Dispactké

Dispactké is the work of writer, literati-monger, liaison, and narrative artist Douglas Singleton. From inner reaches. https://blacktwitter.io/@dispactke

[dispactke]

Random extended selections from Marcel Rouff's 1924 novel, Passionate Epicure: Life and Passion of Dodin-Boffant, Gourmet, adapted for the 2023 film Taste Of Things by director Trần Anh Hùng, from which an original obsession with the 1924 novel formed...

"Exceptionally endowed with those qualities which make for great gastronomic achievement she had, under the direction of the king of gourmets, the lord of perfect eating, lavished upon them the rarest of sensations, the most thrilling experiences; she had exalted them, blissful souls, to the highest peaks of cloudless joy. Eugénie Chatagne, inspired interpreter of the superior intentions which Nature has implanted in all foodstuffs, had, by employment of refinements, display of talent, application of, resort to infallible taste and perfection of execution, wrenched cooking away from the materialistic sphere to raise it, sovereign and absolute, to the most trancendent regions which humanity can envisage."

"This soup was quite simply a masterpiece. Very complex, of lengthy preparation, it had a slightly old-fashioned, Greuze-like charm; but also certain Ribéra brutalities... There was one single taste, but each part of this taste kept its own personal and natural quality. The basis was of two superimposed stocks, both very strong and concentrated, the one of a large skirt of beef, and the other of the juice of several pounds of fresh vegetables, cooked in a very little water to which a suspicion of liqueur Champagne had been added to give it body. To this quintessence a light mixture of mushroom and white asparagus in equal parts had been added; an alert palate could also distinguish a few cups of chicken broth in which several egg yolks with a generous dose of nutmeg had been beaten up for additional smoothness. Upon this divine and odoriferous liquid, like treasure islands, swam parboiled artichoke bottoms laden with a butter-fried stuffing in which carps' roes and mushrooms were mashed up together with cream; under the smoking surface, diving into the mirror-like depths, pearls heavy with beauty, were small rissoles of shrimp-tails laced in melted cheese."

"Master... Tuesday I shall still wait for you.... I have set two ducklings to marinate in an ancestral marc for a stuffed duckling tart; and I am considering a dish of eels à la poulette. There will be roses everywhere and I shall wear a flowered organdie for you."

"Menu of the meal offered by the President Dodin-Bouffant to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Eurasia. 

- Dainties before the Soup

- Adèle Pidou's Soup

- Brillat-Savarin's Fritters

- Dodin-Bouffant's Pot-Au-Feu garnished with its owm Vegetables

- Soubise Purée

- Dessert

- White Wines of the slopes of Dezalay and of Château-Grillé

- Red Wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, of Ségur and of Chambolle."

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This soup instantly won over everyone, and when the relieved five, lighter-hearted, attacked the Brillat-Savarin fritters, rapturous contentment descended upon them."

--

"Lawrence Durrell's lovely preface does not mention Dodin's pot-au-feu. 'Claude,' another Englishman, consistently chooses to translate the name of the dish as 'boiled beef,' even though a wide circle of delicate, poached sausage; an ample layer of chicken that has been raised only on bread and milk; and a slice of poached foie gras are crucial to the renown of Dodin's version."

"The beef itself, lightly rubbed with saltpetre and then gone over with salt, was carved into slices of a flesh so fine that its mouth-melting texture could actually be seen. The aroma it gave forth was not only that of beef-juice smoking like incense, but the energetic smell of tarragon with which it was impregnated and the few, very few, cubes of transparent, immaculate bacon in the larding. The rather thick slices, their velvety quality guessed at by every lip, rested languidly upon a pillow made of a wide slice of sausage, coarsely chopped, in which the finest veal escorted pork, chopped herbs, thyme, chervil.... But this delicate triumph of pork-butchery, cooked in the same broth as the beef, was itself supported by ample cuts from the breast and wing fillets of farm chickens, boiled in their own juice with a shin of veal, rubbed with mint and wild thyme. And, to prop up this triple and magnificent accumulation, behind the white flesh of the fowls (fed exclusively upon bread and milk), was the stout, robust support of a generous layer of fresh goose-liver simply cooked in Chambertin. The arrangement was repeated again, in the same alternating order, forming distinctly separate parts, each marked by a boundary of assorted vegetables cooked in the broth and then lightly warmed in butter; each guest was to extract, in one stroke, between spoon and fork, the quadruple enchantment which was his share."

