Summertime/ C’est l’été

Summertime/ C’est l’été

syndicatereading

Adishatz, Hello!
Our spring was busy & rich with a great tour of the UK. You can find videos & pix on my facebook page, Pierre Joris’ blog & more links below. We are now almost ready to embark on a long summer transhumance filled with many exciting stages — see short & longer term dates below. Meanwhile, let me fill you in on our publications.Bi-Valve : Vulvic Space I Vulvic Knowledge — which includes a cd, texts &17 colors plates of my paintings & digital photographs — is OUT! The recording features Michael Bisio on bass & we had a jolly good time recording it at FastSpeaking music w/ Ambrose Bye. I couldn’t be more pleased with the result & koudos to Lori Anderson-Moseman (Stockport Flats), who not only made it beautiful but was ever so supportive thru out the process. Get your copy while they last: here.

Also out, Pierre’s Meditations on the Stations of Mansur al-Hallaj —for which I designed the cover— is just out from Chax press, you can get it here, & in case you had missed the announcement: Poem for the Millennium Four: The University of California Book of North African Literature is also out and available here.

 

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
July 19-27 

Poetry Festival in Sète, France
NP: Voix Vives de Méditerranée en Méditerranée
Daily performances throughout the festival.
See detailed program here

July 29-August 5
Gascony

NP & PJ: Artists in Residence in Gascony for the NY’OC Trobadors project.
NY’OC Trobadors, is a collaboration between artists based in France and New York.  Save the date — Saturday November 23rd 2013 — for a full day on/of Occitan culture that will bring the riches of southern France’s troubadour tradition to the American public. This unique gathering of bi-continental poets, musicians, singers & translators will present panels, a fully staged bilingual (Occitan-English) multimedia performance and talks about the bilingual anthology of Occitan poetry we are working on. Texts, poems & song lyrics spanning the 11th century to the present will be presented. This event will be at Poets House co-sponsored by City Lore & d’Artagnan. We still need funds to make this event possible. City Lore is taking donations here)

 

August 5-31
Bourg d’Oueil 
(our Pyrenean base)
NP: Continuing work on a series of paintings & writings specific to the location
PJ: This is the first summer in 10 years he has no deadlines so he will write new work!
& together we will start editing our documentary project on poet Gerrit Lansing.

 

September 1-15
Paris
September 5th:  NP & PJ Feature readers at Paris Lit Up series
more readings TBA

October 10-22
Southern California Tour:
Los Angeles:
October 16th : PJ reading at Otis
October 17th: PJ Round table on Translation at USD
More TBA

November 6-9
Brussels- Belgium
University of Brussels Symposium on Alice Notley & Pierre Joris.
Details TBA – Readings by both PJ & NP

LINKS:
CCA Launch of Diwan Ifrikya – Glasgow Scotland (Photo Monique Lemos)
DOMOETICS – Edinburgh Scotland (Photo Chris Donia)
Nicole at Tibor de Nagy Gallery – NYC
Nicole at The Huntarian Gallery  – Glasgow Scotland
Pierre at Dia Foundation – NYC
Nicole at MoMA – NYC
Pierre at Walt Whitman’s house  – Huntington Station NY
Fortino Samano (the Overflowing of the Poem) review – by Belle Gironda & NP

IN PROGRESS:
IMG_7522.1
Working on a short documentary on poet Gerrit Lansing .
Here, filming in Gloucester in June 2013 with Miles Joris-Peyrafitte as cinematographer.

 

Mirage & More

Mirage & More

N.P  from “Bi-Valve” Series:  “Concha Brava”  2011

Hello to you all!
How have you been since the “Infinite Views”? I have not been able to post & you will find out why below. I hope to be able to post while in New Orleans as I would like to continue the series I started there:  Temps/Oralité #I & Temps/Oralité #II. Pierre & I will be there for a week during MARDI GRAS!  On Thursday April 23rd Pierre Joris, John Sinclair and his Blues Scholars, & I will be reading/performing at the infamous 17 Poets Series!

