Paris, 19.6.2009 đđđđđđđđđđSubject: Clifford Irving Show đđđđđđđđđđđ đđđđđđđđđđDear Clifford Irving, đđđđđđđđđđNo matter how familiar Paris feels – and after all this time there are days in which its monotonous, elegant beige-stone skin fits like a

01/07 kid glove – I still always manage to lose my bearings in the coiled and cobbled inclines of Montmartre. Since I landed in this city fifteen years ago, I’ve lived alone in a cramped and dim illegal sublet a minute’s walk from the red-light district Pigalle. Despite my geographical proximity to the hilltop neighborhood just north of here, there was a time I never ventured further than my late-night tobacconist on the Boulevard de Clichy. I frequented that particular tobacconist because his is the nearest of three An Open Letter local shops to a pitiful, barren plinth that once hosted a statue of Charles Fourier (1772–1837).1 to Clifford Irving During the Nazi Occupation of France (1940–1944), poor, utopian Charles, like so many of his bronze compatriots, became bitter metallic grist for the war mill. đđđđđđđđđđIn the past, the east–west axis of the boulevard incised a horizontal boundary on a mental map I had drawn of safe spaces and spaces where I could be at risk, much like the Seine River divides the Left and Right Banks. The hill to the north of the boulevard was off-limits. Christened the Mons Martyrum after the bishop of Paris Saint Denis was martyred there (ca. 275), legend has it the decapitated Saint Denis trekked two miles north with his head in his hands, accompanied by angels, to the site where his namesake church would be built. I was not bothered by the hordes of tourists seeking ersatz traces of bohemian life around the Moulin Rouge, the Lapin Agile, and the Place du Tertre, immortalized by the Montmartre school of painters. In my state, I wouldn’t have noticed them. Instead, it was the Sacré Cœur basilica, with its great white cupola soaring up like God’s blanched phallus, that repelled me. Back then I could never shake the feeling that it was standing guard expectantly, wanting me to succumb and worship it on my knees. I instinctively knew I should not get too close, or I would be doomed.2 đđđđđđđđđđMost nights I would drink cheap red wine until I had developed a soft buzz, before leaving

e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 6 — m y 2 0 đ A n O p e L t r o C l i f d I v g the apartment to replenish my cigarettes. Then I would begin my ritual trudge east along the Boulevard de Rochechouart, eyes to the ground to avoid glimpsing Sacré Cœur. The pull of the Sacred Heart faded once I reached the bright Tati department store, which sits on the corner of the grimy Boulevard Barbès like a giant crate overflowing with a kaleidoscope of peddler’s wares. From there, I’d veer diagonally toward the

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC derelict 1920s cinema, Le Louxor, with its neo- pictured as a stage prompter’s trapdoor in my Egyptian mosaics all in disarray, and walk down brain. I am by nature taciturn, but in the evenings to my regular haunt, the Gare du Nord. I went to a perfectly random cue could release an endless the station because I found its stern rooftop row staccato torrent of nonsense. My gibberish and, I of sentinel Queens comforting, and because the suppose, the suffused weight of my physical dank, echoing bleakness of the interior matched passivity, which were cloaked behind my my own. Night after night I’d sit there for pleasantly average figure and features that increasingly long stretches, smoking and 02/07 betrayed no illness, caused these men to flee. I’d watching and waiting. In retrospect, I see that it return to a bench by the tracks and sit and was an alternative form of penance, as well as an smoke distractedly4 until my fingers yellowed urgent form of procrastination.3 I was and stunk rankly of ash and I sensed daybreak. I procrastinating on my return to sanity; I sat there so desperately wanted to leave, I longed to be and poked at its possibility, like a tongue that one of those admirable, shiny, buoyant girls who unintentionally probes a rotten tooth and just hop on a train destined for adventure, but instantly retracts at the pain. I’ve always had trouble with departures.5 đđđđđđđđđđOccasionally, and to my great surprise, đđđđđđđđđđIn the morning, I would heave my chilled and smart-suited businessmen would try to pick me creaky bones out of the station and use the slow up. They must have presumed from my regularity return home to recompose a presentable self.6 that I was working the station. Even if they were After sour black coffee and a scalding shower, I’d staying in nearby hotels I chastely only ever embark on another day of “research” in the accepted to cross over to the café Terminus Labrouste reading room at the Bibliothèque Nord. From there, my precious Queens and I Nationale. At the time, I was financed by a could keep our eyes on each other. While it is scholarship and feared The Foundation might generally agreed I am a well-read person, and discover my predicament. I was not ready to be though I am fluent in several European rescued; that would come much later. I would languages, nights were the regimented time in meticulously fill out the paper request slips and which I could release the seething incoherence deliver them wordlessly to the punctilious that had swelled, during the day, in a tiny space I librarians on their perches. When my books

Charles Fourier statue's base, Place de Clichy, Paris.

