Dear John Letter. To my virus.

Dear John,

Even if we have probably been travelling and living together for more than 30 years I was only introduced to you lastly. To some extend I should apologize about my lack of attention and start with kind of ‘pleased to meet you’, but situation is not that simple.

I must admit that you kept discrete, silent and even secret all this time and I recognize here some high standard of education and personality. You are a Number1, silent and with strong mindset.

I utterly appreciated your reserve and modesty that enabled to keep the secret in me without invading anybody in family and relatives. You are so discreet that when you choose me, even the sharpest scientist could not see, neither detect your daily work with my liver.

You let me have a wonderful life where we could experiment sports, world’s finest cooking and fine wines together and without special limitation. Never sick, never down, everyday filled with energy and full of curiosity. Really, not the slimmest thought to you in thirty years.

Always quiet and invisible, your track was detected during a routine check-up. I am almost disappointed to see that a game as subtle as you got trapped by a ‘week-end’s hunter’. I imagined some more heroic hunting story.

Today we are not anymore strangers to each other. I know who you are, what you did, what you can do. Besides perverting the best part of my liver, your apparition messed-up my professional and social life. No place for projects and ambitions now, just hiding and taking care of you and me. ‘Taking care of us’ is so ambiguous: to some extents your presence ruins my life, I want to kill you! On the other hand your discovery brings me back to myself as never before, but is this is a good or a bad thing?

 You are now my master, standing in the driver’s seat. You take me to show another side of life: Hospital where you can meet anything and anyone, the pure dumbness or grace of life, and pain with death. Everywhere you showed me the presence of broken hearts; broken bodies floating all around us. I have not been far on this road yet; I just adapted my agenda and opened my eyes. During all previous travels I forgot visiting these countries and now I wonder if there is some place for me to settle here.  I respect you because you let me live and now you teach me ways to die. Sometime these days it is quite difficult to choose my way between following you and keep going with the usual train of my life. I make the wish that you will keep discreet and ‘easy-going’ during this second part of our road movie.

 I make the wish to drive you out as soon as possible. Bye NOW John,

Ozias

Dragon fighting

Pablo Neruda : Ode to the Liver

Feature: Ode to the Liver

by Pablo Neruda

Modest, organized friend, underground worker, let me give you the wing of my song, the thrust of the air, the soaring of my ode: it is born of your invisible machinery, it flies from your tireless confined mill, delicate powerful entrail, ever alive and dark.
While the heart resounds and attracts the music of the mandolin, there, inside, you filter and apportion, you separate and divide, you multiply and lubricate, you raise and gather the threads and the grams of life, the final distillate, the intimate essences.

Submerged viscus, measurer of the blood, you live full of hands and full of eyes, measuring and transferring in your hidden alchemical chamber.
Yellow is the matrix of your red hydraulic flow, diver of the most perilous depths of man, there forever hidden, everlasting in the factory, noiseless.

And every feeling or impulse grew in your machinery, received some drop of your tireless elaboration, to love you added fire or melancholy, let one tiny cell be in error or one fiber be worn in your labor and the pilot flies into the wrong sky, the tenor collapses in a wheeze, the astronomer loses a planet.
Up above, how the bewitching eyes of the rose and the lips of the matinal carnation sparkle! How the maiden in the river laughs!

And down below, the filter and the balance, the delicate chemistry of the liver, the storehouse of the subtle changes: no one sees or celebrates it, but, when it ages or its mortar wastes away, the eyes of the rose are gone, the teeth of the carnation wilted and the maiden silent in the river.
Austere portion or the whole of myself, grandfather of the heart, generator of energy: I sing to you and I fear you as though you were judge meter, implacable indicator, and if I can not surrender myself in shackles to austerity, if the surfeit of delicacies, or the hereditary wine of my country dared to disturb my health or the equilibrium of my poetry, from you, dark monarch, giver of syrups and of poisons, regulator of salts, from you I hope for justice: I love life: Do not betray me! Work on!

Do not arrest my song.

