The Ghostreader

My dear reader, [1] You have probably heard about, maybe even are familiar with, you have flipped through, or watched an adaptation of the Manuscrit trouvé a Saragosse. Count Jan Potocki has written this book, or as he would rather like us to think, has rediscovered it during one of his interminable trips from France to Mongolia in 1805/1806. This uncanny discovery was an omen, a presage of the upcoming romanticism period in Poland.
I would like to allow myself, following the great steps of my eminent ancestor, to present You a list [2] that has been recently discovered in the noble city of Paris. Who knows what it shall forecast.
This list has been actually, literally fished out of a fountain, by a certain police officer of modestly low rank but of a kind and generous heart, who was himself a fan of Count Potocki. This humble man, intrigued by the nature of those drawn writings, agreed, after notably short persuasion, to uncover their story to me.
The story, although not too long, is most unfortunately cruel:

In the last days of November 2007, an SDF [3] of polish origin had been found dead, brutally murdered in a stylish old fountain, in the Tuilerie Gardens that grow along the Seine River. His eyes were dug-out, his tongue cut and a deep wound on his left side made him bleed until death, providing the fuzzy water a clean, metallic, magenta shine.
Shortly after the removal of his body, police officers discovered a bottle containing some hand written pages that had been calmly floating in the miserable fountain. Baptized by the press with the name of The message in the Zubrowka bottle, those papers were supposed to be kept secret until the autopsy and following trial. It is where our dear, big-hearted officer became the only person responsible for them. He confesses that reading and re-reading them resulted in the creation of a strong link between him and their author. Weeks went by, crime witnesses were few and constantly contradicting one another as well as their own previous testimonies. Two Polish tramps had been put under observation [4] in late January 2008. Nobody paid any further notice to the discovered letter. With Ingrid Betancourt doing again the ones of the news, the mysterious papers were forgotten, and could finally be discreetly published three weeks later, on the sixth page of the internet edition of Le Parisien, with a respectively small and blurry font. Nevertheless the intrigued officer cannot stop thinking about the list, and he keeps visiting that old fountain by moonlight, probably waiting for another lucky catch. That is where I ran into him.

The story told, I wish now to quote those papers, as faithfully, and truthfully as I remember them written in the Parisien. I won't add nor change anything, even if I would consider it wrong, offensive or outrageous. All annotations were made by the author.
If You wish and have time to follow this extraordinary script, be vigilant, keen-nosed if I may say so; pay attention to the order of words, to what is avoided, what appears although is not mentioned and what You would really consider as missing in this list. [5] Or should I rather say lists.

My dearest Finder,
If you are reading these letters, it means that the mission failed and I am no longer among the living. God thanks and save the Queen. It also means that all the actual inhabitants of Earth will soon be dead.
On second thought, it could as well mean that the apocalypse has already happened and that we all do not exist for ages now, and You come, as awaited, from a place I can hardly imagine, so I won't even try. In both cases sit down, stand up, get on your knees or on all fours and listen: I could tell You that I have been charged by NASA, FBI, MBA, CIA or by any other fucking abbreviation with a mission to save the world. But it wouldn't matter now, especially as is not even true.

Brevio, as used to say Dr. Lynn, you hold now in your probably six or seven fingered hands a document written in Anno Salutis 2007. Its author desires to stay anonymous in order to avoid the, unnecessary to his modest person, trouble of becoming famous. But if you're really dying to know his name to be able to honor him with a memorial, a tope, a street (although I'd rather go for an avenue), maybe a small yet undiscovered planet or you could easily choose a galaxy, a bunch of those … actually a drink would be enough. Anyway, then, it's me. You may think of me as the messiah of the lost culture, as the GHOST RIDER (it's not my real name, but that of a character of a comic book I love, some kind of futuristic, half-dead-straight-from-hell-on-his-motorbike warrior for the sake of humanity, and Dr. Lynn says that Heroes are OK. Actually she says something like “I don't f… care how you call yourself, for my part you can even be Dickrider as long as you keep your hands off of me during my round.” She is lovely when she gets hungry). Let's have then a vodka-gin named after me.

Brutto, attenzione, as this beautiful creature says. I shall begin to transmit you a record (which is an endowment by the way) of all the cultural achievements of my highly cultured civilization that your obviously uncultivated equivalent of our ground should get to know in order to be able to follow our traces; or at least try to grow some beans. Beans are always good. And they are healthy too. If you think beans are just the humdrum filler in a beefy chili or stew, you're ignoring a powerful diet ingredient in your cooking.

