TURTLE - AN ANARCHIC SALON

"Throughout his career, Marker, who was notoriously secretive about his private life, was rarely interviewed or photographed, often responding to requests for his photograph with a picture of a cat - his favourite animal."

- orbituary, The Guardian

From Nicolas McClintock:

Dear All,

This is some Verse that Chris agreed to this name Being included in the dedication for:" For My Melancholy Friend."
Only just a short while back ( maybe five weeks)

Very Best To All.

N. x

Autumn Dusk

On Autumn evenings
when the days are short,
at dusk I tend to comfort myself
with memories, kicking leaves
down pavements; the branches
skeletons above
reaching for the sky along with the steeples;
And inside looking out
with yellow candlelight at dusk then
the zodiacal light at dawn.
Autumn in London with all of the crisp
cold walks and melancholy
gives my soul a time
to breathe.

For Chris Marker my melancholy-friendly Friend

When Ed Halter, the curator, came to the venue at 8AM there was this shrine. > DeeDee

From Thoma Vuille:

Fantòme de Guillaume

Bonjour,

Souvenir peint du meilleur ami de mon chat : Guillaume En Egypte.
merci de ne pas faire une utilisation promotionnelle de cette vidéo.

Hello,

Painting of the best friend of my cat : Guillaume En Egypte.
thank to use this video only in a private context.

From Catherine Belkhodja:

Premier jet ( à suivre)

nuit de pleine lune
le cercueil et ses images
dans le feu

machinalement
a tous ceux a qui je parle
je dis chris

Dans la grande coupole
Maroussia agite ses bras
Chris ne répond pas.

Koukoulikoukou
Le chant dArielle . Notre silence
- et nos pleurs

Guillaume en Egypte
brois croisés sur le chevalet
Coup de vent

Crematorium
Le chat-glace de Marina
et la vodka

Fin de Funérailles
Claude pousse sa charette turquoise
maintenant vide

Peur du dernier mot
le leger devient grave
le puits prend toujours un s

Paroles paroles qui s'affolent
pourquoi pourquoi me demander ?
- et pourquoi pas ?

Le gros coeur en argent
d'Agnes. Sa tête bicolore
Là. Présente . Bien là.

Chic et mauve.
La belle voix d'Alexandra
en anglais.

Toute en fleurs
Nadja venue de son île
j'entends les oiseaux

From Claude Bagoë-Diane:

Merci à vous Ramountcho qui dans un de vos mails m'avez consolé, en vous référant à cette petite maison en Islande où Guillaume l'attendait .
J'aurais voulu vous remercier de vive voix.
Il y une vingtaine d'années, Chris, avant l'intervention du vétérinaire, a accompagné Guillaume, le chat perché, par un "Salut mon vieux, on se retrouvera bientôt " (il était lui aussi malade à ce moment là)
Vous avez devinez juste.

Merci à vous tous, ceux que je connaissais et ceux que je ne connaissais pas,
Merci à Maroussia pour ce moment dansé.
Merci à Florence pour cette vodka à partager, (j'étais heureuse de regagner la maison en titubant)
Merci à Etienne pour la chouette/talisman
Merci aux chats présents et à leurs propriétaires
Merci à ceux qui ont dit un mot et à ceux qui se sont tus
Merci à Arielle pour ce chant à capella
Merci à Costa d'avoir conforté ce moment d'improvisation
Merci pour la langue russe
Merci pour les textes de T.S. en anglais
Merci au maître de cérémonie pour la touche conventionnelle.
Bonne route à chacun jusqu'au prochain croisement.

Claude

From Ramuntcho Matta:

"dormir, dormir dans les pierre"
Benjamin Peret

c'était effroyablement triste aujourd'hui
et il y avait aussi cette douceur infinie

la douceur de la plus grande force de l'univers: l'amitié.

il y a une lune extraordinaire ce soir

en ce moment là aussi
ce fut rare et lumineux
Merci Chris

Ramuntcho

It was Tom Luddy who had sent it me in French in late 2000. I received it at work, a dreadful job, at an internet startup where I was the assistant to the bitchy CEO who constantly commanded me to bring more diet soda and more microwave popcorn to her. It was right around the time of the US election debacle and the Florida recount. In Chris' story, one day, abruptly, there are no more winners or losers. Everything ends in a dead heat. "Have you read it, Tom?" I asked. "It's in French. I can't read it." "I'll translate it so you can," I offered, not altogether sincerely meaning to do so.

