The anxiety of the blank page exists also when it comes to the web. You need an introduction page, said a couple of wise friends, for people to read before entering this site. A kind of warning I guess. So here it is. Why a web site? The excuse is that it is useful for those who could be interested in what I’m doing. How many? A few dozens, if I’m generous with myself. The reality is that working on this site has first of all been useful to me. It forced me to bring a semblance of order into the chaos of my life, of my production. At the time of this writing, in mid 2008, I have moved houses and apartments a total of 21 times, on three continents. Every move, as my friend the writer and philosopher Francoise Collin said, is a fabulous day (Her first novel was called Le Jour Fabuleux). Fabulous and a bit traumatic. Each time I had to dispose of fragments of my past life; moving (unless you perfect the art of living light) is a kind of rehearsal for the day of the final good bye. I already gave away so many books, records, pictures, scores. I threw away quantity of letters, files, mementos only to regret it a few years later.
In the summer of 1970 I spent a couple of months in John Cage’s house in Stony Point while he was touring Europe. It was simple, clear, essential, surrounded by the forest, comfortably basic. I marveled at John’s capacity to keep so little possession. It was alas an example I never followed. I’m not a collector, but I tend to accumulate. And to loose. You will find here, if you take the time to enter this site, bits and pieces of my life, of what I have been doing for the past six decades. A few pictures will tell of the time I spent in Belgium, the United States, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Of my passion for Dada and contemporary music. It will perhaps convey my conviction that today is what matters. It should also be a discreet homage to my friends, those who died and those with us. They are the people I consider my family; they made (and make) my life exciting, bearable, beautiful, worth living.