Pablo Neruda
Translation by Oriana Josseau Kalant, 1975

Copyright 2008 NALTSW

There is also a french translation of the ode to the liver  available with music.
For french listeners it's worth a visit !

Ode au Foie par l'or et la patate

Beside it,  link to a poem by Michele Leavitt, a poet who has hepatitis C. The poem is titled, Viral Sestina. A sestina is a 39-line poem consisting of six stanzas of six lines each. The words that end each line of the first stanza are used as line endings in each of the following stanzas.

Viral Sestina by Michele Leavitt published in Mezzo Cammin, Volume 6, Issue 2. One short example : 

The Chorus Confesses Its Mistakes

Mistakes? We simply don't make any.
That's the beauty of a collective vision.
It has been ever so: we strengthen
by insisting on homogeny.


And we protect our own.
No one is harmed but the white goat
we tied to a tree beyond the moat,
the one we all get to stone.

Poésie Jean-Genet. Prière

       LE CONDAMNE A MORT

Sur mon cou sans armure et sans haine, mon cou
Que ma main plus légère et grave qu’une veuve
Effleure sous mon col, sans que ton cœur s’émeuve,
Laisse tes dents poser leur sourire de loup.
Ô viens mon beau soleil, ô viens ma nuit d’Espagne,
Arrive dans mes yeux qui seront morts demain.
Arrive, ouvre ma porte, apporte-moi ta main,
Mène-moi loin d’ici battre notre campagne.
Le ciel peut s’éveiller, les étoiles fleurir,
Ni les fleurs soupirer, et des prés l’herbe noire
Accueillir la rosée où le matin va boire,
Le clocher peut sonner : moi seul je vais mourir.
Ô viens mon ciel de rose, ô ma corbeille blonde !
Visite dans sa nuit ton condamné à mort.
Arrache-toi la chair, tue, escalade, mords,
Mais viens ! Pose ta joue contre ma tête ronde.
Nous n’avions pas fini de nous parler d’amour.
Nous n’avions pas fini de fumer nos gitanes.
On peut se demander pourquoi les cours condamnent
Un assassin si beau qu’il fait pâlir le jour.
Amour viens sur ma bouche ! Amour ouvre tes portes !
Traverse les couloirs, descends, marche léger,
Vole dans l’escalier, plus souple qu’un berger,
Plus soutenu par l’air qu’un vol de feuilles mortes.
Ô Traverse les murs ; s’il le faut marche au bord
Des toits, des océans ; couvre-toi de lumière,
Use de la menace, use de la prière,
Mais viens, ô ma frégate, une heure avant ma mort.

                   JEAN GENET

Maurice Pilorge

« J'ai dédié ce poème à la mémoire de mon ami Maurice Pilorge, dont le corps et le visage radieux hantent mes nuits sans sommeil. En esprit je revis avec lui les quarante derniers jours qu'il passa, les chaînes aux pieds et parfois aux poignets, dans la cellule des condamnés à mort de la prison de Saint-Brieuc. Les journaux manquent d'à propos. Ils commirent d'imbéciles articles pour illustrer sa mort qui coïncidait avec l'entrée en fonction du bourreau Desfourneaux. Commentant l'attitude de Maurice devant la mort le journal l'Oeuvre dit 'que cet enfant eut été digne d'un autre destin'. Bref on le ravala. Pour moi, qui l'ai connu et qui l'ai aimé, je veux ici, le plus doucement possible, tendrement, affirmer qu'il fut digne, par la double et unique splendeur de son âme et de son corps, d'avoir le bénéfice d'une telle mort. Chaque matin, quand j'allais, grâce à la complicité d'un gardien ensorcelé, par sa beauté, sa jeunesse et son agonie d'Appollon, de ma cellule à la sienne pour lui porter quelques cigarettes, levé tôt il fredonnait et me saluait ainsi, en souriant: 'Salut Jeannot du matin!' Originaire du Puy-de-Dôme il avait un peu l'accent d'Auvergne. Les jurés, offensés par tant de grâce, stupides mais pourtant prestigieux dans leur rôle de Parques le condamnèrent à 20 ans de travaux forcés pour cambriolage de villas sur la côte, et le lendemain, parce qu'il avait tué son amant Escudero pour lui voler moins de mille francs, cette même cour d'assises condamnait mon ami Maurice Pilorge à avoir la tête tranchée. Il fut exécuté le 17 mars 1939 à Saint-Brieuc. »

 Le condamné à mort.  Babx chante Jean Genet.

