Hope

Pessimistic but quite funny illustrations about hope by inspired artists.

Hope by Maurizio Cattelan (detail)

Very elegant and optimistic jump from Yves Klein by Shunk-Gronn 1960

La photographie ci dessus est parue dans 'Dimanche', "le journal d'un seul jour" créé par Yves Klein en 1960 et mise en circulation le jour où il inaugurait son Théâtre du vide. Elle était accompagnée des titres suivants:"Un homme dans l'espace!". "Le peintre de l'espace se jette dans le vide!". D'autres tirages de la photographie ont été intitulés:"obsession de la lévitation". L’intérêt de Klein pour ce phénomène coïncidait alors avec celui que l'on portait aux voyages dans l'espace, avec les premiers vols orbitaux. Klein pratiquait le judo et croyait en la lévitation. Mais, après s'être blessé deux fois en s'élançant du deuxième étage de la maison d'un ami, il renonça à sauter en public et concocta des photographies truquées censées "prouver" que son vol dans l'espace était authentique. Une bâche tendue était là pour le recueillir, mais Harry Shunk( qui a photographié de nombreuses performances de Klein) réalisa un montage de photographies de sauts et de photographies de rue pour aboutir au "document" ad hoc. Ce faux instantané est censé représenter le corps de l'artiste suspendu entre la vie et la mort. Le corps de l'artiste. Editions Phaidon.

To my knowledge, the most optimistic and terrible jump is dated 1912.
You can check details -in french- in a 'Liberation' paper dated July 2009 and see the 1912 archive following youtube link below. http://www.liberation.fr/culture/0101580276-le-saut-du-siecle

François Reichelt 

As you can see, it's a thin line between optimism and pessimism. Following the link below shows that the best never comes easy and it can take some time from failure to success:

Victory gardening by Caitlain Berrigan (from membrana.us)

Victory gardening is a site-specific work created for Governors Island, a former military fortress that has changed hands among nations over the centuries. As a pathetic political gesture, Caitlin Berrigan circled the perimeter of the island for 3 days, endlessly declaring VICTORY in an evaporating medium. The rolling drum left a repeating trail of text, stenciled in water on the pavement for the public, which evaporated slowly under the sun.

To finish with, few words from Pablo Neruda from his 'Ode to hope' :
The waves tell to the solid coast
"everything will be fulfilled"

Dont worry, I keep desperatly optimistic !

How and where to enjoy a weekly Interferon shoot

Scott Ross

Usually the two days that follow the Interferon injection are the worst of the week. Fatigue, nausea, asthenia and this unimitable feeling of deep sadness and melancholia.


First, for  the Interferon  injection I listen the Haendel  suites for harpsicord by Scott Ross recorded in 1986  few years before Scott Ross died with HIV.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1RC0HeVi5A




The day after I like to go fishing alone. The loneliness by the flow of the river, the silence of the trouts, the discretion and focus that fishing requires chases all the black thinkings off my mind. I still keep sad and lonely, but I admire nature when I catch a nice fish and thank this fish when I release it back to the water. For fishing Interferon helps me here to keep silent, lonely contemplative and focused approach. 
About no kill fishing, a 'must see' video (in french)
https://www.facebook.com/cador.chtrucmuche/videos/1148038955223773/

Second option is watching some brainy movie like for instance: "L'homme de Londres " by Bela Tarr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whBOBJnRpNM

Or more recently, "sleeping beauty"
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjs40g_sleeping-beauty-bande-annonce-vost-hd-festival-de-cannes-2011_shortfilms#rel-page-1














Interferon drags me so deep that I accept and appreciate slowness. It opens me to unusual exploration feelings in melancholia regions.

Therapy side effects

The first day of my treatment, I was delighted : no rash, no depression, almost no effect. 

Heighteen weeks later I explored sucessively  fever, tiredness, nausea, pain in joints, sadness, nervousness, even panics in certain situations (street, cinema). The 'psycho' effects are  particularly present the days after the Interferon injection.

Rest of the week, I am mainly under fatigue, nausesa and uncomfortable itching sensations: on my legs, my arms, my back and belly. I cream and re-cream my body, everywhere. 

