SHE (C. AZNAVOUR / H. KRETZMER)

She may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay
She may be the song the summer sings
May be the chill the autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day


She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
The smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem inside her shell


She who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so crowded and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry
She may be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
But I'll remember till the day I die


She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough in many years
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is she
She
She

WIZARD OF OZ - COLLECTIBLE ITEMS (01)

PORTUGUESE SEA (FROM MESSAGE-FERNANDO PESSOA)

Oh salt-laden sea,
how much of your salt
Is tears of Portugal!
To cross you, how many mothers wept,
how many sons in vain prayed!
How many brides-to-be brides remained,
So you were ours, oh Sea!

Was it worth? Everything is worth,
If the soul is not small.
Whoever wants to go beyond (cape) Bojador,
Has to go beyond pain.
To the sea gave God peryl and the abyss,
But in it He also mirrored heaven.

AUTOPSYCOGRAPHY (FERNANDO PESSOA)

The poet is a faker.
His faking is so real

That he even fakes that is pain,
The pain he truly feels.

And those who read his writings
In the read pain they feel
Not the two pains that were his,
But only the one that is not theirs.

And so in its little tracks

Runs, to entertain reason,
That clockwork train
The thing that is called the heart

(Fernando Pessoa, himself)

ALMADA NEGREIROS

José de ALMADA NEGREIROS (1893-1970)

For all those who knew him, Almada Negreiros was a charismatic figure. His name has become almost synonymous with twentieth century Portuguese art (a century he practically traversed, having died in 1970), and his popularity stretches beyond the confines of the specialist art audience, extending deep into the hearts of the general public.

The artist’s popularity is mostly attributable to the witty manner in which he allied his profound understanding of the values of modern times (for instance, his pioneering and passionate promotion of Modernism in Portugal through the Futurist movement between 1915 and 1917) with his fondness – manifest in his artistic and intellectual maturity – for the aesthetic and ideological values of tradition.

His success in negotiating this difficult equilibrium – as his extensive oeuvre of paintings, drawings, ballets, poetry and prose, essays and his theoretical and critical reflections confirms – conferred a degree of recognition upon Almada that remains unique amongst the artists of his era.

Almada Negreiros skirted around traditional artistic education (he did not study at any particular art school) and was first foisted on the public in 1912 at the I Salão dos Humoristas, in the halls of Lisbon’s Grémio Literário. His creative activity at the time encompassed illustration and caricature, which he published in satirical newspapers and magazines.

His interest in the graphic arts comprised publicity, posters, magazine covers, such as Contemporânea (1922) and interior decoration. His first paintings were of a decorative nature. Almada conceived works for several commercial establishments in Lisbon; for instance, the four figurative panels he executed in 1913 for the Alfaiataria Cunha (a tailor), which where followed at a later stage with other projects for Chiado’s A Brasileira café (As Banhistas [The Bathers] and Auto-Retrato num Grupo [Self Portrait in a Group]), and a large Nu (Nude), painted in 1926 for the Bristol Club – an important set of works that illustrates the first phase of his pictorial oeuvre [CAMJAP collection]).

Dance was another of his great passions. He began to dedicate himself to some choreographic projects in 1915 (for example, the ballet O Nome da Rosa), and managed to join the cast of Helena Castelo Melhor’s Ballet Company in 1918 as the first dancer, lead choreographer and costume designer.

He simultaneously wrote the novels Saltimbancos or Mima Fataxa (1916), K4 Quadrado Azul (1917), Histoire du Portugal par Coeur (1919), the latter having been written during a brief stay in Paris, and A Intervenção do Dia Claro (1921). These are merely some examples of his literary work; besides which he pursued his critical and programmatic interventions which culminated at the moment of his public reading of the Ultimatum Futurista às Gerações Portuguesas do Século XX (The Futurist Ultimatum for the Twentieth-Century Portuguese Generations) which took place in Lisbon at the Teatro da República in 1917. Throughout his life, Almada regularly collaborated with newspapers and magazines. He also published numerous articles of a critical and cultural nature in newspapers like the Diário de Lisboa, permanently defending the values of Art, visual creation and the artist’s social role in the Modern era.