Thursday February 23th 7:30pm
17 Poets Series
The GoldMine Saloon
701 Dauphine,
Corner of St. Peter and Dauphine
French Quarter
New Orleans

After the reading we will take a few days to travel to the Bayous. Pierre as been commissioned to write a libretto for a choir project coordinated by Donald Nally & involving the composers Chris Jonas, Joby Talbot & Gene Coleman.  The topic of the project is about the BP Oil Disaster, & Pierre is trying to meet with communities of various ethnicity  that have been affected by the spill.

There are two projects that have kept me away from the blog: the first one is Bi-Valve, a series of texts, paintings & recipes. The painting above is part of it. If you miss the Nola performance save the date for the New York City installment:

NICOLE PEYRAFITTE : BI-VALVE SOLO
Monday April 23rd
Evolving Voice / Evolving Music
107 Suffolk Street
Clemente Soto Velez – Educational & Cultural Center
New York, NY 10002

And the second project is cinematographic:
Late last fall I was commissioned by the Friends of Basil King to produce & co-direct with Miles Joris-Peyrafitte a 22-minute film depicting the intimacy between writing and painting in Basil King’s work, called BASIL KING: MIRAGE.
The camera will focus on drawn and written lines, and on images of his paintings that are reflections & counterpoint to a number of consequential periods in King’s life: his childhood during WWII in England, his four on-and-off years at Black Mountain College, his relationship with other writers such as Frank OʼHara and Paul Blackburn and with painters such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline…
Watch the 1 minute trailer  below:

 
Basil King: Mirage Trailer
  on Vimeo.

The film will be premiered on September 22nd at the event celebrating Basil’s Arc: The Paintings & Poetics of Basil King. Meanwhile the Committee of the Friends of Basil King is raising money in order to finish the movie.
We made the trailer to give you a little taste of the film & if you would consider a donation (big or small — every little bit helps) you can DONATE HERE. Donors will be invited to the premiere. More info at: http://www.blog.basilking.net/

 Voilà for now & looking forward to “Laissez le bon temps rouler!”

 

Infinite Views

Infinite Views

This summer has been very wet & overcast in the Pyrenees. I love being here no matter if it rains or shines, but some hikes require clear skies to be able to experience the 360 degree panoramic view of the Pyreneen mountain range. My friends Lori & Tom were visiting from Ithaca for a week, the skies were scheduled to be crystal clear for two days — perfect timing to get out & to the summit!

To be able to see the sun rise over the mountain range, wake up call is at 4:30am  so we can leave the house by 5am. We are on schedule, a thermos of hot coffee, goat cheese, bread & a nice croustade from my favorite bakery in Luchon (rue Nérée Boubé) are all in the backpack. Hiking shoes & stick on hand, I slam the door shut, start walking towards the car when a sharp pain enters my foot: a roof nail punctured my sneakers and my foot!

Back to the house to remove shoe, nail, socks and notice that the puncture is not too bad. Once thoroughly disinfected, bandaged and foot secured in the hiking shoes I’ll be fine and can begin the journey. We drive to the port the Balès, park the car and start the hike in the night. The moon is already gone,  the sky still very bright with stars. I am granted 3 beautiful shooting stars that I truly welcome as a healing omen after the nail in the foot!  We will not make it on time on the top to see the sun break over the mountains but still I want to get to the top to get the full view. Lori is more eager to take picture of the rising sun from the Peirahitta (you can listen to the song I wrote about that place here) plus she is concerned about my foot — which is a bit sore, but the overpowering drive to get up there and experience the view that my ancestors have been looking at for thousand of years is irresistible.

 

We are on top of the Mont Né mountain at 2147m or 7049 feet high. The sun is just above the horizon the colors on the peaks are spectacular, the sun diffuses strokes of light slowly revealing the contours of the  mountain range’s layers. A true sense of infinity.

In Pétéram We Trust!

In Pétéram We Trust!