To commence with our human achievements, find enclosed a first list of most important massacres, chosen by their popularity according to “hits” committed by users of the internet. If you won't follow, don't worry; nor do I; the task is not to understand but to learn them by heart. If you have one, of course. If not I don't mind you learning them by stomach, feet, upper tentacle, lower tentacle, rectum tubes or whatever sounds more comfortable to you.
A last remark: Confucius, a good friend of mine, always used lists as expressions of highest wisdom. As it is my case, me and another friend of bel-esprit, named Bel by the way, funny coincidence, isn't it, Jérôme he was called, we decided to always express ourselves only through this wisest of procedures.
These words are etched in my memory forever: “A list, be it of songs, ideas, actions, names, countries, or gestures of necessity perhaps, invites one to imagine the set of criteria, mindset or agenda which has been used in its construction. Each new sequential addition to the list (…) either adjusts or confirms the watchers' developing guess about the world of the list. Manipulating or transforming this guess is a key element in the dramaturgy (or game) of lists.”
I bet you won't guess who wrote it, and as he is probably dead by now, the joke is not funny anymore, but kill me if his name was not Etchells. A memorable Englishman he must have been.

Top ten worst massacres on Earth

1. Beslan school hostage crisis, at least 386 dead, including 31 hostage takers, over 700 injured – Shamil Basayev's Riyadus Salihiin group
2. The bloodiest of episodes was the annihilation of the native Americans
3. Vietnam war
4. Rape of Nanking
5. Mao Zedong
6. Virginia Tech 32 killed, many more injured – Seung-Hui Cho
7. Exodus 32: 3,000 Israelites killed by Moses for worshipping the golden calf
8. The Shining
9. Holocaust
10. WW II
11/09

I really wonder if it is the right enumeration, one that should enclose the totality of our cultural heritage … Actually ten sounds a bit challenging to me. Four? Four seasons, elements, musketeers, I count the small French guy among them, shouldn't I just because he is supposed to be gay. Was one of the horsemen of the apocalypse homo as well …
It's neither the place nor the time for political correctness here. They were all straight, I state then, no hunchbacks among them. Let's move on with this cultural washings. A copy of this list has already been sent out into outer space by NASA, CIA and AI. A couple of nanominidiscs are floating, dancing somewhere in our Virgo Galaxy, waiting to be intercepted and confirm my words. Let's go step by step, beat by beat. Not ten, then – nine. The nine muses, here we are:

• The first one aaaaaaaaMelpomene (the “chanting one”): muse of tragedy – well I guess we've done that.
• The second, aaaaClio (the “glorious one”): muse of history – what's the difference?

Clio and Tragedy; those two usually count as one. We humans call it then Renault and fill in the vacant place with the Cinema, isn't that a brilliant idea?

• The muse of the Cinema:

The most valuable and worth remembering cinema besides “Star Wars” (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith) is the Cinéma d'auteur. This term clearly indicates that what is crucial in these motion pictures are the names of the authors. Authors who are more than directors. They are, poetically speaking, like fathers to their movies. Therefore we may say:

Tonight I go to see Antonioni and his baby, Fellini and his baby, Bergman and his baby, Hitchcock and his baby, Almodovar and his baby, Jarmush and his baby, Rosemary and her baby (finally a woman for Christ's sake!), Lynch and his baby, Kieślowski and his baby (a Pole), Polański and his baby (another one), Wajda and his baby (sic!), Kawalerowicz and his baby, Kaminski and his baby oscars, Hoffman and his baby, Holland and her baby (she's a woman, says she's Polish), Antoni Halor and his baby, Adam Hanuszkiewicz with his own one, Jan Himilsbach, Wojciech Jerzy Has and Zbigniew Hass and Zbigniew Marek Hass with their babies as well; and all those starting with an "H" are polish, half polish or completely Jewish.

Spielberg is a Jew as well. Thus the media describe him rather as a director than an Author: Reuters on the 14th February 2008:
“China voiced its disappointment over movie director Steven Spielberg's decision to quit his Beijing Olympics role because of China's policies in Sudan.”