Between 1927 and 1932, he established himself in Madrid, where he pursued his activities as a craftsman, illustrator and essayist. On his return from Spain, Almada committed his energies to acts of cultural promotion: he tabled conferences (Arte e Artistas [Art and Artists] in 1933, Elogio da Ingenuidade [Eulogy to Naiveté] in 1936; composed critical essays (Cuidado com a Pintura [Beware of Painting], 1934), published his novel (Nome de Guerra [Name of War], 1938), and created posters alongside stamps or official illustrated brochures. His friendship with António Ferro, ever since the Orpheu period (1915), led him to his collaboration with the recently created Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional (Secretary of National Propaganda, 1935), the state organism that arranged his first retrospective exhibition in 1941 (Almada – Trinta Anos de Desenho [Almada, Thirty Years of Drawing]), awarding him the “Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro” Prize a year later, on the occasion of the VII Exposição de Arte Moderna (VII Exhibition of Modern Art).

Almada Negreiros was an artist of great merit, and was officially recognised as such during this period. His collaboration in numerous projects to decorate public buildings, belonging to the “Estado Novo”, affirmed itself in 1934 with his creation of the first studies for the stained glass windows of the new Nossa Senhora de Fátima Church, which was concluded in 1938. This modernist project would reveal a fecund partnership with architect Pardal Monteiro. Their collaboration was renewed in several projects, two of which deserve to be singled out: the two maritime platforms of Lisbon, which were realised in the 1940s (Gare Marítima de Alcântara, 1944 and Gare Marítima da Rocha do Conde de Óbidos, 1948).

Almada also experimented with other mediums, namely tapestry (Bailarina, 1949) and tiles or mosaics (for the Bloco das Águas-Livres in 1956), returning to stained glass with his drawings for the Santo Condestável Church in Lisbon (1951), to eventually embrace some interior design projects with his proposal for one of the rooms in the Ritz Hotel (Lisbon, 1959).From a plastic point of view, Almada’s work maintains its foundations in the persistence of drawing as the medium and objective of his creative activity. Neither Colour nor pictorial matter ever outdoes the limits imposed by the reason of his line. Even when he embraces greater experimentalism, informed by the experience of a post-cubist grammar where line cuts across plane, the contours of bodies remain synthetically resolved through an natural quality of delineation, which is often partakes of geometric definition (circles, arcs of circles, ovals…).

His preferred shapes were those belonging to people – the minstrels (Acrobatas [Acrobats, 1919]) and harlequins (Arlequim e Colombina [Harlequin and Colombina, 1938]); elegant women (Banhista [Bather, 1932]) and common female “types” (A Engomadeira [The Ironing Lady, 1938]; A Criada [The Maid, 1948]), and mothers with their children (Maternidade [Maternity, 1948]). The places regularly inhabited by these characters (Interior, 1948) – the cities with their cafés, the taverns and ports, these crowded places full of people in transit can be found in the large frescoes of the Gare Marítima da Rocha Conde de Óbidos, where the post-cubist idiom is transferred to the extremely colourful riverside scenes of Lisbon, the rhythm of work in the bay, the engines, cranes, stairs and hulks of ships.

The large Retrato de Fernando Pessoa (Portrait of Fernando Pessoa, 1945), an emblematic piece of pictorial production from the 1950s, was executed for the Lisbon restaurant Irmãos Unidos. The Modern Art Centre possesses a second version of this portrait, painted in 1964. Friends since 1913, Pessoa had already been portrayed by the artist in a drawing, exhibited in 1913 at the II Salão dos Humoristas. Fernando Pessoa majestically appears at the centre of this composition from 1954 with his felt hat and glasses, an image celebrated in endless reproductions.

