Listening to Herbie Hancock master different electronic devices on his albums from the '80s, made me think, wouldn't it be cool if there was a symphony of artists, each using a different electronic device from the last 50 years, while playing a simple melody like Vinteuil's Sonata, variations on a theme, sounds within sounds, exceptionality in unison, I think that'd be cool anyways. 😎

Dickens was a better storyteller, but Proust wrote a better novel. 

Metropolitan

The allures of cerebral sophistication uncertainly engaged in gallant experiment, solemn yet tenderly familiar rhapsodic intrigue unembellished rapport.

Consistency generating parlay through meaningful harmonized inquisitive exchanges, perhaps forgotten perhaps foundational as various participants focus on detail.

An intricate eclectic forage producing novelty then kink then narrative, divergent degrees multivariably matriculating then suddenly retreating at times leaping forward.

The curious arrive impeccably intent on trying not to make too much of a mess of things, previous encounters traditionally manifesting subjective synergies objective illusion, new data eagerly incorporated to encourage sprightly dis/proportionate parentheses, emergent chronicles timidly testifying frenetic friendship ergo allegiance.

Provocative inklings invoking pause juxtaposed itinerancy serenading scandal, delicate proclivities enriching formulae ephemerally proclaimed with eternal fidelity.

The whirlwind continuously transforming ruminative stimuli with verbatim velocity, guests wildly windsurfing various trajectories with implicit inspired levity.

Be careful, that's a little bit country it may not fit with the paramount clout, no matter in due consideration to random versatile inclusive diversity.

Too many limits at times callously decomposing spontaneous free agile thought, not to embrace an abeyance of filters but neither to laud categorical dismissal.

It's like potential devotees of Proust who have in fact never even considered reading him, instinctually attempted to develop a salon in their quizzical youth with literary bearing.

What blossoms in In Search of Lost Time can be found germinating in Metropolitan, as several young adults gather in Manhattan to stylistically temper strike and ceremony.

Thoughts inevitably stray to the future wherein which imaginative blooms poll and posture.

Statistical reckoning fouling things up.

Best of friends.

Abstract associations. 

La Captive

Imprisoned by his theories, obsessively recycling miserable forecasts regarding his relationship's future, driven by jealousy, and tortured by ideals, Simon (Stanislas Merhar) interrogates his desire in Chantal Akerman's La Captive as Ariane (Sylvie Testud) helplessly perseveres. At least that's what happens in In Search of Lost Time and La Captive follows the text closely enough to suggest that this is what's happening in the film. Bored and frustrated by his inability to create, Simon abandons his attempts to prove himself intellectually and focuses his attention on Ariane's past. Convinced he can understand her present motivations through recourse to her anecdotes and observations, he pursues his goal of categorizing her purity. Being incapable of distinguishing fact from subterfuge, his objective investigations quizzically qualify the labyrinthine other. Leave it alone, let bygones be bygones, just have a good time. Take it easy, relax, drink some wine, she's likely done everything you're considering, twice. Without the guidance of American pop culture to rely upon, Simon sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss. In the end, Ariane does the only thing she can to allow him to find an answer as he assiduously scours the ocean searching for his peace of mind.

A lot of the depth from the fifth part of Proust's novel is lost in La Captive's translation. Françoise (Liliane Rovère) and Simon's Grandmother (Françoise Bertin) don't make an impact and Mme Verdurin's famous snub of M. de Charlus is absent. I don't know how you could have worked the later into a film that's less than three hours and doesn't include some kind of internal narration but an attempt would have been nice. At least a scene with M. de Charlus. The long empty corridors and lengthy nocturnal shots point to Simon's troubles within the novel but without more material it's difficult to capture Proust's incessant meticulous analysis (but it was still fun to write about it as if it's there). But La Captive isn't meant to relate to In Search of Lost Time religiously since it's a film that is only based on the novel. Bearing this in mind, greater liberties with Proust's masterpiece could have been taken (although it's so revered taking such liberties requires disciplined audacity! [I suppose Simon's Grandmother does die in The Guermantes Way]). But Akerman's probably sick and tired of hearing devotees of the novel complain about what's missing in her well-crafted film and it does possess a morosely anxious distraught internal consistency that's rigidly maintained throughout. The moral: don't try and ever love anyone while consistently falling in love. And have multiple extensive lies which you trust ready by your side when loving so that one day you can convince yourself that you've found something to hold onto.

At least I know that throughout the day I always have Proust to whom to look forward. His writing guarantees me a degree of unmitigated joy each and every day and has done so for the past 3 and a half years. Like walking through the streets of Montréal after drinking a pint of Trois-Pistoles, Proust's writing encourages a creative open-mind while obscuring the day's misfortunes. Every time.

Finally finished In Search of Lost Time. Took quite some time. Looking forward to reading it again.

