Guy Sands

CMJ INTERVIEW

2012-01-16T06:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.cmj.com/column/guy-sands-brooklyn-ny/

Guy Sands (Brooklyn, NY)

Making magic in Greenpoint

George Whitman's Unfinished Novel

2011-12-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

For two months in 2007 I lived and worked at Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Toward the end of my stay I prepared George's flat for cockroach extermination. An innumerable assortment of literary momentos were stacked behind bookshelves and under sofas. I noticed a short stack of crisp notecards in a ziplock bag. It was a piece of of George's journal from the late 1930's. When asked about the journal, George his passion for communism at the time. What he didn't have much to say about was the novel he had been planning at the age of 24 while on a ship from Honolulu to San Francisco. George allowed me to transcribe a short passage in my own journal. As an homage to George I'd like to share it with his friends as a souvenir of his singular character and literary talent.

(1913-2011)

Sunday, March 19 1939:

There are so many interesting details I have not kept track of in these notes. One thing I would like to mention however is my esprit de corps. In the three weeks since I left Seattle I have traveled without any money and found it quite inessential. It is always easy to beg a few nickels in almost any city but whenever I did I found they would stick to my pocket so long it was hard to get rid of them. Truly the poorest man is the richest if he but knows how to extract the treasures from books, from nature and from humanity. I feel that I have lived in the last few days, also in a worldly sense I could point to no specific achievement. But man is a psychological creature as Keyserling points out and the meaning of evolution is the gradual triumphs of spirit over matter. I feel that spiritually I am advancing to a point so that in a few years I will be able to do writing of a creative value. The other things – ragged clothes, and improper diet I do not look upon as beneficial as is the habit of some religious mystics but I do not believe they will do any permanent damage and furthermore my role as a common beggar and wondering student will assist in the aim which at present dominates my life:

TO CONVERT AS WIDE A RANGE OF EXPERIENCE AS POSSIBLE INTO CONSCIOUS THOUGHT.

...Somewhat dilapidated clothes but also my facial expression. I am one of the few hobos on the road who still likes to walk, and the healthy life I lead without smoking or drinking or submitting to other common vices, the sleeping outdoors beside a fire, and the occasional hardships of travel have left their traces in a sunburned and wind-beaten skin, and eyes that have been cleaned and sharpened by being focused on near and far objects

Sunday, April 2:

I walked some 12 miles today in search of the glamorous Saint Louis I had dreamed of but all I found was the prosaic city of solid stone and concrete and nearly as solid smoke and dust. I long to bury myself in a really exciting city, a city where culture is vibrant, a city where music is passionately loved and where love is something holy and beautiful—a city like Paris or Moscow where poetry is part of life where men are poets and life is a poem.

August 20th, 1938:

Plan for a Musico-Electrodynamic-Psychoanalytical Novel…

In some fashion I have just been struck with a brain-waive of ideas for a post-surrealist neo-psychoanalytic, electro-chemical novel about a man and a glass of water in which the two themes—Ivory soprano and purple bass—melodiously interweave like the point-counterpoint of a musical composition. In all seriousness there is promising material here for a long story or a short novel using a vitalized stream-of consciousness technique. The axis of the tale is an oldish, semi-intellectual man hypersensitized by some tragic experience, looking into a glass of water and what he sees in it, what images, what pictures of the past it awakens in his imagination. This is obviously alluding to the crystal-vision technique for evoking the subconscious as used in psychiatry.

James Joyce wrote about 1 day in the life of his characters but for this theme 2 hours would be sufficient. Joyce’s work is an epic of scholarship and symbolism but its torrential force is dissipated because it encompasses too much amorphous plot and action so that it annihilates not only time but also the orientations and proportions which are necessary to art. It’s parallelism with the Odyssey and its symbolism using different scenes to represent different organs of the body (James Joyce’s Ulysses by R. Miller Budnitskaya, Critic’s Group Dialectics) while interesting are not particularly successful as literary devices. For the spiritualization of life with all its dulcet and dolorous tone-colors into the form of a psychoanalytic novel the virtue of the most primitive simplicity and permits the minute analysis of details rather than of the more genial aspects of reality which are obvious to everyone. Since it deals with a static situation as far as physical motion is concerned it has no primary plot, and only primary character (the secondary characters are images in his mind gaining an ephemeral reality as materialized in the water) Basically there is but 1 reciprocal relationship—between the man and the glass of water (other influences as sun-color-wind-vibrations are mirrored in the glass so that everything outside it seems in darkness and shadows.)