At the end of the 1950s, Almada conceived works of an abstract nature, for instance, the four oils he created in 1957 (A Porta da Harmonia [Harmony’s Door], O Ponto de Bauhutte [Bauhutte Point], Quandrante 1 [Quadrant 1], Relação 9/10 [9/10 Relation] from the CAMJAP collection). Subordinated to the theme of geometric progression, these works seem to share the same thirst for order – perhaps the most mystical instant in Almada’s entire visual oeuvre. In this brief interval from his preferred figurative idiom, we find abstraction firmly inscribed within the limits of rational control – which is thereby classically humanised, the works never leaving margin for irrational or free expression.

Almada would recover the abstract syntax later on in the large allegorical mural Começar (concluded in 1968). These incisions in stone cover the main atrium of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s headquarters in Lisbon. The magical progression of numbers, translated by the geometric shape, is affirmed as is the formal principle of this composition.

Born in São Tomé in 1893, Almada became an orphan at the tender age of three. Living far from his father, who had sent him to Lisbon to study in 1900, Almada Negreiros spent his childhood as an intern in Lisbon colleges. An uprooted man, Almada attempted to fill the existential gap he carried throughout life with the polyvalent extensiveness of his oeuvre and his desire to affirm the plural artist he was. He thus created an emblematic self-image, according to a permanent act of narcissistic self-creation, with two large black asymmetrical eyes, delineated with thick eyebrows, and a face reduced to a scheme of straight lines, in permanent self interrogation (Auto-Reminiscência [Self-Reminiscence, 1949]).

The oeuvre of Almada Negreiros, for whom being a painter was “to be the absolute owner of ones self”, has received multiple awards and was subjected to an important retrospective at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, in 1993.

ANA FILIPA CANDEIAS

THE SICK LION (AESOP)

A Lion, unable from old age and infirmities to provide himself with food by force, resolved to do so by artifice. He returned to his den, and lying down there, pretended to be sick, taking care that his sickness should be publicly known. The beasts expressed their sorrow, and came one by one to his den, where the Lion devoured them. After many of the beasts had thus disappeared, the Fox discovered the trick and presenting himself to the Lion, stood on the outside of the cave, at a respectful distance, and asked him how he was. "I am very middling," replied the Lion, "but why do you stand without? Pray enter within to talk with me." "No, thank you," said the Fox. "I notice that there are many prints of feet entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning."

He is wise who is warned by the misfortunes of others.

THE LION, THE FOX AND THE ASS (AESOP)

The Lion, the Fox and the Ass entered into an agreement to assist each other in the chase. Having secured a large booty, the Lion on their return from the forest asked the Ass to allot his due portion to each of the three partners in the treaty. The Ass carefully divided the spoil into three equal shares and modestly requested the two others to make the first choice. The Lion, bursting out into a great rage, devoured the Ass. Then he requested the Fox to do him the favor to make a division. The Fox accumulated all that they had killed into one large heap and left to himself the smallest possible morsel. The Lion said, "Who has taught you, my very excellent fellow, the art of division? You are perfect to a fraction. He replied, "I learned it from the Ass, by witnessing his fate."

Happy is she who learns from the misfortunes of others

THE ASS IN THE LION'S SKIN (AESOP)

An Ass once found a Lion's skin which the hunters had left out in the sun to dry. He put it on and went towards his native village. All fled at his approach, both men and animals, and he was a proud Ass that day. In his delight he lifted up his voice and brayed, but then every one knew him, and his owner came up and gave him a sound cudgelling for the fright he had caused. And shortly afterwards a Fox came up to him and said: "Ah, I knew you by your voice."

Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES (HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN)

Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theater or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, "he is sitting in council," it was always said of him, "The Emperor is sitting in his wardrobe."

Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character.

"These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!" thought the Emperor. "Had I such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately." And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they might begin their work directly.

So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night.

"I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth," said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be.

"I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers," said the Emperor at last, after some deliberation, "he will be best able to see how the cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than be is."

So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their empty looms. "What can be the meaning of this?" thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. "I cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms." However, he did not express his thoughts aloud.

The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, viz: there was nothing there. "What!" thought he again. "Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the stuff."

"Well, Sir Minister!" said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. "You do not say whether the stuff pleases you."

"Oh, it is excellent!" replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles. "This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them."