Il y a aussi la très belle version des "Chevals Hongrois" qui reprend les autres poèmes du texte de Genet: ils ont tout compris !
https://leschevalshongrois.bandcamp.com/album/le-condamne-a-mort-jean-genet
https://leschevalshongrois.bandcamp.com/track/le-condamne-a-mort-part-3

A lire, aussi pour mieux se rendre compte, le récit de l'exécution de Hamida Djandoubi par Monique Mabelly, juge d'instruction . C'était le 9 septembre 1977 à Marseille.

http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/10/09/c-est-a-ce-moment-qu-il-commence-a-realiser-que-c-est-fini_3492565_3232.html

à voir également, le film de Genet 'un chant d'amour' qui reprend les thèmes de l'incarcération et de l'homosexualité du 'condamné à mort'.

Good to read some fun stuff and see humour survives Hep C.

I like this site for the truth and the kindness and humor in its small texts:

Please follow http://hepatitiscomics.blogspot.com/

http://hepatitiscomics.blogspot.fr/2013/06/ten-rules-for-hepatitis-c-treatment.html









Another VERY GOOD site, in french, is referenced below. I particularly appreciate the exchange of letters between the author and 'her virus'. It is witty and plenty of juicy words.

Please follow http://hepatite-c.over-blog.com/article-correspondance-avec-ma-virus-73957051.html

A word about HCV  by the famous Philippe Geluck

Another great testimony comes from Belgium. It is a HCV presentation (in french) by Nicolas Pirson.
Merci de suivre le lien suivant : http://www.chacasbl.be/htm/news_journee_temoins.html

Example of superfun video by Nicolas Pirson :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54q1ynuGLU0&feature=related

Picture from the book : Living With Hepatitis C For Dummies.

Nina L. Paul, PhD, Gina Pollichino

"Can we keep sense of humor at all times? Vincent Ravalec narrates the misadventures of a writer caught in the throes of the treatment of Hepatitis C. A disease that affects 700,000 people in France and millions around the world. Extraordinary vision and stripping of a theme not present in contemporary litterature."

                                                     

Some funny sites I like to visit when I want a good laugh :

Molvania

http://www.jetlagtravel.com/molvania/

The new production from "ZLAD", the famous molvanian pop singer. For this song,the eurovision jury kick off "zlad" from festival game...




And also for cinema lovers, this pastiche about East Europ realistic cinema. French audience, please visit and take the time to enjoy 'retour à Bakouva'.

Retour à Bakouva

http://vimeo.com/9595194

Again, for french readers exclusively a very nice and exiting little book called : Anagrammes renversantes. It is written by Etienne Klein and jacques Perry-Salkow and edited by Flammarion.

On y trouve de renversantes pépites telles que : 


"L'Origine du monde" / "Religion du démon" 
ou encore "Le marquis de Sade"/"Disséquer la dame"
ou encore "La vérité"/"Relative






Encore pour les francophones, un petit sketch des Deschiens. Effet sur moi garanti !

Les dictons du jour:
"Jambe cassée vaut mieux qu'hépatite C"; 
"Mieux vaut deux fois qu'une, mais plutôt un foie que deux"

Steve Jobs to the cloud

I like this picture of Steve Jobs skinny, sick and standing up alone  in his castle.

"Death is very likely the best invention of life"

We know he did it 5th October 2011 23:00 CET.

LES DERNIERS JOURS DE STEVE JOBS

"J'ai atteint le sommet du succès dans les affaires.

Aux yeux des autres, ma vie a été le symbole du succès.

Toutefois, en dehors du travail, j'ai eu peu de joie. Enfin, ma richesse n'est rien de plus qu'un fait dans lequel je me suis habitué.

