B I L I N G U E S
Bilin gue s et Arti stes
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Issue N째4 May 2010
1 Edition n째4 May 2010
A R T I S T E S
« Art is what you can get away with » Andy Warhol ‘Bilingue et Artistes’ proudly presents its team: Editor in chief: Louis Denizet, 1°L Writers: Dafna Gottesman, 1°L Rachel Forster, 1°L Louis Denizet, 1°L Clément Tataru, TerIB Anonymous Photographers: Victoria Bellami, 1°L Deborah Leter, 1°L Alexia Danton, 1°ES Clément Tataru, TerIB Charlotte Kagan, TerIB Tal Yaron, TerIB Artists: Laure Carrabin, 1°S Advisor: Mrs. Elliot LeClainche Front cover painting: Laure Carrabin, 1°S Back cover photo: Sophie Durousseau, 1°ES
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Metro Standing in the breeze, both directions unaware, Our thoughts cluttered and our bodies paralyzed. Breaking the darkness with a gambling stare, Approaching through time with absolute despair. Shaking in a metal box, feeling the noise of the crowd, How can they stand there? How can they choose to live in the dark? Reflections of reflections, truthfully lying. Each lost in their own, none own their each. Like lab rats performing, juggling, watching, An expedition of truth beholds our surrounding. Life: the conspiracy. Comfortably living in all entity, Awaiting our sentence for all eternity, Feeling our feelings superficially, Until we see reality. Surprised, let down, Wandering around. Jubilant, lugubrious, Staying mysterious. Courageous, afraid, Questioning the phrase. Dead, alive, Pure truth: Arise. ClĂŠment Tataru, TerIB 3
Quicksand It’s a shadow creeping in the night Slowly approaching your innocent face Licking your plump cheeks With its Devil’s tongue You can’t monopolize it, It spreads like wind in your hair But you never let go of your guards The feeling is too close now You start to cry the tears you’ve held back They dribble down from your azure eyes They leave a moist trace behind them They are like a sticky memory Only this one evaporates quickly Finally, just when the last brick of your wall Threatened to crumble down The light appears, your star shines bright And you soar The fear which envelopes your body Similar to quicksand Will never surface again ~By Louis Denizet, 1°L ~
~Tal Yaron, TerIB~
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Green Smile It happens every day. I can feel your eyes glaring: And every time I look your way, I can sense your evaluating, your judging. Is this some big competition? Think we’re fighting for the same prize? I don’t get your obstinate confrontation But I do despise the envy in your eyes. Come on honey, Smile that green smile; Just know your envy Is something I revile. I write with the ink of feeling and love the smell of it. Whatever you wrote for, or with, is gone, replaced by Cliché images of pain and suffering. Your pen will die Long before mine, because you kill your style bit by bit. Come on honey, Smile that green smile; Just know your envy Is something I revile. There ain’t much you can do, It’s time you accept the fact. You might not like it but it’s true: There’s always someone with a neater act Than you. A guy like you never beats Wordsworth, Eliot or Keats. Face it honey: In this world, many Will always be Better than you’n’me. So come on now Wipe off that green smile And forget the frowning brow. It’s not worth the while. By Rachel Forster, 1°L
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« Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it. » Roy Lichtenstein
Photos by Victoria Bellami, 1°L
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ÂŤ I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Âť Maya Angelou 7
Girl in the Sequoia Tree She wasn't a pretty girl; that much, anyone could see. Her hair was matted with dirt and hung, lifeless, on her trembling shoulders. Strands of dull gold hair fell over her mudstreaked face, obscuring her soft, grey eyes that questioned the stars with endless hope. Only the tiniest spark subsisted in those eyes, and yet they never gave up probing the skies. Scars disfigured her weather-worn features and lacerated her back, the thin white lines only accentuating the dark rose of her birthmark. She stood between the roots of the huge sequoia, dressed in what had once been a simple linen dress, torn and worn with use, clinging to her undernourished body like an abandoned child holds onto the last memory of his mother. She had no shoes, but the soles of her feet were hardened to leather by the roads' jagged stones. She never seemed to feel the cold. She never talked either, not even to the women who fed her with what little they could spare, and some said she was a dumb, slow-witted child. Oh, how wrong they were! No one could touch her either, though many of the village mothers yearned to comfort her in their arms. An unfulfilled wish, however: a sudden gesture was all it took to send her running into her tree's outstretched arms. The village folk never named her, always referring to her as 'the girl'. They never discovered what had happened to her, nor where she came from, nor even who she was. In the end, it hardly seemed to matter: the past was what she had run from. She had arrived with the first snow, as if nature itself had wanted to conceal her from the world. Some children had found her clawing at the frozen ground in an attempt to dig up an edible root. After her initial flight, they found her quivering in her tree, staring down at them with distrust. She would approach only their mothers, drawn to them by some deep instinct none could comprehend. Despite their attempts, however, she refused to follow them, grasping the sequoia's leaves in the same way others grasp