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC Benoît Rosement performing at the Clifford Irving Show; Image courtesy of the artist; Photo: Aurélien Mole.

Rene Gabri and Ayreen Anastas meet Modigliani and Every One; photo: Aurélien Mole.

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC arrived I spent my time feverishly filling from the day had conspired to gather and notebooks with literary and philosophical stagnate in that one place. Shifty glances and citations that both corresponded to and fed my murmured complaints were exchanged as the decaying state of mind.7 I no longer possessed audience took their seats; its anticipation and words of my own for what I was feeling; I had discomfort were palpable. I kept to myself, as become alien to myself.8 Remarkably, I had usual. A springy jazz piano and drums sliced successfully compartmentalized myself for two through the thick air. I found a place near the different publics – the peers I might encounter 04/07 exit, fearing I might be overcome with torpor or a during the day and the nameless crowd9 that sudden need to escape. The Master of passed through the train station, and through Ceremonies, dressed casually, left the drum set me, at night. Two mirrored halves, one functional, he had been playing, to welcome the guests with one collapsing, held apart by an electromagnetic a humorous flourish. strength of will. đđđđđđđđđđI will not provide an extensive report of the đđđđđđđđđđBy now, Mr. Irving, you are surely wondering three and a half hours I spent fixated on the what any of this has to do with you. It has nothing stage; in fact the details of the show are of quite to do with you at all, and yet, because you are the secondary importance. However, I will now sole conduit for its expression, you are sketch for you some thoughts and provisional everything to it. Such is the curious plight of the conclusions about this soirée. surrogate. Though your reputation precedes you đđđđđđđđđđBilled as a variety show, the program notes and was already known to me through a viewing for the “Clifford Irving Show” posed the following of ’ film (1974),10 which I question: “Where do authors go when characters saw on an outing with my father when I was a interrupt the story?” This question affirms that a schoolgirl, I had tucked the facts of your life character is not an author’s invention, but has away, including your authorship of Fake! The agency that determines plot, a commonplace Story of , the Greatest Art Forger of notion that is repeatedly borne out in literature, Our Time, and your Autobiography of Howard as well as in autobiography,17 as you well know. Hughes.11 Then, last night I found myself Upon reading this, I was prepared for a certain standing on a backstreet in Montmartre in front narrative aspect to the evening of performances; of the Ciné 13 theatre, which crouches in the and, indeed, the spoken word, to varying effect, shadow of Sacré Cœur, shyly clutching a black- dominated: texts were declaimed, mostly from and-gold, faux-art-deco-style invitation to the printed sources, words were ventriloquized, tales “Clifford Irving Show.” And your name, and this were told. Please, you must not interpret “to soirée, unleashed a flood of associations and varying effect” as criticism.18 Some people are involuntary memories12 that I am starting now to more adept at throwing their voices than others; work through,13 and which I feel compelled to some are keener improvisers; some are share. altogether lacking as performers. I belong to the đđđđđđđđđđIt was a most extraordinary thing. I can say latter group and so my relationship to the stage that on this occasion I did not go to this theatre is necessarily skewed by the most debilitating of my own volition and have no recollection of the combination of longing and repression. As a journey or of who may have thrust this card into child, whenever I would express my truest my hand. What I recall is this: yesterday emotions my parents would declare me a afternoon I went alone to the Gustave Moreau consummate actress. I believed them, so atelier-museum and got lost in reverie while imagine my surprise when, years later, my acting admiring the thick and lustrous coat of the black teacher dispensed with me as too emotionally feline in the right foreground of the artist’s glib to ever hit the boards. I do not suffer from painting Salomé Dancing Before Herod (1876).14 stage fright, but since I have always been told I The next thing I knew night was falling and I was am too much or too little, I have opted for the standing at the edge of a cluster of young, wings over any sort of spotlight. attractive men and women, who appeared to be đđđđđđđđđđBut I digress. well acquainted with each other and, through đđđđđđđđđđSeveral performances in the “Clifford Irving their chatter, I discerned, with you. These sorts Show” were entertaining enough to divert my of lapses in my consciousness still occasionally e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 6 — m y 2 0 đ A n O p e L t r o C l i f d I v g attention from the rivulets of perspiration that occur. However, I was not frightened but rather coursed down my sides: I enjoyed the magician intrigued, since, in the past, their consequences of the mind, I admired a sensual, writhing dancer have proven quite significant après-coup.15 who combined her gestures with words, and I đđđđđđđđđđIt was a typical June night in Paris: quite empathized with the nervousness of the warm, but with tickling tendrils of cooler air, sculptress unveiling her work; she moved me wafting out of cellars and swirling around bare more than any other, perhaps because it seemed ankles. Inside, the small black, red, and gilt harder for her than for most. By contrast, I hated theater was infernal;16 it was as if all the heat the vulgarity and delivery of the jokes. A vulgar