"We shall be much obliged to you," said the impostors, and then they named the different colors and described the pattern of the pretended stuff. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order that he might repeat them to the Emperor; and then the knaves asked for more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their knapsacks; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as before at their empty looms.

The Emperor now sent another officer of his court to see how the men were getting on, and to ascertain whether the cloth would soon be ready. It was just the same with this gentleman as with the minister; he surveyed the looms on all sides, but could see nothing at all but the empty frames.

"Does not the stuff appear as beautiful to you, as it did to my lord the minister?" asked the impostors of the Emperor's second ambassador; at the same time making the same gestures as before, and talking of the design and colors which were not there.

"I certainly am not stupid!" thought the messenger. "It must be, that I am not fit for my good, profitable office! That is very odd; however, no one shall know anything about it." And accordingly he praised the stuff he could not see, and declared that he was delighted with both colors and patterns. "Indeed, please your Imperial Majesty," said he to his sovereign when he returned, "the cloth which the weavers are preparing is extraordinarily magnificent."

The whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had ordered to be woven at his own expense.

And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while it was still in the loom. Accompanied by a select number of officers of the court, among whom were the two honest men who had already admired the cloth, he went to the crafty impostors, who, as soon as they were aware of the Emperor's approach, went on working more diligently than ever; although they still did not pass a single thread through the looms.

"Is not the work absolutely magnificent?" said the two officers of the crown, already mentioned. "If your Majesty will only be pleased to look at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!" and at the same time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship.

"How is this?" said the Emperor to himself. "I can see nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! The cloth is charming," said he, aloud. "It has my complete approbation." And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more than the oth"How is this?" said the Emperor to himself. "I can see nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen--Oh! The cloth is charming," said he, aloud. "It has my complete approbation." And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more than the ers; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, "Oh, how beautiful!" and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid material, for the approaching procession. "Magnificent! Charming! Excellent!" resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The Emperor shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the impostors with the riband of an order of knighthood, to be worn in their button-holes, and the title of "Gentlemen Weavers."

The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the procession was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the Emperor's new suit. They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. "See!" cried they, at last. "The Emperor's new clothes are ready!"

And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding something up, saying, "Here are your Majesty's trousers! Here is the scarf! Here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth."

"Yes indeed!" said all the courtiers, although not one of them could see anything of this exquisite manufacture.

"If your Imperial Majesty will be graciously pleased to take off your clothes, we will fit on the new suit, in front of the looking glass."

The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, before the looking glass.

"How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they fit!" everyone cried out. "What a design! What colors! These are indeed royal robes!"

"The canopy which is to be borne over your Majesty, in the procession, is waiting," announced the chief master of the ceremonies.

"I am quite ready," answered the Emperor. "Do my new clothes fit well?" asked he, turning himself round again before the looking glass, in order that he might appear to be examining his handsome suit.

The lords of the bedchamber, who were to carry his Majesty's train felt about on the ground, as if they were lifting up the ends of the mantle; and pretended to be carrying something; for they would by no means betray anything like simplicity, or unfitness for their office.

So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, "Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor's new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!" in short, no one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor's various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.

"But the Emperor has nothing at all on!" said a little child.

"Listen to the voice of innocence!" exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another.

"But he has nothing at all on!" at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.

The End

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE (AN AMERICAN TAIL)

SOMEWHERE

OUT

THERE

From the the Disney's Masterpiece " An American Tail " this song by Linda Rondstadt and James Ingram is (my point of view) just FABOLOUS.

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU. KID

Already three years has passed since we stopped talking to each other. And maybe seven years elapsed from the day our relation ended.

So, in Heaven's name, after all this years, I keep her in my thoughts ?

Memories, yes, unforgettable memories, suddenly re-emerge from the most secluded places of my soul.

And it was a very simple thing that brought foward all this situation. It was my intention of starting this blog, "Rick's Café American", that triggered all the process. You know, in the common passions of ours, "Casablanca" was ranked as number one. Often she used to say that my behaviour matched to Rick's cynical manners. Yes I use cynism, like Rick did, as a shield against emotions, as for me, no one is entitled with the right to accede my deepest feelings, she was THE exception.

