BRUSSELSE SJOEKES

VIRGINIA RETURNS TO BRUSSELS

2006-08-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

For the second time this year Virginia Cubillan, poet from Venezuela living in the USA, visited me in Brussels, between July 17 and 27.

She continued traveling to Vienna and Prague and then returned to Brussels.

Location of this photo: the Brussels' beach, a bit of a joke, because it is a spot near the canal (forbidden to swim in the water because of the pollution) turned into a kind of beach area in the summer time.

We are toasting and drinking wine of Alsace, France here. In the background a Brazilian flag and a Brussels' garbage container. We had an accidental encounter there with Gigi, a waiter who used to work in the famous Brussels' Lop Lop café (based on the Lop Lop art work of Max Ernst). An English idiot bought the café and commercialized it. So Gigi went away to work as security agent at the Brussels' beach. Strange things happen all the time. Gigi knew also quite well my friend Harry, who is in a revalidation center since a car crash that happened at Christmas in 2004.

Me and Virginia at the Greek Poseidon restaurant in the neighborhood where i live in Brussels.

Pretty picture. I think the waiter enjoyed the pose too!

At the Place St Gery, one of my favorite spots in Brussels.

I only regret that this area with many pubs and restaurants is not a car free zone.

During the world cup football the Brazilians living in Brussels came here together to play percussion instruments to support their team.

The police blocked the access to the square during the game, so for once cars would not spoil our beers...

SERIOUS OR NOT SERIOUS? LIFE IS FUN IS ART IS LIFE

2006-06-25T02:16:00.000-07:00

Mid September I started working at Bozar (see www.bozar.be) in the support team for concerts, theatre plays, exhibitions, movies etcetera.
This is me and Hugues at the ticket control entrance of a concert by Cesaria Evora. This photo was made by a professional photographer who came to take pictures of the concert and we said to him: "hey, what about us" and the man obliged us in all his kindness! Thank you so much Mr JOS KNAEPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bozar is situated in the town center, just beyond Central Station.

Less serious?

Photo of me by Lavona Sherarts, a visitor and mail artist from the USA.

We did this POZE for a mail art project on the PIED PIPERS and also turned the picture into an envelope for future mailings!

My flute is a knife in the restaurant L'ECHALOTTE behind the Brouckere square, Brussels' town center

The sculpture of the dog looks like a giant rat. Lavona was crazy of this sculpture. I like the sense of self moquery in this poze.

What we call in French "l'auto-dérision" is one of the major qualities in life. Someone should teach this to managers and political leaders for instance...

Envelope based on the photo above

mailed by Lavona to Guido

Tamara Wyndham, another mail artist from the USA put a quote on a Yahoo group recently about "the magic of mail" as expressed by a postman in Baghdad.

"It's something wonderful to get a letter. The paper, the stamp, the envelope. It is not just a piece of paper. It is something sacred. "
IBRAHIM ISMAIL ZAIDEN, a postman in Baghdad, Iraq.

(quoted in the New York Times)

Corresponding with the universe or following the pied pipers who diffuse hate, war or terror?

What was it that John & Yoko put on giant bilboards? WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT! (now more than ever, so it seems..)

Splendid photo of Lavona Sherarts

Vincen loved this picture and because so many photos on this blog on Brussels will come from her hand,

I"ll highllight her here:

Little Owl, wise woman, artist book maker, rubber stamp carver, aquarelist, photographer, musician and music lover, poet, self esteem therapist, mother, wife to TED who teaches photography, visionary who tunes in past, present and future lives, mail artist, correspondent, a good friend, neighborhood watcher, concerned citizen, blue collar to the bone

Let's POLKA dear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (GV)

Check one of Lavona's recent mail art projects on the MUD FLAP GIRL by visiting:

http://www.picturetrail.com/lavonasherarts

ST JOSSE, 1210 BRUSSELS

2006-06-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

Map of St Josse on chée de Louvain

Photo I took January 21, 2006 when walking from my home to the Mozart day organized by Klara, the Flemish classical radio station, in Bozar

St Josse is the poorest town of Brussels (based on the average income of its citizens)

But what's "the map of being poor"?

Inside Bus 29 who stops at the square of St Josse

Sint Joost is the Flemish sign for the stop

Saint Josse is the French sign for the stop

These signs make it easy for us travelers: we know exactly where we are and don't have to ask the driver for information

About Brussels busses: Bus 65 ends at the headquarters of NATO. It was shocking for some peace activists to see a bus with Nato as final destination, which inspired me to the joke, don't worry about Nato, that's only a yellow bus!