"Silent and frowning he watched the bold intruder unwrap his dish. Suddenly, when the last rampart had fallen, the sanctuary was abruptly invaded by an intoxicating gust in which played, like naiads chasing each other in the waves, overtaking each other, brushing against each other, and then rolling over, all the freshness of succulent butters mingled with the rough and earthy scent of an incontrovertible Pouilly, the whole enhanced by a deep tidal odour, disturbing and bracing as an ocean wind. And the creation appeared, still smoking, upon the plates where it was portioned out. Two slices of firm, dense flesh whose admirable whiteness was lightly veiled by a trickle of amber butter, two slices separated from each other by a thick roll of stuffing whose warm, rosy, transparent colour suggested that it was kneaded from an old Burgundy, solidified by some miracle."

"Towards nine he would tramp down to the springs and drink (with many grimaces, holding his breath) of the waters. His eyes showed through the glass, dilated with horror at the beverage he was constrained to swallow, blushing with shame. As the doctor had advised him to let an interval of forty-five minutes elapse between each absorption of water he was condemned to three of these-without specifying what he was to do in the intervals, as soon as he had done his irksome duty he would hasten blissfully to the Horseshoe, settle himself upon a garden bench, and order a bottle of Alsatian wine. Then, after three quarters of an hour, he would return to the torture-chamber, and thence, very shortly, to his pleasure. In this manner he drank three glasses of the waters every morning, and three bottles of wine. Neither Adèle nor the doctor could convince him that serious treatment included only the first part of his programme."

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Seminal moments in the spirituality of my Beats appreciation / understanding:

- In the early '80s in Dixmoor, Illinois, just outside the southside of Chicago (though it might have been 1979, because I was in the 6th grade) friends and I walked past a house that had a "House party" going on inside with Farley Jackmaster Funk playing records. It was late afternoon / evening (not at night). And was considerably before the time when my friends and I became obsessed devotees of the legendary WBMX radio Hot Mix 5 house music broadcasts. I distinctly remember this occurrence, walking home from school. (Could it be a remembered fantasy?)

- Early '90s I was a regular at the 3rd (and final) iteration of The Warehouse (was it on Randolph st., off of Halsted?). This is where my initial (club) groove was born, infected: House, rap, electro, soul (unlike my friends I never got to go to the legendary Mendel High School underage house parties - seminal). 

- Two years before leaving Chicago for New York City, 1995, I heard Derrick Carter spin at Red Dog in Wicker Park. This is when I truly began to UNDERSTAND house music. I had been a regular of Shelter (where I'd seen a pre-masked Daft Punk DJ that same year), had done the Medusa's juice bar Industrial / House scenes (ie. Ministry / 1,000 Homos) of the late '80s (I went to Medusa's after prom 1985). But this night in '95 Derrick tore it up and I understood the groove / legacy of House music within the context of Chicago / Detroit / queer club / drum 'n bass (all the rage then) continuity.

- (I'd done Miami Winter Institute,  the Chicago Boy's town queer house, and the Black south side Deep House scenes by then.)

- (oh yeah, I heard Derrick May DJ in a high school gym in Humboldt Park in 1996. one of dozens of times I experienced him over the next decade.)

- But what I'm trying to get at, why I'm talking here, is because of thousands of moments: UK, San Francisco, Paris, Detroit, Miami. Beats moments. One of the next level experiences was a weird Afrika Bambaataa DJ set at PS1 Warmup (I'm pretty sure this was before MOMA bought PS1), Long Island City, Queens, say early aughts 2000s.

- Baambatta spun a set of early rap, house, "electro", '80s R&B, soul music, "beats", that was masterful and completely brought together the history of beats, club beats, street beats, from the mid-70s up until that time. It was a satori moment.

- (kind of reminded me of a set that Biz Markie spun in the basement of Happy Ending in Chinatown / the Lower East Side around the same time of only 45 records, though the Bambaataa set was more expansive and electronic groove-ish)

- Bambaataa completed my Jedi understaning of beats that fine afternoon. I understood.

- Rewind back to Dixmoor, Illinois, 1982. My friends and I rockin' Planet Rock on the radio in my boy's front yard. This was the beat. this was the beat. Before there was "hip hop", and "techno", house, garage, drum 'n bass. 