Those were days of wildness, crazy dreams and shared secrets that came to an end, suddenly, by my fault. I think that, perhaps, we fell in love to soon; the ghosts that haunted my past were still there, hers too, I suspect, unexorcized.

Although our relation ended, in a very sour way to her, with grief and sorrow, ( she couldn't ever understand why I packed my things and went away, letting her alone - and God knows I still loved her), we kept seeing each other. Then came the blackest day of our lives, when a very poor decision of mine, standing for a point of view she abominates, made her take the decision to cease all contact between us. I was then too proud (stupid) to recognize that I've made one big mistake, showing myself in a situation and with persons that had nothing to do with me. Yes, you pay dearly when you choose to follow the path of hate.

So dearly that her decision hurted like hell. Like a sharp blade cutting away, deep, in me. Now, to my despair,the wound is, once again, bleeding, and still hurts painfully.

Sometimes I pray that she hates me, I like it better instead of ignoring my existence - hate and love live so close to each other, that they are only parted by something less than a sheet of paper.

Although, knowing that any logical thought says that there's no use in crying over spelt milk, and that one must let bygones be bygones, I still miss her.

Today I'm feeling like someone who returned to life after a long lasting coma. Okay, I'm happy about it, but I can't help feeling blue just because she isn't around.

Oh well, maybe someday, " of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine " (blog), so I´m leaving a message:

Although parted from each other, I still have you, because I still remember those days. I hope you did the same, keeping in your heart our memories.

For the sake of those good times.

Here's looking at you, kid.

JEAN-CLAUDE MEZIERES

Jean-Claude MEZIERES
Adapted from the original text in EUROPEAN READINGS OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTUREEdited by John Dean and Jean-Paul Gabillet Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture, Number 50 GREENWOOD PRESS Westport,Connecticut. 1996

Jean-Claude Mezieres was born in Paris in 1938. From the time he was a child he developed a passion for drawing, comic strips, and America. He began to attend art school at age 15, where he met Jean « Gir » Giraud (Moebius), who became his lifelong friend. Jean-Claude Mezieres perfected his draftsmanship and soon got his first professional work — doing western comic stories published in Coeurs Vaillants under the pseudonym « Mezi. »

Like all French male citizens, he was drafted into the army at age 20, where he served for 28 months, including a full year in Algeria, in the last throes of this country's violent process of liberation from French colonization. After he was discharged Jean-Claude Mezieres worked for an advertising agency and the publisher Hachette, for whom he illustrated encyclopedias. Meanwhile his friend from art school, Jean Giraud, had joined the studio run by Jijé, Jerry Spring's creator, and started a promising career at Pilote in 1963 with the successful « Lieutenant Blueberry » strip. Mezieres was getting fed up with his routine work and daily life. At which point - — thanks to Jijé — — he succeeded in securing a temporary work visa for a draftsman's position with a company in Houston, Texas. In the first days of 1965, Mezieres left for America.

He never went to Houston, though. Instead he spent almost two years traveling across the United States and making a living doing odd jobs - — specially cowboy work on ranches. In the process he perfected his knowledge of a country that was mythical to him, to which he had been exposed since his childhood through movies, comics, music, and popular literature. In late 1965 he met up with Pierre Christin, then a French literature professor in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah. Pierre Christin was another childhood friend whom Mezieres had met in underground shelters during the Second World War, when they were five. Spurred on by Christin's offer to work together, they collaborated and created a comic strip together. The two men's first story was published in Pilote after Gir presented it to editor Rene Goscinny (of « Lucky Luke » and « Asterix » fame)... and then Mézières went back to cowboying some more !