Yellow busses in Brussels are run by the subway company (called MIVB or STIB). White busses are run by a Flemish bus company (called DE LIJN). So you need different tickets for both systems unless it is a transit ride (hopping from one system to the other is allowed with the same ticket but only if you hop...)

MARILYN, LIZA, MEG & ME or communication BEYOND

2006-03-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

March 29, 2006

Meg Taney Founds, a wonderful poet from the US mailed me this watercolor postcard by Marilyn Dammann from 2002.

I start crying like a baby from the emotional shock.

Marilyn was one of my closest correspondents. She died last year and I developed my first blog as a tribute to her memory.
Please visit http://shadowtributes.blogspot.com

From this blog is also this picture
of Marilyn in Brussels.
She visited me in 1998.
So this is a FLASH BACK again.
She's accompanied here by one of my other close friends, the poet Liza Leyla, who also lives in Brussels.
This picture was taken not far from the pub "the ultimate hallucination" (the green house you see in the back), a hot spot for Brussels' Flemish community.
The pub is constructed with some relics of disapeared "art nouveau" buildings!

Liza wrote the next poem after Marilyn traveled beyond ...

DENTELLE DE MIRAGES

To Marilyn Dammann, in memoriam

Une vague de paix
roule sur l'océan
J'entends son chant
d'amour et abandon
La pluie annonce
le soleil mordant
qui brûle la cité
aux rayons d'églantier
La tour de Méli
promontoire d'été
aux ailes bleutés
messages de célérité
Le gris du ciel
se mua en tapis
aux reflets saumâtres
âmes des nuages
La pluie s'allie
à la sécheresse
marée enceinte
de l'attente inespérée
Elle se baigna
dans l'orée
de ses rubis
rires d'Anubis
Elle se coucha
dans son nid
de feuilles ocres
miroir d'étincelles
Chute des pierres
envolées de siècles
Dentelle de mirages
ancre d'infinitude

Liza Leyla, Brussels BELGIUM

ST JOSSE's MADOU SQUARE

2006-03-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

Madou square with Madou tower is like the entrance to St Josse and makes also the division between St Josse and the Brussels' city center because it is situated next to the inner ring of the town. That ring follows more or less the historical walls and gates around the center. The outer highway ring circles around what Brussels became later in its development.

Madou tower like Rogier tower (at the Rogier square, near the northern railway station, also in St Josse) were amongst the first "sky scrapers" of the country and got renewed in recent years. It created a kind of nostalgia because I remember quite well how these towers looked in the sixties when I was a kid.

I took this picture March 1, 2006 when it was snowing. I like the light in this picture and the contrast between trees and building...

Madou square, entrance to the subway station on the right; strange contrast between the snow, footprints, the trash and the bikes at the bike stand.

Madou square is a nerve point with severel bus stops, the subway, the inner ring with a lot of car traffic and pedestrians crossing the inner ring...

IF YOU THINK THE LIFE OF A MAIL ARTIST IS EASY!

2006-03-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

March 2006

A pile of mail art waiting to be answered ...

Cover of parcel in which an artist book was mailed to me by Christine Tarantino (USA). The artist book productions are the topic of another blog I developed and which is a shared blog with many other artists. Please visit:

http://boklist.blogspot.com

A WEEKEND WITH VIRGINIA

2006-03-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

SEA

See Poem

She

March 12, Virginia in Ostend, on her way to the Cursaal to attend the Preisner concert.

Virginia Cubillan drinking coffee in my Brussels's flat.

She came from the USA just "for a weekend"(March 11-13, 2006).

Virginia is a poet and teacher. This is one of her poems and I have chosen this one because it sounded like a perfect echo and comment on the suicide death of Baudhuin Simon, known in mail art as PIG DADA.

SIMILE

Cats are known for

Having nine lives to kill,

By the wag of their tales

You can tell

Which one they're on.

Men are known for

Having one death to live,

By the depth of the holes

They dig you can tell how

Close they are to

Animals.

Virginia

She has the hands of a butterfly

waving pain to walk out

till time slides

strawberries from her lips

when moon rises but sun remains

FROM ARTISTAMP TO PIG'S BLUES

2006-03-10T15:52:00.000-08:00

March 9, 2006 I receive this stamp on an envelope sent to me by José Vandenbroucke.
This stamp (based on a photo) was made by Buzz Blurr (USA) when he visited Belgium to attend the alternative arts and music festival that happens every year in St Niklaas and that unites many mail artists. Immediately I think of using this image to illustrate myself in the BLOG profile.