But before long, it was January 2001, Tom forwarded an email from Chris, whose handle at the time was a simple # followed by his then email address Stalker@europost.org (subsequently there were other variations on the stalker email address, stalker.sandor, etc.) Somewhere half way down the page, he'd written:

"One small note for your friend Dorna: the very last line of the story (a prophetic one, at that) alludes to "panneaux éléctoraux" i.e. the wooden panels onto which electoral posters are glued, something unknown in the US. So she should look for some yankee equivalent, like TV ads... " It's difficult to convey the impact of these words, the dizzy rush I felt imagining that somewhere, on another continent, across the vast ocean, this man, whose work had moved me so profoundly, was aware of my presence on the planet and had typed the five letters of my name on a keyboard.

I began working much more earnestly and in February 2001 wrote my first email to Chris in French with my first draft of the translation.

I've translated the correspondence into English for the purposes of this note.

Hello Mr. Marker,

I know that Tom has spoken to you about the translation I had undertaken of your short story Phénomène. I apologize in advance regarding the fact that I am very slow and that it has been a while since I began. For this, and then for the translation itself, attached herewith. I am not happy with it. It would be difficult to be confronted with your sentences, that are rich and polyvalent. I have tried, my best. I hesitated a great deal before sending this to you, in so far as I don't find it good enough. My only consolation is to imagine that at the very worst, this will allow you to present those who know no French at all, with the ghost of the original story. In any event, it was my great pleasure to work on it and to concentrate in order to understand the meaning of the words the way you had understood them (even if at times I may have missed the mark) and to spend my time inside your sentences.

I went on to indicate where I was having trouble and to ask specific questions about the text. A few days later, I checked my email and there it was.

Chris' first email addressed to me.

Dear Dorna,

First, let me assure you, as an old translator myself (it is an exercise I undertook frequently, for a long time it was my bread and butter, as, of this we can be sure, it wasn't the kind of films I make that were going to feed me): one is NEVER happy with a translation. It's the opposite of Alice: everyone loses and no one gets a prize, and yet, mysteriously, something does come through after all is said and done and the muddled message is reconstituted. I find that you have availed yourself particularly well, keeping in mind that I am not easy to translate. I know this, all the more as last year I found myself in the slightly paradoxical situation of having to retranslate into French a text I had written in English for the presentation of Silent Movie at the Wexner Center in Columbus. And often I found myself thinking, "What exactly is it this fellow trying to say here?"

Inevitably there were small mistakes, some rather obscure formulations on my part that could be interpreted in different ways. I have put all my interventions in italics, and they range from rectifications to suggestions, sometimes simply indications, you will be the judge of their usefulness. I have reinserted the exact Lewis Carroll and Kipling suggestions (Kipling writes "you'll be a Man, my son!" with the comma and the capitalization, I find rhythmically it sounds better without the comma, who knows why?

He went on to give very detailed notes.

There was a second email, straight behind this one, exemplifying his mad wit, he refers to a sentence that I had somehow, inadvertently, altogether omitted:

Oh, and one more thing: I wondered what mysterious metaphysical censor made you skip the sentence about Jesus Christ?

A correspondence ensued throughout the month of February dealing almost entirely with the translation. There were several drafts and the story began to read more fluently as we worked together. The only personal note that crept into the conversation did so by way of Guillaume... naturally. Chris told me that the story was not his, rather, that it was Guillaume who had whispered it to him.

I wrote back, "Guillaume en Egypte must indeed be an extraordinary cat to confide such things as the secrets of the U.S. election to you in advance of the fact. You are lucky to live with such an oracle. It would be sweet if you were to continue to share with the rest of us all that he tells you in the future. My two grey cats, Glimpse and Bubble, do not yet reveal their secrets to me, but I'll keep you posted on that count."