Alas, because of his own increasingly difficult relationship with U.S. immigration services, Mézières returned to France in the fall of 1966. Christin had already returned to Paris - — where Mézières and Christin reunited and their collaboration really took off. Specially when their 30-page story « Les mauvais reves » (The Bad Dreams) was serialized in Pilote in 1967-68. Set in the year 2720 in a galactic empire whose capital was the Earth city « Galaxity, » the strip featured an unusual protagonist : Valerian was a flippant, good-natured « space-time agent » whose first assignment was to track down Xombul, a renegade Galaxity technocrat who had fled to the Middle Ages after disrupting the dream-generating equipment on which the whole Galaxity population relied to survive. After arriving in the eleventh century, Valerian came across Laureline, a gorgeous, fearless, sword-wielding young woman who helped him find Xombul and defeat him after the entire cast traveled back to the twenty-eighth century.

Pilote's readers responded warmly to the new strip. Many wrote to praise Christin's witty script, Mezieres's artwork, the generally « different » tone of the strip, and the thoroughly novel concept embodied by the Valerian-Laureline interplay. The male hero was no muscle-bound macho guy who brainlessly punched his way through the story, but rather a good-humored and occasionally blundering adventurer. While the story's heroine was a free, initiative-taking, totally unsubmissive character with both charm and brains. A female protagonist was still a rarity in French comic strips, but one of this ilk was simply mind-boggling to most readers.

Goscinny gave the successful creative team the green light for another « Valerian » story. « La Cite des eaux mouvantes » [The City of Moving Waters] which was serialized in Pilote in 1968 ; followed by « Terres en flammes » [Blazing Land] in 1969. In the following year the first « Valerian » album was published ; “La Cité des eaux mouvantes” contained the 1968 and 1969 stories. This album series now has altogether sixteen titles and has become Dargaud's fourth best-selling series (behind such leading lights as « Asterix » and « Lieutenant Blueberry ») and has been successfully translated into eight foreign languages — except English. Unfortunately, Dargaud's ambition proved a commercial failure after a couple of years, because of poor reception and very bad marketing, at a time when specialty comic-bookstores were still very few and overwhelmingly promoted the stapled four-color booklet format.

Another reason for this scintillating comic’s surprisingly poor reception in the States, may have been the very unusual viewpoint which the “Valerian” stories had for comics readers back then. One of the strip's numerous initial assets was Mezieres's rendition of the space-opera atmosphere stemming from his and Christin's longtime passion for U.S. science fiction literature. Valerian lives adventures set against visually stunning backgrounds : complex architectural inventions, futuristic machines, otherworldly landscapes, and odd-looking aliens are staples of Mezieres's seemingly boundless visual inventiveness. There is no reason why this characteristic would not have appealed to U.S. readers. However, what might have unsettled them has been Christin's approach to scriptwriting ; « Valerian » is a self-conscious strip teeming with references to science fiction and mainstream literature, movies, and canonical European and U.S. comics. Its most unnerving trait for U.S. comics readers is probably Christin's constant reliance on social commentary ; a liberal himself (like Mezieres), he writes stories with particular emphasis on dictators, outcasts, haves and have-nots, and as a rule works into his narratives political, environmental, and feminist concerns — - thereby showing that social ills are universal, no matter on which planet you land.

The two protagonists of ”Valerian” exemplify this liberal commitment ; whereas Valerian is very much an anti-hero, occasionally cowardly, weak, and indecisive, Laureline is a willful person who cares and is ready to fight for ideals of social justice and individual liberation. Just like « Lucky Luke » and « Asterix, » « Valerian » is therefore one of those Franco-Belgian comics that is extremely palatable and entertaining for a wide range of European readers thanks to its various levels of reading. On the other hand, it has proved unattractive to North American comics readers seeking standardized formula entertainment and being generally unprepared to respond positively to a « different, » and ideologically committed, comic strip. It is mind-boggling that - — after all the liberating changes of attitudes and insights of the late 20th Century — such a pure ray of liberal light as “Valerian” should still be overlooked by US readers.