It is important that the waterglass should be composed of a vitreous substance containing manganese and due to this chemical impurity the ultra-violet rays have softened its sharply crystalline for by giving it a pale amethyst tint. This imperfection which really increases its beauty is a bond with the past history of the man bringing to mind the llamas, the Guarani Indians, the Algaroba trees of high Bolivia mystically interweaving their shadows in the windowpanes which in the rarified atmosphere of that high altitude, the violent ultra violet rays have tinted in colors ranging from pale amethyst to deep violet black.

The man himself is sunburned, old and worn—faded blue yes—nose asymmetrical but giving him a brooding philosophical expression.

The sun plays a central part in the tale not only for the Freudian symbolism of sun and water, i.e. male and female but it is the miraculous and poetic source of life-giving energy, the dynamo which runs the earth-machine, the influence which transmutes one element into another thereby harmonizing the relationship between man and glass, and also creating the sad illusion of time by measuring the passing hours like the relentlessly falling knife of a cosmic guillotine.

These 2 hours in the man’s life should be used as the focal point for all past and future hours. It is preferably the time of twilight and while the blood-red sun drops behind the screen of cherry trees and lilacs outside the curtained window the mind of the protagonist floats like an ivory boat on the blue waves of dream and fancy.

The relationship of man and glass is that of a flower bending over a river, a philosopher reading an esoteric book or 2 lovers in the delights of orgasm. As the sun moves to the horizon the glass of water moves down the chromatic scale red-yellow-green as it reflects the yellow light, the red cherries and the green curtains. It also transmits all the shades and nuances of the man’s emotion, reflecting the mirages of the past—the moving figure of himself visualized with terrible subjectiveness(sic)—the pale pathetic shadows of human beings, brothers, sisters and wanderers—the dank chaotic city with its blazing lights and the fiery stars of its auto headlights—all reproduced with the fidelity and mellowness of a rare violin.

The water is a plastic and effeminate medium a musical instrument which his mind plays upon with subtlety equal to the fingers of a virtuoso running up and down the keys of a piano.

By disregarding the canons of plot and action the story gathers momentum purely in response to the electrical current emanated in the dynamo of the man’s psyche. The human brain is here portrayed as a wonderful electrico-musical phenomenon which makes its possession a sublime, God-like super-being by recreating in aesthetically emerging patterns, piece by piece and color by color the materialistic universe. As the story nears its end a sublime truth becomes revealed, namely that the play of mind upon matter is a musical process like the moving of a bow across the strings of a violin.

About the Whole Thing

2011-12-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

I'm Happy About the Whole Thing by Maxine Sullivan

How I feel about the move to Greenpoint.

Depardieu Weeps

2011-12-08T08:12:00.001-08:00

Shortly after the death of Maurice Pialat, Depardieu discusses why Pialat is, "for him, the greatest filmmaker," and why cinema now is "ridiculous." I've translated some important parts.

"When you go through something with Maurice....all you can see is love."
--"Do you think cinema will be fixated on this kind of love, fixate on it through the image?"
"Cinema is "chiant" (offensively boring)...Cinema is ridiculous....Now.... Before, you had Rossellini, De Sica, Pialat, Satyajit Ray, Renoir. ....Maurice is, for me, the greatest."

"Even in death he's a "sauvage"--there's a great title from Maupassant...I think it's Hors La Mort (Outside of Death). That's what Maurice is like."
[He must mean the Maupassant title: "Fort Comme La Mort" (As Strong as Death / Strong Like Death)

"He speaks to me in reality. He speaks to me like only a poet can speak."

"If you could know how women are beautiful. If you could know how they are afraid. Afraid of their maternity... I asked why are you telling me this? He said, because that's the only reason to live... To pay attention to women."

Puiu on the New Wave

2011-12-07T10:42:00.001-08:00

Panal after the screening of Puiu's first film, Stuff and Dough (2001)

"There is not, not, not, not, not a Romanian new wave..." -Cristi Puiu

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20Romanian-t.html?pagewanted=all

Aurora (2010) by Cristi Puiu (continued)

2011-12-06T08:34:00.001-08:00

"Cinema is a laboratory. Cinema is science. Scientists work much like filmmakers. Filmmakers use cinema as a tool, like a scientist's instruments. They ask questions about human existence, human nature, and the world. The camera is an anthropological instrument. If it's not that then it doesn't interest me. ...Malpractice exists in film" -Cristi Puiu

Aurora (2010) by Cristi Puiu

2011-10-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus & Cristi Puiu

Nest Builders (2011)

2011-09-04T15:46:00.001-07:00

2011-09-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

My Window by Guy Sands

Caroline

2011-04-21T01:58:00.001-07:00

Caroline from Guy Sands on Vimeo.
Filmed in the Bywater district of New Orleans 2009.