To celebrate I ate a 10 oz rare elk chop covered in truffle foie gras butter.

There was a motion leading up to a point qualified by a statement wrapped up in a rhetorical bouquet. I feverishly sipped my coffee. A rebuttal announced, predicated upon an insightful indictment of a redolent clause whose fragrance was weeping. Too much cream, not enough sugar. They eventually congratulated each other on their mutual and successful investments although the decor contradicted their resolution (it was far to pretentious). Wound up, nowhere to go, fueled, no work. In one week I would do something possibly, get up and go begotten secured sedated. To break, to find work that actually corresponded to my education, on the bus for a trip, to a plane to look out the window and there's the sun above the clouds shining forth its rays. The wheels going round the wings whipped and weathered. For less cream, more sugar I waited for something less melodramatic, for a plume and a slice of pineapple, written upside down on the ceiling, revved up and ready. Should the legislature stop working for the banking industry itself? Is this salmon organic? How far could I travel down the St. Lawrence on an inner-tube? What would Proust have done?

Proust would have been writing exceptional prose, building a literary legion of liaisons into a lavender scented locket locked tight; that's what he would have done but better than that, in medium and super, they're reading it and you've told no one and have nothing to say. Just pointing out on Steph's behalf that people have been murdered for less. Find the stream, pick it up again, wine and dine, wag your tongue, blow them kisses. It's like a nap, one piece at a time, moving on, moving on, moving. Towards something leisurely and light, stamped, approved, positioned. For dessert there's chocolate mousse. Predictable, pocketed, pristine. The artistic pickpocket steals your wallet and then finds a way to return it cashless by the end of the hour. Don't know why she or he does this. Can't figure it out.

In Search of Lost Time

The first time I picked it up I realized I had to read it in its entirety even though I had neither the time nor the resources. Just one paragraph was all it took, so much detail, so many parallels, with a poignant beat and seraphic rhythm (while describing an impression's subjective ancestry). I had read page 2000 and something but instantly realized it wasn't the kind of text that you read linearly; its literary insights abound with musical, philosophical, medical, and political points that have little to do with the plot within which nothing rarely happens anyways. Observing observation, obsessing about obsession, different sections containing different styles adhesively hooked to a perforated panoramic portrait. It's the ultimate synchronous stroke which still demonstrates the ways in which Events sterilize that synchronicity without spoiling its spirit (static effervescence meets dynamic substance). So I finished it before I started and now find myself somewhere in the middle acutely considering love and life and leisure as the page turns.

Proust

Some of the features Proust uses to introduce his characters have nothing to do with the present (paritally the point I suppose). The narrator will meet someone at a party or introduce a scene where someone enters a party and then meticulously explain how various couples do not genuinely reflect gender stereotypes and then explain how the defects in one gender are transferred to the other, according to Natural Laws (which he simultaneously supports and deconstructs [he doesn't provide an example of what genuine gender stereotypes are but constantly appeals to them through vibrant yet vivisecting analogies]). In addition, the dialogue is generally terse, unlike, say, portions of The Magic Mountain, and replaced by a dreamlike rationality which coincidentally functions as a subjective coruscating condemnation of quaintly co-ordinated caprice (mitigated by intellectual assiduity [he discusses whatever he wants but his incongruous flow contains a mellifluous melody]) and an objective aerobic analysis of athletic artistry (mitigated by his assiduous intellect [the ideas he brings up resound prominently but are unified problematically]).

Proust

Everything expresses something about their self to the world around them while that world itself in some way influences the version of that self that is being expressed, while, simultaneously, that culture is being influenced by a group of individuals trying to make a living from the various divergent manners of common experience their childhood has taught them to consider natural or true, many of them remarkably different, united in a search to fend off starvation, find someone to love, somewhere to laugh, unknowingly influencing individual perceptions regarding their various communal manifestations, which respond in turn.

Proust's genius has many facets. Here is another. He traces character development over the course of a lifetime and illustrates the ways in which different personalities embody different traits for specific periods wherein those traits are by no means universal and after which latent responsibilities become manifest, for another period (defined by an Event), a personally objective catalyst, angels becoming demons and vice versa every 2.6 years (in its most basic formulation), while also taking the time to mention the ways in which myriad subjective perceptions form a cultural perception of an individual (whose public personality often contradicts its private persona) once again for specific periods, and that these periods are layered on top of another in a profound social mosaic which simultaneously comprehends and can never understand an individual, as they change. "We all know you're soft cause we've all scene you dancing, we all know you're hard cause we've all scene you drinking from noon until noon again"(The Boy with the Arab Strap).

Proust

Proust synthesizes manifold seemingly disparate dimensions to provide a map through which relations can be sustained in multiple disciplines while describing an impression intuited in a trance, on occasion.

Proust

Everything I wanted to say but couldn't.
Everything I tried but could not do.
Details melting borders as
a vision rests subdued.