- RIP Bambaataa, musical beats, lyrical importance 

- (there was a lot of fucked up sexual / drug stuff in the scene back in the day. not to judge / diminish.)

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This shit is so hype: 'Death of Love" by James Blake.

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Stills from George Franju's outstanding JUDEX (how did I miss this Feuillade adaptation!). 1963. It's episodic Les Vampires meets The Shadow (or the TV Batman!) sprinkled with a little surrealism, pulp crime thriller, and Last Year at Marienbad! Gorgeous. twisted. Spellbinding!

A beguiling, more intimate cinema.

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Gilles Peterson don't be fuckin' around. (Chicago, 2026).

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My family joined the middle class because of Jesse Jackson.

Some may know Jackson from his presidential runs during the 1984 and 1988 campaigns. Others may remember him as standing on the balcony with Dr. King when he was shot dead at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis in 1968. (Or maybe you know him from his spirited oratory during the infamous Wattstax concert in ‘72, immortalized in many, many subsequently sampled recordings from the celebrated documentary.)

But let me tell you how I know Jesse Jackson (or at least did initially).

In the early 1970s I lived on the West Side of Chicago. And on the radio pretty regularly my family listened to Operation PUSH — the “Rainbow Coalition” — led by Jesse himself, who spoke every weekend about the “movement for equality”. My parents were in their late teens or early twenties around this time, both from the Projects.

The Civil Rights movement can be split into a pre-Black Power era composed of Dr. King, SNCC, CORE, the Urban League, and Malcolm X; followed by the Black Power movement itself — Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, etc. (Malcolm Little in many ways the spiritual inspiration); and a third post-Black Power movement, which Jesse Jackson exemplified on multiple levels. I would argue that after the Civil Rights movement of the 1930s to 1950s the post-Black Power era was the next most successful era. Within this context, Jackson, who went on to become a “mainstream” political operative, was often controversial, even in his hometown of Chicago (for many varied reasons, often ego and rhetoric).

In the early 1970s my father worked in a grocery store on the West Side of Chicago as a stock clerk. But when Jesse Jackson and PUSH decided to work diligently to get minorities into the Chicago trade unions (there were zero, zero people of color in these unions in the early ‘70s), my father, a 20-year-old looking for a better life for his family, went out into the streets and marched with PUSH to demand minority inclusion in unions (my father remembers standing near Jesse during a march and noticing how tall he was with the biggest AFRO my father wished he had). There were African American plumbers, and carpenters, but none in the trade unions (where benefits and access to lucrative jobs and positions lay). PUSH, along with the Urban League, forced the trade unions to integrate, and this allowed my father to get an apprenticeship as a carpenter and cabinet maker, and eventually join a union. And in this way our ascent to the (lower) middle class was set in motion. Without this we don’t eventually manage to get a HUD-purchased house in the Black south suburbs, and I don’t eventually become the second member of my family (after my uncle) to go to college.

This was real economical progress, not necessarily “revolutionary” change, but the type of change that meant something to thousands of families like ours (such as day care, movement toward gender equality, environmental protections—consequently things that are vigorously being snatched away now). Jesse Jackson was one of the main architects of this kind of small, sequential, meaningful economical change. Not “burn baby burn” (as he famously said), but more like “learn baby learn”. (We can all argue the most effective ways to battle economic oppression.) I am a child of Jesse Jackson, and subsequently my children (currently attempting to get to university) are children of his too. This is Warmth of Other Suns history.

This, my friends, is real Black history.

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Somewhere in Detroit: Underground Resistance, Submerge, Techno and the Detroit Way....

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"Pájaros (Birds)" by photographer Graciela Iturbide (1999).

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Thibaut Grevet NYC Ballet 25/26 season cinematic film.

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Yes, Dr. King, yeah.

(Jerome Lagarrigue, MLK, 2005.)

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Menus from Troisgros Le Bois sans feuilles in Ouches, France (we have not had the luxury of ever visiting here, though we too loved the Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros documentary concerning it).

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Theo Parrish FOOTWORK FULL VIDEO

New single from the forthcoming album. Out on Sound Signature innaminnit!

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who. am. I.

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An odd obsessive read for me, but now I understand why I felt the need—the tone of the below passages are everywhere throughout (the food angle is obvious). Something about family yearn, the passage of time. Life's inevitability:

"After our meal we parted ways, Nico back to the flat he shares with his twin sister, Isabel, and a friend of theirs, and me back home. They are no longer living in our house and, barring anything disastrous, may never do so again. I know it's clichéd, but it does feel like only yesterday that I held them both, one in each arm, rocked them, sang to them watched them smile slightly and fall asleep."

