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Paris Film Time

9/1/2019

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Picture
You are on a mission, but beware - there is no past and there is no future.
Baudelaire did not fly or Rimbaud die and Lemy Caution is missing in action.  
Picture
Rendezvous: "Brown tie?"
Password: "And braces!"
I am waiting here for the French agent with feathered hat.

​
Picture
Picture
The phone does not ring.
Still waiting. 

I am distracted by the kamikaze dive of a demented fly.
In one hand, a book of poetry by Anna de Noailles.
The other to mouth, sipping champagne out of a cracked glass.
​
I spy a refracted card being delivered under the door. ​​
This facet a clue? That one a trap? 
Picture
At the Institute I am ushered into a meeting room. 
The silhouetted outline of a man is framed by a monstrous clock.
It has no second or minute hands. 
The machine activates and my brain quivers.


Picture
I come round on the floor in a darkened cell with a folder in my hand. 
I crave to read the contents, but.... I... wake. 


Picture
I... wake on a bench outside the Louvre which is turning inside out.
My memory has been semi-erased. 
Was I.... a.... European son? 
Madeleine? 
Picture
Picture

​Painting 1: The Poet's Elixir After Baudelaire
Or in other delirious words: "Pretty witty twoon. Swoony noon loon."
Acrylics and collage. 10 x 14"
1991

Photo: Down and out in Paris
Summer, 1987

Business card
Hotel de Champagne et de Mulhouse, 1987

Leaflet 
Advance Computer Institute, Rue du Faubourg-Montmartre, 1987

Folder 1986: Visnews
International news agency that broadcast the first daily satellite news service.

Drawing 1: Louvre, Outside In
Oil pastel and pencil, 22 x 17" 
1996

Drawing 2: Louvre, Inside Out
Oil pastel and pencil, 21.5 x 19"
1996

Filmic sub-text:

Cléo de 5 à 7 
Directed by Agnes Varda, 1962 and starring Corinne Marchand
Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution 
Directed by Jean Luc-Godard, 1965 and starring Eddie Constantine

A blog entry inspired by seeing these films after an absence of 30 years; akin to waking from a dream. 
I will overcome e-motion and travel sickness in search of past-tense, future-flex. 


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