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC Will Holder reads Black Dada.

Gabriel Lester meets sculpture and painting on stage together with Audrey Cottin, Alex Cecchetti, and Mark Geffriaud; photo: Aurélien Mole.

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC joke is only successful if its delivery is elegant đđđđđđ1 for action is at hand. We tremble “Stylistic quirks reminiscent of with the violence of the conflict and practiced. I loved the bearded English Jean Paul. Fourier loves within us – of the definite with fellow’s performative reading of a long preambles, cisambles, the indefinite – of the substance transambles, postambles, with the shadow. But, if the manifesto, entitled “Black Dada,” the only title I introductions, extroductions, contest has proceeded thus far, remember. By contrast, I hated the joke he ended prologues, interludes, it is the shadow which prevails, postludes, cismediants, – we struggle in vain. The clock with, despite its elegant and practiced delivery. mediants, transmediants, strikes, and is the knell of our intermedes, notes, appendixes.”; welfare. At the same time, it is Mostly, I sat in wonder at the collective display of “Fourier recognizes many forms the chanticleer-note to the lack of inhibition. 06/07 of collective procession and ghost that has so long over- cavalcade: storm, vortex, awed us. It flies – it disappears đđđđđđđđđđBy intermission, I had grasped that swarm, serpentage.” Walter – we are free. The old energy attaining a form of artistic perfection was hardly Benjamin, The Arcades Project, returns. We will labour now. ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Alas, it is too late!” Edgar Allan the point of this gathering of friends. There was Howard Eiland and Kevin Poe, “The Imp of the Perverse” an outline, but no script. Evaluating it from an McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: (1850), in Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry Belknap Press of Harvard and Tales, ed. Patrick F. Quinn assumed position of critical “authority” would University Press, 1999), 642 (: Library of America, serve no purpose. In fact, it seemed the whole (W13,3 and W13,5). 1984) 828. event emphasized and undermined the fragile đđđđđđ2 đđđđđđ4 fiction of critique. This intrigued me and I chose “O, what a noble mind is here “Weren’t you always distracted o’erthrown! by expectation, as if every event to stay. In such an artless, amateur space, the announced a beloved?” Rainer audience and the performers become conjoined đđđđđđThe courtier’s, scholar’s, Maria Rilke, “The First Elegy,” in soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword, Duino Elegies (1922), trans. by a pact that suspends their normal positions of Stephen Mitchell, available at expertise, of judgment, of talent. Nobody is đđđđđđTh’ expectancy and rose of http://homestar.org/bryannan the fair state, /duino.html. acting; everyone resolves into a stuttering self- đđđđđđThe glass of fashion and the đđđđđđ5 portrait, a narcissistic staged self, a projected mould of form, “My life closed twice before its ideal self, a self that is able to accept its close; đđđđđđTh’ observed of all observers, limitations. Prosopopoeia is our dominant trope. quite, quite down! đđđđđđIt yet remains to see We are all the products of ghostwriting. To my đđđđđđAnd I, of ladies most deject đđđđđđIf Immortality unveil patched-together psyche, witnessing this liberty and wretched, of self-representation was exhilarating. đđđđđđA third event to me đđđđđđThat sucked the honey of his đđđđđđđđđđOnce the show ended, I cut across the plaza music vows, đđđđđđđ in front of Sacré Cœur and joined the throng that đđđđđđNow see that noble and most đđđđđđSo huge, so hopeless to had assembled there to gaze down at the city. My sovereign reason, conceive, back to the church, it occurred to me that the đđđđđđLike sweet bells jangled, out đđđđđđAs these that twice befell. “Clifford Irving Show” reveals that the stories we of tune and harsh, tell ourselves about ourselves, the stories of đđđđđđParting is all we know of đđđđđđThat unmatched form and heaven, defeat and discovery that help and harm us, the feature of blown youth stories we tell others about ourselves will only đđđđđđAnd all we need of hell.” đđđđđđBlasted with ecstasy. O, woe ever be partial, and it does no damage to make is me đđđđđđEmily Dickinson, “My life closed twice before its close” them public. If this “Clifford Irving Show” can đđđđđđT’ have seen what I have (1896) in Final Harvest: Emily indeed be said to “represent” you, it is only as a seen, see what I see!” Dickinson’s Poems, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Boston: Little, cobbled construction, built out of some đđđđđđWilliam Shakespeare, Brown, 1961), 314–5. legendary or traceable fragments of a life, teased Hamlet, ed. William Farnham (Baltimore: Penguin, 1957), act đđđđđđ6 from documents and oral histories, edited, 3, sc. 1, lines 150–61. “Who am I? If this once I were to filtered, and subject to montage by multiple rely on a proverb, then perhaps đđđđđđ3 everything would amount to authors. You were performed last night, yet these “We have a task before us which knowing whom I haunt.” André filtered fragments are in no way “evidence” of must be speedily performed. We Breton, Nadja (1928), trans. know that it will be ruinous to Richard Howard (New York: you, and this is not because you trafficked in make delay. The most important Grove Press, 1960), 11. hoaxes or half-truths, but because you trafficked crisis of our life calls, trumpet- tongued, for immediate energy đđđđđđ7 19 in autobiography. I realized, as I moved toward and action. We glow, we are “So little is known about the home, that it is really high time I change my story. consumed with eagerness to psychology of emotional commence the work, with the processes that the tentative And so I will. anticipation of whose glorious remarks I am about to make on đđđđđđđđđđYours truly, result our whole souls are on the subject may claim a very fire. It must, it shall be lenient judgment. The problem đđđđđđđđđđVivian Rehberg undertaken to-day, and yet we before us arises out of the

