02-03-2026

Same year, already a different month. Gwylène and I are in Montmahoux, in Eastern France, close to the Swiss border, where Delphine lives. Very peaceful country side village, close to mountain lakes which are not freezing right now! Meaning that the whole EVANESCENCE project is on hold. On hold also because they are finding out that in order to use a drone nowadays, you must have a way to obtain license, only good for a short time and different from place to place! In fact, nowadays, drones are treated as tool of war, potentially lethal. Yet an other area of possible public activities falling under the surveillance of the state.

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This afternoon, when it was 4pm in Montmahoux, it was 10am in Charleston. I participated in the TINYisPOWERFUL weekly Zoom. Nice to see the group at work but a bit annoying to hear Rayn speak of beginning and end of a show which will neither be a show nor be articulated as a time-limited activity. I had to resort to one of my abrupt sentences like … We won’t change the world on a schedule, or something like that. Art is a life experience. It is life as an experience. If we want people to understand that it is not a leisurely activity, an accessory, we must break with the normative mind set. Also, if we invite other artists to present their work, it only means that TINYisPOWERFUL is open to others with the understanding that we do not “show” art works. We propose willing creators to go through the Liz Lerman Critical Exchange process, which provides a safe space for reciprocal dialogues and no judgement at the end. Only more understanding has been generated about art as a ubiquitous tool for knowledge.

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After listening to a program on Glenn Gould … the vocabulary used in the music field. Like the word ‘interpretation’.

The Tale, before it became a representation, had been a strenuous process of  interpreting  the complexities of my life experiences. And the closer the ensuing representations convey such complexities, the richer the conceptual dialogue between artist and public. Indeed, my constant fascination with the visual arts as a tool of reciprocal knowledge comes when I observe that the visually barer the representations, the closer they seem to convey the complexities at hand, “Complexity” altogether.

This is the philosophical leap which all artists face when it is time to represent

their complexities. This is where aesthetics hit the ground. It has to do with essence. What a word! It cannot be avoided though, if we believe that art and the spirit of the arts are (more than ever) indispensable dialogic tools of culture, meaning of identity, belonging, autonomy, accountability.

02-04-2026

And, this morning, in this cold room with a view, in Delphine’s house, I intake a conversation between Edwy Pleynel and Patrick  Boucheron, around his latest book revisiting the Black Plague of the 13 hundreds, which killed around 60% of the populations of France and Europe. From this most dreadful period, says Boucheron, we are capable of extracting treasures of wisdom which he projects on today’s dark history, remarking also how much it looks like a revival of the brown plague of the mid 20th century.

An other boo I will not buy! It’s a monster! Would not fit in my suitcase!

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In the meantime, I am building an appetite for researching which is the best biography of Walter Benjamin. As a philosopher, if I understand it correctly, he attempted not to come up with long, arduous books on narrow topics but picked up from his daily experiences to generate understanding, meaning and knowledge. A good biography would also give me an opening into the School of Frankfurt. Never too late, right. One piece of writing wetted my appetite for it: a footnote in the introduction, by Adorno, of his essay on New Music. (He was originally a musician himself).

Maybe a good biography of the School of Frankfort altogether would be just as interesting.

In the meantime, I am leaving my desk to pick up Emily Hache’s book about nature, ecology and feminism!

Hache caught my attention about a year ago. I even took a picture of the cover of her book “On Generation” and entered it in this journal (a first), because it clearly was a study pointing to ecofeminism. This was on 04-10-2024. Now, I have the book, I started reading it last night and it kept me up for 2 extra hours in the middle of the night!

This is going to be at the expense of Benjamin, Adorno and the whole School of Frankfurt! From what I already gather, it promises to be a huge help in my putting together an introduction to the Tale. The way it convokes history, addresses events backwards in time and explains that it is the skipping/erasing of one which explains the misunderstandings or total ignorance of a preceding one, is blowing my mind. She is a philosopher who had to convert into an anthropologist and she quotes David Graeber exactly in the way I understood his work, the little I know of it, that is.

02-10-2026

“Ils s’aiment entre eux de haïr l’autre”

Their tribal love comes from hating others

They love each other for hating others

I found this sentence two days ago and don’t remember where. Sorry, it is a good one.

