Surviving 19th Century Immersion

Surviving 19th Century Immersion

NP 04/26/2010 —Ink & pastels on paper— 5×7  (hi-res here)

The only way I can survive the 19th century immersion I have to go through, is by having a sketch pad next to me and doodle as needed…really an obsession replaced by another. I found it healthier than reaching for a beer or a cigarette, though the thought has crossed my mind a couples of time! As already announced on the last post I will be giving a talk (in frog tongue) on my dear Augustus and family Thursday in NYC:

Comité des loisirs du personnel de l’ONU
L’ASSOCIATION CULTURELLE FRANCOPHONE

est heureuse de vous inviter à la conférence de
Nicole Peyrafitte
Le Retour al Paìs d’Augustus Saint  Gaudens

Une En/Quête sur l’immigration, la vie et l’œuvre
du célèbre sculpteur Américain né en Irlande,
de père gascon et de mère irlandaise.
Le jeudi 29 avril à 18h15
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
801, 2ème avenue ( 43ème rue ), suite 605, New York, NY
more info on my work on Augutus Saint Gaudens here

NP 04/26/2010 —Ink & pastels on paper— 5×7  (hi-res here)

Talk/Sing/Glue: Save The Dates!

Talk/Sing/Glue: Save The Dates!

from NP the winslow homer seriesFrom the NP’s Winslow Homer Postcard collage series

I am looking forward to a variety of exciting events this spring/early summer. All the details are listed below & do not miss “Trialogues” —Joris/Peyrafitte/Bisio— at the Vision Festival June29th!

Events coming up:

Thursday April 29th 6:15PM
I’m giving a talk -with slides & IN FRENCH & free- on Augustus Saint Gaudens:


Comité des loisirs du personnel de l’ONU
L’ASSOCIATION CULTURELLE FRANCOPHONE

est heureuse de vous inviter à la conférence de
Nicole Peyrafitte
Le Retour al Paìs d’Augustus Saint  Gaudens

Une En/Quête sur l’immigration, la vie et l’œuvre
du célèbre sculpteur Américain né en Irlande,
de père gascon et de mère irlandaise.
Le jeudi 29 avril à 18h15
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie
801, 2ème avenue ( 43ème rue ), suite 605, New York, NY

more info on my work on Augutus Saint Gaudens here

Thrusday May 27th 7pm
MaelstrÖm Revolution Fiestival
Jerome Rothenberg/Pierre Joris/Nicole Peyrafitte
+
a group of Belgium Artist TBA
at The Invisible Dog
51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn



WALTZING IN QUICKSAND: POETS IN COLLAGE
Tribes Gallery
May 21-June 27, 2010
Steve Dalachinsky, Bob Heman, Yuko  Otomo, Valery Oisteanu, Bruce  Weber
, Star Black, Aaron Howard, Nicole Peyrafitte and  Lewis Warsh.
Opening Reception

Sunday June 6th from 4-6
Tribes

285 East 3rd St, 2nd Floor
NYC 10009


Tuesday June 29th 
9:15PM
THE VISION FESTIVAL

Joris/Bisio/Peyrafitte
Trialogues

Abron’s Arts Center
466 Grand Street
New York, NY

And still on view:

Michel Calvet / Nicole Peyrafitte / Jean-Pierre Rives
The World Bar /The Trump Tower
845 United Nation Plaza
New York NY 10017

Pasta Express & Drawings du Jour

Pasta Express & Drawings du Jour

Quick Salmon Pasta

I don’t eat much pasta but before a gig I like to have an early dinner that will give enough energy to be able to sing three hours later and pasta & lox is perfect for me.
So on Monday before going to our gig at The Local 269
with Pierre Joris & Michael Bisio — snippet of concert here— I made us a salmon, scallion & fusili express dish. My friend Dawn Clements —who is opening another drawing extraordinaire at The Boiler today— had given me a delicious piece of lox from the Acme Smoked Fish store in Brooklyn. It took me 14 minutes to make the dish including cooking the pasta:
Cook  pasta al dente.
Cut pieces of lox.
In a pan bring one cup of heavy cream to  a boil and add
scallions cut at a bias  for one minute.
Combine it all.
Add a little salt, a lot of fresh ground pepper & shavings of Parmesan cheese….
Voilà c’est tout
!

