I am not a patient man. Not at all. And yet. If I had known, when I began working on the Trilogy in 1991 that it would take two Gulf wars, 9/11, a global economic crisis and a few royal weddings for this novel to be published, I might have never written it... Looking back at the genesis of this book, at my anger and rage I felt at our media-addicted democratures when the whole Bush/Saddam madness began, at my disgust towards the use of "moral values" to defend global exploitation, at my amazement that winning at the Lottery had become the only way for climbing up the social ladder, I realize that not much has changed since then. I had written this novel in a revolutionary perspective, as an act of rebellion against the comfort of thinking - left and right - and the general "freedom" lie. I would still write it exactly the same way today, not changing a single word of it. Like I said, I am not a patient man. But one has to accept that change can come slow. Too slow? Never -never too slow, as long as it comes. This novel believes in change. Big changes. Radical changes. Like becoming a dog, a fish and a bird. Yeah, like I said - radical.

If you believe in changes too and are as impatient as I am, you can pre-order the book at Black Coffee Press through this link -or wait until it is available, if you're as patient as Buddha:

http://www.blackcoffeepress.net/shop/article_14/PREORDER-Goodbye-Babyalon--Seb-Doubinsky.html?shop_param=cid%3D1&aid=14 

My first translation of Baudelaire

I am currently working on a small essay on Baudelaire and Giorgione, based on a comparison between La Tempesta and "Correspondances". I am writing it in English, and I needed to find a translatiuon of Baudelaire that worked with my reading of it. I didn't. Not that the other existing translations are bad, but I didn't feel they conveyed Baudelaire's verses to their full extent. So here is my modest contribution - I hope you'll find it enjoyable.

Correspondences

Nature is a temple where living pillars

Sometimes let out estranged words;

Man passes amidst forests of symbols

Which gaze at him knowingly.

Like long echoes that from afar mingle

In a deep and dark unity,

Vast like the night and the day,

Perfumes, colors and sounds reverberate.

Some perfumes are fresh like the flesh of children,

Soft as oboes, green as pastures,

-while others, corrupt, rich and overwhelming,

Expanding like all things infinite,

Such as amber, musk, benzoin and incense,

Sing the exaltation of spirit and senses.

Writing poetry is, for me, as essential as drinking a glass of water. Water, mind you - not whisky, nor wine or beer. Why? Because, precisely, it is essential, sometimes tasteless, sometimes somewhat metallic tasting, sometimes wonderfully refreshing. And, just like a glass of water, it is also nothing special - unless it is a scorching summer day and I am dying of thirst.
I can see some eyebrows rising: "What? Nothing special?" No, nothing special - like life, love and hate. It is simply an element that helps us prove our existence, through beauty - whatever that means. Because, poetry, like beauty, is also relative. It is the Quantum Mechanics of the soul. 
Slower than the speed of light, though. 
Much, much slower.
But just as blinding. 


(Have you ever seen the sun reflected in a glass of water? Yes, precisely.)

I am at the present reading a very strange book which, to my surprise, contains certain elements that I have used in my novel, The Song of Synth. These elements are crucial, because they offer a "scientific" explanation to a central aspect of my story - an aspect I have consciously decided not to explain in my fiction. I could have been bummed by this - thinking, "Oh no, now people are going to think that I have been influenced by..." - but, on the contrary, I found this quite fantastic. The dreams of individuals become other people's fictions. And this is what fiction is all about, in the end: the place of unreality, where things become "real" - in a fictional way. The Multiverse.

***

The book is "True Hallucinations", by Terence McKenna. Crazy hippie shit - and yet.

***

New research has proven that drug-induced hallucinations area actually "seen" by the eyes and the brain. They should therefore be called "visions" - and Rimbaud, once again, was right.

***

It's been a while since I've smoked any hashish or weed. I think it shows.

Just wrote in a an email to a great friend of mine (who knows what I'm talking about) that "violence is the permafrost of the soul." It's funny, for me, that violence is always associated with fire, burning, etc. I see it on the contrary as chilling, massive, absolute. That's what I try to describe in my stories - what I have seen and experienced. The power, the impact and the destruction. And, like frost and concrete, it infiltrates the soul and breaks it apart, leaving deep scars. But sometimes (sometimes) these scars are beautiful. Because violence, like art, is a frozen mystery. And the only warmth you'll ever feel from it is blood.

Working on my new novel entitled "Omega Grey"... It's a dark comedy about Death and human nature, in the vein of "Absinth" (coming out in May through PS Publishing in England.) We'll see where it leads me... I always like to be surprised when I read a novel (or poetry, for that matter) and the same applies to my own writing. If I am not surprised myself, then it won't work. Surprise is good for you.

***

Am very happy also that my French noir fiction, Le Feu Au Royaume, is coming out in April through L'Écailler, a publisher located in Marseille. It's a tight noir prose haiku - a tribute to Melville and to early Scorcese (Mean Streets). A classic tragedy - a father looking for his son's murderers - but set in two simultaneous time-frames - the 50s-60s and now. It's about gangsters getting old, but not softer - au contraire. I think violence is the the permafrost of the soul and this is what this novel is about. Maybe I'll translate it in English in the future. Maybe.

***

I am very late in my Zaporogue publications - I have two poetry collections and a fictional autobiography to put out before december. Time. Life. They don't go well together.

Link to Les Éditions du Zaporogue