I could tell you something about the sudden deaths that actually struck all the Authors. Antonioni and Fellini and a guy named Barthes were among trendsetters. But I don't feel like it. Just for you to picture it: they were all supposed to get on a spaceship, trying to escape when … A terrible thing it was, as my master Yoda used to say before he himself gave his last breath.

The next muse has also been strongly touched by this sudden author's-(space)ship catastrophe .

• Terpsichore the muse of choral song and dance

Dear post-humans, post-post-humans, or even post-neo-post-humans, you will think what was dancing, what was dance and choreography on Earth and in its periphery. The list that follows won't be worth imagining.

This list is just for the sake of it, for the record. Please, don't try to imagine it, you won't be able to. Dancing, Dance is from its nature an ephemeral art that exists only in the moment and all the rest of the intellectual bla bla bla …

Bla bla bla, I assume you will give it a try nevertheless. Bastards.

Mark Tompkins’ company IDA celebrates its 25th anniversary in April 2008, Tompkins is still alive, although I, apparently, ain't any more.

Standing ovations for “Bolero Variations” by Raimund Hoghe, in 2007, in Paris.

In 2006 the Mobile Academy sets itself up temporarily in Warsaw, gathering hundreds of living people around the topic of “Ghosts, Specters, Phantoms and The Places Where They Live”.

Finally in 2005, Wilfried Romoli becomes a star in Susanne Linke's “Ich Bin”.

A startling contact improvisation jam takes place between the 16th and 22nd of July 2004 (I am afraid it was rather 1994). The main stars are Jupiter and the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

In 2003 the Festival of Avignon is cancelled.

The main cultural television channel – arte – shuts down its Sunday evening edition on dance in 2002.

The audience whistles while leaving in the middle of "The Show Must Go OnI" by Jérôme Bel – a friend of mine, by the way – in 2001 in Paris.

During the first Edition of the Monaco Dance Forum the Dance Oscars called The Nijinsky(s) are being distributed for outstanding dancers, Monaco obviously, 2000.

1999 revival of "Ghost Dances" by Rambert Dance Company created by Christopher Bruce in 1981 for the Ballet Rambert.

Ever since, Ghost Dances have been partially revisited by students of the Institute for Dance Arts in Linz, Austria, under the vigilant eye of their ballet teacher – Harmen Tromp. Together, they constantly remake, retake and redo a ghostly trio. Although Julia Cima creates "Visitations" only in 2005.

“Ghost Dog” starts wandering in 1998/9.

Jérôme Bel and Xavier Le Roy exchange personalities in 2000, so that later, the second one which is not the first one may re/create a version of Giselle/Giszelle, whose real name is actually Eszther Salamon, but not that Eszter that says she's Eszter in the performance “And Then” by Eszter Salamon. That one is actually also Eszter Salamon, only another one, although this first one is also there, but not exactly in the same time and space.

2007 then, with “And Then” year of the salmon.

2008 Maurice Béjart although dead, his choreographies are still alive; mine as well hopefully.

This list is not exhaustive as you may realize, but I focused personally, and personal choice it was, not influenced by money, bribes or money or even dollars, my focus was focused on dance in France. If you have any complaints do not contact us, we will contact you. [6]

• The fifth nymph is Thalia (the “blossoming one”): muse of comedy and bucolic poetry.

My list is exhaustive.

1. Ricky Gervais • Netto, cariňo, passons, as Dr. Lynn, used to say; zzzzzzzErato : the muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs. Before I trace the parcours of Safona from Lesbos to the international 69 position (and I'm not talking about Pisces or an aquarium, if you see what I mean), let me shortly introduce in a nonalphabetical order some human achievements in astronomy.

• Urania:

The most spectacular discovery in human research in astronomy is definitely the Supernova Remnant (SNR). Nevertheless a more important and obviously more super one is the Superclusters. They are both super but the second is just more super than the first one, like a supermarket and a megastore and a gigastore. They all are super.

Clusters are larger structures containing many thousands of galaxies. Clusters of galaxies are often dominated by a single giant elliptical galaxy, named the brightest one, which tidally destroys its satellite galaxies and adds their mass to its own (what an arse!).

