In the headlights of reality #98

I’m accustomed to opening or closing my newsletters with some thoughts about today’s times, in order to set guidelines for my frail islets, but today weather is getting covered and it is impossible to act as if nothing had happened.

Would you wish to go straight to my news, step across this speech down to the last paragraph.

What shall we say? What shall we do in front of the techno-capitalist delirious breath that is pouring into the earth? In a flash, the muskotrumpian poison, germinating for a long time now, is unfolding its furious madness with the damage we know on ecology, humanitarian assistance, scientific research, geopolitics and on every layer of the world, opening the gateway to every form of obscurantism and to the right-wing that are plaguing Europe. The list of curses coming along this macabre crew is endless.

Facing this astounding insanity, we can only feel lost. We’ll need to feel valiant and creative so that not being paralysed by stupefaction, so that not stagnating into indignation or self-pity.

Facing the grotesque hydra, the opposite strength of those who fight, who think, who dream up, who do not resign themselves, is more precious than ever. In the United States, in Canada, in South America, in Europe and elsewhere, many make their voices be heard. Let us listen to them, let us read them, and stand together, everywhere, with everything we are made of, let us be active, personally, and preserve what can be preserved: our humanity, united and diverse. Let us make a fire with it, against the oligarchical, fascist, ultra-liberal idiocracy that can only end up sucked in by its abyssal chasm.

I know that here and where we meet, we are preaching to the choir, and I know that the most important things take place on neglected lands, on education, on care for vulnerable populations, on public services and in all places where sparkles of political awareness may still light up. For it is an ideological battle and it must stand in every interstice.

Here is what I want to share with you today. Just to say: we are here.

Yet, on preserved havens, let me say briefly that we’ll play with NO&RD on the 26th at the Pannonica in Nantes, and on the 27th at the Bistro de la Cité  in Rennes.

On the 22nd for the Festival Hors Limite in Saint-Ouen where we’ll cross Melusine reloaded by Laure Gauthier.

L’Hôtel du Libre-Échange by Feydeau and staged by Stanislas Nordey, and for which I composed a franzied mambo, will be from 11 to 14 at the MC2 in Grenoble.

J’aime by Nane Beauregard and staged by Laure Werckmann will be in Nantes on the 26th (darn it! same date as NO&RD!).

Core, our installation with Adrien M & Claire B will be exhibited from 6 March to 13 July at the Museum of contemporary art in Lyon.
May I remind you that the album Cores, just like the NO&RD and GLOYW ones are on musical platforms and, most of all, can be ordered here.
To end with, I leave you with a sonic tale by Gloyw: My father was a tree for which I cooked a very lo-fi(a) video.

What else to do? Maybe let’s try to give more sense, more impact, more lightness to our work, in our arts, our deeds, our words. Let’s hold on. And if it shakes and sways, let’s dance. Without ever losing joy.

Olivier Mellano