En ce moment, allongé sur le lit d'hôpital et me rappelant toute ma vie, je me rends compte que tous les éloges et les richesses dont j'étais si fier, ont été transformé en quelque chose d'insignifiant devant la mort imminente.

Dans l'obscurité, quand je regarde les feux verts de l'équipement de la respiration artificielle et que j entend le bourdonnement de ses sons mécaniques, je peux sentir le souffle de la proximité de la mort qui m'attend.

C'est seulement maintenant que je comprends, une fois qu'on a accumule assez d'argent pour le reste de sa vie, que nous devons poursuivre d'autres objectifs qui ne sont pas liés à la richesse.

Ils doivent être quelque chose de plus important :

Par exemple, les histoires d'amour, l'art, les rêves de notre enfance...

Dieu nous a formé d'une manière que nous pouvons sentir l'amour dans le cœur de chacun de nous, et pas les illusions construites par la célébrité ou l'argent que j'ai gagné, je ne peux pas les emmener avec moi.

Je ne peux emporter avec moi que les souvenirs qui ont été renforcés par l'amour.

C'est la vraie richesse qui vous suivra ; qui vous accompagnera et vous donnera la force et la lumière pour aller de l'avant.

L'amour peut voyager a des milliers de kilomètres et c'est ainsi. la vie n'a pas de limites. Bouge-toi où tu voudras. Fais de ton mieux pour atteindre les objectifs que tu souhaite atteindre. Tout est dans ton cœur et dans tes mains.

Quel est le lit le plus cher du monde ? Le lit d'hôpital.

Vous, si vous avez de l'argent, vous pouvez engager quelqu'un pour conduire votre voiture, mais on ne peut pas embaucher quelqu'un pour prendre sa maladie .Les choses matérielles perdues peuvent se retrouver. Mais il y a une chose que vous ne pouvez jamais trouver quand on perd sa vie.

Quel que soit l'étape de la vie dans laquelle nous sommes en ce moment, au final, nous allons devoir affronter le jour ou le rideau tombera.

Faites un trésor de l'amour pour votre famille, de l'amour pour votre mari ou femme, de l'amour pour vos amis...

Que chacun agisse avec amour et occupez-vous de votre prochain."

"In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success.
However, apart from work, I have little joy. Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed.
At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death.
In the dark, when I look at green lights, of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me.
Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you have to pursue objectives that are not related to wealth.
It should be something more important:
For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood.
No, stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me.
God has made us one way, we can feel the love in the heart of each of us, and not illusions built by fame or money, like I made in my life, I cannot take them with me.
I can only take with me the memories that were strengthened by love.
This is the true wealth that will follow you; will accompany you, he will give strength and light to go ahead.
Love can travel thousands of miles and so life has no limits. Move to where you want to go. Strive to reach the goals you want to achieve. Everything is in your heart and in your hands.
What is the world's most expensive bed? The hospital bed.
You, if you have money, you can hire someone to drive your car, but you cannot hire someone to take your illness that is killing you.
Material things lost can be found. But one thing you can never find when you lose: life.
Whatever stage of life where we are right now, at the end we will have to face the day when the curtain falls.
Please treasure your family love, love for your spouse, love for your friends...
Treat everyone well and stay friendly with your neighbours."

More than 30 years have passed

With the HCV treatment and the slowdown of activities it requires,  I got  time  to rest these days and I opened some old stuff drawn thirty years ago.

Woman's Body

Paris métro

Sain Sébastien?

Cat with arrows 

Was I already living with my virus at this time ?


Anyway, a link to a Gainsbourg's song to bring back to this period in Paris: 'petit pull marine'

Pull marine Adjani Gainsbourg

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaztg-P4myE

Please visit for Elegance of concepts and integrity of the work !

My map and my dictionnary for conceptual art is Caitlin Berrigan : membrana.us.
I particularly admire her work called 'Life Cycle of a Common Weed' in which she studies and paints 'reciprocity, anxiety and the aesthetics of non catharsis'. These are the sharpest thoughts about HVC I have read so far.

Hepatophagy (2008) Caitlin Berrigan

Full story is available under http://membrana.us/thesis.html. Please visit !