I bet you are infatuated by my outstanding knowledge in Urania's domain. I have to confess that there is very little of my own invention in these lines. These lines are not mine, I've stolen them! There is this program on the Discovery channel, right after “Bone Detectives”, where a class of teenagers is lead across their misconceptions about science by three passionate scientists. And Doctor Laura Grant, hot chick, reminds me somehow of Dr. Lynn. Must be a similar smile or something in the nose … When I regularly pass the TV/HiFi salon, rue J. Bouton, I get high and watch in loops the episode about the Big Bang, BIG 1 episode, it's called. It's big.

Superclusters are the biggest formations ever discovered in our universe. They contain tens of thousands of galaxies.

Superclusters, called Superamas in French, maybe less spectacular than the SNR (although more super). They also do not form any witty abbreviation, but there is something very specific and important about them. The doctor thinks, and I agree, that both universally and socially such collective formations are crucial because:

– Only about 5% of the galaxies surveyed have been found to be truly isolated – we are all together in this shit, one has to admit that he/she is involved.
– As the universe is continually expanding, resulting in an average increase in the separation between individual galaxies, associations of galaxies can overcome this expansion on a local scale through their mutual gravitational attraction – Michel Houellebecq puts it differently but it's always about sex.
– At the superamas scale, galaxies are arranged into sheets and filaments surrounding vast empty voids – it is a way to avoid the scary void of life.
– Above this scale, the universe appears to be isotropic and homogeneous – finally.

Despite the prominence of large elliptical and spiral galaxies, most galaxies in the universe appear to be dwarf galaxies.

• And the seventh dwarf is called Dopey, no, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy maybe, Happy, Doc, Doctor Lynn used to make me recite the cardinal sins before attaching my arms to the brass banisters of the bed on her evening round.

superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira, acedia

Ave Maria, Gracia plena, on my knees before the great multitude of heavenly witnesses, I offer myself soul and body to Thee, Eternal Spirit of God. I desire never to grieve Thee by unfaithfulness to grace, and I pray with all my heart to be kept from the smallest sin against Thee. I implore Thee Adorable Spirit, helper of my infirmity, so to keep me in Thy grace that I may never sin against Thee. Give me grace O Holy Ghost, Spirit of the Father and the Son.

Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide.

And we all lived happily ever after, until the apocalypse.

P.S.:
As a small boy from Tadeusz Konwicki's (another damn Pole – an Author of course) book "Zwierzoczłekoupiór" (meaning humanimaghost) says: “I live making everyday index cards, you know, those classified small cardboards. Because I love to classify. And there is everything written down there: disposition, work, study, sleep, pastime and even how was the poo today. I give notes, like in school. My old man taught me how to do it. Because one has to live practically and not in a slapdash way or something.”

Amen

[1] Ghost writer : “The division of work between the ghostwriter and the credited author varies a great deal. In some cases, the ghostwriter is hired to polish and edit a rough draft or a mostly-completed manuscript. In other cases, a ghostwriter does most of the writing, using concepts and stories provided by the credited author. In this case, a ghostwriter will do extensive research on the credited author or their subject area of expertise. (…) at a minimum, the credited author usually jots down a basic framework of ideas at the outset or provides comments on the ghostwriter's final draft.” From www.wikipedia.org
[2] List in Polish means both a list and a letter. Letters, probably as ancient as the art of writing itself, always assume the presence of both a sender and an addressee.
[3] SDF – let me briefly explain, if You are not acquainted with the French abbreviation system – stands for Sans Domicile Fixe, which is a general term to designate homeless people.
[4] Meurtre deux Polonais sans domicile fixe ont été mis en examen vendredi pour le meurtre d'un compatriote retrouvé mort le 18 novembre dans une fontaine du jardins des Tuileries à Paris, a-t-on appris lundi de source policière. Le 18 novembre vers 08H00, un … Le Parisien, publié le 21.01.08
[5] Lists are a very curious phenomenon. Francois Jullien claims that nothing seems more culturally neutral than making a list. In his opening essays to the book “L'art de la liste” (Presse Universitaire de Vincennes, 1990) he states: “No explication comments or justifies a list, each of those lists forms in itself a totality of sense and therefore presents itself to interpretation, meditation (…). Index cards and enumerations are sufficient enough to create a text.”; p. 7-8
[6] most of events are quoted by the special 25th anniversary edition of Danser, that I luckily discovered abandoned on line 14 of the Parisian underground, the one that has no driver at the front and drives completely by itself.

(25.10.2008)