"Time is passing too quickly now. I had always heard people who are my age say those words, but I never really understood what they meant. Now I do."

"The slower one becomes, the faster time moves. How? Why? Is it because we finally understand time and are now able to to gauge how long we've got left? At the age of sixty-three I probably have another twenty years, thirty if I'm very lucky. But now, as opposed to when I was younger, I KNOW what twenty years is. I KNOW what thirty years is. They are nothing. Just a glimpse of life. So, one panics. Or I do. Therefore, I think of death often. Very often. Too often perhaps."

[immloveanime]

Ghost in the Shell Original Collection Archives Art Book

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Jean-Michel Basquiat, An Intimate Portrait, photographs (1979) by Nick Taylor (Basquiat’s bandmate from the experimental noise group, Gray).

- Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University brochure (2004).

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The photographs in this exhibition reveal an intimate look at the friendship between artists Nicholas Taylor and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a camaraderie that was born under the pulsating lights of New York's famed Mudd Club in lower Manhattan in January 1979. The Mudd Club was a beehive of creativity, where the likes of Fab Five Freddy, David Byrne (Talking Heads), Keith Haring, and Madonna frequented before they became famous. These historic photographs, shot on just one role of film, are being exhibited and traveled for the first time in their entirety. These images are portals into the life of an artist who was on the threshold of taking the art world by storm. Countless essays and reviews have been written about Basquiat and his work. This exhibition focuses on the portrait of a man, an artist, and, most importantly, a friend. Taylor's and Basquiat's friendship endured many years, through the ups and downs of Basquiat's rise to notoriety in the art world until his untimely death in 1988.

These striking images, taken by Taylor, of a nineteen-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat, unspoiled by the art-star celebrity that was to reveal itself in just a few short years. The accompanying text panels, written by Taylor, document the friendship the two shared and also serve to contextualize the historical significance of Basquiat in the early 1980s. Taylor's personal revelations and memories are shared with great candor. Looking back on these images, twenty years later, there is a subtle aura of predetermination for Basquiat. His actions and poses, captured by Taylor, appear aloof or casual upon first glance. These are, in fact, rarely publicized visual records of Basquiat's character and use of body language to express his emotions and personality, which, in turn, reflect his serendipitous struggle for fame and respect. Basquiat struggled for fame, fortune, and, most importantly, inclusion into the very closed society that was the self-serving art world of the early 1980s.

Basquiat painted as he lived - full throttle - everything, all the time. He had little sense of self-control, nor did he seek out any realm of moderation. In retrospect, his paintings are aggressive and fragmented, radiating nervous energy and enthusiasm for the chaotic world of which he was a part. Existing simultaneously in his work is a sense of excitement, imagination, and exploration of visual language. His frustration in trying to assert himself as a black artist into a predominantly white art culture was continuously filtered into the context of his work. Readily juxtaposing images of modern and primitive icons and text, he illustrated how he directly experienced the white bourgeois class identification with commercial black culture.

His volatile relationship with the commercial art world was symbiotic; each required the other to survive. Although there is much documentation on the overtly aggressive nature of the commercial art world, Basquiat appeared to give as good as he got. His ambition and eccentric behavior, coupled only with an obsessive hunger for fame, recognition, and, most of all, hunger for respect, thrust him into the vacuous world of New York in the early 1980s, where there was little hope of escape - let alone, survival.

Ultimately, this exhibition is an exploration of Jean-Michel Basquiat as a person who became one of the most prolific artists of our century.

-Michael J. Beam Curator of Exhibitions, Castellani Art Museum

Nicholas Taylor first met fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in January 1979, at the famed Mudd Club in lower Manhattan. The two quickly became close friends and, together with Michael Holman, Wayne Clifford, and Vincent Gallo, writer and director of Buffalo 66, formed the musical art band Gray. Gray's sound was experimental, an energizing mix of ambient sounds and instrumental exploration. Gray had a cool, funky sound that Glenn O'Brien of Andy Warhol's Interview magazine dubbed as "possibly the best band on the planet."

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Rickey Laurentiis

"Communiqué in Brain (Or, Early Universe)

—before diagnosis"

from Death of the First Idea