Corbeau

Si on avait demandé à Lodvig comment il se sentait, en admettant qu'il ait été capable de répondre, il aurait sans doute déclaré que tout allait bien. Il avait chaud, il n'avait mal nulle part, il était simplement en train de mourir, entouré d'une très grande beauté.
Mais soudain un bruit inconnu lui écorcha les oreilles, un bruit agaçant qui l'arracha à son état d'extase. [...] Quelques instants plus tard, ses oreilles congelées saisirent les bribes d'une voix criarde:
"A gauche, à gauche. Ho, ho, espèce d'enfoiré, ho, ho!"

(Jørn Riel, Racontars Arctiques, extrait // excerpt, trad. // transl. S. Juul et B. Saint Bonnet)

Children

It was the day before 9/11 and throughout the Third World the children woke up crying. In Kuala Lumpur and Kandahar, in Phnom Penh and El Karak and Mogadishu and Gaza. And in the Third World that exists in the First World -- the margins and inner cities, the invisible ghettoes and reservations stretching from the Big Apple to the Golden State, up and down the coasts -- the invisible children woke up crying.

(Harold Jaffe, extrait // excerpt, Terror-Dot-Gov)

Cuisine

A.J. once reserved a table a year in advance Chez Robert where a huge, icy gourmet broods over the greatest cuisine in the world. So baneful and derogatory is his gaze that many a client, under that withering blast, has rolled on the floor and pissed all over himself in convulsive attempts to ingratiate.
So A.J. arrives with six Bolivian indians who chew coca leaves between courses. And when Robert, in all his gourmet majesty, bears down on the table, A.J. looks up and yells: "Hey, Boy! Bring me some ketchup."
(Alternative: A.J. whips out a bottle of ketchup and douses the haute cuisine.)
Thirty gourmets stop chewing at once. You could have heard a soufflé drop. As for Robert, he lets out a bellow of rage like a wounded elephant, runs to the kitchen and arms himself with a meat claver.... The Sommelier snarls hideously, his face turning a strange iridescent purple.... He breaks a bottle of Brut Champagne....'26.... Pierre, the Head Waiter, snatches up a boning knife. Al three chase A.J. through the restaurant with mangled inhuman screams of rage.... Tables overturn, vintage wines and matchless food crash to the floor.... Cries of "Lynch him!" ring through the air. An elderly gourmet with the insane bloodshot eyes of a mandril, is fashioning a hangman's knot with a red velvet curtain cord.... Seeing himself cornered and in imminent danger of dismemberment at least, A.J. plays his trump card.... he throws back his head and lets out a hog call; and a hundred famished hogs he had stationed nearby rush into the restaurant, slopping the haute cuisine. Like a great tree Robert falls to the floor in a stroke where he is eaten by the hogs: "Poor bastards don't know enough to appreciate him," says A.J.

(William S. Burroughs, extrait // excerpt, Naked Lunch)

Wrestle

The group of laborers seated at noontime with their open dinnerkettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child .... the farmer's daughter in the garden or cowyard,
The woodman rapidly swinging his axe in the woods .... the young fellow hoeing corn .... the sleighdriver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers .. two apprentice boys, quite grown, lusty, goodnatured, nativeborn, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats vests and caps thrown down .. the embrace of love and resistance,
The upperhold and underhold -- the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes -- the play of the masculine muscle through cleansetting trowsers and waistbands,
The slow return from the fire .... the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again -- the listening of the alert,
The natural perfect and varied attitudes .... the bent head, the curved neck, the counting:
Suchlike I love .... I loosen myself and pass freely .... and am at the mother's breast with the little child,
And swim with the swimmer, and wrestle with wrestlers, and march in line with the firemen, and pause and listen and count.

(Walt Whitman, extrait // excerpt, Leaves of Grass)

Prix

Sur mes refuges détruits
Sur mes phares écroulés
Sur les murs de mon ennui
J'écris ton nom

(Paul Eluard, extrait // excerpt, Liberté)

Annie

Up in Sturkeyville, eight or ten years ago, there was a man named Harvey Lawson, whose wife was a worm.

(Bob Leman, extrait // excerpt, The Time of the Worm)

Edge

Don't smoke
Don't drink
Don't fuck
At least I can fucking think

I can't keep up
Can't keep up
Can't keep up
Out of step with the world

(Minor Threat, Out of Step)

Transition

Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;
Va te purifier dans l’air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.
Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l’existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d’une aile vigoureuse
S’élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;
Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
- Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes.

