Je profite d’une dizaine de minutes avant d’aller interviewer les très londoniens et très branchés breton et les très electro-jazz Caravan Palace pour consigner les quelques points d’orgues en coulisses que vous ne trouverez pas sur TLC. En direct de Crans-Montana, donc:

– Arrivée en fanfare. Le molosse du bureau de presse ne veut pas nous laisser passer sans nos badges ..qu’on était venues récupérer. Je demande avec mon sourire le plus cajoleur “Personne peut-il nous aider?”. Un grand type répond “Que Puis-je faire pour vous ? “. Et nous voilà  escortées jusqu’à nos pass par le fondateur du festival. Yeux bleus, grand sourire, passage par des multiples parkings et ascenseur. Ponctuation fine (avec l’accent valaisan) : “Vous inquiétez pas, c’est pas un mauvais plan”. Ça y est je suis amoureuse…  commence un travail d’enquête approfondi relevé de salutations et sourires de loin quand nous le croisons, très affairé, devant le parking du festival.

– Un rapport suisse très décomplexé à la cigarette. Tout est fait pour encourager les jeunes à fumer. Wagons de vente de clopes + Fumoirs + Kent propose des clopes gracieusement pour faire sa pub (ne sert à rien, les gens fument tous des parisiennes)+Tout le monde fume partout, surtout dans les remontées mécaniques et les salles de concert et surtout quand ils ont moins de 16 ans. Un peu beaucoup pareil pour le pétard.

– Caprices, ce n’es pas Crans, tout est fait pour que les festivaliers n’aillent PAS dans la station de ski chic (interdiction de sortir de la grande tente, toute sortie es définitive)

– Interview de The Do ponctuée de PAD (public display of affection) tout à fait déplacés. C’est touchant mais 25 minutes de papouilles, vraiment gênant.

– J’ai réussi à faire marcher le sauna de l’immeuble (qui est VIDE) : grand bonheur à 85 degrés tous les soirs.

– On a eu un peu de la peine pour les artistes français : Guillaume Coutu avait tout du Loner pathétique, Akhénaton n’a même pas pu se rendre compte qu’il était has been, Yuksek a oublié de faire marcher ses platines, The Do a été deserté, et Julien Doré s’est couvert de ridicule christique.

– Les musiciens de Caravan Palace font des concours de superbes voitures téléguidées (montant jusqu’à 50 km/h) dans la salle du Chapiteau quand elle est vide.

– Je ne saurais pas répondre aux questions stupides que je pose aux artistes; du coup je décroche leur mail pour réfléchir à mes réponses… C’est une technique comme une autre….

Routine and busy days in Paris. Can’t write, can’t travel, can’t even get rest even when I take time off. I am always thinking of the articles I should be writing, about the agregation I should be preparing, about the classes I have to give. And also about my new research project.

I decided nevertheless to try and have fun, and mostly to learn from all the various people I see during my non-stop working hours. Last week-end was quite interesting… It started with a girl’s  evening out, picking a “Marilyn”Sweather I won for blogging at the store Gérard Darel in saint Germain des Près, eating fish with E. and dragging her to a first party in the 8th and then to a burlesque show at the cabaret “La Nouvelle Eve”. Being with Eve at “La Nouvelle Eve” was a delight and we actually enjoyed very much seeing plump and appetizing girls undressing and dansing naked with feathers for more than two hours. The Burlesque crowd is vintage, elegant, and because it is all about part-playing, they are really open minded. Off course when we left at 2 am (“early to be able to work on saturday”), no cabs. We walked from Pigalle to Montorgueil where Eve lives and I took an awful vélib’ from there to home : real danger, real sports, and alone on the champs elysées biking at 3 am, I really felt special… and maybe more “Burlesque” than ever with my miniskirt so not Dita Von Teese, but still getting very short…

Saturday I attended the rehearsal of a Musical Play I wrote some lyrics for : “Monsieur Luxure“. the show is really going to be fun, and I really enjoy participating also to the very professional staging. Theater people seem more open than the editing circles… saturday night was a Chicken + Mad Men + home night. My columbian sister shared the chicken with me and Eve showed up later with a very interseting friends : she had lost hers keys. She stayed over and woke up very early on sunday because she had organized the 30th bday of the bombing of the synagogue rue Copernic. Before attending the beautiful ceremony, where the French Prime ministre, François Fillon, made  a beautiful speech, I had lunch at l’atelier with my brother and my grandma. An always amazing restaurant. I also went to the Garouste decoration of a building, rue de l’Université, and had dinner after with L., very adorable. I went back home early for another night with Eve. I have never ever slept so little alone in my life : girlfriends and friends from all over the world seem to have spread the news that my appartment was cosi and crash on my bed (no more coach, because I had to add some shelves).

