Jpfrancophone's Weblog

Eyes Scrutinize

jpfrancophone — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:33:39 +0000

People are going to look at you.
People in the city see you and
Judge you immediately (not
necessarily to be mean, but as a natural thing in the brain)
What are you wearing? Carrying?
What are you expressing
On your forehead, in the corners of your mouth?
Let the people look at you; as if
Your permission is a gift,
Allowing others to look at you
Look at you look at you look at you look
LOOK look look look at you look at
have a goooood looooong look at you.

New Year… Additives and Continuance

jpfrancophone — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:09:08 +0000

Hello, it has been a while since sharing a casual update, so here I have posted some recent news.

I recently got back to NYC after an annual trip to Billings – we ate and drank too much, but we spent a week in joy as a family and old friends. On Christmas day my two parents, older brother and I got out of the car in sunshine, and walked along the western edges of the Rims – big sandstone cliffs that once served as an ancient shore. “Aren’t we a funny bunch,” my brother remarked as we walked in a line down the trail; I lead wearing a giant fur coat. We walked to a clearing on the cliffs but we stopped along the way so I could film the coat hanging and blowing around in dead trees. This footage I will save for later. Thank you family for the walk and good patience.

Coming back to the city I always have a boost of adrenaline, and I take some time to adjust to the lifestyle (hustle, bustle, and cultural pastiche); I arrive thankful for my home and the people who share the same space. I recognize a few traditions, or patterns, emerging with these folks, as we count the years. And finally, it is winter – I like to greet the chilliness outside. (That’s not meant to be a hidden comment about another chill…:) :-P)

Yesterday I auditioned for the Trisha Brown Dance Company. It was fun – I admire her repertory..big time. I made it thought the first three cuts, and then was diced. No biggie! I look forward to delving deeply into her work, sooner or later, as I develop my own style, and my friends’…and still remain a Merce devotée.

That’s right! The final performances of the (now retired) Merce Cunningham Dance Company were a GIFT! Watching them I felt like we had gone to another planet. Congratulations to all of the dancers for their devotion, until the end. Now what? Haha, keep moving.

I miss my friends on the west coast; I’m glad I got to catch a few moments with peeps in Billings; and then I’m lucky to have great companions in my life here that care for me, and are from so many schools of thought. It’s a shame that I have to sleep – otherwise I would constantly stay awake and DO stuff!

Speaking of – I created a separate blog for my poetry. Hm..I am really unsure of how to organize all this online stuff (poems, videos, stories, photos, etc.) – but this is an attempt to try and move poetry to another site, and to eventually fade out jpfrancophone…to save, of course, for when I’m back in a French-speaking nation! Trouble is, people (me too) get so used to these addresses, and changing them is hard. That’s probably how I have acquired three email addresses. Wait…four. OK. But let’s try. If you are curious, feel free to visit jpoeme.wordpress.com where it’s not the loveliest format but I will try to post many a poeme in the near future. Poeme, translating “poem” from French. Hopefully that’s not too mysterious. Can’t escape the francais!

Take care and thanks for reading! Here’s to good communication in 2012.

Could be the Day

jpfrancophone — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:38:04 +0000

Yesterday was warm.
Today is more cold.
I picked up an eyeball
From the sidewalk.
The kind whose pupils wiggle
When it gets jiggled.
And put it in my pocket
For an hour or maybe a year.

Smiling boys on bikes;
Why? Because they love each other.
Yellow cab, yellow buses.
Sketch the esophagus,
Stomach, gut.
How long could an ice cream cone
Survive in my hand
If I outstretch my arm
Over a desert?

Today is warm;
Tomorrow, less so.
An entire tree, carved and kicked
Picked up from the sidewalk
And slid into my pocket
For a moment, or even my life.

Dog receives a throat stroking
By a man who cares for him.
Orange gourd, orange glow.
Tongue, teeth.
Contour of mouth.
How long would a cup of tea
Perched on a mountain top
Scalding, too terse for fingertips,
Stay hot?