In the county of Luchon (where I was born and raised) we are really serious about Pétéram. Pétéram is an ancient local dish made from a combination of tripe (intestine & pluck), lamb  & veal feet, ham, carrots & onions. During my last visit  home I had to have my fix of Pétéram; so one Sunday, part of the family took off to the village of Oô, where the restaurant “Les Spigeoles” serves one of the best Pétéram. Jean-Pierre Oustalet, a friend & the chef-0wner of the establishment, is a very creative man always up to something fun. Recently he printed a series of t-shirts  with  the motto he coined himself: “In Peteram We Trust!”.

peteram t-shirt

This summer a Flemish  TV from Belgium came to film Jean-Pierre’s Pétéram for one of their shows. Though the video is in Flemish & French I urge you to watch it: Touristique: de pétéram.
Tripe dishes are cooked around the world (list here), and as we know
these less desired cuts were left for the poor. It was the same for Pétéram, I don’t think it appeared on restaurant menus in Luchon until the 20th century and my family restaurant was certainly one of the first to offer it. Though I don’t know the exact etymology of the word, one can read its the humble origins through the Gascon language  : petar— French translation: “crever” or in English:”to die” or “to be famished” and hame— in French “faim” or in English “hungry” Thus Pétéram can be interpreted as “a dish for the famished” or as a dish that will kill hunger! Then again this may be an invented etymology (much work remains to be done on the Gascon language, and especially certain of its regional versions, such as that spoken in the Luchonais.) On the other hand, to quote my husband, the poet Pierre Joris, “are any etymologies really ‘false’?”
I used to make Pétéram when I was working at the family restaurant (other posts related to the family hotel here) and though we received “clean” tripe from the butcher, the smell was still strong and the tripe would require extensive blanching in order to get rid of the offensive smell. I got used to it and it didn’t bother me, except this one time. In the late fall of 1981, I had to cut a big pile of intestines and honeycomb for my Pétéram and  that time, for some reason I was to discover a few days later, I couldn’t bear the smell. T
wo days later I found out I was pregnant with my son Joseph. Throughout my pregnancy I had to stay away from tripes.

Jean Pierre Oustalet’s Pétéram is as good as it gets. He achieves the difficult task of making a tripe dish light. The texture of the tripe still firm but tender. The sauce, in which the tripe have cooked for over twelve hours, release the rich and comforting aromas of all the ingredients. The creamy potatoes that have been added late in the cooking provide the perfect starching effect. Some places serve it as a first course, though we had it as a main course. We had soup to start with, then a plate of artisan salamis & cured ham, followed by the Pétéram as the main course. Then we had a slice of delicious mountain cheese, a slice of apple pie and voilà! we sure were full and happy! Below are a few pictures of the fun outing where you can see my parents : Jean & Renée Peyrafitte ( 88 and 81 years old!) in the gorgeous village of Oô. This village is also very dear to me because I premiered my performance The Bi-Continental Chowder /La Garbure Transcontinentale there in 2005. One of the reason is that one of the main Romanesque female figures featured in the show is from the village;  you can hear the song related to it here.

The recipe is a translation of the family recipe transmitted by my grandfather Joseph Peyrafitte & typed by my mother Renée Peyrafitte:

for 5/6 people:
1 lamb stomach & 6  feet 1 kg veal honeycomb & 2 feet
3 carrots whole
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 ham bone
1 bouquet garnis of thym, laurel & parsley
1 cup of ham prosciutto like— diced
2 onions
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 quart chicken stock
1 kg potatoes
Hachis (50 gr garlic & 50 gr fatback grounded together)
1/3 cup Armagnac

Blanch and scrape the tripes thoroughly. Cut the stomach & honeycomb in trips of about 1 x 0.5 inches. Place is all in a stew-pot with a ham bone.
Add 3 whole carrots, the bouquet garnis, 1 tablespoon of tomato paste, 1 cup of ham, 2 onions whole, salt, pepper & a touch of nutmeg. Add wine wine & chicken stock so tripes are immersed and “swimming”.
Bring it to a boil, cover the pot and let cook for 10 hours, one hour before serving add potatoes peeled and quartered.
When ready to serve add hachis and the Armagnac.



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