In his next email, after translation matters had been addressed, Chris wrote, "Yes, Guillaume was an extraordinary cat-"was" because for some time now, he has returned to the paradise for cats, but his personality was so strong that he continues to irradiate all those that knew him. Perhaps Tom will show you the drawings he used to do, much like a medium, through my hand, during the famous election? I swear it's true: for years now, I start a drawing beginning with Guillaume's right ear, without the slightest idea of what it'll end up being. Then the drawing completes itself, a word bubble appears whose content I don't know in advance and shazam! a new message from Guillaume is sent to the world. I made a film where he can be seen listening to Frederico Mompou's music, which he adored. He detested Xenakis and Russian rock. I shall in a separate email send along his new year's wishes for 2001.

From him and also from me, tender regards to Glimpse and Bubble.

At some point, the translation of the short story, Phenomenon, was done and we were delighted when Steve Wasserman, then editor of the LA Times Sunday book Review decided to publish it.

A few days later, I sent him a one-line email: Smrti is the Sanskrit word for memory. With the work now done, I was feeling quite maudlin at the prospect of no more emails.

To my surprise, Chris wrote back and not just any email, this was a seismic jolt. I learned he had known Forough Farrokhzad the iconic Iranian poet and filmmaker, and that when she died at 32, he alone, in the west, had written an obituary.

On March 9, 2001 Chris wrote: "Forough Farrokhzad. When Tom wrote this name to me, it was one of those madeleines on which Guillaume and I both linger a little complacently in Immemory. In fact, she could very well have been the source of one of the arborescences, through her I could have recovered the Tehran whose sky always looks ten times wider and higher than the one in the Occident. The moment of dusk, when the light, slightly blue, is still hanging on, and where already the brass lamps are being lit. And the best vodka-limes anywhere West of Hong Kong. All the people I came to know there, Ghaffari and Faroughi who I met later again in Paris, Golestan in London, all of them charming, funny and totally foolhardy, who allowed me to better understand Chekov's characters dreaming at the edge of the precipice. And across from them those women that were as lively and intense as the men were dreamers, to say they were "Stendhalian" would be the adjective that would best suit me to describe them, and Forough was the most extraordinary of them all, one of the most extraordinary women I have encountered (and it is my good fortune that I've known a few). The House is Black is a unique film that once again confirmed that women alone know how to find the exact distance to take from suffering. When she died, I must have been alone in Europe to publish a note in a film journal in which I attempted to the best of my abilities to do justice by her. It was a happy age, I traveled a great deal and in those days, long distance flights still had "stages," you were not projected in one fell swoop to your destination like an arrow, able to measure the passage of time through a single porthole from the dark. Tehran, along with Bangkok and Saigon, was one of the stops on the way to Tokyo, you learned the Orient in several movements, like a concerto. And I used to stop there, systematically, to see these friends, all dreamers and Chekovian and the Stendhalian girls.

There, that was a little Persian Madeleine, recalled by one of our encounters.

That summer of 2001, I went to Iceland on a Chris pilgrimage. I bought a ticket with a credit card and with about another $1000 credit I set off on a two-week journey. Other than a day on either end in Reykjavik, the rest of my time was spent traipsing around the ring road by bus or hitchhiking, being dazzled by the landscapes, the colors, the bejeweled ground where multitudes of bright pebbles mesmerized me so I could barely raise my head, so glued was my gaze to the ground; still, when I did, what I saw was otherworldly, there were glaciers growing out of frozen lakes in the distance on black plains and huge grey cathedral rocks. I was lonely but acutely awake, writing wildly in my diary, terrified at times, like when I got lost in the lava fields, but overall just supremely blissed out, to use today's vernacular. I wrote to Chris from all the stops on my itinerary where I could access email.

After Iceland, I stopped in Paris for a few days before coming back to LA, but I was too shy to try to see him.

At some point, Florence Dauman had traveled to LA and Chris had addled her with a surprise treasure trove of goods for me. There were VHS tapes of Bestiaire and Ambassade, the Immemory CD-Rom, as well as color images of Guillaume and a copy of a Pompidou Center retrospective program. There was also an Immemory mouse pad. I, in turn, assigned Tom Luddy with a delivery for Chris, a small box in which traveled a brass hand cranked music maker, a couple of seashells, a minuscule gold and red carrousel horse, and a small bottle of black volcanic sand from Iceland.