My Father's Photos

2010-08-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

Par Prevert vol. 2

2010-07-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

1. Chanson dan le Sang

2. Les Clee de la Ville

3. Cet Amour

4. Le Fusille

5. Les Derniers Sacrements

12. Le Fils du Grand Reseau

13. Come par Mirage

14. Tout S'en Allait

15. La Plage des Sable Blancs

Download

David Blue Live at the Unicorn Cafe 1967

2010-07-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

December 2, 1967 Boston, Massachusettes

DOWNLOAD

David Blue & Jackson Browne Live 1972

2010-07-13T07:05:00.000-07:00

Rare Bootleg

WBCN Boston 27/8/72

1. Introduction and Tuning

2.The Times You've Come

3. Troubadour Song

4. Yesterday's Lady

5. Living for Jesus

6. I'll Be True to You

7. Tonight Will Be Fine

8. For Everyman

9. Spontaneous Composition

& WBCN Boston June 1973

10. Introduction and Interview

11. I Can't Find You Anymore

12. Save Something For Me Tonight

DOWNLOAD

http://www.divshare.com/download/16325757-b70

The Gettin' Laid Fire (2006)

2010-07-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

Download

Recorded in I dorm at the Evergreen State College early 2006 by:

Buster Ross

Michael Ray

Brendan McCauley

Paul Jeffery

Kevin Brouse

and people hanging out in I dorm.

2010-06-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

Hafen 2 Open Air Festival

2009-06-30T07:38:00.001-07:00

I can't stop wearing black, drinking, smoking, sporting aviators or growing my hair out. Someone who didn't know me well might think I was affecting something.
Everyone was very kind in Offenbach. I didn't have a place to stay. Two sisters took me in and gave me full B&B service. At breakfast they even put on Dylan's Basement Tapes without my asking.
I left my guitar in Prague so I had to use Diane Cluck's.

Seasons in the Sun

2009-05-24T00:16:00.000-07:00

Photograph from the 1968 songbook: The World of Rod Mckuen.

Collage Series

2009-05-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

4 Days in July

2009-05-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

A video still from the 1985 Mike Leigh flim "4 Days in July." Bred Brennan plays the character of Collette:

La Quête by Jacques Brel

2008-10-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

The Quest

To dream an impossible dream
To bear the burden of enterprise
To burn with a possible fire
To go where no one will go
To love until torn asunder
To love too much, even wrongly
To attempt, without an army, without armor,
To reach for the unreachable star,
That is my quest,
To follow my star
I don't care about my chances
I don't care about time,
or how wretched I am
and I'll struggle forever
without sleep, without complaint,
To condemn myself
For one golden utterance of love.

I don't know if I will be this hero
but my heart holds fast
and the towns have been shrouded in blue
because of one poor soul
Burn on, till all's been burnt
Burn on, burn too much, even wrongly
To reach out till I'm torn apart,
To reach for the unreachable star.

La Quête

Rêver un impossible rêve
Porter le chagrin des départs
Brûler d'une possible fiévre
Partir où personne ne part
Aimer jusqu'à la déchirure
Aimer, meme trop, même mal,
Tenter, sans force et sans armure,
D'attendre l'inaccessible étoile
Telle est ma quête,
Suivre l'étoile
Peu m'importe mes chances
Peu m'importe le temps
Ou ma désespérance
Et puis lutter toujours
Sans questions ne repos
Se damner
Pour l'or d'un mot d'amour

Je ne sais si je serai ce héros
Mais mon coeur serait tranquille
Et les villes s'éclabousseraient de bleu
Parce qu'un malheureux
Brûle encore, bien qu'ayant tout brûlé
Brûle encore, meme trop, même mal
Pour atteindre à s'en écarteler
Pour atteindre l'inaccessible étoile.

Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel

2008-10-28T23:22:00.000-07:00





width="443" height="368" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"
flashvars="flvurl=http://v4.nonxt4.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id%3D1b127232a7b20ed9%26itag%3D5%26app%3Dblogger%26ip%3D0.0.0.0%26ipbits%3D0%26expire%3D1331554209%26sparams%3Did,itag,ip,ipbits,expire%26signature%3D7DDB4F287FB709391B43AB1E5CFBB2D76DC79FC7.D7D0F1B8B1A1F116274647D62E3E2CE2A7780B0%26key%3Dck1&iurl=http://video.google.com/ThumbnailServer2?app%3Dblogger%26contentid%3D1b127232a7b20ed9%26offsetms%3D5000%26itag%3Dw160%26sigh%3DgPAk7VVQ0FlLd2dZzxF6ttonlhU&autoplay=0&ps=blogger"
allowFullScreen="true" />

Don't Leave Me

Don't leave me
you must forget
all you can forget
which is already slipping away
forget the time
of misunderstandings
and lost time
so you'll know how
to forget those hours
that sometimes wrecked
the heart of happinesswith a rush of "why?"
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me

I can offer you
the pearls of the rain
from the country
where rain never falls
I'll pile up the earth
'til just after my death
to cover your body
of gold and light
I'll create a kingdom
where love will be king
where love will be the law
where you will be queen
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me

don't leave me
I'll invent for you
some unforgettable words
I know you'll understand
I'll speak of
those lovers
who twice saw
their hearts enfold
I'll tell you
the tale of the king
who died of a wish to visit you once more
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me

We saw a wealth of
of flames splash
from the volcano
we thought too ancient
the burnt fields seemed to
bring forth more than the best of Aprils
yet when night comes on
for the blazing sky
the red and the black
are still unwed
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me

don't leave me
I'm not going to cry any more
I'm not going to speak any more
I'll hide myself here
to watch you dance and smile
and to hear you sing and then laugh
let me be
the shadow of your shadow
the shadow of your hand
the shadow of your dog
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me
don't leave me

Ne Me Quitte Pas

Ne me quitte pas
Il faut oublier
Tout peut s'oublier
Qui s'enfuit déjà
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le cœur du bonheur
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Moi je t'offrirai
Des perles de pluie
Venues de pays
Où il ne pleut pas
Je creuserai la terre
Jusqu'après ma mort
Pour couvrir ton corps
D'or et de lumière
Je ferai un domaine
Où l'amour sera roi
Où l'amour sera loi
Où tu seras reine
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Je t'inventerai
Des mots insensés
Que tu comprendras
Je te parlerai
De ces amants-là
Qui ont vu deux fois
Leurs cœurs s'embraser
Je te raconterai
L'histoire de ce roi
Mort de n'avoir pas
Pu te rencontrer
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

On a vu souvent
Rejaillir le feu
De l'ancien volcan
Qu'on croyait trop vieux
Il est paraît-il
Des terres brûlées
Donnant plus de blé
Qu'un meilleur avril
Et quand vient le soir
Pour qu'un ciel flamboie
Le rouge et le noir
Ne s'épousent-ils pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas

Ne me quitte pas
Je n'vais plus pleurer
Je n'vais plus parler
Je me cacherai là
A te regarder
Danser et sourire
Et à t'écouter
Chanter et puis rire
Laisse-moi devenir
L'ombre de ton ombre
L'ombre de ta main
L'ombre de ton chien
Mais
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas
Ne me quitte pas.

L'invention by Paul Eluard

2008-10-26T23:15:00.000-07:00

Translation by Guy Sands

The Invention

The right hand is draining the sand
All the transformations are possible

In the distance, the sun whets his will upon the stones to end them.
The description of the landscape means little,
Merely the pleasant length of harvests.

Clear with my two eyes,
Like water and fire.

What is the point of the source?
Despair has severed all ties
And carries his hands to his head
A seven, a four, a two, a one
A hundred girls in the street
That I will never see again.

The art of loving, the liberal art, the art of dying well, the art of thinking, the art of incoherence, the art of smoking, the art of enjoying, the medieval art, the decorative art, the art of reasoning, the art of reasoning well, the poetic art, the mechanical art, the erotic art, the art of being a grand father, the art of dance, the art of seeing, the art of accomplishment, the art of caressing, the japanese art, the art of playing, the art of eating, the art of torturing.

I have not yet found what I write in what I love.

L'invention

La droite laisse couler du sable
Toutes les transformations sont possibles.

Loin, le soleil aiguise sur les pierres sa hâte d'en finir.
La description du paysage importe peu,
Tout juste l'agréable durée des moissons.

Clair avec mes deux yeux,
Comme l'eau et le feu.