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Went to see Yves Gaudin in Poissy the other day. And his girlfriend. A very genuine person who teaches handicapped children I think. We had good conversations and I was gratified, besides a very nice lunch at their flat, with a remark she made when I left: “I like that you push us to think. There are too few people who do this”. I had fulfilled my purpose then! To support the work of Yves and to support her supporting him! It is tough enough to be a poet. But one who refuses demagoguery and cheap gigs when working with young students, this is a worthy performance.

Yet, something else was waiting for me in Poissy!

Yves lives a few blocks from le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy!

What a treat! I could not believe it. Ever more happy to see that it is well taken care of. Beautifully taken care of actually … The sky was grey with enough tame light to fully appreciate the landscape of transparencies that this architecture is. Much more than a play of light and shadows. Deep perspectives through the whole building, punctuated with architectural details of round columns (vertical lines), colored doors (vertical surfaces), built-in shelving or table surfaces (horizontal surfaces). Very much like minimal trompe-l’oeil  paintings in grey, red, blue and light umber. And how about the use of buffed aluminum-clad sliding cabinet doors (vertical and horizontal). As for the sight from the park: a very stable construction on thin circular piles, whose elongated openings and roof top volumes, of course, evoke the transatlantic ships of the time.

—–

I have to leave for Germany now! To visit my sister.

02-11-2026

Deep dive into Emilie Hache!

Too bad all books basing even parts of their argument on the endless scholarship of Greek mythology and history of their author always end up explaining that, no, this is just one interpretation of one myth which, anyway, comes in many different versions with very different interpretations! Too bad because it gets me defeated. But, Hache’s efforts to reach to the earliest traces of a dissociation between men and women, based on the same complex mythologies … succeeds. She concludes that, whatever the Olympian gods efforts to “control the narrative”, there is no denying that men and women both belong together on Gaïa (Earth), along with every other living beings – animals, vegetables, minerals and life sustaining elements.

Then she goes on, beyond antiquity. That is where I am now and where I hope the book will stay! Of course there is no criticism here. The human recording of Complexity started with antiquity.

02-15-2026

Today, I confronted a -5 Celsius stormy weather to visit an architecture exhibition put together by the Pavillon de l’Arsenal. It was taking place in a run down 18 century institutional building surrounded by an overgrown park, as the Arsenal original base is being renovated. Interestingly enough, why did the Arsenal choose such a dilapidated site to elaborate on the “Parties Communes” of apartment buildings in Paris since Haussmannien times? “Common Areas” in apartment buildings, that is. As if said common areas did not specially need good care, precisely because they are common and deserve the respect due to “others”, whoever they are. Or else, how do you promote the civic spirit of Parisians to share space if you don’t offer them “commons” worthy of their care? Furthermore, the study reflects on the growing importance of such spaces being designed by their users, in a world in urgent need of a growing sense of empathy.

But the show presentation was modest yet very thorough and extensive, outmatching the frugality of the place. And, despite the stormy weather, the attendance was impressive … but no seating! I counted five aluminum armchairs, two of them permanently occupied by the Arsenal representative and the fireman on duty, (there is no fire exit to the place. This would explain his presence). The catalogue is very thorough but too heavy to take back to the US!

Too bad, it could have helped me improve on the axonometric drawing of my proposal for public housing in “a Tale of Charleston/for reparations”. In fact, the whole purpose of my visit to the Arsenal annex was to reinforce and refresh my thinking on Commons. I believe it worked.

Now, to some more editing of 2019 entries! I am learning to make severe cuts where there is no direct relevance or too much meandering. Besides, some facts may be so badly reported and my memory of them so vague that … it has to go!

02-16-2026

At this very moment, I am editing the 07-10-2018 entry of my conNECKtedTOO diary. It covers a conversation I am having with Shaniqua about Sarah Turquety’s amazingly poetic site.

A chime invites me to check the phone for an incoming text message.

Believe it or not, it is Sarah Turquety herself. A month ago, her father died unexpectedly. We were not going to meet either in Paris or in St Antonin-Nobleval, as we had hoped to. This morning, I asked her how she was faring.  Her answer:

“My dear Jean-Marie, our house has been traversed, Wednesday, in the thick of night, by a river of water and mud. Everything is rather devastated on the ground floor. I am into sorting, cleaning and the insurance expert just went by. The flooring just broke up. This tells you that l won’t come to Paris. It would have been so nice. I keep my finger crossed for June in    Charleston. Big hug to you and Gwylène.”