He asked for pictures of Glimpse and Bubble. I sent them. He wrote back, "Joie de connaitre les deux plus belles chattes de Californie..."

I sweet talked one of the tech guys at the office where I worked into helping me make an audio recording and recited the only poem of Forough's I know by heart, Aasheghaneh and sent Chris the file. Trust me, in 2001 for me, a luddite, this was quite an undertaking.

There were no emails for a bit. I expressed concern, to which in a message Chris replied testily, I might as well let you know now, where news is concerned, I give it in gusts, afterwards there may be vast beaches of silence.

Is that all we'll have now? Will there only be a vast beach of silence?

At the time, I wrote him back, nonplussed by the warning. The image, I said, seemed to me, an invitation to stroll along the beaches.

I wrote to him about a Parisian bar, the Fitzcarraldo, where I'd spent many a raucous nights in the 90s, off the rue St. Denis, across from the theatre where Sam Shepard's Savage Love was playing, the denizens included actors and pimps and whores. I'd stay and close the place down pretty much every night, often after much rowdiness and dancing on the counters. He wrote back, "A very, very long time ago, I too inhabited in the nighttime world. In a time that was somewhat remarkable: first, the war, or after the first curfew, when you had to get through the night one way or another, so might as well make it interesting. Then, after the war, when hours had all become so precious that you weren't going to stop living just because the sun set (and at the time, I earned my keep as barman and as a pianist in a bar, both of which fatally led me the same way). It is a thing I am no longer familiar with, of course. What I glimpse of it, here or there, does not appear to me very enticing. I hope that the somewhat dreamlike Paris you evoke, will not disappoint you too greatly should you pursue your notion.

I must have written saying I wanted to move there. I don't remember.

On December 1st, 2001, he sent an email with best wishes to Glimpse, my ailing cat, for a quick recovery. He also wrote, "Il y a maintenant sur les toits de Paris, un chat souriant, héritier direct du Cheshire Cat, qu'un Fantômas anonyme tague très bellement en risquant de se romper le cou. Seul signe encourageant sur cet horizon terne."

There is now on the rooftops of Paris, a smiling cat, a direct descendant of the Cheshire Cat, that an anonymous Fantomas is tagging very prettily and at the risk of breaking his neck. The only encouraging sign on this dim horizon."

I wrote back telling him that I had, while in Paris, spotted the cat, high up on a wall, visible from Chez George, the restaurant atop the Pompidou.

Thursday December 6, 2001, he sends me his lovely image of it: "Soyez bénie... Grace à vous, je viens de mettre en boite le grinning cat de Beaubourg, juste à la bonne lumiere, entre chien et loup, si j'ose dire, quand même la Tour Montparnasse devient regardable. Je vous l'envoie ici en pièce jointe."

Bless you! Thanks to you I've just canned the grinning cat at Beaubourg, just at the right time, at the wolfing hour, if I may say so, when even the Tour Montparnasse can be looked at. Here it is as an attachment.

Thank you Chris, I wrote. And then, asked if I might translate his obit of Forough to include as the liner note for The House is Black. Of course, he says yes.

The first time we met wasn't till a few years later. I took the metro to his place in the 20th. Honestly, it didn't go so well. The encounter dissipated the high dose of longing and mystery of our correspondence. I don't know about him, but I was exceedingly nervous, stilted, incapable of being natural. Still, Chris was unbelievably gracious, as I perched on a stool one mid-afternoon and he brought out the vodka and two tiny cups and poured us each some. It was orange-colored pepper vodka. When I was getting ready to leave, he told me to take a different route to walk back to the metro so that I should get to walk down the rue Lucien Leuwen.

We met twice more only. Once, at the Café Beaubourg where we sat on the terrace in front of the Pompidou Center. He was laconic but abruptly produced a gold-colored maneki neko, one of those Japanese cat figures, whose battery-operated arm moved in a perennial greeting, swinging back and forth, back and forth. Here it is sitting on my desk in LA today. Another time, in 2009, we had a drink in Paris with Tom Luddy at Hotel du Louvre. He arrived so tall and stunning, in an overall, as though he'd just flown his plane there, like someone from another universe, he was talkative that day and regaled us with tales of travel, of cinema.