their father's hand. The village priest had come in hopes of talking some sense into her, but the tree had gathered her up in its arms before he even reached the lane that led to her woods. As the winter passed, the village grew accustomed to their neighbour, and she to them. Children brought her offerings of nuts or bread, sometimes even shared their carefully hoarded sweets with her as she sat on her sequoia's smooth, even bark. In exchange, she would guide them through the woods when they were lost or show them where the animals slept, smiling delightedly as she pointed to hidden dens. She had a crooked smile, with uneven teeth, but it lit up her whole face in a way that momentarily shattered her ugliness, letting forth the soul inside. It was not until the first day of spring that the villagers finally saw how beautiful that soul truly was. Early on that sweet morning, they were awoken by a loud, victorious crowing. It was a beautiful sound, wild and free, like none they had ever heard before. The tune rose and fell like bubbling water, lilting and soaring into the sky with endless joy and, as they listened, they knew it was the girl singing. Enthralled, they listened to her wordless hymn that sang her thanks for those that had helped her, and, most of all, expressed her love for the tree that she had made her home. As they rushed to the sequoia tree, the villagers saw the wild child standing on the sequoia's branches, head thrown back as she sang her heart away. And the whispering leaves of the sequoia carried her voice to the endless heavens as the tree swayed to its child's voice. Rachel Forster, 1째L
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« Chicago » By Deborah Leter, 1°L
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Alexia Danton, 1èreES
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Jouer avec le feu La clé rentrait parfaitement au cœur de la serrure. Avec le léger tintement du métal qui annonce l’ouverture de la porte, un soupir de soulagement m’échappa. Lorsque le mécanisme claqua comme une langue à la vue d’un festin j’attirais la porte vers moi avec tant de précaution et de lenteur que je pouvais presque entendre les secondes s’abattre à coups réguliers dans mes oreilles. Puis, le trou noir de la maison maintenant assez large pour me laisser passer, je parcourais la nuit d’un regard circulaire. La rue resta silencieuse et déserte, inconsciente de mon activité nocturne. Pendant un bref instant je savourais cette victoire, sentant une goutte de sueur dévaler les muscles de mon dos. Tendu, dévoré de doutes et d’angoisses, je franchis l’embrasure de la porte et la laissait glisser derrière moi. Dans la semi-obscurité, je distinguais un guéridon, un porte-manteau, et une porte close. Les premières marches d’un escalier sommeillaient à ma droite et la surface vitrée d’une demi-douzaine de cadres me faisaient des clins d’œil à la lumière pâle de la lune. J’avançais, glissant silencieusement la clé dans ma poche, sentant la moiteur de mes paumes adhérer au tissu. Parmi ses objets, l’un d’eux détenait mon prochain indice. J’observais silencieusement les murs de la pièce carrée, comme certain de trouver là une réponse. Il n’y en avait aucune. Hésitant, je m’approchais des cadres lorsqu’un autre objet saisit mon attention. Un petit rectangle de papier était logé sur le guéridon, fondu dans les motifs de la table, presque indiscernable. Une lettre. Mes mouvements fiévreux se succédèrent, mais lorsque j’ouvris l’enveloppe, je la trouvais vide. Exaspéré, rageur, et vexé, je résistais à la pressante envie de déchirer cet insignifiant bout de papier. Se moquait-on de moi ? La mâchoire raide, j’inspectais une dernière fois la pièce, où rien ne laissa deviner un objet m’étant destiné. Me rattachant avec difficulté aux précautions qui m’étaient nécessaires, je sortis. Ce n’est qu’une fois dehors, déjà sortant par la grille que je vis la boîte aux lettres. Mes jambes s’immobilisèrent un instant lorsqu’elle s’offrit à ma vue, érigée sur son piquet de métal. Sans plus d’hésitation, je saisis la poignée, et c’est alors qu’un grincement déchirant creva le silence de la rue. Sursautant, je posais mon regard sur la rouille détériorant les gonds du clapet que j’ouvrais. Une lumière s’immisça aux pâleurs moroses de la nuit au premier étage. Paniqué, j’introduisis ma main au fond pour y rencontrer un objet lourd et froid. Puis sans un regard de plus autour de moi, je pris mes jambes à mon cou, mon nouvel indice serré convulsivement dans ma main droite. Texte: Anonyme, Photo: Alexia Danton, 1°ES
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Charlotte Kagan, TerIB
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All photos by Charlotte Kagan, TerIB
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Typing I always wanted to be talented in some form of art. Unfortunately I was never granted my sister’s stroke, or my brother’s hands, but rather an awkward gracelessness demonstrated in practically all that I do. I have had the honor of watching my brother grace the piano with his irrefutable genius, and standing over my sister’s shoulder while she would sow into her canvas the seeds of her own flair and expertise. The moment I realized how envious I really was of their artistic aptitude was when I finally grasped that I was free, and that they weren’t. When I say the word free, I don’t mean it in the anarchistic sense that I can do whatever I want in my own little world where freedom transforms itself into opportunism and indifference, giving me the right to regress to the prehistoric prime of my inherent cannibal core. When I say the word free, I mean the kind that entails no constraints, usurping