[La trahison des images] by Magritte dates from 1928-29, the same period of composition and publication of Les derniers nuits de Paris by Philippe Soupault, translated by William Carlos Williams.

 


Last Nights of Paris has been reissued.  Also seen: The Source by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian.

X stopped by to visit.  I was trying to explain to her about Leon Delafosse whose image appears in the previous post, how he was a young pianist and composer of "humble" origin who was "discovered" by Proust and the "notorious" Count Robert de Monstesquiou who then "encouraged" the young man and introduced him around until there was some kind of "misunderstanding" or "falling out" and afterward which is to say roughly 1904 and thereafter for the rest of his life Delafosse was relegated to obscurity and totally shunned by society. 

I was so busy with all the quotation marks I did not realize that X was focused on something else entirely. 

"I'm not going to let you do it," she blurted out.  "I don't know what you're planning but I won't let you throw away your life on some kind of crazy revenge."

"- ! - ?"

"Whatever resentment you have against this guy," she continued, "and I think it's a little strange you never mentioned a Count to me before now, or this Leon guy either, but there you have it -- in any event you have Got to Let it Go."   

She said this last part the way you would to a dog with a tennis ball clamped in its jaws and added a stern look for emphasis.   I naively continued to profess my innocence.  She flourished an accusing finger at the Vedanta Society brochure like a prosecuting attorney in closing arguments.

"Hello, I know what a Vendetta is," she announced grimly.  "And I saw that movie and yes, Natalie Portman is curiously and even disturbingly hot with a shaved head, but that's beside the point.  I didn't realize there was a society for it, but you are not joining up.  I know you, Mister, and you're not doing it.  And that's final."

A book on a famous L.A. cult family and another book by one of the founders of both Dadaism and Surrealism lay on the table between us.  Once X got going there was no telling where she'd end up.  It seemed ill-advised to argue.

"Promise," she demanded.  "Because you are not leaving here seeking vendetta.  Or vengeance, or whatever.  You know what I mean.  Vendetta is mine, sayeth the Lord," she added, as if quoting, and also as a kind of threat of worse to come if I continued to oppose her.  

I thought fleetingly of telling the monks at the Vedanta Temple on Sunday about this confusion.  "Ceci n'est pas un vendetta!" I saw myself saying, making a joke, and then rather quickly decided against it.  What would this say about me, that people would so readily leap to the conclusion I'm up to no good?  

Salvador Dali was born in 1904.  The moment felt... well, surreal.  X stood there waiting.  I promised.