(Baudelaire, extrait // excerpt, Elevation)

Extinction

I'm just like anyone
I want to feel
The road of tar beneath the wheel named extinction
And evolving from the sea
Would not be too much time for me
To walk beside you in the sun

(Pixies, extrait // excerpt, The Sad Punk)

Key

up there -- there is a sea
up there -- there is a sea
up there -- there is a sea
the sea's the possibility
There is no land but the land
(up there is just a sea of possibilities)
There is no sea but the sea
(up there is a wall of possibilities)
There is no keeper but the key
(up there there are several walls of possibilities)
Except for one who seizes possibilities, one who seizes possibilities

(Patti Smith, extrait // excerpt, Land)

Blues

Another cigarette,
Another day,
From A to B,
Again avoiding C, D, and E,
'cos E is where you play the blues

(Wire, extrait // excerpt, Lowdown)

Competition

Shortly after my return from the Eleventh Voyage, the papers began to devote increasing space to the competition between two large washing-machine manufacturers, Newton and Snodgrass.

It was probably Newton who first marketed washers so automated that they themselves separated the white laundry from the colored, and after scrubbing and wringing out the clothes, pressed, darned, hemmed, and adorned them with beautifully embroidered monograms of the owner, and sewed onto towels uplifting, stirring maxims such as "The early robot catches the oilcan". Snodgrass's response to this was a washer that composed quatrains for the embroidering, commensurate with the customer's cultural level and aesthetic requirements. Newton's next model embroidered sonnets; Snodgrass reacted with a model that kept family conversation alive during television intermissions.

Newton attempted to nip this escalation in the bud; no doubt everyone remembers his full-page ads containing a picture of a sneering, bug-eyed washer and the words: "Do you want your washing-machine to be smarter than you? Of course NOT!" Snodgrass, however, completely ignored this appeal to the baser instincts of the public, and in the next quarter introduced a machine that washed, wrung, soaped, rinsed, pressed, starched, darned, knitted, and conversed, and -- in addition -- did the children's homework, made economic projections for the head of the family, and gave Freudian interpretations of dreams, eliminating, while you waited, complexes both Oedipal and gerontophagical.

(Stanislaw Lem, extrait // excerpt, Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy, "(The Washing Machine Tragedy)", trad. du polonais // transl. from Polish J. Stern & M. Swiecicka-Ziemanek)

Adaptation

Il se réveilla au son d'un violon. C'était une musique douce et mélancolique qui lui racontait le développement et la chute d'une race morte depuis longtemps.

Jenner l'écouta un moment, puis se rendit compte brusquement de la réalité. C'était un substitut du sifflement: le village avait adapté sa musique à son intention!

Il perçut d'autres sensations. Sa couche lui sembla dégager une douce chaleur. Il ressentait un merveilleux bien-être physique.

Il dégringola avidement la rampe vers la stalle la plus proche. Lorsqu'il y rampa, le nez contre le sol, l'auge se remplit d'une mixture fumante. L'odeur lui en parut si riche et agréable qu'il y plongea le visage et l'avala avec gourmandise. Cet aliment avait la saveur d'une soupe épaisse à la viande, chaude et douce à son gosier. Pour la première fois, après l'avoir entièrement avalée, il ne ressentit pas le besoin de boire de l'eau.

"J'ai gagné, pensa Jenner, le village a trouvé un moyen!"

Au bout d'un moment, il se rappela quelque chose et rampa jusqu'à la salle de bains. Avec précautions, en surveillant le plafond, il entra à reculons dans la stalle de douche. Le jet jaunâtre jaillit, frais et délicieux.

Avec ravissement, Jenner tortilla sa queue d'un mètre de long et souleva son long museau pour permettre aux fins jets de liquide de laver les restes de nourriture qui demeuraient accrochés à ses dents pointues.

Puis, en se dandinant, il sortit lézarder au soleil, et écouta la musique éternelle.

(A.E. Van Vogt, extrait // excerpt, Le village enchanté // Enchanted Village, trad. // transl. D. Vergain)

Try

Mr. Present, go away
Come back and fuck with us some other day
Mr. Feelings, run and hide
You have no right to what you feel inside
Motherfuckers, quick to kiss
Talk your shit, but don't fuck with this
All I want to know is
Am I holding on? Am I moving on?
What can we do, what can we do?