Beside the drawing concert series there is another series in constant progress and below are 2 pieces  Also in serious progress the Augustus Saint Gaudens script with  new discoveries on Bernard Saint Gaudens his father, and a dead line coming up very soon for the script.

Oeufs Soufflés & Concert Drawings Series

Oeufs Soufflés & Concert Drawings Series

The bok choy in the fridge was calling for immediate attention. As it was Sunday and brunch time I felt like something a little more festive than bok choy and rice! Some sort of a soufflé came to mind. I preheated the oven to 375º. I sliced the bok choy vertically into 6 sections, then braised it in a mix of butter and olive oil with 2 cloves of minced garlic. While that was cooking, oeufI separated 5 eggs — yokes in one bowl and whites in an other. Pierre grated 1 cup of various cheeses he found in the cheese box. I whipped the egg whites very firm. Mixed the cheese with the previously beaten egg yolks, and added salt, pepper and nutmeg. Now folded half of the egg whites in the egg yolk + cheese mixture, then folded in the second half of  egg whites. Poured the mixture over the braised bok choy and put it into the oven for ?…sorry I didn’t look at the time — at some point I just felt it was done and it was! But it cannot be more that 15/20 minutes. This doesn’t come out as a real high soufflé but again I call it oeufs soufflés — not “SOUFFLAY”! It is very  good simple and stress free, unlike soufflay can be!

Another thing I have been doing is to keep a better record of the drawings I make at events — especially at concerts. Below are a few of the “blind” concert series drawings. I draw (almost) without  looking a the page and let eye and rhythm guide the hand. I also do take some notes on the back for possible later poems.

The Bill Frisell Series
Concert at Blue Note on February 28th 2010: Bill Frisell with Paul Motian and Ron Carter. This is a summing up of the note I sent to my friend Steve Dalachinski after the  concert:

..loved the set they played
it was very bare and beautiful
very essential, not too many notes!
so delicate…
carter seems to have difficulty breathing,
motian was doing his thing very well while frisell was carefully and tactfully tying and lifting them up…
it works better for some songs than others but overall it really did and it filled my soul.
also it was my first time seeing them live and i just couldn’t get my
eyes off carter’s fingers… so loooong, so square… a giant’s hand! and
the way he uses them on the bass…..

The Matthew Shipp Series:
This concert was yesterday, Sunday March 14th, at Gathering of The Tribes, that is Steve Cannon’s magical place. We gathered at 5:00 PM and the concert started at 5:30PM with as an opening surprise a short snippet featuring the Nicholas’ brothers —see video below– from the 1943 movie Stormy Weather. Though it happens in a liminal time and space, the connections between  Matt Shipp and the Nicholas’ brothers reveal immanent evidences. Matt Shipp’s dexterity, agility and  feline playing has the same mesmerizing quality as the brothers’ dancing. I didn’t time the concert but my attention didn’t drop or drift for a single minute. Matt takes us onto a musical journey that deliberately references several genres played at once with a sheer emotional clarity that can make you laugh or cry and even laugh & cry at once. At some moments it felt like he was channeling Satie & Bach playing Fly me to the Moon together! One of my favorite Shipp recordings is on his latest CD 4D. It takes the old repetitive (stupid) French song Frère Jacques and manages to turn it into an obsessive frightening dramatic Hitchcockian episode.
Voilà! If you want to see the drawings at a better resolution just click on them.