the essence of what I feel human beings are as individuals with a mind and a conscience. The quality that my siblings possess, which I envy above all things, is the possibility to float in imaginary impediments and obstacles they invented for themselves. When my sister decides to take on a new piece, she sparks a problem to resolve, a barrier to tear down. She gives purpose to her existence through the construction of these barricades, which she, alone, has the power to obstruct, since she is the one who gave birth to them. Mother of her own piece, she is the only one that fundamentally knows how to unravel this knot, because she, in the end, in this foe-less battle, has to win and has the certainty of winning. Even though she’ll never get out of her homemade prison, since she has the keys to unlocking every door she will encounter, the force that is innate, within her will keep her from losing any conviction or determination, and endow her life with a sense of satisfaction surpassing anything she would ever attain if she ever did reach the final door. Because the final door, the gateway to freedom is a trap to oblivion, tedium and uncertainty, where she would find her essence drowning in a desert, extending its hands towards the swinging doors that dropped her into this tempting and fallacious abyss of freedom. Free, I cannot taste the closest thing there is to divinity on earth. I cannot even contemplate knocking on the doors of a prison. All I can do is be free, or in other words, nothing. Text: Dafna Gottesman, 1°L, Photo: Alexia Danton, 1°ES
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Pentagon My head started spinning. Why did I have to do this again? When inspiration didn’t come, I usually ignored it, let the time pass, but this one time had to be the right... I needed those words and they didn’t come. My eyes kept wandering across the room, to the window, to the floor… nowhere seemed like a safe place to set them as they jumped restlessly from one location to another. In exasperation, I closed them, but then the silence took over: paralyzing, deafening. A motorbike zoomed by, and I was grateful it broke my tension. Hundreds of books laid on the floor, open at random pages or simply letting a line of gold lettering shine in the fading light. They had cut the electricity. When the night came, it would be too late. A ringtone shattered the silence. I started so wildly my pen arched in the air, ricocheted on a pile of books and smashed on the floor. The swearing elbowed its way through my clenched teeth without permission and the other end of the line laughed in response. A raucous voice then rose from the box fixed to the wall, sounding more like an incantation to raise the dead than anything close to human. His southern accent was so severe I could barely catch the words. “Tame to go mayte! T’is place wull be dead hin less t’an an ‘our!” Rubbing vigorously my palms across my face, I muttered back: “I’ll only need a minute.” I knew I would go eventually, or a mound of dust would be left of me by the time moonlight reached my cell. Yet the page stayed so empty or so full. The white seemed enough to describe my state of mind, though she’d never be satisfied with that! A soldier walked up to the other side of the iron bars while I picked up the pen. Ink had splattered around it and stained my fingers… though the page remained victoriously empty. “Ready there, Doctor?” the soldier enquired, hand on his gun, but a light smile folding his left cheek. His eyes became alive with curiosity as he took in the exposed smooth white columns and darkening words littering every surface. “What are them books for?” I wish I knew, I reflected, at one point I thought they had the answer to everything. And I hate to be wrong. I thought about tearing the page in half and forgetting about it, but instead my fingers stupidly remained suspended above it. What if I escaped? Now was the perfect moment, and I wouldn’t need the letter. The second thing I hated most was lying, and this was just what I needed. “You can have one.” I threw back invitingly, “I won’t need them anymore, in fact, they’ll be staying here.” The temptation was too cruel, and the spark in his eye roared in agreement, he couldn’t resist the book’s call. It was almost too easy now, when I knew about his attraction for them. When the insolent pages had looked derisive seconds ago, they became dangerously cooperative now. My newly-constructed crime fell in place as the unconscious hands of the boy fumbled for the keys as I pretended to look away, unaware of his eagerness. Once he stepped inside, he seemed to recover his judgment and locked the door behind him. Then, launching on the first pile devoured the golden titles with ravenous eyes while grabbing several in convulsive contractions of the fingers. Incongruously, I felt violated. No one could have ever touched my books before, not as long as I lived. Slowly, I rose and walked over quietly to the boy. If only he knew what awaited him. The nape of his neck was pale, bended and exposed. My fingers jabbed and two seconds later, he fainted. Seizing the set of keys from his clenched hand, I let myself out, only confronted now to the deserted corridors of grey cement. ~ Anonymous
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ÂŤ A creator needs only one enthusiast to justify him. Âť Man Ray
Thank you for buying the magazine, contributing to it and making this fourth edition real! I really hope you enjoy this special edition, focused on pop art! To be part of this project and become a published artist, please send me your work at: bilinguesetartistes@gmail.com Thank you for your support! Louis 16