Anyhow, in spite of this commercial failure in the United States, the two creators know that their strip's influence has spread much farther than many would expect. Americans would indeed be surprised to discover how much Mezieres's drawings have inspired sci-fi movie designers and comic artists all over the world. The community of graphic and visual artists crosses genres, mediums, and national boundaries ; and Mezieres has lastingly impressed a number of designers whose own creations have subsequently received worldwide critical acclaim. Yet Mezieres has not given birth to any heirs ; his style, a very personal blend of various influences (including those of Jije, Gir-Moebius, and U.S. cartoonist Jack Davis), has never been imitated or plagiarized. It is in fact so personal that Mezieres has never been able to hire an assistant for very long — he is never satisfied with their attempts to match his style. His creative individuality has earned him the most prestigious European prize to which a comic-strip artist can aspire, the Academy Award of European comics. In 1984 he was awarded the Grand Prix of the Angouleme, France, International Comics Festival, a distinction granted to an outstanding comics creator once every year since 1974.

Although « Valerian » is the outcome of a collaboration between two childhood buddies sharing common tastes and ideas, the piece reproduced here is a one-man product. Since the mid-1960s, Goscinny had encouraged regular and occasional contributors to offer « personal » fillers to be published next to the usual columns and serialized strips of Pilote. « My Very Own America » is one such piece, an eight-page story first published in 1974, recounting Mezieres's 1965-1966 stay in the United States. Beyond the narrative's autobiographical dimension, the story's interest has increased with time as it expresses how a Frenchman glanced back at mid-1960s America a decade later and we the readers consider it another two decades later.

When he returned to France penniless in late 1966, Mezieres left behind a young woman, one of Christin's students. After he sent her a ticket a few months later, she came to France and they have been together ever since. In the following years, Mezieres's passion for America never let up ; he would cross the Atlantic at least once every six months and spend a few weeks or months in the United States to gather material and work on ranches. But America continued to change, faster indeed than his own perception of it. Since the mid-1980s he has ceased to go frequently to the United States, for professional and family reasons. The kind of fascination that he, Christin, and many Europeans of their generation experienced in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s is no longer possible simply because, as he puts it, « for ten, fifteen, twenty years, America has crossed the Atlantic.When he made »My Very Own America« in the mid-1970s, his goal was »to talk of America, to go beyond anecdotes,« and convey to Pilote readers the significance of America in his personal evolution. This is the first English publication of the story. The editors have translated it, and Jean-Claude Mezieres very kindly took care of the English lettering.

One final note : the story's last panel pastiches the final panel of many « Lucky Luke » albums. It shows Luke riding Jolly Jumper into the sunset while singing « I'm a poor lonesome cowboy and a long way from home. » The allusion is obvious for European readers, but not so much for their American counterparts.

H R GIGER - ABBREVIATED BIOGRAPHY

H. R. Giger is recognized as one of the world’s foremost artists of Fantastic Realism. Born in 1940 to a chemist’s family in Chur, Switzerland, he moved in 1962 to Zurich, where he studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts. By 1964 he was producing his first artworks, mostly ink drawings and oil paintings, resulting in his first solo exhibition in 1966, followed by the publication and world-wide distribution of his first poster edition in 1969. Shortly after, he discovered the airbrush and, along with it, his own unique freehand painting style, leading to the creation of many of his most well known works, the surrealistic Biomechanical dreamscapes, which formed the cornerstone of his fame. To date, 20 books have been published about Giger’s art.

Giger’s third and most famous book, Necronomicon, published in 1977, served as the visual inspiration for director Ridley Scott’s film Alien, Giger's first film assignment, which earned him the 1980 Oscar for the Best Achievement in Visual Effects for his designs of the film's title character and the stages of its lifecycle, plus the film’s the otherworldly environments. Giger's other film works include Poltergeist II, Alien3 and Species.

Giger's album covers for Debbie Harry and the band ELP were voted among the 100 best in music history in a survey of rock journalists. Throughout his career, Giger also worked in sculpture and, in 1988, created his first total environment, the Tokyo Giger Bar, and in 1992 a second Giger Bar in Chur.

The HR Giger Museum, inaugurated in the summer of 1998 in the Château St. Germain, celebrates its 10 Anniversary this summer. The four-level building complex in the historic, medieval walled city of Gruyères, Switzerland is the permanent home to many of the artist’s most prominent works. It houses the largest collection of the artist's paintings, sculptures, furnitures and film designs, dating from the early 1960's until the present day. Displayed on the museum's top floor is Giger's own private collection of more than 600 works by artists such as Salvador Dali, Ernst Fuchs, Dado, Bruno Weber, Günther Brus, Claude Sandoz, François Burland, Friedrich Kuhn, Joe Coleman, Sibylle Ruppert, Andre Lassen, among many others.

