Museum Piece: The First Cuca's Things (Paris, October '95)

Let's see what la Cuca has to say

On Monday, I was walking in a bad mood because its been months that I've been trying to loose these extra kilos that weight on me so much, I was walking, I said, on the sunny streets at noon on my way to the electroacustic music class, when I saw coming towards me on the same sidewalk a very well dressed, bearded black man. Of course, it's not polite to look into people's eyes, but he was looking and when he passed next to me I heard the inevitable flattery. I saw it coming. Something like "I would like to suck..." (untranslatable mumble or indecipherable or unrepeatable words here...) But no. What I heard left me bewildered and happy: "Vous etes ravissante" (You are lovely). Great, man! Never before I heard such a good compliment. Used to hear the aberrations that porteños* say, not all of them, but most, this one hypnotized me because of its grace. "Vous etes ravissante." Ah! It sounds like the words of a prince.

And I continued my way with a smile on my lips.

* People from Buenos Aires

Livre de brouillon

The Livre de brouillon is a green notebook that has those words printed in cursive across the cover, on the lower part; higher up I wrote: "and the truth is that this name chokes me." It's a blank notebook -- that's how I like them, without lines -- so I could write drafts, notes, or whatever crossed my head. I call that year, between September '95 and July '96, the year of silence, because I was very lonely and isolated, so during the night I gushed out plenty of words in that apartment on the Rue Joseph de Maistre, close to the bohemian, or not so bohemian now, neighborhood of Montmartre. The story of how I got that two-bedroom apartment for only 800 francs a month (the equivalent at that time of 200 dollars more or less) is another story. For now, here it goes this introduction to the writings of the Livre de brouillon, name that means simply draft notebook, but in French sounds more interesting.

(Translation of the poem in the image:
The Toilet:
See it just as it is
don't be ashamed of its tidy rectitude.
He takes care of its duty
which nobody else does:
to dispose of the effects
that some consider precious
treasures of themselves and
deposit without delicacy
on its waters.)