Try
Try
Try
Try

(Minor Threat, extrait // excerpt, Look Back And Laugh)

Broken

I got no lips, I got no tongue
Whatever I say is only spit

(Pixies, extrait // excerpt, Broken Face)

Erected

Were apin rapin tapin catharsis
You get torn down and I get erected
My blood is working but my, my heart is
Dead

(Pixies, extrait // excerpt, Dead)

Promotion

Quant à toi, mort, et toi, amère étreinte de la mortalité...il est vain d'essayer de m'effrayer

Pour accomplir sa tâche sans sourciller arrive l'accoucheur,
Je vois la main experte qui presse, reçoit, soutient,
Je m'étends au seuil des exquises portes flexibles...j'observe la sortie, j'observe la délivrance et la libération

Quant à toi, cadavre, je pense que tu fais un bon fumier et ne m'en offusque point,
Je sens le doux parfum des roses blanches qui s'épanouissent,
Je touche les lèvres feuillues...je touche les seins satinés des melons.

Quant à toi, vie, je crois que tu es le résidu de maintes morts,
Nul doute que je ne sois moi-même déjà mort dix mille fois.

Je vous entends murmurer là-bas, ô astres célestes,
Ô soleils...ô herbe des tombes...ô transferts et promotions perpétuels...si vous ne dites rien, comment puis-je dire quoi que ce soit?

De l'étang vaseux au fond de la forêt d'automne,
De la lune qui suit la pente abrupte du crépuscule gémissant,
Dansez, éclats de jour et de nuit...dansez sur les tiges sombres qui croupissent dans la fange,
Dansez au son de la plainte inarticulée des branches sèches.

Je m'élève au-delà de la lune...je m'élève au-delà de la nuit,
J'aperçois dans ce chatoiement blafard le reflet des rayons du soleil,
Et débouche sur le foyer immuable, au-delà de ses rejetons, grands ou petits.

(Walt Whitman, extrait // excerpt, Feuilles d'herbe // Leaves of Grass, trad. // transl. E. Athenot)

Ailleurs

Mon enfant, ma soeur,
Songe à la douceur
D'aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De tes ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traitres yeux
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.

Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

(Baudelaire, extrait // excerpt, L'invitation au voyage)

Uncharted

My mind is like an ocean
My mind is like an ocean

(Frank Black, extrait // excerpt, Ten Percenter)

Instructions

This is the only notice you will receive.
You will follow the instructions set out below.

1.
Dress warmly and leave your house. Do not tell your family you are leaving. Do not talk to them at all. Do not listen if they talk to you. Dress warmly and leave yur house.

2.
Proceed at a brisk clip to the center of town. Do not speak to anyone in the street. Do not--do not--become involved in any conversations. Step right along. Do not tarry.

3.
At the center of town, in the little park across from the courthouse, is a building that was not there the last time you were downtown. It will strike you as a very ugly building, and its appearance will make you feel apprehensive. Pay no attention to such feelings. Do not look right or left. Enter the building. It has only one doorway and no visible door. Go right in.

4.
You will find yourself standing in a cold gray mist, with no visibility whatever. This will cause you to feel great fear. Despite the fear, you will follow instructions. Advance six steps.

(Bob Leman, extrait // excerpt, Instructions)

Evasion

"Peut-être qu'il n'y a plus rien?" La terre lui paraissait belle et pure comme après le déluge; deux pies se posèrent ensemble devant lui sur l'accotement, à la manière des bêtes des fables, lissant avec précaution sur l'herbe leur longue queue. "Jusqu'où pourrait-on marcher comme ça?" songea-t-il encore, médusé, et il lui semblait que ses yeux se pressaient contre leurs orbites jusqu'à lui faire mal: il devait y avoir dans le monde des défauts, des veines inconnues, où il suffisait une fois de se glisser. De moment en moment, il s'arrêtait et prêtait l'oreille: pendant des minutes entières, on n'entendait plus rien; le monde semblait se rendormir après s'être secoué de l'homme d'un tour d'épaules paresseux. "Je suis peut-être de l'autre côté" songea-t-il avec un frisson de pur bien-être; jamais il ne s'était senti avec lui-même dans une telle intimité.

(Julien Gracq, extrait // excerpt, Un balcon en forêt)