Do it; do it all.
Don’t waste a bitty piece.
Track everything.
This day is absolute.

Detroit

jpfrancophone — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 03:23:39 +0000

Sunrise, still sleeping
Bleak
Picture of mourning,
Obscure
Fog brewing
Calamitous cave.

Morning
Shovel and go.
Dirt, level. Wheelbarrow.
Baggage collection:
Bills, the bad, sadness
Sculpt in the sun. Movement.

Afternoon
Chicken picnic
Confessions, bird death
Small naps happen
In the shade
Crawl into the hole
Flashlights
Ruins, once exquisite
Obliterated
Crusty grand piano
Snap a picture
For the album
Of pleasure.

Truth?
Driving, toward the unknown
Walk until home
Swipe away the pain
Downpour, rain
On white clothing
Together, not alone.

Evening
Relief, joy.
Group gladness
Rise up from the throat
To the ashes, undulate
Collapse, waxing moon

Night, darkness
Candle-lit catharsis
The monstrosity
Dust, unforgotten
Fears.
Dive light fires light dive.
The building. The van.
Beams of light relay
Messages, music
Mosquito bites
Pride
Useless, idle
The way you want it.

Ode to these things Poem

jpfrancophone — Thu, 12 May 2011 23:14:18 +0000

I think about Sondra, who has broken bones.
I think about Egypt; they’re aiming their stones.
I think ’bout the approach, and the need for alone. I think about family, and growing, and homes.
I think about hearts: electricity they hold. I think about language, synonymous with gold.

It’s Cinco de Mayo and….

jpfrancophone — Fri, 06 May 2011 04:27:43 +0000

I may have had a mango margarita yesterday in celebration of LB’s birthday but today was just another day. Except two things.

Number 1. I just came out of a meeting of a special sort. The space that I mentioned in an earlier post–a studio up in Ridgewood, a small bike ride from my house– has come to us, it being May, and we all very informally sat down on the wood floor boards with our scratch pieces of paper and mugs of tea to discuss the near and far future of the studio we are renting. I realized during the meeting that I may be risking more than I thought on an octagonal space under the M train but I also felt a simple sense of belonging in the small group, and a closeness that might grow. Best of all, a room of one’s own.

Number two. We heard a thud in class today and I remember cracking a smile as my head turned toward the direction of the noise, thinking it was a piece of scrap material that had rolled off the heater, but I saw a person who had fainted against the wall. Her face is normally a light shade of black but at this time it was pitch. Her eyes were open but she had left us for a moment. And we took care of her and the ambulance came and she was very apologetic, but we will never forget.

Spring News

jpfrancophone — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:40:32 +0000

Hello Everyone, I realized it’s been a while since I’ve shared a general update…so without toooo much emphasis on eloquence here is a brief synopsis of the spring as we come upon the one-year anniversary of living in New York.

Still making daily trips to the West Village where I put on colorful tight clothing and learn the dance technique of Merce Cunningham; my growth here has been abundant, however the demands of the work (strength, coordination, balance, athleticism…) take most folks several years to mature in; and I am afraid I/we are running out of time; the studio looks like it will close around this time next year due to lack of money–and mutual consensus by the Trustees to use the Trust funds (Merce died two summers ago) to keep the studio up and running…it’s an uncertain future and it’s unfortunate that our international students, whom I’m in contact with daily, will be sent home in the coming months with invalid visas. How will this affect me? I will hopefully lap up every dollop of movement and philosophy before, I believe, consecrating my work to happen mainly in Brooklyn, and to the present issues surrounding dance and performance (although hopefully not abandoning reverence for the past).

A place where I’ve been rehearsing in Bushwick with some other WWU grads–called the Barn–was about to go belly-up when my fellow choreographer Lindsey Drury organized an agreement to keep the studio available to willing and able artists who might like to see it grow; I have decided to go in on a piece of this and in trade for my share of monthly rent I will receive very inexpensive rehearsal space not too far from my house. There’s a lot of work to put in but the space has a bright spirit, and nice light in the daytime.

