[6 not quite poems, not quite journal entries, meta-factual snapshots of everyday Paris life]
Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh.
- Kate Simon, photographer
The Unloaded Camera Snapshots [Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor] were launched as an exercise to document the not-quite prose poems, not-quite journal entries, “snapshots” of everyday life in Paris with Paris Scratch. & this continued upon my return to NYC. The exercise consisted of every day “taking” a written “snapshot” – 365 of them …”
bart plantenga
- Ivre de Sang-Froid
The rooftops from BW’s window shone red, golden, aglow like slabs of molten copper. They seem to go on forever in every direction. & that was OK with us. We tend to attribute it to the magic of our decent kirs. We hold our glasses up to the window to replenish our faith in the dusky skies. & the drunker we get, the more precisely we try to deny that it has anything to do with the kirs. But no! The rooftops actually did contain the essence, that shimmer of tranquility & summer forever & when you look out at them you feel like confessing deep secrets.
- Le Residue De Peur
In dark Irish pub Finnegan’s Wake, LE is as lovely as a shiny pocket-knife, as she is anywhere & everywhere. She saw the plastic bag in a ditch—you don’t even hear what she’s saying; you’re following her lips’ every quiver—& thinks the bag may contain a baby’s head as she effortlessly & aimlessly sculpts an ashtray out of a piece of aluminum foil at the bar. Its shape made us think of an aluminum foil hash bowl or a battleship & imagine either could float us across to somewhere else. Across a dark sea with a greasy residue of fear shimmering on it. After a tolling sip from my Leffe I say, “It’s just flashbacks, little souvenirs of NYC.” The secret of camaraderie, is a kind of propelling inward, of fish-hooked togetherness with long moments of silence as calm as a summer breeze through cypress & strings of words that leap from our mouths like the music of the fearless about overlapping drink joints, shared lines of poetry, comedy skits, car disasters & food nightmares.
- The Purpose du Bruit
On Chez Camille’s terrace you gaze past the summer roof of the Cochon Rose to all of Paris below. After the radio show, we discuss the politics of beats, the evolution of purposeful noise in sign language & Franglais with LD. MEB, Florida scribe-fugitive (bounced checks, suspended driver’s license, DWI, JD & bohemian misbehavior), has countless schemes involving noise over beer. MEB, stares, reflects, LD recites liner notes in broken English. MEB claims Sartre used to sip here. & Surrealist Max Jacob who prayed regularly in the Sacré Cœur, lived across the street, met Picasso, Gris & Apollinaire here & later died in a concentration camp. He quotes Jacob: “My black horse has a good eye, though albino, but he tripped on the harp notes” before he returns to his ragged film script featuring a golf tournament, CIA intrigue & purposeful noises he wants me & LD to supply.
- Mauvais Goût in Square Nadar
Summer breeze on the steps of the Sacré Cœur, killing time, hatching plots to defeat unremitting anonymity & the suspicion that we—of a past & a future but not the present—should’ve been born 15 years earlier. This leads to hard drinking of vin de pays & ferocious debates amongst the ex-pat, hanger-on, & passer-through clan. Annoyance is easily attained – if you are us – by the street musician diaspora, scuffling, trolling through touristic squares with their repertoires of shamelessly unimaginative covers of eviscerated classics, good songs you’ve heard played badly 1000 times too many to ever be able to enjoy again. Listen to their renditions of “Heart of Gold,”“Times They are-a Changin’,”“Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” or Billy Joel, Michael Bolton, Lionel Richie, Whitney Houston … As they pass the hat, competing with the Peruvians, Poles, Belgians, Spaniards, & Canadians, we offer to “Pay You To Stop Singing!” The American duo is taken aback. “Bad taste should not be rewarded!” But they continue to pass the hat among tourists not really listening but too tired to move away. “This song inspired us to become singers,” & they launch into “Piano Man.” BK instantly ripostes: “Then it should be banished worldwide!” An evangelical group sings “I’m a Believer” – as gospel! & as they tune their guitars to launch into “It’s a Small World After All” I yell at the top of my voice “Play ‘Too Drunk To Fuck,’ ‘Too Drunk To Fuck!’ Dead Kennedys WOO!!” Over & over until MEB leads me to a discreet bench in Square Nadar, a few meters off the fray.“Why does bad taste get under our skins?”“Because as an idealist you believe in a better world with a better jukebox.”
- La Poésie Contre la Vacuité Impressionant
I stand all alone in the Place St. Sulpice. I am on time & I am scheduled to read—I check twice—& so I read 3 poems to no 1 in particular, actually no 1, some Summer Parispeople passing through who think I might be an addict or a panhandler. Someone claps although that may have been cynical. I read my poems aloud, quite loud as only alcohol & the terror of loneliness justifies this kind of volume. I am part of the Nuits de la Poésie (Fête de la Musique) in June & it all seemed so well-organized & official & sanctioned & massive. & then I take my bow for the pigeons & gaze over at the Café de la Mairie, where a couple in their late 50s, dressed like they’re in a Doisneau set piece, have just finished their kirs & are now tongue-kissing like there is no tomorrow & we will see. & as I pass the café, stuffing my poems into my shoulder bag, they for a second look up & give me that polite golfer’s clap.
- Équitation is not in the Equation
When BB sees horses she sees her youth. That is why we’re here at the Société d’Équitation, the riding stables in the middle of the Bois de Bologne on a nice day in June. It is old & classic & feels like the 19th century. There are some children with black helmets riding ponies in a sand circle. Just on a lark she checks, but riding lessons are too expensive. “I have no time anyway—or money.” We pet the horses in La Grande Écurie. She lets one cheval kiss & lick her face. She believes she still has that special rapport with les chevaux but maybe other animals as well. She checks my face to make sure I am not scrunching it in disbelief.
bart plantenga is the author of novels Beer Mystic, Radio Activity Kills, & Ocean GroOve, short story collections Wiggling Wishbone, The Confusion Spandex, novella Spermatagonia: The Isle of Man & memoirs: Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor. He’s a founding member of NYC writer group, The Unbearables. His books YODEL-AY-EE- OOOO: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World & Yodel in HiFi & CD Rough Guide to Yodel have created a misunderstanding that he’s the world’s foremost yodel expert. He produces the Dig•Scape & iMMERSE! podcasts & as a DJ has produced Wreck This Mess in NYC, Paris & Amsterdam since forever. He’s a regular contributor to the International Times of London. He lives in Amsterdam. Gainsbourg Home Wall, photo: author, 2008; Anonymous photo: Coney Island with Nina, 1996.
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