hey, friends?

Hello,

ok, unlike my promise, I didn't write in English for ages. Not that I didn't think of my Fluffy town friends. Quite the opposite actually. I had news from Zio, from Jenz, and that's about it. Pala a bit sooner. But that's about it.
So here is to you who stil wonder at times.
I've been hearing the awful news of floods in Queensland and Victoria, but the media here is so myopic that I dunno what's going on. Sure, I should read the SNW every day, but frankly, I can't. MAybe the AGe? To be continued. I dream of you guys telling me of what's important and sensible to you from the teevee, newspapers, gossip news, just the way you would if we'd meet in the garden at coffee time. It's in this hope that I keep n writing this (broken) English blog.
Anyway, I hope you'e all right.
I met another Strine fellow two days ago in the metro, Danny Pata, the NAS teacher, aginst all odds, even though I know he travels quite often to Paris. I was back from the AUteuil greenhouses, and here he was with his wife, equal to himself.

Abeltm@centrepompidou

Until next February, as part of the exhibition Elles@centrepompidou, my badge "la Barbe", one of which is owned by the Kandinsky Library, associate to the Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, is on display in a window, along with works about Gender Confusion, amongst works by Orlan, Pablo Picasso et Marcel Duchamp.
Go and visit it while it is still time!

"la Manche" or "Rom Story"

Let's start by a N.B.: "faire la manche" means "to beg". But literally, it says "do the sleeve" or "do the Channel".
Now, let's really start.
Dear Friends of "la belle France" who intend to come here or dream to do it, you might know or not know we are facing a great amount of beggars on publics spaces, due to the shrinking of the public funding in general. Three people per trip, as an average.
Yesterday, the first one I refused, saying I was poor and broke. The third one as well. I had already given.
Indeed. The second guy was playing the violin, a funny one with a trumpet as a resounding device, he was singing melodiously enough in a slavic language, and yes I am broke, but no one rich would give anyone any money, wouldn't they? Being broke is the one reason why we display solidarity among each other.
Next time I'll tell you about Christine Delphy on rich and poor countries (what, you are francophile and don't know her? vite, a google search!)

Unemployment

Hey Friends,

well, I don't know if there's anybody Australian interested by my French tribulations in Paris, but maybe a few are... and anyway they have a good value of intercultural jewels.

As you know or not, i am currently looking for a long-term job? I was a life-model in Sydney, mainly at the National Art School and other sketch-clubs, but here I have no network, so it doesn't work. Besides, the job is well-payed but boring as you just need to stay still for a few hours, and that's it.

I founded my own translation company (anyone interested by their autobiography or last academic publication or doctorate translated into Molière's idiom get to me on www.transtexte.com, ok? ;)
But it's not enough, and I am running around looking for any position with a steady wage.

Today was an example of forecast failure.
Morning weather:
10 am. Job interview in an art gallery in the 15th district. The 15th is the white bourgeoise hospital of Paris city.
The gallery dealer has little in common with Stephen Mori. 40 cm higher, no beard, a classy beige outfit... Little did I say, not nothing. The guy has more money but will do any bricolage he can to spare money in the gallery, explain life to you as if he had more clue, be proud of the art work he shows (ach, the Leonor Fini drawings are a marvel, I mussay) but irritated if you compare it with anything he doesn't value so much for his clientele (like Marlene Dumas!!!). Very polite but acts like a fieffé bully. Has no clue about life in general so he keeps on sticking to what he knows and what gets him power and security.
The clientele is vulgaar, fat and well-dressed. Old white rich men, one of them obese and compulsively swallowing mint loolies the wrapping he throws anywhere he estimates discreet.
Ecoeurant, disgusting in a sugary kind of way, the French say.
The job is about flânerie: going around town and sticking posters about the next show in shopkeepers windows. With their agreement, and tracing them so the gallery can recontact them and convince them they display the ad material for free, with cheap tricks such as inviting them at the opening and offering them a glass of champagne.