Anyways, work today, the website is changing name and toutelaculture IS ocking! Tonight , I attended an amazing party for the launching of the trendy “next” webzine, by Libération. And now the sad news of Lefort’s death. No master left (well Rosanvallon and Gauchet… no way!). Is it possible to think without any master? I wonder, sometimes. I’ll get the answer at the end…

The funniest is that even my students and my readers tell me to go to bed,…it is 2:30 now and I still have some work…

Cds are arriving every day at the office. Some are really awfull, others are interesting in their “genre”, and a  few really keep our attention with Mike, the rock critique of La boîte à sorties. He discoverd for me beautiful Starboard Silent side. Sophie Hunger is my new favourite (swiss)german songwriter. And my friend Eric gave me the biggest musical schock by playing Captain beefheart’s “Trout mask replica” after cooking some delicious dinner. Of course Dachau Blues kept my attention, but not only. More straight forward Ashtray heart is wonderful. I have so much with which I should catch up, between Puccini and the 1990′.

And Friday, I’ve been taken to the cité de la musique to listent to Yaël Naim. I have something against her : 1) on stage she has no charisma and I did not like her performance two years ago in Bourges. 2) It’s been two years now, that french people -who didn’t know my first name existed before -ask me if I am called Yaël “Like the singer”. Sometimes late at night, people even ask me if I AM HER, very disturbing! Anyways, I was tempted to listen to her tribute to Joni Mitchell at Jazz à la Villette. But she started right away with “case of you”, which had no soul -old or new- but made me cry  a case of pain.

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I am sick, very sick and overwhelmed (Thesis + damn website + a class of political science to teach this fall and therefore to prepare, I learned on thursday)  and unproductive. Panic attacks prevent me from sleeping and sometimes I feel so tired that I can barely walk, so thinking is out of the question. And if I start to think, it makes the anxiety even worse. I finally caught a cold in this weak position, vodka did not heal me, just brought headache, at a party after the concert on friday. So I decided to have a resting saturday, meaning no work. Soooo resting : 10 am meeting with a friend, 11 am : Body combat, 12h: Sauna, 13 : shopping, 13:30 lunch + family, 14: grandma, antibiotics, 15h20: meeting with a friend who is a talented composer and wants me to think of the jewish text of an oratorio about the three monotheisms, 16h a bad french movie about adultery, a case of Philip Glas18h : books & CD at Gibert, a rip off, 19h: meeting with another composer, we ended our tete à tete for a nice chat with our neighbours, my new specialty, pretty easy in Paris where everyone knows everyone, antibiotics 20:30 dinner at a friend’s : christians, right wing people, jews, and gays mingling, very politically incorrect. 2:30 home, 2:45 antibiotics, insomnia, 2:50 two articles written (I also read a book in the day, buses !), 4:00 not even exhausted, I find an sos message, a friend is feeling bad, I call, 5:00 I hung up, no more voice, I’ve got a bad bad cold (is it the flue?),  I look at the ceiling sneeze and finally sleep. Today was my father’s 76th brithday, lots of blush and I almost looked human by 12:30. We went to the trendy Murano for brunch and it was nice, but nothing is worth the Ritz, says the spoiled girl…. My father is soooooo wonderful.And it is so nice to be  with the fam. They are all happy and full of projects and life. It made my deay, then I went into a long and painful daze…Time to sleep befor I turn into a pumkin, or a zombie…

Paris is soo empty that all my friend leave the place right away when they come back from their first month of holidays. I have not seen a human being since Friday 6:00 pm. I spent the week-end end writing ten small biographies of my converts; running against time and living a life that my friend A. depicts  direct live from NYC as “a prison”. Gym, supermarket, writing and watching old boring Japanese movies is ok. Oh and I DO my nails too, you never know… Sometimes, the phone is ringing and someone is speaking from Switzzerland, St Tropez, New-York or Bali and it seems unreal. But nice. As are the days of work with my two best friends also writing their dissertations. Just when they leave, it is strange to have NO program, no concert, no theater, nothing.  Finally back to my monk’s life in New-York. But this time no hope and no expectations. Ataraxy, in a way. A bit too wise for a 27  years old girl. Consequently I am all dressed up to meet with a friend at 1 am at home after tackling with Döblin’s life. A little tanned too, cause the breaks on the balcony provide some sun to the skin. And ready to srink as I have not had a glass of wine since thursday, and way too much sauna, to try and get exhausted and sleep. I am lucky, at peace, no diappointment possible, but I am  bored. Maybe I really do like suffering, at least it feels like life :). Just kidding, of course. I should read another ten pages of Etty Hillesum and grow up. Nearly 350 pages written though and the second part is almost finished. I cannot say I am proud, and I don’t even know if finishing this will be a relief, or the biggest baby blues. So, I listen to Regina Spektor and smile when I think with her that I have a perfect body because my eyelshes catch my sweat…