parisiana

L’EXTASE

il dit
ne te plains pas du monde où tu tombes debout

ne te plains pas, toro mata il y a eu

des carnavals sur les hauteurs avec les diables
et leurs flammes et leurs danses, et leurs costumes de mille couleurs

les voix du cosmos au bord de la mer
quand tu riais herbe haute

aie confiance en toi, en toi, en toi et les autres
aussi dans la joie

soudaine

elle peut t’offrir

l’infini

l’espoir

ÉXTASIS

él dice 
no te quejes del mundo donde caíste de pie

no te quejes, hubo toro mata

carnavales en las alturas, diablos
danzas y flamas, sus atuendos de mil colores

al borde del mar las voces del cosmos
y cuando reías altas hierbas

él dice 
ten confianza en ti, en ti, en ti y en los otros
también en la alegría

súbita

puede ofrecerte

el infinito

la esperanza

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes ¡Yo no sé!
Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos,
la resaca de todo lo sufrido
se empozara en el alma ¡Yo no sé!
Son pocos; pero son Abren zanjas oscuras
en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte.
Serán talvez los potros de bárbaros atilas;
o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte.
Son las caídas hondas de los Cristos del alma,
Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones
de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema
Y el hombre ¡Pobre pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como
cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada;
vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido
se empoza, como charco de culpa, en la mirada.
Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes ¡Yo no sé!

“Women are either goddesses or doormats.” This neat maxim was attributed to Pablo Picasso by his erstwhile lover, Françoise Gilot, in her kiss-and-tell memoir of life with the famous painter. That was back in the mid-20th century when the myth of the male genius was at its height and great artists were assumed to be equally skilled in the ars amandi. Unsurpassable whether wielding a paintbrush at the canvas or a penis on the chaise longue during afternoon sessions with female models in the intimacy of their studio. Surrounded by portraits of other ladies in various artistic phases and poses. This was the very ambience that could lead a connoisseur of female flesh like Picasso to pronounce on women’s status as goddesses or doormats.

The reality, of course, has long since been deconstructed like those shifting perspectives in Cubist paintings. By now we know that apparent opposites are only different ends of a continuous spectrum, especially when it comes to sex and related emotional minefields. Women are both divine and abject. Simultaneously, in some cases. We are capable of rising above men and kneeling at their feet at one and the same moment.  

Puki and Mailo were pedigreed fox terriers bought by a childless professional middle class couple in their early 30s who had rented the burgundy and white painted 2 bedroom house behind a former farm in the outskirts of a quiet country town. It lay up the hill surrounded by eucalyptus and pine trees, a few pimientos, a boldo, and lots of spine bushes (espinos) and emperos or butterfly bushes. It was isolated from humans, had lots of  space and green grass, and further up the hill grazed horses and cows. They had the intention of breeding fox terriers and making lots of money, since each dog was valued at over a 1000 dollars.

Puki and Mailo had their home built in the back of the house, uphill, close but not too close to the house. Their dog home had a wooden gated door, 4 feet tall pressed wood paneled walls and a rusty corrugated roof to protect against hail and rain. Wooden planks a couple of inches above the ground raised the floor covered with woolen blankets and colorful dog cushions. It meant to stimulate their pheromones, and in a human projection would create an ambience in which to copulate and reproduce. Only the red Chinese lanterns and sandalwood incense were missing.

I was initially intending to write an extensive introduction for this. Beginning with my musings on the occurrence that made me aware of how terribly wrong, how utterly useless and immoral, I felt capital punishment to be. (It was 1953, I'd recently turned 13, and the papers were headline screaming the news that the US Government had executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage, courtesy of the electric chair in New York's Sing Sing prison. The following year I read the first of Caryl Chessman's four books, Cell 2455, Death Row, and my repulsion for the death penalty grew in strength. By the time the state of California legally murdered Chessman in 1960, my views had crystallized. All I additionally needed was to thoroughly educate myself on the matter. Which I set about doing with an open mind. What I subsequently learned absolutely reinforced my feelings.) I then thought to continue by describing in vivid detail the public execution—by a 5-man naval firing squad—that I witnessed in the south of Thailand in late 1971. (It's not a pretty sight.

He left as he came into my life - a rumor.

Few will dispute the fact that he was a genius. To some he was known as the Casanova of Ibiza. He liked to think of himself as the Michaelangelo of the Baleares.

Ibiza had been his home since the early 1960s, when he began working in films. He cast convincingly as the Bedouin freedom fighter Ahmed in "The Lost Command" (1966), Mexican captain Herrera in "Villa Rides" (1968), or captain Ahab of Nantucket on the seven seas.

He had star quality, much like Anthony Quinn, and exploited his good looks grooming his beard every morning before an original ink drawing by Picasso hung next to his mirror. Picasso's graceful lines were his music. Since coming to Spain he had incorporated the qualities of his surroundings, its sensuous lines, nuanced warm colors, all absorbed in his unique, visionary paintings.

"They are a vision in the mirror".

This rumor preceded his stepping into my life. It came from the Mexican Illuminati Berta Dominguez and her brother "Poncho", both great painters and great drunkards. We had a great time, all of us, and it seemed at times, as though Tequila floated through the air.

Guns, Alain Claret's main character Eden realizes, had replaced books. Von Clausewitz claimed that “War is the continuation of politics by other means”; means dissected in EDEN, a cutting-edge thriller about todays globalised neoliberal economic practices.

The corrupt Mexican Senator Perez Estrada sends his daughter Juana to Paris, to trace money belonging to the Sinaloa cartel. On the day of the dead, the cartel declare their war of “economic expansion” in Paris, leaving a bloody mayhem and the political system in disarray.

Alain Claret flourishes in Paris, knows its ins and outs, transforming real Paris into the stage of deadly entertainment.

EDEN is Alain Claret's 7th “roman” under the auspicious banner of Editions Robert Laffont, Paris. Unknown in English, his writing is closer to Bret Easton Ellis, to Jim Thompson or Raymond Chandler than his French counterparts. There are hints of Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes in EDEN. It is contemporary action-packed mystery writing at its best.