In heighteen weeks I lost 10 kilos, I am breathless and with no force. 

This just reminds me a stupid and forgotten french song by Ouvrard "Je n'suis pas bien portant"

If you catch french and if you need a kind of fun after my moanings, you can open the link below and listen to the song. (Toute une époque :)






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wsdksMsbUI

Hepatite C...Quoi ?

Dragon Arcimboldo

Les porteurs du VHC n’intéressent personne. « To liver and let die », dit Berne le Suédois avec un humour un peu réfrigérant.

Même le mot « hépatite » donne un peu mal au cœur. Dès qu’on en parle on a déjà les dents du fond qui baignent.

Et puis les hépatites, tout le monde s’en fout. Ce sont les pauvres ou les gens malades qui attrapent des hépatites, les gens normaux, eux, ne risquent rien. Avec une hépatite, tout ce qui vous pend au foie, c’est une cirrhose, la maladie des pochtrons.

D'après Fabrice Olivet 2009


Bref, en ville comme au cimetière, pour éviter les questions embarrassantes et rester fréquentable, mieux vaut faire allusion à des maladies plus correctes et moins stigmatisantes.
Au delà de ces aspects discriminants et des difficultés de communication qu'ils génèrent, l'hépatite C est une maladie méconnue et qui ne suscite que peu d’intérêt car elle tue lentement. De fait le porteur d'hépatite n'est pas vraiment pris au sérieux. Quelques réflexions entendues ici et là pour illustrer ce point :


" c'est une maladie qui se guérit bien. J'ai des patients que je traite depuis des dizaines d'années".
"c'est juste quelques cellules de ton foie qui sont abîmées"
"prend bien ton traitement et ensuite tu n'y penseras plus"
"de toute façon, si on lit les notices des médicaments les effets secondaires sont toujours effrayants"
" 'on voit que ça va mieux que l'autre fois' ! - Oui merci, j'ai juste perdu 15k et ma chevelure, ça doit être ça qui me rajeunit- "


Santé à vous,                                                                Ozias

HCV illness thoughts

My Illness is personal but makes me think wider around. In same time, Illness makes me more selfish than ever but forces me to changes perspectives. I discover a new part of what I am made with: probably proud and a bit asocial. I never liked team sports, clubs and group hunting. Today I can hardly stand in a group and asking for help for my body hurts my pride.

I realize also better what’s life about for me: short so no time to spare without reason. No place for fear, complacency, diversion. I understand now that going far in short time needed to accept what I am and realize the good part of what it carries. The mark of it is that it provides self-esteem in return.

Being ill, I feel like a rotten apple in a fruit basket. My low energy and depression contaminates my close relatives and surrounding. I also avoid proximity to people who are or have been sick. I don’t want to know about their problems. I prefer not to know about other health problems I can have or avoid. I don’t want to concur or discuss about which disease is the most severe, the most painful. I do not stand discussion with ill persons.

 Illness is a lot of manipulations. I am manipulated by my virus other patients can be manipulated by their tumor or whatever else. In return ill people I can see, and even myself, manipulate their surrounding with changes and induced pains. Another consequence of illness is weakness, and so patients get manipulated by his doctors, friends and relatives. This is why I try to follow Boris Vian words:

 “J’ai mal à mon bédane, mais je le dirai pas” …

In the same time,  people must  know that I am changed by the illness. I can of course mimic health during short time buts it is as hypocrite, as it is tiring.  To some extents, illness shows me that everyone is alone. As tell photos of Dijskstra, “not in the sense of loneliness, but rather in the sense that no one can completely understand someone else”.

katarina torsen

If you speak french, please visit the excellent post from Jerry Rubin. It is all about what disease can change in our lives, inside ourselves.

http://hepatite-c.over-blog.com/article-medecine-et-emotions-59845819.html

How are you today ? (2)

Mauvais sang. 

Plus de globules.

Je fuis le soleil, je ne dors plus la nuit et me sens aussi mort que vivant.

Mon corps desséché et osseux aspire à la  jeunesse comme un vampire.

Musique pour ce jour : Fratres Arvo Pärt

How are you today ?

Job on His Dunghill by Albrecht Dürer

Job on his dunghill; Signed J Macau.