Quel est le rôle de la racine?
Le désespoir a rompu tous ses liens
Et porte les mains à sa tête.
Un sept,un quatre, un deux, un un.
Cent femmes dans la rue
Que je ne verrai plus.

L'art d'aimer, l'art libéeral, l'art de bien mourir, l'art de penser, l'art incohérent, l'art de fumer, l'art de jouir, l'art du moyen âge, l'art decoratif, l'art de raisonner, l'art de bien raisonner, l'art poétique, l'art mécanique, l'art érotique, l'art d'être grand-pére, l'art de la danse, l'art de voir, l'art d'agrément, l'art de caresser, l'art japonais, l'art de jouer, l'art de manger, l'art de torturer.

Je n'ai pourtant jamais trouvé ce que j'écris dans ce que j'aime.

Comrade by Philippe Soupault

2008-10-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

Translation by Guy Sands

Comrade

Little months little smokes
and oblivion cloaked in wool
a door kindly opens
by the wall at the wind's mouth
by the lovely garden
where the saints and the angels
fear the seasons
The allées have no names
they’re the hours or years
i carry on slowly
dressed in a slate overcoat
bearing a black straw hat
I don’t remember
if it's nice out
i walk smoking
i smoke walking
at a lingering pace
Now and then i say
it’s time to stop
and i continue walking
I tell myself
You need some air
You need to watch the clouds
to breath and fill your lungs
You should see the hovering flies
and get a little exercise
You shouldn’t smoke so much
i also say
Calculate
i tell myself again
i have a headache
My life is a droplet on my eyelid
and i’m not twenty anymore
Keep on
Songs are songs
and days are days
i no longer have any respect for myself
but i see the hooligans
who smoke the same cigarette as me
and who are just as stupid as me
I feel alright
without really knowing why
It’s not enough to speak of the sun
of stars
of the sea and rivers
blood eyes hands
Often you need
to speak of other things
You know there are beautiful countries
handsome men
and no less charming women
but all that isn’t really enough
The staggering void
that knells and bays
forces me to bow my head
We watch and we see
again many other things
which are always the same
innumerable
identical
And simply there
someone passes
simple as hello
and it all begins again
i read in the spheres the good will of my friends
in a river i love a hand
i listen to the strains of flowers
There are goodbyes there are birds
A cry falls like a fruit
My God my God
I will always be thus
my head in my hands
and my hands in my head

Comrade

Petit mois petites fumées
et l'oubli en robe de laine
une porte s'ouvre tendrement
prés du mur où naît le vent
prés du jardin bienheureux
où les saint et les anges
ont peur des saisons
Les allées n'ont pas de noms
ce sont les heures ou les années
je me proméne lentement
vêtu d'un paletot mastic
et coiffé d'un chapeau de paille noire
Je ne me souviens pas
s'il fait beau
je marche en fumant
et je fume en marchant
à pas lents
Quelquefois je me dis
Il est temps de s'arrêter
et je continue a marcher
Je me dis
Il faut prendre l'air
Il faut regarder les nuages
et respirer à pleins poumons
Il faut voir voler les mouches
et faire une promenade de santé
Il ne faut pas tant fumer
je me dis aussi
Calculons
je me dis encore
j'ai mal à la tete
Ma vie est une goutte d'eau sous ma paupiére
et je n'ai plus vingt ans
Continuons
Les chansons sont des chansons
et les jours des jours
je n'ai plus aucun respect pour moi
mais je vois des voyous
aui fument les même cigarettes aue moi
et qui sont aussi bêtes aue moi
Je suis bien content
sans vraiment savoir pourquoi
Il ne suffit pas de parler du soleil
des étoiles
de la mer et des fleuves
du sang des yeux des mains
Il est necessaire bien souvent
de parler d'autres choses
On sait qu'il y a de trés beaux pays
de trés beaux hommes
de non moins charmantes femmes
mais tout cela n'est pas vraiment pas suffisant
Le vide étourdissant
qui sonne et qui aboie
fait pencher la tête
On regarde et on voit
encore beaucoup d'autres choses
aui sont toujours les memes
innombrables
identiques
Et là-bas simplement
quelqu'un passe
simple comme bonjour
et tout recommence encore une fois
je lis dans les astres la bonne volonté de mes amis
dans un fleuve j'aime une main
j'écoute les fleurs chanter
Il y a des adieux des oiseaux
Un cri tombe comme un fruit
Mon Dieu mon Dieu
je serai donc toujours le même
la tête dans les mains
et les mains dans la tête