Jean-Paul Bavard
An appreciation for an early reader — associating a face to a name — hoping there will be time for the grain of the voice beyond the page
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Jean-Paul-Bavard-1437022473044768/posts/?ref=page_internal
Back in 1999
Jean-Paul Bavard mentioned and quoted my work in an essay that originally appeared in The Journal of French Semiotic Theory, Issue II, Vol. 4, 1999 (All Rights Reserved — here copying a portion for review purposes).
[translated by Daniel Davis with a charming illustration by Ans [not Ana] of a bot-like multimedia figure for Mindspawn – “a testament to courageous electronic creation” — you may be able to see the old image by accessing the older lollipop url below; a new image (cleaner and showing the author and proving through human face recognition wetware that I have found my man).]
The Future of Criticism – “Reviews” by Jean-Paul Bavard – Fiction
The man has aged before my eyes (even if I wasn’t always looking).
A smiling face — that gazed upon my work – so many years ago — I smile back
The young man looks out at me and I love the attitude — metta — lovingkindness: Right Back at You!
There can be no denying that Art, in order to succeed, must do what the audience desires and expects it to. It must reenforce the opinions of the audience, mais non? Or it will be misunderstood, or even worse, ignored. There is no one who has the time in these massively busy days of ours to labor through level after level of what is known as content. There exists simply too much to be experienced, to be consumed. As Rousseau commanded us “simplify, simplify.” These times demand Art, and especially music, that simplifies tout le mode — everything. One not only can judge a book by its cover, that is in fact the only way to judge a book. Similarly, on my inescapably tell at once from the cover of Disque Compacte whether or not one will like the music contains within. In his Genius treatise Emulations, the great Francois Lachance wrote “with an apparatus, reduplication is creative. Without one, reduplication remains mysterious and unaccountable. Passages from one meta-language to another remain inexplicable.” I now declare that the Apparatus is in place. Reduplication is the only form of artistic expression that remains valid, ergo, we are all Living’ La Vida Loca.
[I used a magnifying glass to slow down my reading of the fine print in my print out from a webpage – printout dated 01/08/00. It has taken me years to truly savour this gift. Initially I was ego-stuck on the Genius and the Great. But now I see that my little contribution to a world of ongoing thinking about info flows and distributed living was but one piece in a massive tessera assembly.]
It is taken me years to unpack this generous and highly allusive paragraph in a highly allusive article (“Hooray for Everything!) http://www.lollipop.com/issue49-10-04.php3
Makes me want to track down Rousseau in context and compare with Thoreau in context: simplify.
Thank you Jean-Paul Bavard.
Ironically when searching for Jean Paul Bavard (who I believe is the artist on Facebook) I came across a picture of a Jean-Paul Riopelle painting “Chante mon oiseau si bavard” (“Sing my burbling bird”). I hope this little praise song reaches Jean-Paul Bavard. Closing the metadata loop after all these years and staring out at your smiling face. [Note Jean-Paul is not Jean Paul]. Such attention to detail! The hyphen is not yet nuanced by search engines … there is precisely much work to do to produce the World of Art that Jean Paul Bavard and myself and others envisioned so many years ago and would like to see emerge in out lifetimes. Tout de suite
https://www.linternaute.fr/dictionnaire/fr/definition/tout-de-suite/
“Le bonheur de demain n’existe pas. Le bonheur, c’est tout de suite ou jamais. Ce n’est pas organiser, enrichir, dorer, capitonner la vie, mais savoir la goûter à tout instant.” (René Barjavel)
And so for day 2760
03.7.2014