e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 6 — m y 2 0 đ A n O p e L t r o C l i f d I v g put it off until to-morrow; and conclusion we have reached that đđđđđđđđđđ× why? There is no answer, except anxiety comes to be a reaction to that we feel perverse, using the the danger of a loss of an object. word with no comprehension of Now we already know one the principle. To-morrow arrives, reaction to the loss of an object, and with it a more impatient and that is mourning. The anxiety to do our duty, but with question therefore is, when does this very increase of anxiety that loss lead to anxiety and arrives, also, a nameless, a when to mourning. In discussing positively fearful, because the subject of mourning on a unfathomable, craving for delay. previous occasion I found that This craving gathers strength as there was one feature about it the moments fly. The last hour which remained quite

08.16.10 / 23:21:30 UTC unexplained. This was its quartet, the rivalry between rooted in a single subject whose peculiar painfulness. And yet it François I and Charles V.” Marcel identity is defined by the somehow seems self-evident Proust, In Search of Lost Time: uncontested readability of his that separation from an object Swann’s Way (1913), trans. C. K. proper name . . . but are we so should be painful. Thus the Scott Moncrieff and Terrence certain that autobiography problem becomes more Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright (New depends on its subject or a complicated; when does York: , 1992), 1. (realistic) picture of its model? separation from an object We assume that life produces produce anxiety, when does it đđđđđđ13 the autobiography as an act produce mourning, and when “This working-through of the produces its consequences, but does it produce, it may be, only resistances may in practice turn can we not suggest, with equal pain?” Sigmund Freud, out to be an arduous task for the 07/07 justice, that the Inhibitions, Symptoms, and subject of the analysis and a autobiographical project may Anxiety (1926), trans. Alix trial of patience for the analyst. itself produce and determine the Strachey (London: Hogarth Nevertheless it is a part of the life and that whatever the writer Press, 1936), 166. work which effects the greatest does is in fact governed by the changes in the patient and technical demands of self- đđđđđđ8 which distinguishes analytic portraiture and thus determined, “In a way, they seemed to be treatment from any kind of in all its aspects by the arguing the case as if it had treatment by suggestion.” resources of his medium?” Paul nothing to do with me. Sigmund Freud, “Remembering, De Man, “Autobiography as De- Everything was happening Repeating and Working-Through: facement,” in MLN 94, No. 5 without my participation. My Further Recommendations on (December 1979): 920. fate was being decided without the Technique of anyone so much as asking my Psychoanalysis” (1914), in The đđđđđđ18 opinion.” Albert Camus, The Standard Edition of the Complete “Such reflections lead me to the Stranger (1942), trans. Matthew Psychological Works of Sigmund conclusion that criticism, Ward (New York: Random House, Freud, ed. and trans. James abjuring, it is true, its dearest 1989), 98. Strachey (London: Hogarth prerogatives, but aiming, on the Press, 1986), 12:155–6. whole, at a goal less futile than đđđđđđ9 the automatic adjustment of “What men call love is a very đđđđđđ14 ideas, should confine itself to small, restricted, feeble thing “The discovery of the Musée scholarly incursions upon the compared with this ineffable Gustave Moreau, at around the very realm supposedly barred to orgy, this divine prostitution of age of sixteen, influenced it, and which, separate from the the soul giving itself entire, all it forever the way I love . . . It goes work, is a realm, where the poetry and all its charity, to the so far that these kind of women author’s personality, victimized unexpected as it comes along, to probably concealed all the by the petty events of daily life, the stranger as he passes.” others, yes, I was completely expresses itself quite freely and Charles Baudelaire, “Crowds,” in bewitched.” André Breton, often in so distinctive a manner.” Paris Spleen, (1869), trans. Manuscript: À propos de Gustave “We have said nothing about Louise Varèse (New York: New Moreau (1950). Chirico until we have taken into Directions Publishing, 1970), 20. account his personal views đđđđđđ15 about the artichoke, the glove, đđđđđđ10 “Après-coup (subst.