TED JOANS LIVES! A Tribute, Page 7

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Ted Joans Lives! Online Tribute, Books & Resources

To contribute to the Ted Joans Lives! webpages, please email us.Pieces may be any length. All contributions received will be published online. You will retain the copyright to your work.

Please also see Ted Joans links & resources and Ted Joans books for sale.

Guy Pierre Buchholtzer:

A la mémoire de Ted Joans

Café Bukowski, Commercial Street, Vancouver, B.C. Canada
14 may 2003, 9 :00 pm

PORTE OUVERTE*

La vie est bien aimable
Venez à moi, si je vais à vous c'est un jeu,
Les anges des bouquets dont les fleurs changent de couleur.
Paul Eluard, Capitale de la douleur (Gallimard, Paris, 1926)

TEXT:
Sometime ago, I was walking into the Vancouver Art Gallery and saw Ted Joans. I approached him and said: "Excuse-me Sir, are-you André Breton?". He turned around, looked at me and said very politely: "Yes".

We met again, and together with Laura Corsiglia we talked about Ted's life in Paris, my city of origin. It so happened that Ted and me knew many of the same people, many of whom belonged to the Surrealist Movement, like Elisa Breton [the second wife of Breton], Jean Schuster, the "légataire universel du Mouvement surréaliste" [I guess this means the official inheritor of matters concerned with Surrealism, as nominated by Breton], José Pierre, Vincent Bounoure, Joyce Mansour, Jean Benoît, Matta, Robert and Jean-Jacques Lebel. Perhaps he also met Max Ernst, Picasso and a plethora of others, many of whom are not any more of this world.

I am sure that Ted is meeting them right now - in French, I believe, because Ted loved Paris so much, in a nice café in the parallel world. I have discovered, in the meantime, that he had lived in the same Parisian building as I, in a little street chanted by poet Guillaume Apollinaire, namely rue Christine, near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, across from the house where Gertude Stein once lived.

Ted told me about his trips to Western Africa when it was still called Afrique Occidentale Française -French Western [Occidental] Africa. He called it "Afrique Accidentelle Française": meaning, "Accidental" French Africa. How revealing! In a sense, he knew that he was an out spring of this 'accidental' Africa, an Africa once under the former colonial pincers of the French and British. He was trying to re-immerse himself within his distant roots. This is perhaps why he had to travel so much, between people, between countries, to stay here and there, to find himself again in the world.

I certainly do not know very much about the Beat movement and Ted's affiliations, but my overwhelming feeling has been that Ted was trying to disclose his deep roots, and in doing so, to overcome the split between perception and representation in our daily lives. It is perhaps therefore "tout à fait naturel" - totally natural - that he became involved in Surrealism and, foremost, in poetry.

André Breton declared: "I continue to see nothing in common between literature and poetry. The former, whether it is directed towards the external world or boasts of introspection, in my opinion, entertains us with rubbish; the latter is all internal adventure and this is the only adventure which interests me". And that is what our friend Ted Joans did when researching, like Breton, the "l'(h)or du temps", the outside of time, the gold of time.

ooOoo

T. Paul Ste. Marie:

Thank you all who came out to celebrate the life of Ted Joans at Bukowki's Bar & Grill on Wednesday night. A special thank you to those who shared their thoughts, words and feelings at the mic -- by doing so you participated in the full circle of Ted's spirit as he passed on from this physical realm into the ethereal and back, via your memories, stories and verses.

The beauty of the true meaning and spirit of love was shown by Laura, whom, despite her overwhelming loss and sorrow, came through with her full presence and attentiveness in tact to all who read, played music and spoke with her -- our hearts and thoughts are with you, Laura!

Alannah, you are the kind of friend everyone should be so fortunate to have. Thank you for helping me with all of the work involved, and for involving me!

Daline, your smile through the evening was a beacon of light to me, and I believe to everyone on the stage.

Robert -- you had me do a double take when you walked in to the room! If you had a beard, you'd be the spitting image of your father. Thank you, Robert, for your closing rendition of "TRUTH", the poem that you said was the first thing your father ever gave you.

Thank you to Marker for always being my saviour of sound, to Angus for your long-legged painting hanging help and more, to Tanya for not only your fitting verbiage but your arms that know how & when to hold a fella!

Bonnie -- thank you for getting word out there. Jeremy from Associated Press, without you and Bonnie, the continent wouldn't be armed with chalk! Vik, thanks for the CBC coverage! Warren my man! You be the king of videography!

Gus and the folks at Bukowski's -- thank you for the space, your kind service and patience while we took over.

There is so much more that I'd like to say, but it is 4 am, and this boy needs sleep -- haven't had the real thing for 2 days now! (To see the poster for this celebration of Ted Joans' life which took place Wednesday, May 14 in Vancouver B.C., please click here.)

Bernie Mindich:

I first met Ted Joans when I was curating a Beat Art show at NYU in 1994 in connection with a huge celebration of the 50th anniversary of the origins of the Beat Generation. I had tracked Ted down, by telephone, in Paris, after several CIA like attempts to elicit a response. Ted promised to send several of his distinctive collages for inclusion in the exhibition. With his permission a reproduction of one of his works was printed in the exhibition catalogue which was prepared long in advance of showtime. Ted was clearly excited and pleased at the prospect of this planned Beat extravaganza and said he would be in NYC for the event and would deliver his artwork upon arrival a few days before. Well -- on the positive side I would note that Ted did arrive in NYC, more or less on time. BUT, to my dismay and his chagrin he had "forgotten" to bring his collages for exhibition. His almost insidious Beat charm and profuse apologies were quite disarming and dissipated any momentary anger on my part, and while the absence of his artwork was a disappointing gap in the show, his presence and participation in poetry readings and panels redeemed him in full.

Five years later --in the summer of 1999-- in a moment of pure serendipity, I literally bumped into Ted on the streets of Seattle. He was with his companion Laura Corsiglia. We reintroduced ourselves and promptly agreed to meet the next day at his Chinatown apartment/studio and planned to have lunch together. The next afternoon was truly memorable. We ended up talking for several hours and he and Laura graciously permitted me to photograph them and their fascinating surroundings. With my everlasting gratitude, Ted regaled me with stimulating recollections of his extraordinary Beat history and world travels, but what I remember most was how supportive and attentive he was to Laura and her very powerful and energetic work as a painter. I am happy to share some of my photos from that day and from the earlier Beat conference. Attached here are 3 black and white photos of Ted from 1994 when he and David Amram entertained us with a typical Jazz/Poetry reading at an NYU Banquet, and these are followed by a series of images from my visit with Ted and Laura in 1999.

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