March, march, march…

March, march, march…

MARCH—collage/drawing from N.P.  Calendar Series

Yeap! We are in March and I saw some crocuses “piercing” the ground on 71st street yesterday. It cheered me up. The general mood has been down with all the international and national events, catastrophes, health care mess… Even my hometown, Luchon, was seriously affected by a storm coming from the Southwest with winds at 200km/h. It killed one man, pulled out thousands of ancient trees, lifting roofs, and closing bars for one day! No one remembers seeing or hearing about such an event in a place that is so naturally sheltered from the wind. Who says there is no global warming? The same idiots who feel threatened by universal health care? The same idiots who worship a god that knows neither nature nor health. We need D.A Bennett  The Truth Seeker all over again, I just read that book and it is amazing how the problem of religion in politics has remained the same for two century ago and is far from being solved.

Anyhow, life must go on and I have been busy. The “d’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show” at The World Bar is still on. Works by French painter Michel Calvet and 3 large collage/paintings of mine are on display.  The World Bar serves delicious cocktails and their $8 happy hour special is totally worth it. I had a “peace cocktail” concocted by the excellent (1/2 french) mixologist Jonathan, all fresh juices and premium liquors — a real treat! We will have another event there soon as the opening was affected by the storm. So don’t feel bad if you couldn’t make it; D’Artagan has agreed to provide us with more patés and saucisson for another event, so stay tune!

Below you will find my detailed calendar of events for March, four events still coming up, it is all exciting especially the Umami festival one, which is leading me into fascinating research about yeast and beer in Mesopotamian time. As a result of all this action the fridge as been consistently empty and home made Miso soup (see recipe here)and rice has become a staple.

Breakfast Rice

I cook two cups of brown rice twice a week and eat it in different forms. The breakfast version is becoming a house favorite and even Pierre who is not a brown rice aficionado really likes this one:

-Warm up some rice milk in a bottom of sauce pan. Add 1/2 cup of cooked rice per person, one small apple cut into small pieces, 1/2 banana, raisins, cranberries, goji berries, maple syrup. Just warm it up. Before serving add chopped roasted almonds, pistachios, walnuts. That’s a tasty healthy breakfast!

Chicken

When we finally made it to the coop a few days ago we got the making for a chicken soup. I had been craving it since Dawn Clements (now showing an amazing piece at the Whitney Biennial click here) served me the most delicious one at her studio in early February.  That recipe is also very easy:  throw it all in the pot and let it happen while the smell of the broth takes over the house. This is what I threw in the pot of cold water:
-1 organic chicken (with feet!)
-3 celery ribs
-3 carrots peeled and cut
-2 “fanned” leeks
-1 onion with 3 cloves planted in it
– 1 spice/herb bag with: fresh parsley, thyme, laurel leave, 1 cardamon pod, 6 blk pepper corn.
– Sea salt.
Then you can either delicately lift some of the meat and eat it separately or debone  the whole thing and return it in the pot. You will have to add some salt and pepper to taste and you can of course add some pasta or rice or potatoes. I just had a bowl and this is ever so restauring and satisfying.

Now the schedule and if I don’t see you there, please stay in touch!

Sunday March 7th
Sunday Best Reading Series
4PM $7
The Lounge, Hudson View Gardens
Pinehurst Avenue and 183rd Street
183rd & Pinehurst Avenue
New York City

Friday March 12th
UMAMI Festival
Featuring Sarah Klein, Murray’s Cheese, Tom Cat Bakery, Ithaca Beer Company
& NP w/ Rosie Hertlein ( violin)
6:30PM
click here for
reservations
Astor Center for Food and Wine
399 Lafayette (at 4th Street)

Sunday March 21
NP & Pierre Joris, Nick Flynn, Major Jackson, Douglas Unger
6PM
Poets for Peace at Erika’s
85-101 N. 3rd St # 508
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(between wythe and berry
and it is the bedford stop on the L train)

Monday March 29th
NP w/ Pierre Joris & Michael Bisio (bass)
THE LOCAL 269

269 E Houston Street NYC

Ongoing until Agust 2010
D’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show
Michel Calvet / Nicole Peyrafitte / Jean-Pierre Rives
The World Bar /The Trump Tower
845 United Nation Plaza
New York NY 10017



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