The HR Giger Museum Bar, located in the adjoining wing of the museum complex, opened on April 12, 2003. Giger’s designs for the bar emphasizes the pre-existing Gothic architecture of the 400 year old space. The giant skeletal arches covering the vaulted ceiling, together with the bar’s fantastic stony furniture, evoke the building’s original medieval character and give the space a church-like feeling.

Since 1999, in an effort to help broaden the appreciation of his museum visitors for other Fantastic and Surrealist artists, Giger has utilized a three room exhibition space as The H.R. Giger Museum Gallery where, on a continuing basis, he features the works of other masters in this genre. Artists already shown have been Wessi, Prof. Ernst Fuchs, Hans Bellmer, Fred Knecht, Stelio Diamantopoulos, Martin Schwarz, Claude Sandoz, Günther Brus, François Burland, Rudolf Stüssi, The Society for Art of Imagination and Victor Safonkin.

During the last 4 years, Giger has been honored with a series of major museum retrospectives. In 2004 was the opening of a six-month exhibition at the Museum Halle Saint Pierre in Paris, France, the largest exhibition of the artist's work to ever take place outside of Switzerland. Over one year in preparation, ninety percent of the artwork was on loan from Giger's collectors, including three Swiss museums. The display of more than 200 pieces spanned four decades of the celebrated artist’s career, covering two floors of the museum's exhibition space. On December 17, 2004, H.R. Giger received the prestigious award, "La Médaille de la Ville de Paris", at Paris City Hall.

The Paris retrospective was followed by an exhibition of equal scope in 2005 at the National Technical Museum of Prague, in the Czech Republic and in 2006 by at the Kunsthaus Wien, in Austria. In July, 2007 Giger had his first museum exhibition Switzerland at the Bundner Kunstmuseum, in the city of his birth, Chur. He continues to live and work in Zurich with his wife, Carmen Maria Giger, co-director of the Giger Museum.

To learn more about the artist and his current projects, visit his primary official websites, www.HRGiger.com, http://www.hrgigermuseum.com/, and http://www.giger.com/.

THE DEATH OF ARTHUR C. CLARK (1917 - 2008)

Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the epic film "2001: A Space Odyssey" and raised the idea of communications satellites in the 1940s, died Wednesday at age 90, an associate confirmed. Clarke died early Wednesday at a hospital in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since the 1950s, said Scott Chase, the secretary of the nonprofit Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. "He had been taken to hospital in what we had hoped was one of the slings and arrows of being 90, but in this case it was his final visit," Chase said.

AS TIME GOES BY - LYRICS

As Time Goes By - (as you know it from Casablanca)

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss,
a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.


And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you."
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.


Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date.
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate.
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny.


It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.


Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers

As time goes by.

As Time Goes By - (the complete version)

[This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension.


Yet we get a trifle weary
With Mr. Einstein's theory.
So we must get down to earth at times
Relax relieve the tension


And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed.]


You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss,
a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.


And when two lovers woo
They still say, "I love you."
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.


Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date.
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate.
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny.


It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.


Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

Casablanca (Trailer)

Casablanca - We'll Always Have Paris

As Time Goes By

Casablanca - French National Anthem

WELCOME TO RICK'S CAFÉ AMERICAN

Today as I start this blog I'm in the mood for the blues.

Nervertheless, I'm opening it, my virtual "Rick's", to all of you, my (I hope so) true "clients", expecting to begin a relationship based in the free exchange of ideas. This will be a space of discussion open to all forms of thinking (candidates to dictartorship, defenders of autocracy, bureaucrats, politicians, moralists, extremists and narrow-minded people, please, stay out) so feel free to leave your opinion, your point of view. I promise to be a good listener (beg your pardon, reader) as I expect as you will be.

So let's get started.

Rick's Café American is open.