March 9 was also the day the Belgian mail artist BAUDHUIN SIMON decided to end his life.
This is how I reacted followed by a comment of Peter Netmail (from Germany) and a card of José and Baudhuin in happier days. José mailed the card again to me after the tragic weekend.

Dear Friends,

On March 9 Baudhuin Simon, the Belgian mail artist who introduced me to the mail art network in 1993, committed suicide. The news reached me Saturday.
I composed a message on "what happened" and posted it on a few Yahoo mail art groups.
I would like to share this with all of you:

To all mail artists

On the suicidal death of Baudhuin Simon:
Yes, the news is true. It reached me by a message from his former girl friend on Saturday while I was hosting the arrival of a poet in my flat (Virginia Cubillan, someone I met thru Mark Sonnenfeld, she lives in the USA but is from Venezuela).
The contrast between the excitement of meeting someone new thru' the network and the sad announcement of the suicide of Baudhuin (who introduced me to mail art in 1993) was enormous.

I took Virginia to see a Puccini opera on Saturday (Le Villi)
That opera is on the ghosts of dead people!!!
Sunday we traveled to Ostend to attend a concert with the music of Preisner
(who wrote the splendid scores for all of Kieslowski's movies)
The concert started with a selection of parts of his requiem for a dead friend.
It almost felt that PIG DADA was present during the whole weekend.
I could tell you lots of things on the circumstances of his act but I refrain myself and prefer to be quiet. It's his choice and the end of his traveling, in this world anyway. The least I can do is respect this.

Be well and remember him for what he meant in mail art ...

Guido Vermeulen

PS
La mort ne change rien, rien ne change car tout change, la vie change toujours, ce n'est que la mort qui ne change rien

Dear friends,

I am considering pigdada´s suicide. His end moves me very much. I myself am only still here, because there were people exactly at the right time in the right place to show me the value of life through their mere presence, when I was depressed and wanted to throw it away in my darkest moments of addiction.
I do not believe now any more that all this happened to me by accident, and so am grateful to them and my higher power.
Those of you who know me personally, will understand that these are not the words of a religious spinster, and that I enjoy today every single hour of my new life, as an artist - "whichever the weather" - often enough together with my mail art friends, in their places or mine.
What I do regret is that Baudhuin never revealed this dark side of his soul to me and so I had no chance to share my own way of healing with him. may he rest in peace.

Peter Netmail, GERMANY

"There are no borders", José is from the Flemish part, Baudhuin was from the French part; the lion is the symbol of Flanders, the rooster is the symbol of the Walloon part, PIG was the symbol of Baudhuin. José wrote on the back of this postcard that arrived March 13: "one pig less"

Drawing on a postcard by David Stone, USA
received March 20
It accompanied a poem David wrote after the news of Baudhuin's suicide.

Pigs can fly but now pig crippled his own wings...

David Stone is a contemporary US poet and the catalyst behind the BLACKBIRD anthologies
(GV)

Baudhuinic Disorder

On the Suicide of Baudhuin Simon,March 9,2006.

A tribune of darts
haunts the forest.
Lumberjacks wake
to the smell
of country fresh
pancakes and sausage
crackling on the griddle.

And for dinner,
sinewy flanks
too tough to chew,
served on a platter
with a glazed apple
jammed in a tusky snout.

22 years ago,
after the animal
farm revolt,
the horse sale
by Napoleonic order.

And in the 1990's,
Dada Pigart
flew on one wing
from the fire ring
above the frozen fields.

David Stone
March 16, 2006

Marvelous mail art envelope from Aline Girard & Véronique Duhaut (France)

mailed to Baudhuin Simon AFTER his suicide.

This posthumous mail art action reminded me very much of the splendid book art project "Postal Séance", an "investigation on the existence of a postal service in another world" and explored mail art to "dead people" and how the postal system reacted on that.

Some of the letters returned, others were delivered! (meaning that communication art beyond "death" is possible ...)

Beyond are more "in memoriam" art works by Aline and Véronique

ANNE MARIE

2006-02-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 12 February 2006

This is a kind of Pre Valentine Encounter. I invited one of my best friends to come around and have a dinner together in Restaurant Old Bosnia.

While talking on the present state of our own lives I gave her some presents: the latest CD's of An Pierlé and a free ticket to a book fair.

Anne Marie Finné is one of the most gifted painters I met in the academy of Molenbeek (1080 Brussels). She lives in Laeken (1020 Brussels) and we remained in touch and became very good friends.
She introduced me to the music of Pierlé this summer. That's why I gave her the CD's.