But what remains is the potency of those talismanic exchanges, the emails I used to print out and carry around with me and read over and over, while awaiting the next one. I would set them on the dash as I drove long distances to and from work in LA, so that the reflection of his words in the windshield was the filter through which I saw the world, these words were an armor against everything those days could bring, the dreadful job, my loneliness.

It feels like I've been drinking for three days solidly, which is just as it should be, and I look forward to raising a glass of vodka to Chris, to Guillaume, to you, early tomorrow morning. This piece could be longer, and include so much more, but right now what matters is to send you this before tomorrow, and before I lose my nerve, because over the past few days your emails have been a cushion for my grief. I want you to know that this comes to you with more love and faith than it probably succeeds in expressing.

Los Angeles, August 1, 2012

From Thierry Garrel:

He Agnes ! 1pm GMT, c'est une heure, heure mondiale de Greenwich, c'est a dire... 2h, heure de Paris !!!! (mais 5h du matin a Vancouver et 8h du soir heure de Tokyo). Ah les 24 fuseaux de Chris !
Bises

Thierry

From Agnès Varda:

Bonsoir Faute du cortège de chats rêvé par Claude B D
Je vais essayer d' amener un buste de Guillaume-en-Egypte , orange à souhait et un chevalet pour le présenter
Quant au toast international à 1 : 00 pm GMT ...c est quoi GMT ?
On peut continuer à penser les uns aux autres pour accompagner Chris ensemble
Ya pas d horaire pour ça mais si on arrive à comprendre à quelle heure il faut toaster.. on le fera
Serrons nous les crabes la marée monte..
Voila 3 captures d ecran.

Voici la face cachée du travail de Marker, les fils secrets du labryrinthe de son oeuvre. - Agnès Varda

Le chat orange, Guillaume en Egypte, représente Chris Marker, celui qui vent planquer son visage. - Agnès Varda

Jai dansé avec Guillaume en Egyote, dans la "Second Life" de Chris Marker, créé par Max Moswitzer, dit Mos Max Hax. - Agnès Varda

From Naomi Yang:

This morning we burned Japanese incense, and poured a glass of vodka for Chris. . . then cat came to visit. . .

with love, Naomi

From Claude Bagoë-Diane:

J'ai trouvé 200 petits godets, des sacs en plastique (poubelle). Beaucoup de glaçons, le tout dans une glacière sur roulettes avec des bouteilles d'eau congelées. Il est possible que nous ayons soif.
Julia si vous avez de grands verres ils pourrons servir à boire un peu d'eau également.
Il me semble que un maneki neko est indispensable Etienne. Je suis certaine que les chats ont été prévenu.
Quelques de la porte de Chris aujourd'hui à 19h.

From D Halleck:

Have a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat journey, Chris.
CM presenté!
DeeDee

From Agnes Decayeux:

et demain, nous serons là, sur l'Ouvroir, les uns et les autres. nous boirons un verre de vodka scripté. peut-être que Sergei sera là aussi. certainement. oui certainement.

From Catherine Belkhodja:

Merci Federica pour ce chat magnifique
je t'embrasse tres fort

Catherine Belkhodja

From Laurence Braunberger:

Juste cette photo, prise pour lui, pour son anniversaire dimanche en fin d'après-midi et dont je n'ai compris le sens que plus tard...
Je vous embrasse tous,

Laurence B

From Florence Dauman:

Chris a presente GEE a Aneth, l'un de mes chats que j'avais amene chez lui pour le faire sourire. Aneth espere que, par votre truchement, le Chat Jaune et GEE garderont contact avec elle.

Chris introduced GEE to Aneth (one of my cats I had taken to him to cheer him up.) Aneth is counting on Chat Jaune, GEE and you to keep in touch.

From Etienne Sandrin:

a tous
belle image que je reçois du japon "pour chris" .
je ne peux hélas la lui envoyer alors c'est à vous que je l'envoie
avec la force du chat et du dragon

CHRIS MARKER1921 - 2012

CHRIS MARKER
1921 - 2012