2pm. I am applying to an unlikely job offered by Paris townhall. Gravedigger. Written examination in an examination center. We are some 200 candidate. I am the only woman, they say. Which, I am proud of myself, make them say "Messieurs et Madame" instead of just "Messieurs". Who are the "Messieurs"? a lot of migrants, chocolate, macchiato, latte and flat white colours, a few punks with they dirty rangers and safety pins in the ear,... and me.
10 questions about professional live situations.
Nb 1, easy one: you wake up at 8.30 am and you were meant to be at work at 8.00 shaaaârp. What do you do?
Aoh, shit, whatchya think? I juss throw the alarm clock onto the thickest wall, crash, go back to bed and call at about 7.50pm, when I do actually wake up... (this is an approximative version)
Nb2: people at the funeral ceremony start fighting. What can and must you do? Dunno, hit them all stronger than they do each other? too bad, I am not a karate black belt. Besides, I remember Bruce Lee died in a silly bad fight accident, didn't he? Calm down, calm down, and calm them down. Or call the security person, hey?
Nb 7: The people partaking the ceremony offer you food and (alcoholic) beverages. They get super-upset that you refuse. What then? I refuse, take any excuse to ground my refusal. If they start a diplomatic accident, I accept the whole lot and throw it into the next piece of bush.
Etc.

And what if I never worked again? If it was not for the financial side, I would do it happily. Why do emloyers interview you like the money side of the work had absolutely no weight in the matter?

le choc du changement, le poids de l'inertie

Eté 2010. La gare St Lazare est en travaux. Déflocage massif : tout l'amiante doit disparaître; or, il y en a partout. La foule massive des voyageurs de banlieue et de Normandie cavale en troupeaux dans un labyrinthe de couloirs aveugles murés de contreplaqué blanc, bleu et rose. Au détour de cette modernisation nécessaire des locaux, on a supprimé le robinet d'eau potable qui se trouvait derrière les voies pour Versailles et Saint-Nom-la-Bretèche. Désormais, si on veut boire de l'eau, il faudra s'acheter une bouteille en plastique dans un distributeur automatique. Ou, si on est plus malin, demander un verre d'eau du robinet chez le premier limonadier venu. Depuis Richard Wallace, c'est une disposition légale dans les cafés, bistrots, brasseries et autres débits de boisson : nul ne peut vous refuser de vous donner un verre d'eau.

Devant les mutations cancérifères des années ultra-libérales (depuis les années 80, disons), les mentalités résistent et s'accrochent cependant à des reliquats du temps de la démocratie sociale. Ainsi, malgré l'avènement du pass navigo à la ratp-sncf, (dont l'organisme de gestion commun , le stiff, porte superbement bien son nom, puisqu'en anglais, stiff = "rigide"), les guichets annoncent toujours qu'on peut acheter... des cartes oranges!

De même, la plupart des gens que je connais parlent du Pôle emploi, qui a regroupé l'ANPE et les ASSEDICS, sous le nom d'ANPE, et tout le monde se comprend.

Alors, que veut dire cette résistance aux nouveaux sigles et aux nouvelles institutions? pourquoi sommes-nous si rétifs aux réformes des institutions sociales? Vous aves une réponse, vous? moi j'ai une question (de plus!): ne serait-ce pas que ces "changements" répétés sont des dégradations des conditions sociales antérieures?

Ich bin ein Painter

Never mind I don't have a proper studio. Let's turn it into a political act: public space was not made for market only; painting is an activity any painter should make in the street.

I am not a radical beliver in the matter. I paint in the inner courtyard of the building I am living in, but anyone passing by is unanimous: my paitings about Paris roofs are grreat. Will they buy when I sell?
.... to be continued.

I'm a poor lonesome painter and I'm far away from Oz

Hi there.

here I am in Paris trying to find a place such as the one I left in Erko last year.
I.e. a lost paradise called alpha, where I had a house to live in along with a bunch of cool (most of'em) mad (aaaall of'em:) a studio space to do any artistic experiment in, and a really nice suburb around to jump around on some of these days...
... and now after eight months, still looking for a painting studio and a job, I can tell you guys and grrlz, keep on dreaming of Paris, because this is not the funny place you think it is.

Do you know that joke about a bloke who's getting bored as hell after an eternity in paradise? He asks for a holiday and has extra good time in heaven. Now, after coming back to paradise and enduring an unbearable eternity of boring bliss, he decides he wants to go back to hell for one more holiday.
'- Ok you can, man', St Peter says, 'but you can never come back. It's definite.'
'- No worries, Sir' the dude utters, full of anticipation.
And jumps in hell again.
But this time, he's greated by kicks in the ass, he's chained and put to work on a filthy industrial line.
'-Hey what's wrong here, am I not at the great place I was before?' he asks to one of the brutes guarding him and other damned. And the other, kicking him again in the chest:
'-Arh, arh, arh! can't you tell the difference between holiday and migration?!'