đM., adj. and the cookie, or the spool. In such “In attempting to explain F For adv.). Translation from the matters as these, how much we Fake’s state-side failure, it has German Nachträglichkeit: could gain from his cooperation! occurred to me that perhaps the As far as I am concerned, a subject matter was at least đđđđđđTerm frequently used by mind’s arrangement with regard partially to blame, and that this Freud in relation to his to certain objects is even more country is so blissfully enslaved conception of temporality and important than its regard for by the notion of the special psychic causality: experiences, certain arrangements of objects, sanctity of the expert that an impressions, memory traces are these two kinds of arrangement overtly anti-expert film was reformulated later depending on controlling between them all bound to go too much against new experiences, and their forms of sensibility.” Breton, the national grain.” Orson Welles accessibility to another degree Nadja, 13, 16. (1983), available at of development. It is then http://www.wellesnet.com/?p= possible for them to obtain a đđđđđđ19 205. psychic utility as well as new “By making autobiography into a meaning.” Jean Laplanche and genre, one elevates it above the đđđđđđ11 Jean-Bertrand Pontalis, The literary status of mere “We sense a man persistently Language of Psycho-analysis, reportage, chronicle, or memoir escaping the mould he’s being trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith and gives it a place, albeit a cast in. The story confirms that (New York: Norton, 1974). modest one, among the anyone can fake the lecture but canonical hierarchies of the it takes a superior imposter to đđđđđđ16 major literary genres. This does fake the thinking.” Clifford Irving, “I once came close to a not go without some Phantom Rosebuds (San conversion to the good and to embarrassment, since Francisco: New Langton Arts, felicity, salvation. How can I compared to tragedy, or epic, or 2008). describe my vision, the air of lyric poetry, autobiography Hell is too thick for hymns! There always looks slightly đđđđđđ12 were millions of delightful disreputable and self-indulgent “For a long time I would go to creatures in smooth spiritual in a way that may be bed early. Sometimes, the harmony, strength and peace, symptomatic of its candle barely out, my eyes noble ambitions, I do not know incompatibility with the closed so quickly that I did not what all?” Arthur Rimbaud, A monumental dignity of aesthetic have time to tell myself: ‘I am Season in Hell, trans. Paul values.” De Man, “Autobiography falling asleep.’ And half an hour Schmidt (New York: Harper as De-facement”: 919.

later the thought that it was Colophon Books, 1976). e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 6 — m y 2 0 đ A n O p e L t r o C l i f d I v g time to look for sleep would awaken me; I would make as if to đđđđđđ17 put away the book which I “Autobiography seems to imagined was still in my hands, depend on actual and potentially and to blow out the light; I had verifiable events in a less gone on thinking, while I was ambivalent way than fiction asleep, about what I had just does. It seems to belong to a been reading, but these simpler mode of referentiality, of thoughts had taken a rather representation, and of diegisis. peculiar turn; it seemed to me It may contain lots of phantasms that I myself was the immediate and dreams, but these subject of my book: a church, a deviations from reality remain

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