I still live with a collection of folks from all over the US and the world and one of my favorite things is when we project a movie on our walls, or when we find ourselves cooking a meal together, as in this afternoon (coconut shrimp and rice). Keeps the lonely ghosts at bay. Keeps me laughing and keeps me thinkin.

I still work mornings at the cafe near my house and when it’s slow I read from Zora Neale Hurston’s “Moses, Man of the Mountain”. (I finished Malcolom X, although I still wish to discuss about it.) I prefer having customers, especially the ones that speak Wolof, and and love love love their coffee always in a particular way.

Sign Language! Still chiseling away at it…although not my premier devotion, I long for it, and dive fully in once a week.

I thought of piercing my nose in two places (woah!) but tabled the idea when I found out my friend Laura wants the same exact thing! Shoot and I thought I made that one up.

Lastly, the trees are in tremendous bloom.
Looking forward to the rest….

page 11, “The Prophet”

jpfrancophone — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:23:38 +0000

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

With all my closest friends from life before New York either married or about to be, and me running completely amok, this passage speaks momentously to life and to our respective courses with love, and need, and dreams. My best friends are taking giant leaps of faith. They are courageous roll models as they fasten their sacred knots; I commemorate their commitment to each other, to community and matrimony. Bravo! I don’t think I’ll love another person again for a long time; at least not romantically; maybe there was some kind of dark magic done on my heart or perhaps my love for now goes out to art with whom I’d like to tangle up and trip around his green and weed-like vines.

“Relax, Mom, it’s just Art”, and, “Who are the Beatles?”

jpfrancophone — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:32:18 +0000

One regular customer with whom I usually end up dancing or laughing around the restaurant comes in and tells me about her young daughter, cool and collected, who has taken an interest in art. Her mother, my customer, takes her to the MET where they inevitably come into a nude portrait exhibit. Mother blushes, daughter assures her, “Relax, mom, it’s just art.” The young girl sits and draws what she sees, wan at first, and then better and better.

I am in my kitchen making a meal and listening to NPR (happening often now) and the guest on the show is an x-ballet dancer. Danced with Balanchine. I tuned in and out of the stories he shared but one that stuck in my mind was of a prima ballerina who was interviewed soon after she hit stardom; the question was in regards to the new pop music sensation the Beatles and they way she responded exposed how deep was the focus of her work: “Who are the Beatles?”

Peace and Weather Poem

jpfrancophone — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 14:49:06 +0000

I am really hung up on this poem…I have four different versions going, at least; lots of thoughts here processing. The weather is a big deal here and we talk about it all the time; it is what we all share in this city. Since I began this poem most of the snow has melted, we’ve had bees buzzing, lightning, thunder, and pouring rain. Sun and mighty winds (like this morning)…and most things in between. Last night I went babysitting and on the subway ride there, I hit a small low in my heart: reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, I am in the chapter where, imprisoned, he is introduced by his brothers and sisters to Islam and to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, that all white people are Satan. Wow. (Reading on.) I approached my babysitting gig with a heavy heart. Not but ten minutes at the table, though, Emma let me see her kindergarten portfolio she had brought home for her dad, and with permission I got to see her latest tableau: a Crayola-marker-on-construction paper drawing of different colored people (pink, blue, yellow) that said “Peace comes from Differences”. I was overjoyed.

Pouring rain, Brooklyn
Your streets still burdened by snow
Encase cigarettes, no longer glowing,
Plastic wrappers, foil, chewed gum,
Like scar-tissue, that Styrofoam
Dead lighters and leftovers,
Dirty diapers, wet dog doo-doo
No time for duty, no rue
Time only for do-ups, for juice
Our paths, or paths
We hustle, our paths
Need bread, need energy
Lose breath, lose synergy
Not completely, but consistently
Weren’t we a country? Won’t we be?

I hope to add more later, thanks for reading as I process. One thing is certain, more and more every day, is that I must dance.