02-18-2026

In a long, long dream, last night, I wrote yet a new introduction to “a Tale of Charleston/for Reparations”. I thought I had come up with an acceptable version. Now it is gone. Vaguely, I remember there was some sort of a ritualistic undressing, a shedding of personal belongings, a temporary give away of material privileges like the house to Rayn, the car to Marcus. Then, my full trust to Victoria for her talent as a communicator, to Pam as TINYisPOWERFUL’s rock of integrity and Arianne for her patient energy. Then there are Abriel and Kela. I let them have a key to the studio; the symbolic gift of what I know in my narrow field of wood working, art and design, of course in an in/with community context.

From thoughts that had crossed my mind many times before but had not made a lot of sense yet, I understood that this night-long dream was the latest metaphor for my final passage from assertive male to convinced ecofeminist!

Of course, the reading of Emilie Hache on the civilizational passage from creativism to (re)generation has a lot to do with this. The way it has come after my work on Simone Weil and André Gorz traces a wonderful itinerary from male intentionality to existentiality (how one takes one’s responsibilities when facing the hard facts of the here and now). That present state of mind and soul(?) makes me a much more attentive person.

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Yesterday, Guillaine (not Gwylène) was in town. We went to see two shows:

First, Otobong Nkanga, Nigerian artist whose work, to me, is often the declination of images she creates when working in/with communities. For example, the first piece one sees concerns the creation of objects made of chocolate blocks produced by a fair trade chocolate company, which asked her to collaborate with them for what I suppose to be a promotional campaign. In an other case, she visualizes the storyline of a project by laying down a thick rope which connects different eclectic objects, revealing the geography of her mind. Altogether impressive, yet each individual object, and the rope itself, are basic.

Now, what was most arresting is this series of very large fabric hangings which, alone, would deserve a separate presentation. Nkanga also draws from her cultural practices to create performative rituals shown of film or video.

Second, Martin Parr! This Brit, I don’t know why he is so popular. Many knowledgable artsy people say they never saw such an attendance! The lines are constant outside, rain or shine. Inside, it takes uniformed fire department personal to direct lines within the lines in order to keep the thick crowd flowing. I actually got worried and looked for possible secondary exits. There is a large one in the back of the Jeu de Paume gallery. But none in the front room of the gallery, creating a dangerous cul-de-sac. That is why there was a pompier strategically at work there. I wished him luck when I left!

Martin Parr. May it be the way he depicts his compatriots with little compassion,

lots of sarcasm but without a trace of haughtiness … and the way – the opposite way – French people interpret his photographs? They eat it up, often with a smile on their face! They are vindicated! Brits don’t dress well, even on Sunday, and at parties, or at work, or anywhere. Brits undress in droves, elbow to elbow, bikini to bikini, on the imported sand of an indoor beach-like decor. What the French don’t see, though, is that, when they flock up in this narrow gallery, they too are in Parr’s pictures, black & white or color! He offers them a powerful mirror of their own tolerance for, in this case, mass culture, art as entertainment. That is why I was constantly smiling, along with many other Parisians who knew they were trapped like sheep filing to be fleeced.

Matin Parr died two months ago. His work has been everywhere in magazines and, l suppose, on the telly. He is doing more for art than la Joconde!  And he was a journalist! But a journalist with a digital camera which permitted shooting all day at little cost. This kind of work was not possible 20 years ago. Film was

expensive and so was processing. Parr has liberated the medium for ever. But no technology, no AI scheme will replace his eye-mind coordination, that much I know. Behind the apparently direct simplicity of his shots, there is so much humor, observation, untold, complicity … and knowledge of his medium … that, really, although his purpose is “the people”, his sophistication will, in the future, be a great tool for more knowledge of human behavior. Yes, Art is a tool for knowledge.

02-22-2026

Gwylène is back for our last stretch in Paris before we return. She wanted to go to the Martin Parr show but all available tickets had sold for this Sunday! The thick crowds of visitors will, one more time, confirm the artist’s point: in this consumer society, the mainstreaming of popular activities, although it may apparently contradict modern theories of social atomization, confirms that conformity rules over individual critical sense. We humans very much belong in herds … where Parr picks up an individual trait in each of his unknowing models.