAS BEEN GOOD TO BE OUT
WALKING MORE THE LAST DAYS AS WLAKING IS WHEN I DO LOT OF MY THINKING AND
HAVE LOT OF MY MYSTICAL EXPEREINCES AND FEEL MORE IN CONETACT WITH THE
WORLD--
(oops sorry for the caps--)
i am really looking forward to the chaps eric!
harry thank you so much for the packages you sent i must right you a
persona
letter regarding them i am sorry i was so spaced out for some weeks i let
things fall behind--
well i should get going and see how much of the johnny cash film i can
stomach and see if i really do write a review! i thought if i do it would
be
fun to do so for tina and my dauyghter--and if i do wil send it to yoou--
with al my love and friendhsip and thanks always for all yours to me and al
the packages and poems and dreamns and books and films and everything--
david
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Now We're Gettin' Somewheres!
>Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2006 22:16:49 -0500
>
>At 10:24 AM - 3/11/06, David-Baptiste wrote:
>>hotmail was fading in and out and even off for a bit . . .
>
> This should either set it right or short it out completely. From Jean
>Follain's uncollected poems, Ordre terrestre, a pre-Club-Med vision of
>languorous eroticism.
>
> - E.
>___________________________________________________________________________
>
> SUR LE SABLE
>
> Finement granulée
> l'aréole à chacun des seins
> participe aux couleurs des feuilles demi-mortes
> près de l'abîme.
> Poitrine évoquant caresses, tortures
> de ses pointes épuise
> la forme d'un corps entier,
> visage oblong aux yeux verts.
> Un grand soleil éclaire
> le buisson du sexe entrouvert
> ceux plus pâles des aisselles.
> Fesses blanches, duvets de leur sillon
> reposant sur un sable éternel
> infimes débris des coquilles de la mer.
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