Hi all,
Again a lot of new works this month: several books, many sites updates and a lot of art.
Literature
The Time of the Naguals
Le Carrefour des Impasses / The Crossroads of Dead Ends
This book is a document on French psychiatry during the eighties. The first version is on line at http://www.inter-zone.org/0Sommaire.html. Some chapters are available in English. For the definitive version to be published, I am scanning the issues of the magazine "Objectifs", realized by the group B23, an experiment conducted with the complicity of Burroughs and Brion Gysin.
To be published : Objectifs 4, Objectifs 5, Objectifs 6, Objectifs 7.
The evolution of psychiatry in France, in the framework of globalization and public private partnership, has led to the suppression of the psychiatric studies for nurses; the studies for psychiatrists have been shortened. Classical psychotherapy is not taught anymore nor practiced, and the activities which were organized before for the patients have been suppressed. The whole history of psychiatry, of the advances realized since WW2 with the opening of asylums, has been rubbed out.
As a result, the professionals in the area are retreated for the most, or have been sent off, replaced with non qualified workers, with lower salaries. This has led to a decrease of the quality of cares, too often limited to the prescription of psychotropic medicines, electric shock treatment, and to a criminalization of mental patients, a part of which is sent to prison.
The officials in charge of psychiatry are managers, completely ignorant as far as psychiatry itself is concerned, whose evaluations rest on financial criteria, without consideration for the patients and staff.
The aim of "The crossroads of Dead Ends" is to keep alive the memory of experiments conducted in the past, to show that the present psychiatry is not "normal", and that different cares are possible.
More on "Le Porte Lame" ("Blade Runner") by Burroughs
Reading "Le Porte Lame", the French translation of Blade Runner by William Burroughs, I realized that his description of American health system was rather similar to what can be observed nowadays in France. This makes a change for European readers in the meaning of his books, as he has described then what would become our future situation, which we could not foresee then.
Hence, we can reread the whole Burroughs' work through the light of the present, compare its contents
with the facts in 2011, to come to a better understanding of the mechanisms of the system we live in, as well as a new reading of his books.
Burroughs wrote about control systems before Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, whom he influenced : see Gilles Deleuze's article "Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle", published in L'Autre Journal in 1990.
Jérôme Pintoux: Interviews d'outre-tombe - Confessions des classiques du Lagarde et Michard
The author got surprised by his bad relations with Marguerite Yourcenar, whom he admires so much, and he got along well with Léon Bloy, though he detests his intolerance !
Literary game ? Necromancy ? No !!
The point is to find again the voice of disappeared writers and their style, "the inflection of the dear voices who fell silent", to paraphrase Verlaine. The aim is above all to help all those authors to be read, read again, to incite the reader to dive in their works like in forgotten or unrecognized oceans.
Discover the exclusive answers from : Homère, Montaigne, Flaubert, Lamartine but also Jimi Hendrix, Jean Genet and even Hergé…
A new book by Jean Azarel, "Marche Lente":
"Hi all,
Before "Waiting for Tania", first biographic and poetic romance on the actress Tina Aumont, you are welcome to discover "Marche Lente", imminent release at the editions Samizdat.
"Though it starts by a scene of torture (cruelly imposed to the eyes of a little girl), this book is an astonishing letter of love.
But contrary to the texts of this kind in which the lover invades every page with his confession, his passion and his cumbersome ego, he stays in the background.
You cannot find any "I" in Marche Lente, but a reserved, insistent "you", which, from the first to the last line, speaks to a woman (the child of the beginning ), emanates, - paragraph after paragraph - the subtle, contrasted, singular portrait of a living woman of this century."
(Denise MUTZENBERG)
Yours, revolt and serenity.
Jean Azarel
sometimeStudio : Notebook 1943 / Roberto Matta
SometimeStudio: coming out of the Notebook 1943 by Roberto Matta
Born on 11 11th, Roberto Matta would be 100 y o on November 2011.
Presentation on November 18th, 5 pm.
For the occasion, several animations realized by Srédérique Fantune
from some drawings of the notebook
at SometimeStudio, 26 rue Saint Claude 75003 Paris
Matta gave this notebook to his son Ramuntcho, for his 40th birthday, some months before he found himself paralyzed due to a very rare syndrome. This precious manuscript accompanied Ramuntcho in his remission and is now shared, in memory of his father, to celebrate his centenary.
sometimeStudio 26 rue Saint-Claude. 75003 PARIS +33 (0) 9 51 07 13 74
Ouvert du Mardi au Samedi de 14h à 19h et sur rendez-vous
Sites
Updates of Interzone sites:
La sémantique générale pour tous:
"Where do dreams come from? From the subconscious mind, trying to work through the day’s experiences and emotions? From spirits, angels or demons walking among us, attempting to communicate? From humanity’s collective unconscious, yielding ancient symbols and archetypes in new guises? Or from something much more natural, simple and straight forward – like a giant Space Goose, effusing streams of sensory shadow play into our nocturnal minds?"
Nicholas Knutsen