It was snowing that day and she biked from her home to mine and returned the same way.
She emailed me within the next hour: "Bien rentrée plein de neige dans les yeux"
(arrived home well with plenty of snow in the eyes)
Reacted back: better to have snow in the eyes than snow in the heart.

Not that there is any danger of that. To discover some of the splendid art work by Anne Marie:
http://www.finne.be/~annemarie/

In front of my door. The balloons indicate a birthday party of some of my Polish neighbors.

GARDEN INSTALLATION AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

2006-02-26T07:01:00.000-08:00

FLASH BACK

November 1999
I still lived in Dupont street, near the Northern Railway Station in Brussels,
a border zone between Schaerbeek (1030 Brussels) and 1210 Brussels (St Josse)

I got the idea of hanging a teddy bear in the garden connected with my ground floor flat to protest against the death penalty and I sent the photos as a contibution to a Spanish mail art project in support of an Amnesty International campaign.

To be honest, I would never come up with that idea without being part of the white march, when 300 000 Belgians marched against the murder of children by pedophiles. Our political system nearly collapsed in what I described as the "spaghetti rebellion". People threw spaghetti at the court houses when an investigation judge was sacked because he had eaten spaghetti with some of the children he had saved. This was considered by the supreme court as being "impartial" and the country went frantic afterwards. One week of general protest and strikes (started by the workers of the Volkswagen factory in Brussels, everyone else followed!) ended in the white march, the biggest demonstration ever witnessed in the capital of the country ...)

People where dressed in white, wearing white balloons, saying nothing at all, clapping hands all the time, children were carrying toys & teddy bears. It made me ....

The parents of the murdered kids spoke out against the death penalty. For them revenge was not the answer. Also they considered that a possible death penalty for pedophiles meant the death sentence for the kidnapped children for sure. I marveled at their wisdom and it marked my mind for the years to come. The hanging of children's toys became for me the ultimate statement against the "US way of dealing with all crimes" ...

There was one moment when I really vomited in my life (without being severely drunk):
when GW Bush made fun of a human being in death row begging for life...
Then I realized the gap between humanism and barbarism forever!

The only Belgian mail artist who marched with me that day was Geert De Decker and I think this has bonded us for life despite differences altogether.

WHERE AND WHY DO WOMEN READ IN BRUSSELS?

2006-02-25T14:53:00.000-08:00

FLASH BACK TO APRIL 2005

An Italian mail art project asked contributions to the theme of "women reading". According to them women read in all places and all positions.

Maybe, but I saw it differently: women read because they are worried about radiation, was my motto. Of course this has to do with my day job. I work for an Agency who regulates and controls all nuclear applications in the country. So I asked some femail co-workers to read the same book on measuring radiation. They did it and had lots of fun. The 4 first pictures are from my office, located behind Central Station in the town center.

Thank you CATHY, GERDA, MONIQUE & MARTINE !!!!

This last photo is from Zois, an American mail artist who was in Brussels at that time. She put a red clown nose on the book and her own nose. Photo was shot in the wine bar Goupille La Folle, one of my favorite spots, behind the Grand Place. The owner makes his own wines, the one he makes with nuts will make you nuts!

METRO / SUBWAY / UNDERGROUND

2006-02-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

Taking pictures in the "metro" is always a bit tricky but I like the underground and the people traveling on the subway trains.

I did an "underground" mail art project in 1995, which was open to all interpretations of course and of course it went off course as was intended.

This splendid picture (okay my way of looking) on a splendid co-worker (CATHY and the rest is non of your business) was shot during a ride from a yearly sports event. The idea to unite workers once a year in sports is from an age nobody remembers.

As far as I'm concerned I walk in the woods and talk and eat and drink. And take photos of course, that seems to be a very difficult sport. I don't remember if the gesture of Cathy's hands happened spontaneously or was orchestrated by me to be in tune with some of the splendid hand art on some of the subway walls (based on the henna decorations of hands, which is a tradition in certain Muslim cultures during wedding ceremonials for instance) GV

Subway station near Southern Railway Station (photo: Lavona Sherarts)

Ryosuke Cohen on the Brussels' subway during his visit to Belgium.

Cohen is one of the major mail artists from Japan and behind the project of BRAIN CELL SHEETS.

In recent years he unites the sheets together to make life size portraits of himself and other mail artists he visits and encounters.

He lives, works and teaches in Osaka.

Very different picture of the same

ride, different light and very different

mood indeed

Ryosuke & me, seen by Lavona. I forgot about the man in the back but yes, subway hands again!